Monday, September 8, 2008

Snopes

I love this site. From time to time I get e-mails such as this one:

Here is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to have banned from the Wasilla Public Library, according to the official minutes of the Library Board. When she was unsuccessful at having these books banned, she tried to have the librarian fired.

This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla
Library Board.

As many of you will notice, it is a hit parade for book burners.*

*A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
{...}
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
{...}
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
{...}
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster
Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween
Symbols by Edna Barth*
I read it and I was delighted. I love some of these books and no way should they be banned. I was all ready to post the list and write about people who want to get books banned. But first I went to Snopes. Here is the truth. It is false.

So I did what I have always done. I hit reply and sent him a note telling him that. This evening I got this e-mail

Friends,

The nice thing about the internet and having sharp friends is someone went to Snoopes to verify that posting. Not True!

So Sarah might not have such good taste in literature after all.

I was very pleased to get this e-mail. It tells me that my friend is an honorable person who would not lie. Not so many - especially on the Republican side. I have continually gotten e-mails which try to slander Barak Obama. Many of them use his middle name to cast aspersions over him and try to paint him as a Muslim to talk about him in terms that are less than flattering. The tactics used by Karl Rove and Company are alive and well (Well not really well I think they are sick) on the Republican side. The lies they tell are believed by many. It is sad that more people are not discriminating enough to see the lies for what they are.

The vice-presidential candidate has been caught in so many lies about how she sold her airplane on e-bay (she didn't and she lost money when she did sell it) and how she was against the "Bridge to Nowhere" Maybe she was but she shouldn't have kept the money. I could go on. My friend John, writes incredible responses to these people. He debunks their lies and he tells it like it is. And he is intelligent enough to do it. I get copies of his e-mails to them because he knows I will appreciate them.

The television ads put out by these people are disgraceful. I would be willing to listen to the truth but the continually tell lies. They said they wanted a campaign that discussed issues. Instead they have degenerated into attack lies. It just confirms my resolution to vote for Barak Obama.

You know if the Republican party had not been taken over by the religious Reich and adopted their platform there might have been some Republicans I could vote for. ( I would link to it but their site doesn't work - perhaps they aren't very proud of it)  But their pandering to the theocrats who would deny me my rights and the abuses of our Constitution of our present administration (even though they say they respect the Constitution) make me disinclined to do so. The hypocrisy of the Republican party really began with Nixon. Or at least that is my opinion.

Anyway I refuse to listen to their ads. I await November 5 when it will be decided. In the meantime I shall continue to check out their lies using Snopes or TruthorFiction.com. You really need to check things out.

Thanks for stopping by. I have been and will continue to work at the Scottish Rite in Des Moines this week. I am having a lot of fun doing it. It is good to have someplace to go and people to see. And when I come home there is corn and tomatoes to eat. Nothing better. HUGS, j
Addendum:

3 comments:

Ur-spo said...

curiously most of these books have been banned at one time or another.

In my den I have a poster called "Hot Books" it asks If you have read any hot books lately.
there are 24 burned books starting with Homer and ending with The Satanic Verses.
I have read every one
I purposely try to read books people want to ban.

Anonymous said...

Snopes does excellent work!
On receiving emails of that nature, I always check with Snopes.
BTW, that's a very good reading list. I have many of those books in my library.

Kurt said...

The beauty of our country is that we are all encouraged to think for ourselves. Thus, we are to inform ourselves and make the best decision at the ballot box for our entire nation. Far too often, we find an uninformed electorate. They believe all the commercials and hype from both sides, instead of actually reading what each candidate has (or has not) done, their plans for the future, and their vision of what America should be.

As you already know from reading my blog, I've been checking out ALL the candidates, not just McCain or Obama. Unfortunately, McCain and Obama are the only viable (i.e. the most sane) candidates.

However, when you look at both McCain and Obama closely, we're really choosing the lesser of two evils.

It's important to check the facts, and thanks, Jay, for doing so.