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This guy walks into a bar and says... - Jul 29, 2009 - Printable Version
- Is This True?
by Ken Shade
The first day I had Internet access, I was fascinated. I discovered that there was no historical subject so arcane and obscure that there weren't at least ten universities with archives devoted to it. The second day I had Internet access, I was amazed. I discovered that there was no sexual proclivity so dark, dangerous and degrading that there was not at least a thousand web sites devoted to it.
The third day I had Internet access, I was thrilled. I discovered the speed and fun of e-mail.
I am sure that some of my friends wish I had died before the third day.
Soon, I learned that e-mail was a mixed bag. Along with messages from my friends, I was also getting ads, maudlin inspirational stories and very bad poetry.
Worst of all, though, and worst to this day, were the rumors, urban legends, political lies and outright bullshit that poured in.
I had hoped, when I first heard about the coming "Information Superhighway," that reliable information would be so readily available, so omnipresent, that the superstition and folklore that infected public attitudes might become a thing of the past.
I have been accused of being overly optimistic, you see.
What I found was that legends and lies multiply more virulently, and spread more rapidly in the Internet era than ever before.
It bothered me that people I knew and respected were forwarding things which seemed so obviously incorrect, silly or even bigoted. So, rather than forward them or delete them, I started researching them, finding verification of what was actually true, and sending them back whence they came.
Far from feeling angered, my friends seemed to appreciate it. They started sending me lots of them with "Is this true?" in the subject lines. I was having fun. I used dictionaries, atlases, encyclopedias, biographies, quotation collections, scriptures of various religions and newspapers.
I was also discovering sites like Snopes.com and a few others which devote full time to getting to the facts.
I felt like I was doing a good thing; battling the dark forces of intellectual vapidity and latent prejudice.
Eventually my friends, most of them, anyway, started to develop more sensitive drivel detectors. They found the same sites I used, too. These days, it's rare to see "Is this True?" in my in box. Still, when I see an especially nasty forward, I give my mailing list a "heads up."
Political or not, they drive me crazy.
A lot of them, as you know, are friend-of-a-friend stories or people repeating something they just heard from Michael Savage. Those don't bother me like the ones which are just lies; the ones that the original author knew was a lie before they hit "send." There is no way somebody can spend an hour Photoshopping John Kerry into a picture of Jane Fonda, then writing a caption about their appearance together before they send it out as "true" can be called anything but a liar. That's not a misunderstanding. That's not a difference of opinion. That's not something you heard from a friend you trust. It's just a lie.
Here is an indisputable fact that will piss some people off: Almost all of the egregious lies are spread by Republicans and other conservatives.
I have friends who label themselves as "Independents." Most of them, in explaining their decision not to align themselves with left or right, will say something like: "Well, both sides lie."
That's like saying that both teams in Super Bowl XX scored points, so it was a tie. Yes, both teams scored points, but the Bears scored thirty-six more points that the Patriots did.
That's not a tie at all.
In the football game of political hogwash, it's not even that close. The Republicans are Georgia Tech, and the Democrats are - 3 over Cumberland College.
I take this seriously because many of these e-mails are dangerous. Bigotry, calumny, fanaticism, hatred, xenophobia and misinformation are always dangerous in the public arena.
They're getting worse, too. The election of an African-American president, financial recession and the health care debate have combined to bring out the crazies.
"The outpatients are out in force," as Tom Leher said.
If it was just the crazies, I wouldn't get tense. The problem is that their craziness gets sucked into the mainstream, where it stands alongside sanity. Before long, to many people, they appear equal.
So, in order to fight the good fight, lance a few boils and make myself feel better, I've put down a list of the popular urban legends and rumors that are like bamboo under my fingernails. I'm going to shine a little light on them.
You'll note that a good many of them are not political at all. As I said, they drive me crazy, too, and I feel good about assaulting those, as well.
My sources for all of this are all of the types of things and places I mentioned above. Most of them are the places people once went for facts before they got lazy; before it became so easy; before e-mail forwards; before the Internet.
And now, in no particular order of importance...
The Senate did not decide to give Social Security benefits to illegal aliens, so signing a petition won't help overturn the decision. Isn't it good to know they'll continue to pay into the system, yet receive nothing from it? "The radio said they were just deportees." ~ Woody Guthrie
Mariah Carey is a bedsore on the buttocks of music, but she never said that she'd love to be as skinny as a starving African child. That story was a comedy piece on an Internet site called Cupcake. The "flies and death and stuff" line was lifted from it, without attribution, and later picked up by The (UK) Independent. The fact that it appeared in The Independent gave it a patina of legitimacy, but it is 0% true. Anybody who claims that they saw it on TV or Youtube must be eating the wrong kind of mushrooms.
Nobody anywhere is attempting to have all religious broadcasting removed from television. Your favorite religious show is safe.
Now, I must confess that when I was a kid, I wanted to remove Gospel Singin' Jubilee from the airwaves. My children don't believe it now, but there were only three stations, if you didn't count channel 13. (Channel 13 was only on about five hours on weekdays, showing The Exciting World of Construction Paper and Our Friend the Farmer.) There were cartoons on all three channels on Saturday morning, but almost nothing of value before noon on Sundays. The closest things to cartoons or kid shows were Sunday School With Miss. Jane and Davy and Goliath. After that, I had to choose Meet the Press, The Morning Farm Report (What in the hell are 'sow bellies'?) or Gospel Singin' Jubilee. On those long ago Sunday mornings, I would have welcomed a ban on religious broadcasting.
Jane Fonda never told a room full of POWs that they were "pigs," nor did she turn secret notes she received from them over to the guards at the "Hanoi Hilton." Neither event ever took place. She did some messed up things in Vietnam, but these stories are just made up. We all know at least three people who claim they were there when it happened; that they were among those POWs. I see three possible reasons for this:
1: They were never in Vietnam, but want to look cool, or identify with the noble lost cause.
2: They have adopted this as part of their personal mythology because it explains, in microcosm, a larger sense of betrayal they felt after the war.
3: They've been eating the wrong kind of mushrooms.
President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim. President Obama is not a Muslim.
Suicides do not peak around Christmas. My thoughts of suicide peak whenever I hear anybody repeat this nonsense, though.
Super Bowl Sunday is not the day of the highest incidence of violence against women. This canard gets passed around every year as though women need to be warned to stay away from their husbands while the game is on. The people who pass it around are completely missing something that is true: The Saturday of the annual football game between the universities of Oklahoma and Texas is the day of the highest incidence of violence against Texans, and this is acceptable to all rational people.
Judge Sotomayor never suggested castrating any white males, or males of any color, unless, perhaps, it was a cat or a dog she owned.
Michelle Obama did take her daughters to London for a few days. It was not nearly as expensive as the Reagans' six weeks in the Caribbean, or George W. Bush's frequent month-long stays in Crawford. The Obamas received the same Secret Service protection that any other president's family would receive, and they reimbursed the government to the extent that the law requires.
The families of African-American presidents need as much protection as the families Caucasian ones, if not more.
Does the author of this e-mail believe that Michelle and the girls carry knives, so they don't need protection? Or, better yet, maybe they have huge steel picks in their hair, like Christie Love did! You don't need the Secret Service if you can plant four steel tines deeply into a potential assassin's neck I suppose.
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
All black people do not carry knives, picks, razors or zip-guns!
Nobody, anywhere, is at all close to having "In God we trust." removed from money. It will be on your money until Hell freezes over. If it ever does happen, just send all that Godless money you'll despise to The Faulking Truth, and we'll dispose of it properly.
Neither Pepsi nor Coca-Cola removed "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance on any of their cans, although both Pepsi and Coca-Cola have been around a lot longer than the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Matt Drudge is an asshole.
I'm not setting straight some e-mail I received that claimed that Matt Drudge isn't an asshole. It's just that he's the originator of a lot of this kind of manure, so it feels good to say "Matt Drudge is an asshole."
The ACLU is not trying to have all cross-shaped headstones removed from federal cemeteries. They would, however, be against executing people on headstone-shaped crosses.
The ACLU is not attempting to prevent soldiers from praying. It is not trying to prevent students from praying. It is not trying to prevent anybody from praying. If you would ask God for wisdom, next time you pray, maybe you would understand this.
Nutrasweet does not cause Multiple Sclerosis, nor symptoms similar to it. Are you listening, Oprah?
We do not use only 10% of our brains. People who say this have no idea how the brain works. They are confusing total brain activity with conscious attention. While we're using part of our brains to think deep thoughts about who should be booted from the Rock of Love Bus, our brains and the rest of our central nervous systems are busy storing memories, making our heart beat, regulating our body temperature and other meaningless functions.
You will not get better gas mileage if you lower the tailgate on your pick-up. In fact, your mileage will be worse. I could explain the properties of fluid dynamics that make this so, but you'll have more fun if you watch the Mythbusters episodes about it. Jamie and Adam have a far more jocular attitude toward foolishness than I do.
One caveat, though: If any of you so much as write a fan letter to Kari Byron, you soon find yourself impaled on a crutch. She's MINE!
President Obama did not receive financial aid as a foreign student at Occidental College. That was an April Fool's joke. If you believe it, you're a fool.
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
Matt Drudge is an asshole!
President Obama was born in the United States. President Obama was born in the United States.
President Obama was born in the United States. President Obama was born in the United States.
President Obama was born in the United States. President Obama was born in the United States.
President Obama was born in the United States. President Obama was born in the United States.
President Obama was born in the United States. President Obama was born in the United States.
There is no bill before Congress which would require anybody to list the guns they own on their income tax returns. I have never received or seen a single "They're gunna take awl th' guns away," warning that turned out to be true.
When you hear such things, or receive them in your e-mail, remind yourself of one, simple fact: Many of the members of the NRA are almost as hyperbolic, hysterical and insane as its leadership.
President Obama did not travel to Pakistan on a foreign passport...ever. Go ahead. Look it up. I'll wait.
Ho-dee-do-do-dum-dum-dum.......tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap......buttscratch-buttscratch-buttscratch....nosepick....wah-dah-dee-diddly-bum....google.com....Laaaayla, you got me on my knees!...image search...."busty race queen"....Just how slow are these peo...Oh! You're back! See! I told you!
Natasha Richardson did not die because of inefficient Canadian health care, which President Obama wants to import. She would have died in the United States, even though she has money, and President Obama does not want to import the Canadian system.
British citizens over 59 can receive coronary bypasses, stents and transplants, so don't fear that Americans will not be able to get them with reformed health care. I don't think this was ever true in Britain, but if it was, that would explain why Margaret Thatcher was never able to acquire a heart.
There is no provision for "health care rationing" under the proposed plan. You'll be able to select your own doctors, too. "Rationing" was one of the scare words the GOP's favorite linguist told them to use to frighten people about changing the insane and expensive way we operate health care in this country. Two others were "bureaucrat" and "Washington." Rationing is already going on. It's being done by the insurance industry to maximize profits.
There is not now, nor will there ever be, a plan for an "Obama Youth Brigade" or an "Obama army." There was a plan by the Bush administration to use the United States Armed Forces like a state police inside our own country, but if you believe these two tidbits of silliness, you probably approved of that.
Target stores do, indeed, support veterans. If you want to be angry with Target, be angry about something really rotten they did, like using The Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye" in their commercials. Good buy?...wink, wink...Get it? These ad men are so clever!
Not everybody who claims to be a combat veteran or high-ranking officer in an e-mail polemic really is what they claim. Even if they really are, does that make their arguments more cogent? You didn't seem to think it made Senator Kerry more compelling, and in his case it was true.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair has been dead for fourteen years, so stop blaming her for things that are, or are not really, happening now. If you want to blame fictitious anti-God conspiracies on somebody who died in 1995, try "Wrong Way" Corrigan, Kingsley Amis, Peter Cook, Don Cherry, Ida Lupino, Howard Cosell, Art Fleming, Burl Ives, Mickey Mantle, Roxie Roker, Eva Gabor, Wolfman Jack, Doug McClure, Orville Redenbacher or Slappy White. None of them have ever adequately paid for their concerted campaign against God, country and morality, and they all died in 1995.
Graduating Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy stopped wearing ceremonial swords to graduation many years ago. They did not recently stop because the Secret Service, usually referred to in viral e-mails as "Obama's protectors," asked them to stop.
Don't you love the way this one calls Secret Service agents "Obama's protectors"? Nobody ever spoke disparagingly about "Bush's protectors" or "Carter's protectors." They make it sound like the presidential homies would take a bullet for him because he's the baddest G in the hood.
Subtle, huh?
The display at the World War II Memorial did not omit the words "so help us God" from President Roosevelt's speech. Even if it did, how weak is the faith of anybody who thinks this ranks as an assault on faith? How lame is a god who could be threatened by such a thing?
I know mine couldn't.
No Japanese storefront ever depicted Santa Claus nailed to a cross. In struggling with Western culture, Japanese people have made a lot of funny mistakes, just as we have with theirs. This particular mistake, though, is not among them. Claiming it is harkens back to the days when the Japanese were depicted in this country as myopic, insensitive, jingoistic, buck-toothed chimpanzees.
I happen to know a myopic, insensitive, jingoistic, buck-toothed chimpanzee, and he usually hangs out at the Heritage Foundation, where he feels at home.
Nobody in the Obama administration suggested overturning the laws of physics. Nobody in any of the administrations this was said about did, either. Only global warming deniers are anti-science enough to even think such a thing.
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas." There is no "War on Christmas."
Only one of the many "This business refused to serve a soldier in uniform," stories you've received in the past eight years was really true. The others were blatant lies or gross misunderstandings. If I was still running my business, I'd refuse to serve people who spread these things. Their only purpose is to "mobilize resentments" as Nixon used to say.
A new federal policy does not prohibit service members from speaking at faith-based events. An old policy, long predating President Obama, does, though.
Coca-Cola will not dissolve a nail, cure a steak or melt a tooth. It isn't a spermicide, it won't clean blood off of highways especially well and nobody ever died from drinking it with Mentos. It is a drink. It's very good with ice on a cold day.
Almost none of the circulated e-mails attributed to George Carlin, Andy Rooney, Bill Cosby or Paul Harvey are actually written by them. EXAMPLE: Snopes.com lists nine insipid gusts of dry e-mail wind which are commonly attributed to George Carlin. Not one of them is really his. Not only are they not his, they usually express views that George Carlin was opposed to.
Pravda is no longer really Pravda. It's just a pretender with a web page. The real Pravda has been out of operation for a long time. There's a popular "Pravda" editorial about how the USA has finally gone socialist. The people who send it think the "fact" that it's from "Pravda" is guaranteed to make you furious that Soviet communists think they are finally victorious, when it's really just some blowhard with an attitude...like me. Hey! Now that it's out of print, maybe I should start a Seattle Post-Intelligencer site to give weight to my stories.
President Obama and the Democratic Party are not, "just like the Nazis, the Communists and the Fascists...moving to posture the U.S. Presidency for succession by one president." Every session of Congress, the same representative introduces a proposed amendment to repeal the presidential succession amendment. He does it regardless of who is president, or what party the president is from. It never goes anywhere, but he keeps doing it. It never goes anywhere because nobody really wants to hear it. He's like Yoko Ono's record company. Anybody who would co-sponsor that bill, or buy a Yoko CD, would have to be eating the wrong kind of mushrooms.
The alleged account of Charles Krauthammer's speech to the Center For The American Experiment is, according to Charles Krauthammer:
"...neither accurate not authoritative. My views on Obama are
well known. I've explained them in a series of five columns.
This email is somebody putting his own ideological stamp and spin on my
views.
One giveaway of the superimposition of someone else's views on mine is the
rather amusing use of phrases that I never use. To take just a few examples
randomly: 'God forbid,' 'far left secular progressive,' 'this is the first
president ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!' 'no
country had ever spent themselves into prosperity,' and, the real
doozy,'states rights.'
My views are clearly spelled out in that series of columns and subsequent
writings. Anyone who wants to know my views should consult those and not
this email."
I think you should listen to him. Anybody who has the words "kraut" and "hammer" in his name is to be ignored at your own peril.
There is nothing in the Bible about "The Anti-Christ" being Muslim (The President is not a Muslim, anyway.), wearing a blue turban or any of that other nonsense people use to claim that the last election was a harbinger of the Apocalypse. This is a mash-up of Nostradamus and *The Late, Great Planet Earth.* In fact, although "antichrists" are mentioned in the Bible, there is nothing about "THE Anti-Christ.
Psssst! The Bible doesn't say anything about "the Apocalypse," either.
President Obama did not "apologize for the Declaration of Independence." He did not "go to Europe and apologize for America."
He has apologized for a few errors he made, and that's an inspiring breath of fresh air. President Obama has apologized for small misstatements or errors in judgment. George W ran the most inept, lawless, corrupt and truly un-American administration in history, and neither he, nor Cheney, apologized for any of it. These days, they just blame each other.
President Obama asks those who disagree with him to come in and tell him why. Sometimes he changes his mind about something after such a meeting. Sometimes, he doesn't. He always listens, though.
Who did George ever listen to?
President Obama's decisions come more slowly than many people, especially his supporters, want them to. Those who have watched him in office say this is because he thinks quite a lot about an issue before he decides on it.
Does anybody in their right mind want to go back to the days of a president who never thought anything over?
I know I don't.
A government memo regulating the sale of cabbage did not run to almost 27,000 words. This article is about to, though, so I'll shut up.
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