I don?t usually borrow stuff from the Internet to use in this column, figuring a lot of you have already seen the material, plus I haven?t put in my full quota of perspiration if I just copy.
But, twice this week, I?ve received information I didn?t know about that involves the personal safety and health of us all. I took it at its word and sent it along to the beautiful daughter, who reminded me of something I have heard about but never used ? Snopes.
Snopes.com is an ?urban legends reference page.?
If you have questions about the legitimacy of information someone sends you, Snopes will tell you if it is fact or fiction.
Back when I was working in the Sun office, we?d get some columns turned in or letters sent, warning of all kinds of things. Tales of terrible happenings. The little boy whose penis was cut off in a mall restroom. The lady who got bitten by a spider from a bunch of bananas. The other person who was bitten by a different kind of spider lurking in a commode.
Everybody wanted to know why we had not had anything about these terrible happenings in the paper.
The reason was they were not true. I tracked down one of them myself, calling the person who told me the story, then the person who told that person and so on, until I got to a person who would not answer me and hung up the phone.
That was a pretty good indication the story was an urban legend.
The two latest are safety warnings, sent by different folks. The BD reminded me we now have Snopes.com, making it easy to check on the reality of different stories.
The first part of the newest warning is true. Don?t get out of the car, start the pump, get back in the car and then get out again when the pump quits.
You generate static electricity, which can cause a spark in the gasoline fumes. If you do get in and out, touch the metal of the car to ground yourself before touching the pump handle.
The second part of the warning turns out to be myth, according to Snopes. It involves using a cell phone while pumping gas or having the cell phone close to the gas nozzle. Snopes authorities say cell phones don?t create sparks to ignite gasoline.
I say, stop talking on your cell phone so much, especially when you are driving the car.
Next was what seemed like a legitimate concern, one I have heard before and certainly will probably hear again.
It purportedly comes from Johns Hopkins University, according to the e-mail.
It says plastic wrap and plastic containers, under certain conditions, release dioxins into food and water. Dioxins are cancer-causing. They are released by a microwave oven into food covered by the wrap, for instance.
Snopes says this is not so.
Snopes also says the rest of the report ? which cautions people not to put plastic water bottles in the freezer ? is also false.
I started out leery of this report, because it didn?t tell how much, or how many, dioxins, it would take to give us cancer.
If you want to go searching around in Snopes.com, you can find out lots of interesting things. If you?ve recently received a long list of advantages to water versus Coca Cola, look up Coke and you will learn most of the bad things you read are false.
You will also learn it is perfectly true that Coke used to contain cocaine.
http://news.galvestondailynews.com/stor ... 8f56c4ca6b
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