Ape Fool Y’all
As I dredged through story after news story this here Thursday, as I am often doing in idle moments on any given day, I encountered a number of hoaxes and the like–and a number of self-congratulatory commemorative pieces listing the “best of”s for this day, All Fools’ Day, to boot.
After such an innundation I went on down to cnn.com to see what the headlines were. And lo and behold: it seemed as if all of the headlines at the top of the page were bogus. I entertained the thought for a moment or two, at least. I also visited an article at pravda.ru which listed then greatest news media 1/4 hoaxes. On the column to the right were links to brisantly titled news items: W. can’t debate a 9th grader. Aliens visit small town. Israel opens gates to Hell. Despite my skeptism, these news items turned out to be apparently journalistically solid. The headlines were misleading, though.
This year’s 1/4 news day has seem to become a bit inflated with the notion of sticking in the old joke story. What gives? It seems altogether excessive this time ’round, yet I can’t decide whether this is a positive or negative indicator.
On one hand, the jokes are funny. They remind us to think independently and not believe everything we read. On another hand, the large amount of occasional good-natured bogusness I’ve found today seem to reflect at times an arrogant self-congratulating attitude that news media can type whatever they want and we the public general will buy it. This would be a perverse sentiment they hold, if it were so. Back home in the last 12 months or so at least three young yet widely-read reporters have been caught sloughing off hard work to write fantastic-though-completely stereotypically reliant stories; many of which have greatly swayed the general public in their attitudes about very very important issues. On yet another hand closer to the first hand, such April Fool’s stories reflect an ever-waxing tide of general cynicism. Where a healthy dose of skepticism could work wonders for our world, the above-supposed hardwired cynicism leads mostly to resignation, depression, paranoia, contempt, and a general disregard for objectivism in favor of perception and alienation. That counts for all hemispheres, y’all.
That is not to say that I place any blame on the news media for the woes of the world. For that matter, dishonesty is sadly an integral part of our society. All politicians bend or spin issues to their advantage. And if you are looking for work, baby, you better act like you know what the hell you are doing. But you’s a sucker to think you can get away with suckering.
Which finally brings me to a point. I found this news story particularly fitting for this day. It is too ironic to be believed, yet seeing as Reuters posted it a day earlier, I suppose that means it’s legit. An esteemed prof. dupes colleages for a bogus SARS research fund in China. Said prof was really collecting the dough to buy into–get this– a Nigerian internet scam. Booyahh.
But we can’t simply write off liars as evil. Depraved, perhaps; desperate, that too possibly. We all have to assess our own ethical codes, and like the first Cynic, Diogenes, hold up a torch in broad daylight and look for that one honest man–this time within ourselves.
So many people believe in that mystical Paternoster of Metropolis fame, where we might step on and quickly step off onto a much higher, better level. Too good to be true? It is too good to be true, my Dad often told us. But even Prof Xu fell for it, at the expense of many trusted colleagues.
Such a smart guy, too. Could just smack the fool, couldn’t you? But I say hold on, pilgrim: I, too, once bought the farm. In comparison, an Ant Farm, but still what a dumbass I was.
At the end of my college career, I was still at a loss as to what I’d do next. I had applied to study further in Germany, but that was still up in the air. If that fell through, I’d best be ready to get busy getting some kind of job there in Nashville. After totaling my car a year before, I knew that a big first step was to get wheels. Even if we had streetcars in Nashville, you’d still be hard put to travel ’round with a ton of drumset.
So I scoured the classifieds for used cars. Then I saw an ad extolling the virtues of purchasing a car or other swank shit from government auctions. Yes, those auctions are real. So I called the number, and a woman from some company which had a very official governmental name told me to hand over my address, and she’d put me on “the mailing list”. I did so. Mom asked, “what are you doing?” I said, “shhh, it’s the gov’ment!” The lady on the line laughed: “hmmph.” Then she explained I’d be better off if I got some kind of membership into some shit and I’d get some really cools books and your credit card number please?” I gave her the number.
Ultimately, as Dad shortly thereafter predicted, I basically got a cheesy book in the mail, which explained to me that I have to look in the phonebook and call up police departments and the like to ask when they are having their next auction, and if I could participate. All for the low low price of seventy bucks.
I then immediately finally realized I had been duped. They led me to believe that they were an agency that would inform or invite me to such auctions; in reality, they just wanted to sell crappy books telling you how to do it yourself.
In the end, I got my money back for the books, but I lost out on substantial postage fees.
I could go on about that, but I’ll leave it for another entry. A more important question than who is willing to fool is who has the heart to suffer fools, even able to see the fool in himself.
I’ve kicked myself time and again when I think about how foolish I was. But the best part of that story I’ve told several times before to friends and family. Now, my dad warned me about this sort of thing for years, and I actually should have known better. He was plenty miffed at me because I openly admitted my guilt in that carwreck the year before. But this time, as I was wrapping up those damn books to send back to the craphole they came from, Dad came by, maybe sat down, and said something like “the thing about those kind of scams is that they aim to take advantage of those who are most in need…” then he went on his business. A far cry from a reprimand, it was empathetic, even reconciliatory, and something I will never forget.