Don't Believe Everything You Read

(From the Janesville Messenger, 10-7-07)


During the week of September 11, I received a patriotic and much-forwarded e-mail entitled “Twin Towers.” It featured a pre-attack photo of the World Trade Center and an excerpt from Oliver North’s testimony in front of a Senate committee during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.

What does Oliver North have to do with the 9-11 attacks? Well, in this excerpt, North was questioned about a $60,000 home security system he had purchased. North responded that he was in fear of his life because a terrorist had threatened him and his family. He claimed this terrorist was the most evil man alive and he recommended the U.S. form a team of assassins to kill him. The terrorist’s name was Osama bin Laden. The Senator questioning him, who scoffed at North’s suggestion, was Al Gore.

It’s an interesting little excerpt. It would be even more interesting if any of it were true.

This is just the latest example of people believing anything they read in an e-mail, and then forwarding it to all of their friends. For people with an agenda – like the original author of this e-mail obviously had – the Internet must be a Godsend. Gossipers and rumormongers can now share with the entire world, not just their immediate circle of acquaintances.

If you have e-mail, you have likely received one or more of the following totally false chain e-mails:
· Forward this e-mail to 10 people, and Miller will send you free beer (or Microsoft will send you money).
· Unsuspecting travelers are being drugged and waking up in a bathtub full of ice with their kidneys removed.
· Dr. Pepper (or Pepsi) is printing the Pledge of Allegiance on their soda cans without the line “under God.”
· Don’t dial a certain area code, or thousands of dollars of charges will show up on your phone bill.

These e-mails are getting more and more annoying, although the kidney one inspired a very funny cartoon on YouTube called “Charlie The Unicorn.” But all of these frivolous e-mails could have been easily debunked by going to a website called Snopes.com. The site is devoted to tracking down Internet rumors and declaring them true or false.

A five-minute trip to Snopes revealed that the North story was flat-out bunk. In fact, North himself drafted a letter setting the record straight, once this e-mail started making the rounds and he started getting asked about it. It turns out that North never mentioned Osama bin Laden during his testimony, and Al Gore wasn’t even part of this Senate committee. North did mention an evil terrorist during his testimony, however. It was the Palestinian guerilla Abu Nidal, whom North offered to meet man-to-man on equal terms. So at least that gives a basis for how this Oliver Twisted story got started.

Even chain e-mails that are not mean-spirited or politically motivated suffer credibility issues. I’ve had the same group of jokes e-mailed to me several times, variously attributed to George Carlin, Steven Wright and Rodney Dangerfield. A friend recently sent me a very funny statement by British comedian John Cleese declaring America’s independence from Britain revoked. Just out of curiosity, I looked it up on Snopes. Did Cleese really write it? Nope.

It’s almost like a line from comedian Bob Saget’s old routine. He would say something ridiculous, then claim it was true by saying, “No, really. I read that. I wrote it down, and I read it.”

So now whenever I get one of these false e-mails that has been forwarded to a group of people, I reply to the whole group and include the link to Snopes.com that proves it false. This probably has embarrassed more than a few people, and hopefully, removed me from some group e-mail lists. But I consider it my duty to set things straight, so I am forming a group to try to stamp out these goofy e-mail forwards once and for all.

It’s called the National Educational Council for Truth In E-mail (NEC-TIE). Our slogan: “Choking on chain e-mail? Join NEC-TIE!”

Look us up on Snopes.

Return of the "Short Attention Span" Column

(From the Janesville Messenger, 9-16-07)


When one idea for a column just won’t do, it’s time once again for a “short attention span” column....

• Thank you to everybody who commented on the September 2 column about my car accident. My purchase criteria changed dramatically when shopping for my replacement car. My new vehicle’s best feature? A crash test rating of 5 stars out of 5 possible from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And yes, Janesville, it’s a General Motors car.
• Speaking of driving, we have passed another milestone in my family. My daughter is 15.5 years old, which means she now has her Class D drivers license instruction permit. Or in other words, her “temps.” Until this momentous day occurred, I’m not sure she had ever steered so much as a bumper car, so we were literally starting from square one. My first experience in the passengers seat featured death-defying, white-knuckled driving at 10 mph in an empty high school parking lot. Not that I was much better at her age, mind you, despite the advantage I had of a few years experience driving tractors on our farm. My dad was probably happy that the car in which he was teaching me – a 1972 Buick Centurion the length of a battleship – had automatic transmission, since I had a tendency to pop the tractor clutch and send unsuspecting bale stackers flying off hay wagons.
• News flash: Britney Spears gives an awful, embarrassing performance on the MTV Video Music Awards. News flash II: No one is surprised. This was a no-lose scenario for MTV. In the unlikely event that she puts on a terrific performance, they score big. In the likely event that it’s just another chapter in what’s become Hollywood’s biggest career flameout, they also score big. Think about it; when’s the last time you heard much of anything about MTV? The channel is passé, but they got big press for hosting this debacle. I could live a happy life never reading another word about or seeing another clip of Britney, but it would be premature to pronounce her career over. After all, Mike Tyson still gets boxing matches. There will always be an audience for freak shows.
• The National Football League season has started, and once again, I have joined a fantasy football league. For the uninitiated, a participant is the coach and general manager of his own football team, selecting real NFL players to be on his “fantasy” roster. You are matched up each week against another team and the winner of the “game” is the team whose players rack up the most points using a scoring system based on their statistics from the real games. It is a fun diversion, though it now means I have a lot of other players to cheer for on Sunday besides Brett Favre and the Packers. It almost makes you think some ingenious employee of the NFL came up with this idea, to make you even more hooked on the league. But let’s face it; fantasy leagues are basically made up of guys practicing accounting skills while pretending to be football coaches. The only reason fantasy football isn’t considered the sport of geeks is because it involves, um, football. And nothing related to football can be anything less than manly.
• As I write this column, six years ago today I was sitting in a quiet coffee shop in downtown Janesville, when a young woman I didn’t know came up to me to tell me the most ridiculous story. She said that airplanes had flown into both of the towers of the World Trade Center. I found it so incredible that despite being only a few blocks from my office, I called there to see what had really happened. I will never forget that day. We must never forget.

Now I Know How Crash Test Dummies Feel

(From the Janesville Messenger, 9-2-07)


The mid-life crisis is over.

Back in January, I wrote in this column about how I had satisfied the symptoms of my illness by purchasing an Audi A4 Quattro. Today, my beloved car resides in Audi Heaven, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim singing in German.

I write this from the perspective of someone who two days ago sat in his stopped car waiting patiently to turn left into his office parking lot, when another vehicle barreled into him from behind at 55 mph.

When I look at that last paragraph, I still can’t believe that it happened to me. And that I walked away from the wreckage. And that, save for a little bit of stiffness in my neck and a swollen lip, I am feeling no ill effects.

The trunk of my car is gone from the force of the impact. The seat I was sitting in ended up in the back seat. The front passenger side door was the only one that would even partially open to let me out.

Yet I am alive, and amazingly well. And I returned to work today, feeling somewhat guilty that I didn’t yesterday, the day after the accident.

The what-ifs in this scenario are mind-boggling. What if my car had been pushed into oncoming traffic? What if my car had ignited? It is not lost on me that I am an incredibly lucky guy.

The person whose car struck me did not fare as well as I. I know that the Jaws of Life were needed to get her out of her car, and that she needed to be transported via Medflight to a hospital in Madison. That is all I know about this person; I don’t know her name, don’t know how she’s doing, don’t know how to find out. I would like to know that she is doing fine.

Some people think I should be incredibly angry with her for ruining my car. But - and I must admit this surprises me - I am not. I harbor this person absolutely no ill will. She obviously didn’t want to get in an auto accident and win herself a helicopter ride. All I can think of are the times I was distracted behind the wheel, operating a cell phone, getting a CD for the stereo, or even typing an e-mail on my Blackberry. And I think there but for the grace of God go I.

Sometimes I think God sends you a wake-up call, and this one was mine. It woke me up to a lot of things, like attentive driving and the value of seat belts. But most importantly, it gave me something I had been lacking for a while – perspective.

Recently, I had been stressing a lot about different things. And it had been showing. My co-workers had noticed. My friends had noticed. My family had noticed. Now none of the things that were worrying me seem to matter in the least. I walked around today in a near state of giddiness.

I am not shedding tears over my car. Yeah, it was a great car. But cars are replaceable. Material things are just that – things – and you shouldn’t get attached to things. It was a lesson I should have learned when I went to New Orleans last year, helping the residents who lost nearly everything in Hurricane Katrina. But I guess I needed something more personal to make the lesson really sink in.

Amazing how sometimes it takes something so bad to make you feel so good.