{"id":813,"date":"2013-05-17T14:36:48","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T02:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=813"},"modified":"2013-05-17T14:36:48","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T02:36:48","slug":"opinion-is-not-fact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=813","title":{"rendered":"Opinion is not fact"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bose\"<\/a>We were at a party.\u00a0 People were coming and going, but, at any one time, there were probably about 50 of us.<\/p>\n

Several of the guests were investment bankers.\u00a0 There were also a number heavy-duty business people.\u00a0 And there were one or two people who were simply famous for being famous.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, there were plenty of strong opinions abroad that evening.\u00a0 These were not people who were used to being challenged.\u00a0 Indeed, most had reached a point in their lives where they were accustomed to having their pronouncements accepted as irrefutable facts.\u00a0 \u2018The index will fall by at least 30 points by the end of next week.\u2019\u00a0 \u2018Rock and roll has had its day.\u2019\u00a0 \u2018It is no longer possible to make money from publishing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Present also was a slightly-built woman, a little older than most of the guests.\u00a0 Her name was Miriam.\u00a0 Miriam drifted serenely about the room, wineglass in hand, contributing eloquently to first one conversation and then another.<\/p>\n

At one of the conversations she offered a view that caused a couple of pin-stripe suited bankers to almost choke on their champagne.<\/p>\n

\u2018Humph!\u00a0 Is that a fact?\u2019 one of the investment bankers said, rather condescendingly.<\/p>\n

\u2018A fact?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a fact.\u00a0 It may be,\u2019 Miriam said.\u00a0 \u2018But I was not offering a fact.\u00a0 I was offering an opinion.\u00a0 Fact is fact; opinion is opinion.\u2019<\/p>\n

I do wish that Miriam would explain that to whoever writes the heavily-opinionated so-called news bulletin that wakes me up each morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were at a party.\u00a0 People were coming and going, but, at any one time, there were probably about 50 of us. Several of the guests were investment bankers.\u00a0 There were also a number heavy-duty business people.\u00a0 And there were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}