Folks from my generation and before have a built in flaw that comes from centuries of knowledge that the printed word carries power. Before the age of word processors, and desktop publishing, there were strict guidelines, and steep costs involved in printing information. Therefore, anything printed carried much more weight than anything written or spoken. In the pre-internet days this was rarely a problem, as most bogus things were usually spotted since they quickly became copies of copies of copies of faxes, etc. Bad quality, poor spelling, and obvious home typing all served to out the false document rather quickly. But not anymore. Perhaps our progeny will be less gullible, since they will have grown up with the internet and all its wonders and abuses, and might just consider the glossy, fake articles with as little regard as we did crank phone calls. I hope so, anyway. One of my oldest, and dearest friends sent me, and dozens of others, a very disturbing series of images that have been circulating for a couple of years now. They purport to show an 8 year old boy who was supposedly convicted of stealing a loaf of bread in Iraq having his arm crushed under a truck's tire as punishment. The subject line of this is 'The Truth about Islam' and has the effect of further demonizing those of the Islamic faith. I was once guilty of forwarding every virus warning, and urban legend that crossed my inbox in my early days as a surfer of the web, but after being soundly chastised by many of my friends I have made it a point to verify every such thing before I either A) believe it, or B) pass it along. These pics hit me hard, because I have an 8 year old step-daughter and I was horrified at what I saw. But something just didn't ring true. Firt of all, the 'punishers' put a folded towel beneath the child's arm, which hardly seems the act of those seeking to destroy the limb. Secondly, and most tellingly, the kid wasn't struggling, or being held in any way. My kid won't stay in the shower sometimes without restraint, I doubted that an 8 year old would calmly let a truck crush his arm. So I dug.
It took some time, but I finally found what I was looking for. The pics were real, but the description was totally false. The child was part of a group, either in Iran, Iraq, or India depending on which reference you find, that makes a living by performing 'super human' acts for money. The email that's going around shows 6 pictures of the child before and during the wheel going over his arm, but neglects to show the 7th shot of the kid smiling and undamaged after. Needless to say I was very relieved, and then asked my friend to send out a retraction. The last thing this country needs is false winds to fan the flames of racism.
The point I am trying to make, folks, is please use Carl Sagan's aphorism that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Before you have everyone on your list sending postcards to a Cancer ward in Iowa, or downloading $200 cookie recipes, please check them out first. Here are two really good places to look:
www.snopes.com
www.hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
Odds are if the story, warning, pettition, or picture you just recieved is fake, it will be listed in one of these places. And if all else fails, send it to me, and I'll do my best to prove it true or false.
Here endeth the lesson. Go in peace.
Marius of the Soapbox
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