When I was a little girl, my mother pointed out to me the areas of the road patched by tar, and told me that those were, in fact, what was left a boy named Johnny, who, just last week, had played in the street and was run over. I didn't know any better, and, hell, at that point the woman hadn't given me any reason to doubt her credibility, so I stayed as far away from the street as I could, not wanting to be all flattened out and sticky like Johnny was.
We'd go to the public pool, and in order to keep me away from the skimmer doors in the wall of the pool that flap back and forth to collect stuff like leaves from the surface of the water, she'd tell me that "just last week, a little boy named Johnny got his arm cut off when he stuck his hand in that door."
Poor Johnny. He had a such a tragic existence. Weekly.
Tonight I received one of those hysteria-spreading e-mails about Barack Obama's ancestry. I won't repeat its contents anymore than that. It doesn't deserve another syllable. I e-mailed my friend, as well as everyone else on her mailing list she had sent this message. I copied/pasted the Snopes.com address that debunks all the Obama rumors, and also expressed my disappointment that an intelligent person like my friend would spread this kind of shit.
People, our country is in trouble. What's at stake is far too important to rely on slanderous e-mails.
The other day, a friend of mine and I were talking about this election. She said, "Ya know, George W. Bush was elected in part because 'he was a guy you'd want to have a beer with.' But did anybody find out if he could run the country? No!"
We, the voters of America, are not children. Don't fall for lines about Obama that have as much credibility as my mother's tales about Johnny-the-tar-spot, or Johnny who lost an arm to a pool skimmer door.
Incidentally.. she's one of the people who forwards the hysterical Obama e-mails.
Think about it.
