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March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review April 4, 2008 / 28 Adar II 5768

April is cruel, that's no joke

By Wesley Pruden


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Some of our editors and news producers, adrift in the Sea of Red Ink, seem to think they've found at last the formula for permanent success: "Let's put a lot of fake stories in the paper and on the air."


This is just what newspapers need to reassure readers who don't believe much of what they read, anyway. Some newspapers and television networks have turned to junior-high school journalists for inspiration: the April Fool's joke. Celebrities are yukking it up, too. Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama this week to settle the Pennsylvania primary with a "bowl-off," winner take all. But then she said she was only kidding. Ted Turner told a television interviewer that global warming will turn us all into cannibals. (I think he was April Fooling, but Cap'n Ted plays the fool most of the time.)


The April Fool's joke is more popular abroad, particularly in Britain and Australia. But it's spreading here. The most embarrassing joke on newspaper readers this year was in The Washington Post. A "friend" of Edward M. Gabriel, a business consultant and the former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, bought a $322 "In Memoriam" advertisement in The Post to express his "sadness" at the demise of Mr. Gabriel. "Though I no longer have you as my partner, this day will always be OUR anniversary," wrote Peter Segall, a lawyer and public-relations flack. "I could never quit you."


Mr. Gabriel spent April 1 taking calls from friends and associates, seeking reassurance that he was not, after all, permanently dead. Mr. Segall apologized for what he called an immature mistake by a mature man (an exaggeration, for sure), and Mr. Gabriel says they're still friends, sort of. Some people figure this is what you expect from lawyers and consultants, and they deserve the embarrassment simply because of who they are. That seems harsh, but the real offense is against the readers who still expect that what they read in the newspaper is more or less true.


The London Daily Telegraph, which affects to have the cachet of the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print"), published a story that a colony of penguins had flown thousands of miles from Antarctica to bask in the sun in a South American rain forest, and illustrated the story with BBC footage of a flight of penguins. (Ha, ha.) The London daily Independent reported that a famously dirty-mouthed Sydney chef had opened a restaurant banning profanity after Australian authorities denied on grounds of "decency" his application to open a new restaurant. (Tee, hee.) Google Australia announced that it would introduce a new feature "enabling you to search for content on the Internet before it is created," enabling customers to get "tomorrow's news today," including closing stock quotations and sports results. Giggle, giggle.


Such wit and humor surely deserves a museum, and there is one. The Museum of Hoaxes exists only on the Internet, and Alex Boese (who describes himself as the "hoaxpert") says he has traced April tomfoolery to the late Middle Ages. One of his Top Ten toppers dates from 1957, when the BBC program "Panorama" reported that Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop due to a mild winter and illustrated it with film footage of Swiss peasants pulling spaghetti from trees. Saddam Hussein's lunatic son Uday once ordered his newspaper to report that President Clinton had lifted finally sanctions against Iraq and soon there would be plenty to eat. An editor to emulate, that Uday.


Australian police in Queensland are considering whether to file charges against a woman who called medics this year to say that her baby had fallen off its bed and was not breathing. When two ambulances with paramedics arrived to help the woman met them at the door with a thigh-slapper: "April Fool!"


Not so long ago the penalty for slipping a fake story into the newspaper, on April 1 or any other day, was swift, unforgiving and with extreme prejudice. The Internet, with its insatiable appetite for "content," whether true or not, is changing that. Any lie can look forward to a long life, bouncing across the ether to break hearts and ruin reputations. Reader, beware.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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