[In the version I got, the 1st 2 paragraphs introduce David
Kaiser in the 3rd person]
Visit Urban Legends at About.com and Truth Or Fiction and ScamBusters and the venerable Snopes.com (used to be my favorite but I'm getting tired of the popup ads that override my browser's settings and the fact that you can't copy and paste text from their site)
And if it IS legit, send a link to the site, not the whole text. PLEASE!! An email in-the-wild can never be retracted or corrected. An email pointing to a web site will always give the reader the latest version of the content or even the instruction "This content is no longer valid. Please delete the email you received".
This is particularly true of a video - some people don't have screaming 15Mb fiber internet (not ME of course, but some poor souls...) and many people's email systems won't allow files that big. Google the title of the program (or even the file name) and you'll surely find it posted out there. Then delete the attachment and forward the link to the posted version. 1kB vs 20,000 kB.
Please, don't just read something and assume it's valid, regardless of the source.
Please, don't just click FORWARD without questioning the content (if it states a case - if it's humor, who cares).
Please, when you forward something, delete all the previous forwards and all the email addresses and copies of copies. It's easy to do.
That's it for the Plea For Thought. Now Follows The Political Item That Engendered This. If Political Stuff Bugs You, Punch Out Now |
Here's an example, and what precipitated this plea. An email I received from a friend. Here's the essence :
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Charlie"
To: undisclosed recipients: ;
Sent: Sunday, August 23, 2009
Subject: history unfolding
David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball......
I am a student of history... Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
..... I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.
[Read the entire screed here: http://patdollard.com/2009/02/i-am-a-student-of-history]
First off, this is phoney. Just more far-right paranoid crap that people pass around and around and it gains some kind of credibility because enough people think that a learned person wrote it. Snopes ( http://snopes.com/politics/soapbox/proportions.asp):
[In the version I got, the 1st 2 paragraphs introduce David Kaiser in the 3rd person]
Dr. Wood denies any of this crap is his: http://sbuschollian.blogspot.com/2009/03/historian-deals-with-online-identity.html
There, prominently displayed on a rather politically extreme website, was an essay that likened President Barack Obama to . . . Adolph Hitler. Underneath the title was the inscription “by Tim Wood.” Uh-oh.
I was not pleased. However, even though my parents always told me I was special, a quick internet search will reveal that I am not, in fact, the world’s only Tim Wood. So I ignored it. Until recently, that is, when the forwarded version of this article had mutated into a form which included the rather unambiguous phrase “Professor of History and Political Science, Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, MO.” The writer of this message also helpfully appended my office phone number and e-mail address.
I would be lying if I said I was not upset. Even above and beyond the fact that the comparison is utterly ridiculous (anyone who believes that truly has no understanding of the depths of evil plumbed by the Nazi regime), it was now personal.
A quote from a recent blog of Kaiser’s:And two minor points, but ones that question the author’s intellectual status. To my knowledge:
That we are seeing a battle of reason against emotion is becoming clearer and clearer. The President, as Paul Krugman pointed out this morning came to office believing that he could inspire a change in the tone of our politics so that we could work together to solve our very real problems. He has failed to do so, albeit through no fault of his own, because he faces a Republican opposition that has defined him and all his plans as evil by nature. Anyone who doubts this should simply listen to one hour of Rush Limbaugh. Since in his view Obama is determined to establish a dictatorship, there is no reason to believe anything that the President actually says, much less to acknowledge that he might (for instance, with the cash-for-clunkers program, which has actually given the Ford motor company a huge boost) have done some good.And another from him, the “author” of this email, about one of MY favorite politicians (for her entertainment value, not her electability)
Sarah Palin's endorsement and inflation of [the “Death Panel"] rumor, by the way, can be matched with another piece of information that surfaced this week that confirms what she really is: a professional hate-monger who enjoys being as inflammatory as possible. That information, published in a new book about the 2008 campaign, is a sequence of text messages between her and the McCain campaign staff (who apparently designated her as agitator-in-chief while keeping the candidate on the high road, in the best Eisenhower/Nixon and Nixon/Agnew manner.) The sequence--featured this week by Gary Trudeau on his Doonesbury site--follows.
"[Obama] is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country."
-- text sent to Sarah Palin by McCain staff during '08 election
"Yes yes yes. Pls let me say this!!!"
-- Palin's e-mailed response
"It was awesome."
-- Palin, in another e-mail after delivering the lines
How could such a person resist the idea that the President wanted to put her child to death?