I have encouraged all my readers on numerous occasions to do your own research about things you read, hear or see. Not doing so and then being caught out can be embarrassing and none of us are immune to the uh, oh, of being caught up short in your facts, me included.
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa. At dinner last Saturday night I told a story I had picked up from the posting of a friend who has always been fairly exact in his information although to say he is anti-Biden would be rather a gross understatement. Anyway, the story was that while campaigning in Pennsylvania Biden had dropped Punxsutawney Phil and the animal had died from a brain hemorrhage. I should point out the temperature was in the teens outside and we were discussing how much winter there might be in our immediate future.
My friend had said, in his posting, that there was evidence of this fact on the internet. Having failed to do my own fact finding and taking my friend at his word I told those at the table that there was evidence of this on the internet when they, all Biden supporters, challenged me on the facts of the story. Well, my nephew decided to check it out and Lo and Behold it wasn’t Biden at all but the former erstwhile mayor of New York City, De Blasio who dropped, not Punxsutawney Phil but Staten Island Chuck way back in 2014. The rest of the story is true: the woodchuck died of its injuries. I should point out Staten Island Chuck was just a stage name, the woodchuck’s real name was Charlotte and she was a ten month old female.
So, even those of us who preach about facts and checking them before using can sometimes find themselves in discussions where an as yet unchecked fact may carry the day but the argument is eventually lost when that fallacious fact is found out. Better to remain silent and be thought stupid than to speak and prove it.
So, a big time Mea Culpa and next time I’ll try to remember my own words of wisdom.