"BELIEVE NONE OF WHAT YOU HEAR - - - "

"Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see" is a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

Not the guy with the craft shops - but the one who took it seriously when encouraged to "go fry a kite.".

The person encouraging him was obviously inebriated. And some say when the lightning struck the key tied to the tail of the kite, old Ben was never the same either.

But, that doesn't apply to most of us. Unfortunately, we mostly remain exactly the same.We haven't improved much since being asked to participate in the old "gossip" game in grade school or junior high.

You sat in a circle and the teacher whispered a short story or paragraph to student #1, who in turn whispered what he/she heard to student #2, and so on.

The object or morality lesson, if you will, was to see how much the story had changed from that which the teacher had originally whispered. When we heard the version of the last student sitting in the circle, we all laughed, as the story had changed drastically.

Well, we're adults now - and still doing the same thing. Except, now we're much more sophisticated. We've fired the teacher and outsourced the information gathering process.

What is that new information source? It's called E-mail.

Did you ever see the Bozos who appears on Maury? You know the ones. They are perfectly willing to tell all of the million plus viewers that they couldn't possibly "be the father of that child" - even if the kid has the misfortune to look exactly like Dad.

Yet, this guy who is perfectly convinced "that's not my kid" is the same guy who is willing to accept as gospel almost any information contained in E-mails forwarded from a friend or casual acquaintance.

After all, "He/she wouldn't have sent it if it wasn't the truth, right?"

And he's not alone. We all got a little Bozo in us.

There is nothing worse to me than standing in front of someone and telling them a boldfaced lie; but apparently there's nothing wrong with sending on an E-mail that is even more fictitious than the lie.

Is it the anonymity of looking only at a keyboard instead of a person - or, maybe the "Hey,I didn't start it?" syndrome?

I like to think that I'm a pretty fair student of human behavior - at least that's what I've been told from time to time.

Friend Harry, (hepie2335@blogspot.com) has been preaching this gospel message on E-mail much longer than yours truly. On occasions, Harry has also nudged me to check out my facts.

Now, as that "human behavior student", should I assume that all the people who are passing on this erroneous information to Harry ,me and you are total idiots?

No, not really. As a matter of fact I know that some who are doing this are extremely bright. But, then again,stupidity was never accurately depicted as excluding those with a high IQ.

I believe that fewer and fewer people every year really care if what they are saying or relating is the truth. There is no pause control on either their "forward" key - or - their tongue.

When I was a young claim representative investigating accidents to determine who was at fault I learned early on one guiding premise: " If what you're hearing or seeing doesn't really make sense - there's probably a pretty damn good reason."

Unfortunately, today we don't seem to mind if what we're hearing or seeing makes sense. We just pass it on.

We're social network members of the AOOL - "Ancient Order Of Lemmings."

So, was Bennie right when he made the statement that negated the old saw, "Seeing is believing"?

We seem to be perfectly willing to accept any E-mail we receive as support for that "seeing is believing" point of view.

If not - why the heck would we send it on? It's just as easy to hit "delete" as it is to hit "forward."

Before you choose to encourage the town idiot movement by sending on messages accusing Obama of lying about his "father's" WW II service record (his dad was 9 when the war ended - his stepfather was 10), or that Nancy Pelosi insisted on the largest plane and her family is a bunch of drunks, why not check the story out?

It's called "snopes.com" and takes less than a minute to reference then typing in a few short words or a phrase. The results will amaze you - and maybe even embarass you. It did me. Goodbye student.

So, the next time someone tells you that General "Black Jack" Pershing came up with a sure fire cure for your irrational fear of "all" Muslims, by scaring them with a Pig - maybe you should research it before sending it on.

Otherwise, why not turn on the camera facing you in your computer and take a good look at a real Bozo.

Sad to say, there are one heckuva lot of us who are still playing "the gossip game" right along with all the other Bozos.

Me? Each day I'm more inclined to side with old Ben and I'm getting better at it.