I Need a Cape

I've decided I'm going to attempt to slide my middle aged body into a spangly leotard and proclaim myself a Superhero. I am now The Truth Avenger.

I have no intention of inflicting revenge for ridiculous lies with any sort of violence, I'm a peaceful kinda girl.

Instead I hope to avenge the truth by ensuring that folks who carelessly spread lies and rumors are outed as idiots.

I have received multiple e-mail rumors in my inbox this week that were completely untrue.

Most of these emails had been forwarded to literally hundreds of people without the sender checking to make sure it was factually based before they passed it along. This irks me.

There are multiple websites that specialize in fact checking. If you have the Internet capacity to send an e-mail, you can just as easily click a fact check website to see if a rumor is true or false before sending it to your 200 closest friends.

The first e-mail rumor I got said the ACLU was making all military cemeteries remove crosses from their headstones... Since I happen to live in a Navy town and drive past the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery from time to time and see miles of crosses on headstones, I thought that sounded like a lie. With a quick click on http://www.snopes.com/ I found the facts; the e-mail was false. I replied to my friend and cc'ed the other 200 people she sent it to with a link to the facts. She might think I am a beyotch now rather than a superhero, but I like the truth more than I like anyone.

The next e-mail rumor I got was the oft repeated "Obama doesn't have a U.S. Birth Certificate." Every time I get this one, my eyes start rolling. Seriously- if the guy wasn't a U.S. citizen do you think the entire G.O.P machine and the Clinton's wouldn't have uncovered that during the primary season of 2008?

But since the rumor persists, I diligently clicked on http://www.factcheck.org/ and replied back to my friend and all the cc'd victims with the link that had a copy of Obama's birth certificate with the raised seal, along with the birth notice that was posted in the Honolulu paper from 1961 thinking they'd say "Oh, thanks for letting us know."

But no, instead they said "That could have all been faked!" Sigh.* I put those people up there with the ones who think the Holocaust never happened and the Moon Landing was filmed in some guys' basement.

Why would they choose to believe in some vast conspiracy rather than factual evidence?

Because the lie suited them better. They preferred the fallacy to the facts because the lie was more in line with their viewpoint. The truth would have forced them to reevaluate their beliefs if they took it to heart. That my friends, is hate. "We hate this guy so much we'd rather believe lies about him than the facts."

Geek that I am, instead of having bumper stickers with designer logos on my car trumpeting the brand of handbag I buy, I have a quote by Thomas Paine:

“It is an affront to the truth to treat falsehood with complaisance.”

Enough for now, my Superhero leotard is very uncomfortable. - Tammy Lou

Is this Heaven? No, it's Hockeytown

Tuesday of this week was Game 4 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoff match up between the Phoenix Coyotes and the Detroit Red Wings. In these parts (i.e. metro Detroit), Red Wing hockey is a blue collar religion of sorts. The game I'm referring to had a 6:30pm start and for someone who works downtown, it was the perfect storm of hockey playoff possibilities. I started trolling for tickets as soon as my feet hit the ground at the Renaissance Center. I was asking around and touching base with my friends in high and low places in between work meetings, answering emails and the general daily mayhem that is OnStar.

I must admit it was a pretty stressful day, but in a good way. As luck would have it, the possibility of a pair of tickets fell into my lap and I went about scheming how to get one of my kids downtown to attend the game. I needed to have one of them come down as I'm part of a van pool and didn't have a ride home after the game. After much consternation, neither of my kids was able to come down. A colleague suggested that I ask my friend Jeff who is a lifelong metro Detroit resident and a long time Red Wing fan. That was the perfect solution! He normally comes to work in the same van pool as me, but had to drive down himself that day. He was able to go and after some effort to get the tickets from the seller, we were able to meet over at The Joe and head into the game.

It was a tense affair for most of the game with the Wings leading 1-0 in the third period. However, they scored a couple of quick goals and The Joe was rocking like no other sporting event I had ever attended. Talking to Jeff during the game, I found out that this was his first playoff game. That fact alone was enough to make it a memorable occasion and worth the price of admission. The 3-0 win was just icing on the cake and the end to a perfect day in Detroit. As we were walking back to the RenCen in the Jefferson Avenue tunnel waving our pom-poms at passersby, a question popped into my head, "Is this Heaven?". The answer came quickly, "No, it's Hockeytown."

So we decided to start this blog...

Through Facebook I've become reacquainted with quite a few High School classmates. As a result, I've discovered a lot of kinship with one Tammy Lou W.. We discovered we had similar tastes in everything from music to religion and politics and decided to start this blog. This is a humble beginning to what I hope becomes an interesting and entertaining blog.

It's been said "an average woman uses 7000 words a day and an average man uses 2000 words a day." Let's just see how accurate that really is.

Peace,
Thug Nation