Ben Stein

It is the time of year that an email hoax gets passed around (see the whole email toward the end of this post) with a commentary attributed to Ben Stein. The last half of the commentary wasn’t written by Ben Stein. I confirmed this by writing directly to Mr. Stein back in June 2006 and he was kind enough to answer my email.

The commentary in the email in regard to Anne Graham Lotz is also in error, putting words in her mouth which she didn’t say. The email makes it look like Stein is misquoting Lotz when he didn’t write about her at all.

This is what Mr. Stein wrote in December 2005, which you can also read on his Web site.

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Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It’s not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

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Anne Graham Lotz

Ben didn’t write a word about Anne Lotz. Whoever wrote the part of the email part about Lotz (Billy Graham’s daughter) seriously misrepresented her too. Lotz was interviewed September 13, 2001 by Jane Clayson on the Early Show about the 9-11 terrorist attacks (not Hurricane Katrina as the email says). Only one paragraph in the email comes from the interview with Anne Lotz.

Lotz made no reference to Madalyn Murray O’Hair (O’Hair’s first and last names are misspelled in the original email) or Dr. Benjamin Spock. Lotz made none of the comments in the “FUNNY HOW” litany. These statements were all lifted from another source. Incidentally, Dr. Spock’s son did not commit suicide, so the author of the email had no problem with making things up to suit their own agenda.

The transcript of the interview with Anne Graham Lotz is here and a link to the Lotz interview is also at Snopes.com. The transcript is also reproduced below.

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One version of the erroneous email reads like this.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?

I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are.

If this is what it means to be no longer young. It’s not so bad.

Next confession:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution, and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But,if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

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Transcript from The Early Show:

NEW YORK — Anne Graham Lotz is the second daughter of Billy Graham. She has stepped in her father’s footsteps and formed a ministry that is based in Raleigh, N.C. She calls herself a Bible teacher. She is not an ordained minister.

Her father has called her “the best preacher in the family”. She spoke with Early Show’s Jane Clayson on Sept. 13 to offer some comfort to the families of the terror victims.

Jane Clayson: We’ve turned to your father, the reverend Billy Graham, so often in times of national crisis. What are his thoughts about what happened on Tuesday?

Anne Graham Lotz: I turned to him also. In fact, I called him last night after you all called to arrange for this. He’s reacting like a lot of Christians around the country, we’re all praying. I think about those people you just showed. I wasn’t sure I’d be in control when you came on because it just provoked such emotion to see these people carrying pictures of their loved ones and knowing they don’t know if they’re alive or dead.

And at a time like that, I know the families and the friends of the victims can hardly even pray for themselves. They don’t know what to say or how to pray. I want to say to them – families and friends of the victims, that there are thousands of people in this country who are carrying you in prayer right now. And we’re praying for you with hearts filled with compassion and grief and just interceding on your behalf, asking the God of all peace and the God of all comfort to come down in a special way into your life and meet your needs at this time. My father and mother are also praying like that.

Jane Clayson: The pain is incomprehensible for so many of these people. At a time like this it is so easy to lose faith. How do you keep faith, Mrs. Lotz at a time like this?

Anne Graham Lotz: I think it is almost easier to have faith because we have nothing else in some ways. I’ve watched as this nation has turned to prayer. We’ve seen prayer vigils. And in our city, we have prayer vigils. And so I thing it is a time to turn to God…. Our nation has been hit and devastated by this day of terror and now I believe it is our choice as a nation as to whether we’re going to implode and just disintegrate emotionally and spiritually or whether we’ll make the choice to be stronger. I think right now, we have the opportunity to come through this spiritually stronger than we’ve been in the past because we turn to God.

Jane Clayson: I’ve heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God less this happen? To that, you say?

Anne Graham Lotz: I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we’re sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.

Jane Clayson: So many people have called this an act of war. Has he expressed anything about what a proper response for an attack like this should be?

Anne Graham Lotz: No. I’ve tried to be very careful. I don’t ever answer for my father. But I believe in the next few days you’re going to be seeing him and hearing from him and perhaps he will express some of those things.

Jane Clayson: As a spiritual adviser, how would you define the feelings right now?

Anne Graham Lotz: I was watching television the first day and interviewed a construction worker that who had been an eyewitness through all of this in a building next to the World Trade Center. He said, I’ve seen planes hit this building, people falling out of the sky. He said, my heart is in my throat. I feel like I would say the same thing. You almost don’t have thoughts to articulate. Your heart is in your throat. You can hardly stand it. You’re numb.

For myself, I fall back on my faith in God and the foundation, speaking of those buildings, as an illustration of America, our foundation is our faith in God and the structure we build on that foundation is what enables us to endure something like this.

…I believe God also knows what it is like to lose a loved one, gave his only son on a cross. He knows what it is like to see a loved one die a horrific death. He’s emotionally involved in our pain and he has the answers to us and he can bring comfort beyond human understanding.

Jane Clayson: There’s such a feeling of helplessness among so many. They don’t know what to do beyond giving blood, beyond writing a check to help those in need. What would be your recommendation as a spiritual adviser?

Anne Graham Lotz: I thought governor Keating said it right when you asked him. He said pray. I believe we need to pray. As Christians, we need to pray for people who can’t pray for themselves right now. I believe we need to call out to God and ask him to forgive our sins and heal our land. God is greater than sometimes we think of him and he can solve this, give us answer, give us wisdom, lead us through this in a way that makes us stronger as a nation but we have to turn to him.

Jane Clayson: This event has changed us forever. I know you believe that. Going forward, as a nation, what do you say about that?

Anne Graham Lotz: Well, I pray that God will use this event to change us forever in a positive way. And that will strengthen our faith in him. I thought of all those people who have died in this tragedy. It doesn’t matter right now what political affiliation they had or what denomination they belong to or what religion or what the color of their skin was or their stock portfolio.

What matters is their relationship with God. I would like to see Americans begin to focus on some of the primary things and some of the things that are more important than just, you know, entertainment and pleasure and making more money.

You can read the story about Bill Biggart’s last images and see an album of his last photos at The Digital Journalist.

You can see other 9-11 photo albums by Chip East, Peter Turnley, David Turnley, and Aris Economopoulos.

U.S. Flags. Westerville Ohio.

Eponine, mortally wounded, dies in Marius’ arms.

A beautiful song performed by Lea Salonga and Michael Ball.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it was It was their dream since they were childhood friends to go on an adventure to Paradise Falls in Venezuela (hence the jar and the adventure book), but . . . . .

Freedom from Want, Painting © Norman Rockwell

That reliability has been attacked in, you guessed it, yet another email that has been making the rounds.  Despite being discredited, this email, filled with misinformation, continues to float around the internet and arrived recently in my inbox.

It reads as follows:

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READER SENDS:
Snopes.com is not giving the whole story!
I always suspected David and Barbara Mikkelson who were behind “Snopes” were Obama and liberal oriented –now we know!!
Go to Google!!
Who watches the watchers?
Please read it all to the bottom!
Guess we have to use “Truth or Fiction” now ..
For the past few years www.snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the ‘tell-all final word’ on any comment, claim and email . But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com
Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it – kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding . Well, finally we know .. It is run by a husband and wife team – that’s right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers .
It’s just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby ..
David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago – and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research .
After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation?
The reason for the questions – or skepticisms – is a result of snopes.com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong .
Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the ‘true’ bottom of various issues ..
A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obamaand made a big splash across the Internet, ‘supposedly’ the Mikkelson’s claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com . In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ‘ever’ took place .
I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg’s contact phone numbers – and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec’s at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it .
He never called Bud . In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm . Yet, snopes.com http://snopes.com/ issued a statement as the ‘final factual word’ on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things – not!
Then it has been learned the Mikkelson’s are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal .
As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative .There has been much criticism lately over the Internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson’s liberalism revealing itself in their web site findings ..
Gee, what a shock?
So, I say this now to everyone who goes to snopes.com to get what they think to be the bottom line facts . . . ‘proceed with caution .
Take what it says at face value and nothing more ..
Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself .
Plus, you can always Google a subject and do the research yourself .It now seems apparent that’s all the Mikkelson’s do .
After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their ‘not’ fully looking into things .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes.com
I have found this to be true also!
Many videos of Obama I tried to verify on Snopes and they said they were False . . . . Then they gave their Liberal slant . . . .. !!! I have suspected some problems with snopes for some time now, but I have only caught them in half-truths . If there is any subjectivity they do an immediate full left rudder . www.truthorfiction.com A better source for verification, in my opinion .
I have recently discovered that Snopes . com is owned by a flaming liberal and this man is in the tank for Obama . There are many things they have listed on their site as a hoax and yet you can go to Youtube yourself and find the video of Obama actually saying these things . So you see, you cannot and should not trust Snopes . com . . . . ever for anything that remotely resembles truth! I don’t even trust them to tell me if email chains are hoaxes anymore ..
A few conservatives told me about snopes.com a few months ago and I took it upon myself to do a little research to find out if it was true ..
Well, I found out for myself that it is true .
Anyway just FYI please don’t use Snopes . com anymore for fact checking and make your friends aware of their political leanings as well .
Many people still think Snopes.com is neutral and they can be trusted as factual ..
We need to make sure everyone is aware: that Snopes is a hoax in itself .

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The above email has been researched and debunked by this article at FactCheck.org.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

The article is worth reading.

FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania and is a highly respected web site.

Ironically, further proof that the above email is wrong is contained in the Wikipedia link in the email.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes.com. The Wikipedia article validates the reliability of Snopes.com and lists lots os sites that refer to Snopes.com as a reliable source of information, inclusinf the article at FactCheck.org:

FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

National Public Radio

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4819108

Reader’s Digest

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/rumor-detectives-true-story-or-online-hoax/article122216.html

Network World

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/40861/

CNN

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/03/rec.false.rumors/index.html

Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226223,00.html

MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17798063/

Common Sense Media

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/website-reviews/snopes

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/technology/05snopes.html

San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/07/DD242504.DTL

Congress.org

http://www.congress.org/news/2009/11/30/six_tips_from_snopescom_on_emails

The National Review

http://old.nationalreview.com/seipp/seipp200407210830.asp

Snopes.com continues to be a well researched, highly respected source of information amidst the sea of information that makes up the internet.

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929. He was a Baptist minister and a prominent civil rights advocate. King was the youngest person to receive a Nobel Peace Prize when it awarded to him in 1964. He was assassinated April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

One of his most famous speeches was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial August 28, 1963. Often referred to as the “I have a dream” speech, it is one of the most significant and powerful speeches of the 20th century. A portion of the speech follows. Links to the full speech and an audio file are at the end of this post.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” **

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

Martin Luther King, Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

**Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because King’s rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., “hill” and “mountain” are reversed in the KJV). King’s rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.

The complete text and a downloadable audio file of the whole speech can be found at American Rhetoric.