Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Check memes with Snopes.com

My American brother and his wife put me on to Snopes.com, a service that sources and corrects rumours that spread through the Internet. One example is a very sharp, funny diatribe on the Middle East, allegedly by Dennis Miller, but actually adapted from this 2002 article by Larry Miller.

What have I learned?
  • Meme alterations tend to add spite - compare the original with its viral successor
  • I should include Snopes and Larry Miller in my blogroll

In the piece concerned, I particularly liked the imagined reversal of position between Jews and Arabs. I'm always grateful for a mental flip that lends me a new perspective.

2 comments:

yoyomo said...

If the theft of Palestine by European colonists was no big deal to get all riled up over, why was it deemed so urgent to destroy Iraq when it tried to reclaim Kuwait (which was part of Basra province before the the British occupation detached it so they could maintain a naval base there)?

Your mental perspective is strictly Anglo-centric imperialistic, mighty whitey makes the rules and all others must bow down and obey. Enjoy IT while you still can, IT will not be long for this world.

Sackerson said...

"Your mental perspective is strictly Anglo-centric imperialistic, mighty whitey makes the rules and all others must bow down and obey."

I fear you have completely miusunderstood the point of this post. Its contents also give you no information relating to my ethnic and religious profile, nor my opinion (even if I should have one) about Iraq and/or imperialism.

It seem that you have arrivd on Blogger only this January. Perhaps you will begin your own blog sometime, and then we may learn more about each other.