Fountain Pens and Numbskulls

Before I get into the meat of today's posting, please note that I have changed the title of the blog to make it clear that it is yours as well as mine.  Please, then, make use of it.  Poetry, political views, short stories,  essays, book and restaurant reviews, and even photographs are welcome.   From all of you!  Okay?  And now, let's get on with this posting!


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I saw a TV commercial the other day.  I guess it was a failure because for the life of me, I cannot remember what was being advertised.   In it, two men were dueling, one with a sword, the other unarmed.  The weaponless guy was approached by a delivery man who gave him a small package and offered him a pen with which he signed for it.  Quickly opening it, he took out a small pistol with which he shot his opponent who was lunging at him with his sword.  The ad illustrated the old adage that “the pen is mightier than the sword” implying that what a pen produces, words (in the ad, a signature), can lead to the defeat of otherwise superior weaponry.

In the “old days,” we used fountain pens which we filled with ink, usually Parker “Quink” or the less expensive Waterman’s Blue-Black.  The pens themselves were Esterbrooks, Schaeffers, Parkers, Eversharps or some inexpensive nameless brand or possibly a Waterman which usually leaked ink onto your fingers.  I remember using a maroon Eversharp for years, and I still maintain a loyalty to its manufacturer, Eversharp-Schick, by using their razors today.  But fountain pens disappeared when Reynolds-International (“writes high in the sky in a plane”) introduced ball point pens shortly after World War II.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that back in elementary school days, there used to be an inkwell in the upper right hand corner of every desk and we used wooden pens into which a metallic pen point had been inserted.  After every few sentences written, the pen had to be dipped into the inkwell.  These were the pens which “fountain” pens replaced.

But getting back to the point (the one I was about to make, not the one at the end of a pen), we don’t write with pens much anymore.  Increasingly, we do our writing at a computer keyboard, as I am now doing.  So, is it too much of a stretch to change the old adage to “the computer keyboard is mightier than the sword” or more precisely, “the computer is mightier than the sword.”?

Of course, a sword or a gun for that matter can kill a person … but its effect is limited to that one person.  An Email sent via the internet to 50 people, with a request that each of them pass it on to others, who in turn will do the same, can quickly reach thousands of people.  Sometimes the Email may be innocuous but often, it may carry a potent political, social or economic message, which may or may not be true.

I receive an Email every few years which starts out with pictures of General Eisenhower visiting freed inmates of concentration camps at the end of WW II.  The implied message is that we should never forget what happened during the Holocaust.  The Email then jumps to point out that Holocaust studies have actually been banned right here in the United States at the University of Kentucky.  Of the thousands of recipients of these Emails, few bother to question their facts and accept the fact that we are forgetting the Holocaust and at least one major American university, its study has been banned.

The facts (according to www.snopes.com where all such stories should be checked out) are that a few years ago, a teacher in a school in an English city decided to drop the Holocaust from what  he was teaching to his mostly Muslim "inner-city" social studies class.  When the government found out about this, they reinstated the original curriculum immediately.  Of course, this was too late to prevent newspapers from carrying stories with the headline “Holocaust Studies Banned in UK.”  This is a correct headline since the classroom where they were “banned” (a slight exaggeration) was indeed in the United Kingdom, but it didn’t tell the full story of what happened and of the reinstatement of the curriculum.  The headline was then picked up in the United States by numbskulls who didn’t know what UK stood for, and probably being basketball fans, assumed it meant the University of Kentucky.  And that’s how incorrect information is spread via the internet.   Ultimately that university’s President had to issue a formal statement debunking the story.  I expect to again receive that same Email in the future, and when I do, I will point out the truth to the sender, as I have done in the past to its prior senders.  What bothers me is that the sender probably sent it to 50 other people besides me, many of whom probably passed it on to others, and the person who sent it on to me was also probably part of a group of perhaps 50 recipients of the erroneous Email, all of whom passed it on as well.  How do you stop something like this?

And speaking of the Holocaust, Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day, falls on May 1 this year.  I have received at least three lengthy Emails urging me to observe this holiday this year on April 20, and to pass the information on to everyone I know. One of these was actually from a Rabbi whose High Holiday services I have attended in the past.  The numbskull who started this Email, possibly the same one who didn’t know what UK stood for in the Email discussed above, was unaware that the holiday’s date on our calendar varies from year to year,  The observance of Yom Hashoah takes place every year on the 27^th day of the month of Nissan on the Hebrew calendar, as fixed by the Knesset in Israel some years ago.  This year, as I have pointed out, that Hebrew calendar date falls on May 1 of our calendar.  Two years ago, however, it fell on April 20.  Mr. Numbskull apparently took a 2009 Email and just changed the year to 2011 leaving the date as April 20.  I expect thousands of American Jews to show up at synagogues on that date, looking for an observance which won’t occur.for ten more days.  I suggest they bring a sandwich or two with them and a thermos of tea.   How do you stop something like this?

Really though, Emails like this don’t do very much harm.  But they illustrate the very wide distribution which the passing on of incorrect information can involve.  When the subject is more serious, such as questioning whether the President of the United States was born in this country and is holding office illegitimately, it becomes more important.  Emails like that can affect our country's future, since the unspoken aim of such communications is to unseat President Obama.  
 
I will be addressing that subject in greater detail in future postings, but for the time being, here is a copy of Barack Obama’s "Certification of Live Birth" for your review as well as a reproduction of his birth announcement printed a few days later in the Honolulu Advertiser.  There is a lot of false information on the internet concerning these items which many people, including Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, believe or at least choose not to question.  Future postings on this blog will leave you better informed than either of these two potential Republican Presidential candidates, but that really isn't saying very much.


(This is not an original birth certificate, but a "certification" by the State of Hawaii that one exists in their files, which I believe were converted to microfilm some years ago.  It is accepted for passports, drivers' licenses and such items, and is embossed  with a State seal.)

(This announcement from the Honolulu Advertiser was not placed by the family.  It is from a listing which the State, when they recorded a birth, automatically published in the local papers.)

Jack Lippman