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- September 24th, 2001
#136 from the "Give Me A Break" department...
How to spell "gall"?
- THE TERRIBLE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11, and the continuing recovery from those events
are all trouble enough without adding insult to injury.
___ As one might expect, any big news story has a way
of bringing out the best in people -- as well as the very worst. The internet then
provides the losers of the world a perfect vehicle to demonstrate their IQ to the
rest of us. In this case, it spawned a wave of evil activities from outright scams
for "donations" to plain stupid, tasteless jokes.
___ One such joke is the photo that circulated yesterday
supposedly recovered from a camera in the rubble, depicting a young man standing
on the observation deck of the World Trade Center. In the background we see a commercial
jet careening straight toward the building below. It was compelling. So compelling,
in fact, that thousands of internet users felt it necessary to email it to their
address list without first taking a closer look.
___ I could see it was a fake, so I replied to that
effect.
Aside from the fact that few cameras would survive the trauma of that fateful day,
if you look closely you'll see the sun, is early morning for the young man, but around
noon for the jet. For all other appearances the photo retouch was well crafted and
would deceive all be the trained eye. Good. But only good enough to make it into
the "Give Me A Break" department.
___ Then, yesterday afternoon a piece was posted to
most of the hoax sites with the official word that the World Trade Center observation
deck was closed on Sept. 11 -- no visitors had been allowed in.
___ Most of the hoaxes surrounding the events of the
times are all so far fetched that no one would believe them. We get a chuckle and
move on. This one however is just too close -- too 'good' to be classified as anything
but very bad taste.
___ In my opinion it took real gall to create this image,
write the story, and send it around the world via email. Someone obviously felt it
was real ... or funny, or maybe sick. So they passed it along.
Now you know how I reacted. How would you react?
Gall: noun - flagrant disregard of courtesy or propriety.
An arrogant assumption of privilege
"Rebuilding"
HERE'S another image that's been floating around. It's an intentional hoax, and
the artist admits it. Somehow it doesn't offend me nearly as much as the image above.
In fact, I kind of like it.
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Fred Showker is a designer, consultant, writer and speaker. He has published 60-Second
Window and DT&G Magazine online since 1990, and is director of The Graphic Design
Network which includes The Design & Publishing Center at www.Graphic-Design.com.
(1994) He was a co-founder of both The User Group Forum on America Online (1987),
The User Group Network at www.User-Groups.net,
(1994) and the Designers' Bookshelf (1996)
He originally founded Showker Graphic Arts & Design in 1972, has been an avid
computer activist and supporter since 1984.
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