Hillary To Drop Out Of Race
No she's not! April Fool's! Gotcha, didn't I?
Over the years, there have been millions of April Fool's Day Hoaxes. Rubel Shelley brings us some of the best efforts, below, from the last 150 years.
Today is a day to be on your toes. It's April Fools' Day - or April Fool's Day or April Fools Day, depending on your choice of spelling. Believe me, I'll be especially careful. I work with a guy who celebrates if 365 days a year. And on this "official day" of pranksterism, he stands to be at his rascally worst.
One of the most famous of all April 1 hoaxes was pulled off in stiff-upper-lip England, no less. A respected newscaster, Richard Dimbleby, reported on the TV news program Panorama that an early spaghetti harvest was under way in Switzerland. He explained about an early spring and rambled on about the dangers of the spaghetti weevil. The story was accompanied by photographs of happy Swiss villagers pulling the delicate strands off trees.
Think nobody could take such things seriously? Think that no one gets fooled by hoaxers? The BBC switchboard was jammed on that day in 1957 with hundreds of callers wanting to know more. Many wanted information on where to buy plants so they could grow their own spaghetti. "Many British enthusiasts," producer Michael Peacock is reported to have told them, "have had admirable results from planting a small tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce."
Just reading about some of the classic pranks pulled on a gullible public - not all of which were April Fools' Day events - generates giggles.
-Showman P.T. Barnum used to pack people in to see the 161-year-old former nurse of George Washington.
=The New York Sun published articles back in 1835 about the discovery of life on the moon - describing bixon, unicorns and other creatures
-Orson Wells' "War of the Worlds" caused panic across America in 1938 when CBS broadcast his story of an invasion from Mars.
-You can still find photos and occasional offers to sell jackalopes - a cross between killer rabbits and pygmy deer.
-Physicist Alan Sokal wrote a jargon-heavy piece of sheer nonsense in 1996 arguing that gravity was a fiction created for social-linguistic purposes - and actually got it published in a Duke University journal.
Yep, it all makes you wonder about our critical thinking skills. It also has to make all of us wonder how much drivel we are being fed about our climate, political prospects, human origina, and/or cures for sale. And we haven't even raised the matter of the hoaxes perpetrated in the name of religion.
So be on your toes today. But spend a little time trying to get ahead of the curve in your workplace. "A cheerful heart brings a smile to your face; a sad heart makes it hard to get through the day." (Proverbs 15:13 MSG)(
For back issues of "The FAX of Life, visit www.RubelShelly.com)
Over the years, there have been millions of April Fool's Day Hoaxes. Rubel Shelley brings us some of the best efforts, below, from the last 150 years.
Today is a day to be on your toes. It's April Fools' Day - or April Fool's Day or April Fools Day, depending on your choice of spelling. Believe me, I'll be especially careful. I work with a guy who celebrates if 365 days a year. And on this "official day" of pranksterism, he stands to be at his rascally worst.
One of the most famous of all April 1 hoaxes was pulled off in stiff-upper-lip England, no less. A respected newscaster, Richard Dimbleby, reported on the TV news program Panorama that an early spaghetti harvest was under way in Switzerland. He explained about an early spring and rambled on about the dangers of the spaghetti weevil. The story was accompanied by photographs of happy Swiss villagers pulling the delicate strands off trees.
Think nobody could take such things seriously? Think that no one gets fooled by hoaxers? The BBC switchboard was jammed on that day in 1957 with hundreds of callers wanting to know more. Many wanted information on where to buy plants so they could grow their own spaghetti. "Many British enthusiasts," producer Michael Peacock is reported to have told them, "have had admirable results from planting a small tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce."
Just reading about some of the classic pranks pulled on a gullible public - not all of which were April Fools' Day events - generates giggles.
-Showman P.T. Barnum used to pack people in to see the 161-year-old former nurse of George Washington.
=The New York Sun published articles back in 1835 about the discovery of life on the moon - describing bixon, unicorns and other creatures
-Orson Wells' "War of the Worlds" caused panic across America in 1938 when CBS broadcast his story of an invasion from Mars.
-You can still find photos and occasional offers to sell jackalopes - a cross between killer rabbits and pygmy deer.
-Physicist Alan Sokal wrote a jargon-heavy piece of sheer nonsense in 1996 arguing that gravity was a fiction created for social-linguistic purposes - and actually got it published in a Duke University journal.
Yep, it all makes you wonder about our critical thinking skills. It also has to make all of us wonder how much drivel we are being fed about our climate, political prospects, human origina, and/or cures for sale. And we haven't even raised the matter of the hoaxes perpetrated in the name of religion.
So be on your toes today. But spend a little time trying to get ahead of the curve in your workplace. "A cheerful heart brings a smile to your face; a sad heart makes it hard to get through the day." (Proverbs 15:13 MSG)(
For back issues of "The FAX of Life, visit www.RubelShelly.com)
posted by Old Neocon at 11:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home