"Once upon a time there lived deep in the forest an old old man. He had a little grand-daughter named Pleabitus. She was a lovely little girl with golden curls......" Fact or fiction? True story or fairy tale? You are ALL saying"fairy tale", but how do you know? "I just know!", You yell. "It begins with once upon a time!!!". So how do we judge on the true and made-up for adults? You see, there are tons of "once upon a time" stories being passed about today by e-mail forwards. I have read stories played out as new that I read in some sermon illustration book fifty years ago! Preachers have been known to "once upon a time" once in a while.
Today some "once upon a time" stories are manufactured to do harm to others. Politicians have fabricators working diligently. They become masters of half-truths. News media people have destroyed careers and crops without proof to back their stories. Do tomatoes spread salmonella? Almost a thousand people have become ill, but there is yet to be proof it came from tomatoes. In the meantime the tomato farmers have lost their crops and income.
Then there are the tele-marketing calls: Men calling for this and that law-enforcement agency telling horror stories and then wanting your money. You discover only fifteen per-cent goes to any cause and the rest is pocketed. We have received repeated calls from "someone" telling us our " last chance" has come to renew our extended coverage on our old car. We never had extended coverage! It has 96,000 miles! No one in their right minds would sell us such a coverage. They have "once upon a time" stories.
In the political arena it is heating up again. Stories are passed about on candidates that have no authentication. Be prepared for a possible video showing John McCain enjoying sake' in some plush quarters with his captors while he was a prisoner of war. There will then be one of Obama at some mosque in Mecca honoring Allah! "Once upon a time" stories. Treat them as fairy tales, no matter the source, unless there is authentication.....or just keep on reading and passing on these fairy tales to others.
