{"id":7,"date":"2006-02-10T15:00:40","date_gmt":"2006-02-10T21:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2006\/02\/10\/lose-friends-and-not-influence-people\/"},"modified":"2006-02-13T13:58:04","modified_gmt":"2006-02-13T19:58:04","slug":"lose-friends-and-not-influence-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/02\/lose-friends-and-not-influence-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Lose Friends and Not Influence People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s how. At least it works for me. When old friends e-mail you with the latest scare, tell them — no, prove to them — they’re full of baloney.<\/p>\n

E-mail panics and their close cousins e-chain letters usually come from folks who live out of town. Why e-mail in town? Actually, a lot of my group e-mails, even when we’re across the street or with work folks, adjacent desks. It makes sense when it happens. But with the Rumors, it’s invariably from those who moved away, or you moved away from their town. Don’t know, can’t explain.<\/p>\n

I would like to say that when I get an e-mail about the newest computer virus, or a boycott campaign against a U.S. corporation for mocking treasured American symbols, that I want to help. I’ll send the report to everyone on my e-mail address book, and to convince the skeptical among them, I’ll fact-check a little. I am a journalist after all, and with evidence, my recipients will be thoroughly convinced.<\/p>\n

Then I check, using snopes.com<\/a> or the hoax page<\/a> from Symantec.com. To my surprise, the sender has sent me a false rumor. It then is my obligation to not only tell them, but to hit “reply all” so everyone they told realize this one, at least, is bogus.<\/p>\n

Or, maybe, I have gotten so many such e-mails from friends that I routinely run the key words of the report in the above sites, and 100 percent of the time — going back the dozen-plus years that a computer has been in my home — none of these has been true. None.<\/p>\n

Maybe I am tired of the gullibility of people I thought knew better. And chain mail in any form does not bring luck of any sort; it’s medieval and pathetic. I certainly don’t want to embarrass them, but as I write time and time again to them, in exploding these things, this world has real problems, terrors and fears. Why not work on those and recognize garbage for what it is?<\/p>\n

Most of my long-distance friends have quit e-mailing me these. I would like to think that they now understand from me, and others who also tell them they’ve been had, the e-mail scares they send on always are bogus and that they have quit sending them on. I have a feeling though that I’ve simply been deleted off their list of friends they want to help with “facts” the media have been intimidated from publishing but that they have, and on good authority. -30-<\/p>\n

<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s how. At least it works for me. When old friends e-mail you with the latest scare, tell them — no, prove to them — they’re full of baloney. E-mail panics and their close cousins e-chain letters usually come from folks who live out of town. Why e-mail in town? Actually, a lot of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/02\/bowling-in-league\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":0},"title":"Bowling in league","author":"Ben S. 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Facebook is not all feel-good happy talk but controversy and deliberate negativity get moved down and out quickly -- posts get \"hidden\" and friends become \"unfriended.\" My last weekend\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Loose Talk of the Town"","block_context":{"text":"Loose Talk of the Town","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/loose-talk-of-town\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3506,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/02\/my-friend-jeff-zaslow\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":2},"title":"My Friend Jeff Zaslow","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When you're middle-aged, what the hell is a friend, anyway? Some of my favorite people I see for one long weekend every year, a conference. In between there will be a handful of emails and, these days, rather more frequently, single-sentence repartee on Facebook. I often have met their spouses,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Columnist Jeff Zaslow (right) and professor Randy Pausch","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/randy-and-jeff1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":195,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/06\/call-for-mail\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":3},"title":"Call for mail","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This thought I swear just came to me, but it's so good it cannot be original. To whom to attribute it? Anonymous gets the best ones, and this isn't quite that so how about George Carlin? Why is it that the check always is in the mail, but bills never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":257,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/01\/shut-up-he-explained\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":4},"title":"“Shut up, he explained.”","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In slightly expanded context, from Ring Lardner: \"Are you lost daddy I arsked tenderly. \"Shut up he explained.\" It seemed reasonable to wait for the blogs to calm, and then some. It took nearly two weeks, an eternity on the Ether. The topic is what was meant by the Tuesday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":266,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/01\/death-by-editing\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":5},"title":"Death by Edit","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A news release from the public relations office of the University of Arkansas, the \"University Relations,\" recently announced that noted writer Ellen Gilchrist, of the UA Creative Writing and Translation Program, had an essay published in last November's Smithsonian Magazine, \"Watching Water Run: My Kind of Town.\" The essay is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}