I think this is important.
A week ago, I reprinted the summary of a purported report on presidential IQ’s (George W’s was 91), saying it must either be a hoax, or else very poorly done – both Bushes were far smarter than this e-mail, which I’ve now gotten 12 or 13 times, suggested.
Well, it IS just a joke, after all.
And what’s important, of course, is how much stuff goes around the Internet that just isn’t true.
In that regard, UrbanLegends.com may someday be almost as important as the NYTimes.com for knowing the truth. Click here for the Bush IQ debunking, and (while you’re at it) here for a particularly thoughtful Tommy Hilfiger debunking.
I had an article in yesterday’s PARADE with some pretty basic and for the most part highly uncontroversial explanations of things like ‘what the Fed does.’ Yet I got some really wacko e-mails from people convinced the Fed is a privately owned, foreign controlled bank designed to control and wreck America (or something like that). Where do people get stuff like this? They obviously believed it and sounded as if they had a pretty good arsenal stashed down in the cellar. Well, it seems to me that it’s tough enough for people to agree, or at least get along with each other, when presented with a common set of facts. Disinformation just makes it harder. We should all bookmark UrbanLegends.com.
[And speaking of misinformation . . . Kathryn Lance: ‘I agree that ‘The Closet’ is a great movie – one of the best I’ve seen in years. Wonderful cast, wonderful script. However, not quite true when you say that there’s not a gay person anywhere in it. The next-door neighbor . . .’ ☞ Indeed. My brain was on strike when I wrote that.]
