Today at school we received one of those forwarded emails that are ludicrous on their face but which a certain portion of the population treats as gospel. It was this one, about the U.S. Mint removing the slogan “In God We Trust” from the new dollar coin.
IT HAS BEGUN! the email shrieks, and the person who sent it to the whole faculty prefaced it with “I know at least one of you will go to Snopes, and it has already checked out.”
Well, I can take stuff as personally as the next Teabagger, so with narrowed eyes and wrinkled lip I headed straight to Snopes, where of course the entire email is reproduced in its entirety and debunked as completely false. Quel surprise. I replied to all, which is what I always do. I never, but one day I’m going to, say, “I dare you to forward this!!!1!1!”
I also did not write nor send the following email:
Dear troops:
This is ridiculous. Every single one of these emails y’all forward so breathlessly is FALSE. Every. Single. One.
Has it not occurred to you that you are being lied to? That someone is lying to you? For reasons of their own? And those reasons include keeping you riled up, angry, outraged at what “they” are doing to “our” country?
I cannot be the only person on this campus with a BS detector. For Moloch’s sake, people, we are educators, and it behooves us to be more skeptical than it seems many of us are. You should immediately question any email that comes to you that contains anything that is “outrageous.” Because, as I’ve already stated: Not. One. Of. Them. Is. True…. Ever.
More than that, you should be teaching our students to be just as skeptical as you are. Hell, you should be teaching them to be as skeptical as I am. That is our job as educators in a free nation.
The people who create these emails are counting on your being gullible idiots. I don’t know who they are (although I have suspicions) and I don’t know what they want you to buy or vote for (although I have suspicions), but I know they want you to buy or to vote for something. And they’re willing to lie to you to keep you outraged enough to do it. The only question now is, how gullible an idiot are you?
Cheers,
Dale
Thank you, dear reader, for listening.
And you did not send this because….?
Yeah, ok, so this one didn’t actually check out. Just because one isn’t true doesn’t mean the rest aren’t.
I heard just the other day that there is a memo coming out VERY VERY VERY soon that will instruct each classroom teach to reorient their desks to face compass heading 110. You know what THAT’S about don’t you???? Huh??1?!?@?
They’ll tell us that its to keep an eye on our allies in Juruselem, but EVYrone knows that that’s compass heading 119! 110 is MECKA!!!!!!11!1! Why do you think this is coming down now? I’ll Tell you!!! Here’s a hint: barack Hossein obama. Don’t say I didn’t tell you!
Kim, when you work with a bunch of “blues,” you have to choose how often you’re going to hurt their widdle feewings. With this one, I decided to vent to a couple of people who I can rely on to gossip and get the message out that way.
Green, if that is your real name, I dare you to turn that into a real email. I guarantee you it will hit my desk within six months. Make sure, however, that you preface it with, “I checked this out on Snopes.com and it’s absolutely true!!!”
The phrase “Wake up, sheeple!” is also useful.
I don’t know you (I’m a new GHP teacher this year and found your blog) but this is just about the greatest thing I’ve ever read. I want to forward it to all my relatives and colleagues who forward that crazy stuff. Wow.
This is from Juanita Jean’s blog. I think I should start sending it out:
🙂 You have always cracked me up! I teach the youth of America to think for themselves…I hope…at least that’s the goal.