Seeing isn’t always believing

Soul Food

“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that gets us into

trouble. It’s the things we know that ain’t so.”

-- Artemus Ward

They have peppered my inbox for years. I read the first few then,

for a long time, I simply ignored them.

But when the unsavory electronic letters began to come, not from

complete strangers, but from family, friends and acquaintances --

some people I’ve never met, who dub themselves my friends in Christ,

it got harder to disregard them.

Internet hoaxes, Internet myths, Internet legends, call them what

you like. I get them by the dozens. I get them from people who, I

know, should know better; it gives me heartburn.

Elihu, a wise man in the biblical story of Job, insisted that the

ear tastes words the way the palate tastes food. If that’s so, the

auditory taste buds of some people I know, and some people who think

they know me, are notably undiscerning.

These folks pass on secondhand letters, penned with indignation

and somewhat mangled English.

“My brother and sister soldiers worldwide ensure that you and

people like you can thumb your collective nose at us, all on a salary

that is nothing short of pitiful,” cants one that addresses a piece

of commentary mistakenly attributed to “Ms. Cindy Williams (from

Laverne and Shirley TV show).”

This recycled correspondence aims to play our impulses to be

decent and responsible, but the letters are often neither. They goad

with insinuations of malice and peril.

“Bet this never hits the TV news!” shouts the first line of a

letter about Hillary Clinton. It goes on to explain how, “The Queen

herself -- the Hildebeast,” turned away “repeated requests to meet

with the Gold Star Mothers,” an organization of women whose sons were

killed in military combat.

Another e-mail begins, “For your information CBS will be forced to

discontinue ‘Touched By An Angel’ for using the word ‘God’ in every

program ... your right to freedom of religion is being tampered

with.”

Trouble is, God knows, it just ain’t so. And neither is the bit

about Clinton. A quick search of the Internet turns up the Gold Star

Mothers’ Web site. It gives a benign explanation for the turned-away

story and a statement from the moms, “We would appreciate it if the

e-mails and negative comments about Senator Clinton would cease.”

Some hoaxes aim to be inspirational then tug at our guilty

heartstrings, “Will you pass on this little bit of brotherly love or

will you pass up the opportunity and leave our world a little colder?

You have two choices: Delete this message or forward it to the people

you care about.”

The messages bring to mind my mother’s old expression: They gripe

my soul. All these hand-me-down hoaxes have two things in common.

They are less than honest, short of true, spun from half-truths or

pure fabrications. And they have legs.

They travel so long and so well that the U.S. Department of Energy

has implemented what it calls Computer Incident Advisory Capability

to monitor and debunk the stories. If you are ever tempted to pass

one of these stories on, check it out.

Hoaxbusters (www.hoaxbusters.ciac.org), the CIAC Web site,

documents Internet hoaxes, myths and legends and provides information

about how much of a story is in fact true, embellished, bent or pure

fiction. It lists other helpful hoax-busting sites, too, among them

the thorough and user-friendly www.snopes.com and

www.banlegends.about.com.

“Make yourself an honest man,” historian Thomas Carlyle once said,

“and then you will be sure there is one rascal less in the world.”

Hard to argue that ain’t so. Pass it on.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer and graphic designer from

Huntington Beach. She has been interested in religion and ethics for

as long as she can remember. She can be reached at

[email protected].