Integrity and accountability

A number of my friends forward me all sorts of e-mails, and you need to know that I usually don't even bother to open those that are obviously forwarded to everyone on your mailing list. A few years back my computer crashed, having picked up a virus from one of these messages that had been around the world and back, and Tom spent the better part of all day rebuilding the computer. Some things I lost and never recovered. So I am cautious. If you send me something that is clearly just from you to me, I look at it, of course. And sometimes I forward things myself, I admit. But I don't do the scatter-shot thing.

Anyway, one of the folks who does this is a Carmelite, now in Africa. Most of the time I don't open the messages. I can tell from the subject line that they are just pious ditties or cute pictures of cats or political tirades. Yesterday, however, he did something that I admire and wish others would do.

First, he sent out an email with the title "An Idea Whose Time Has Come." I didn't read it, but just a little later, he sent out another e-mail with the subject line, "A Correction to the Earlier E-mail".

Curious, I looked at it and he said, basically, "I have discovered that the email I sent about [previous topic] is false. If you click on this address, you will learn more about it. I apologize for not checking the facts and for wasting your time."

The site he linked to is one that investigates all sorts of rumors on the internet and points out what is true, what is false, what can be verified and why. It does not just assert that something is true or false: it explains why and it provides verifiable outside sources so you can check up on it. It seems to be fairly neutral as to who it debunks -- liberals, conservatives, religious, atheists or whatever. They could be the old Sgt. Joe Friday on Dragnet: "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."

Anyway, I thought it was very honest, humble and accountable that Gene went online so fast to correct his error. So few people bother to check up on anything, and the internet made something attributed [note my caution!] to Winston Churchill all too true, and all too destructive: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

Sadly, even though Gene did what he could to take the false information back, it is impossible to get it all back.

A Chasidic tale vividly illustrates the danger of improper speech:

A man went about the community telling malicious lies about the rabbi. Later, he realized the wrong he had done, and began to feel remorse. He went to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, saying he would do anything he could to make amends. The rabbi told the man, "Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the rabbi that he had done it, the rabbi said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers."