Fake News? Snake News?

 

 

—Poetry by Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH
—Public Domain Photos

 

 

 

October 26, 1825

Begun on the Fourth of July eight years earlier
at a place about a third of the way
from what would be its eastern end,
a three-hundred-sixty-three-mile-long
artificial waterway,
                            the Erie Canal,
opened up today’s complete length
Lake Erie and the rest of the Great Lakes
were now connected to the Atlantic Ocean
in a "Wedding of the Waters"
Clinton's Folly and The Big Ditch
were epithets retired on this day
The mountains had been surmounted,
and the country,
                        which had
already come close to separating a few times,
was knit together at a cost of seven million dollars
and a thousand-or-more lives
(no one kept an accurate count)
When the country was knit back together
after an attempted separation decades later
it would cost hundreds of times more
both in money and in lives

 

 

 

 

August 25, 1835

FAKE NEWS!!

It may not have been born on this day,
and it may not have had that name yet,
but it reached its apotheosis today
with the first (and subsequent) of a series of articles
in a New York newspaper, the Sun,
telling of great discoveries on the Moon
made by a famous astronomer
who had built a new telescope
far stronger than anything then existing,
enabling him to see things
no one had ever seen before
The astronomer reported his findings,
                                                       which
included man-bat inhabitants
and much topographical detail
in the Edinburgh Journal of Science,
which had made its way across the ocean

The series was such a success
that the Sun became the biggest-circulation
newspaper in the entire world;
                                             plus,
they sold thousands of copies of a pamphlet
containing nothing but the already-published articles,
enriching the paper's owner a great deal,
enriching the article writer a good bit too,
though not as much as the publisher

Of course,
not a word of it was true:
the cited journal had been defunct
for three years (unknown to the hoaxer),
                                                           while
the famous astronomer was, conveniently,
almost eight thousand miles away
and thus not in a position
to be questioned in a timely manner
about his “discoveries”

The first lesson for success had been demonstrated:
as long as you sound like you know what you're talking about,
you don't have to actually know what you're talking about

A second lesson had been demonstrated
(one still applicable today):
for best success financially
be sure to market your fiction as fact

There would later be claims by the perpetrators
(and their many apologists)
that the articles were satire and not a hoax,
but that was retroactive BS,
                                          belied
by their repeated attempts to evade discovery
They should have embraced the hoax;
                                                         after all,
when your hoax draws the admiration
of Barnum and Poe,
you know you've made the big time

 

 

 

 

December 9, 1921

The Angel of Death,
                               aka
The Angel of Brain Damage and Developmental Delays,
appeared in the guise of science today
Real name:  Thomas Midgley,
                                             and
today he told his bosses at GM
he had discovered an additive to gasoline
that would prevent engine knocking:
                                                       TEL,
short for Tetraethyl Lead
And the world's collective intelligence
has declined ever since

____________________

—Today’s LittleNip:

The distinction between reality and fiction in America seems like it is becoming really blurry. With its religious fanaticism, reality TV programs and fake news broadcasts being aired by the government, the States feel like they are entering the Dark Ages.

—Dana Schultz, Painter

____________________

—Medusa, thanking Michael Ceraolo for his interesting poetry today! Michael is working on another collection. 

Snake oil?? Eek!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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