Shove a TV camera in front of about anyone,
and it's amazing what comes out of their mouth...
The first words out of that mouth should be:
"Hi! Do you have a signed release from me?"
Sterling K. Webb
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----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Anyone remember this?
In a message dated 5/8/2009 11:25:52 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
I just don't understand how any "expert" could be fooled by that
object in the first place.
MikeG,
It happens ALL the time. And reporter "experts" are sometimes the
worst.
I don't know how reporters can mess up simple facts. If it was
political,
it stands to reason why a reporter would error ALL the time in favor
of
their candidate or topic, but something as benign as meteorites, and
they
still mess things up.
We should have a media "Hall of Shame" website devoted to chronicling
all
the meteorite mistakes as they happen!
Here is the scenario:
Geologist at the nearest Junior College gets a call from a reporter
with
the "facts": "Man has hole in his roof, with a metal rock on the
floor
under the hole. Fairly certain it is a meteorite, what do you
think?" Expert,
walking between classes he is teaching: "Does a magnet stick to this
so
called 'meteorite'?" Reporter: "Yes, strongly."
Expert, choking on his coffee: "Sounds like it is the real deal, can
I see
it?"
With TV cameras rolling, 2 hours later the expert arrives at the
scene,
with fresh images of meteorites in his head that he found on Google
just
before he headed out of the office, he is handed the object and he
says...
We all know what he says. Just read the quotes.
That is how it happens.
The universe is now rotating around him instead of the sun for a few
days
and his head is spinning on his great fortune. He starts swerving
over
into other areas of expertise like Financial Advising, telling the
finder not
to be suckered into selling his meteorite too cheap to the first
greedy
dealer that comes along to rip him off.
Or he goes the other way and tells the finder, that if he donates the
rock
to his institution, that all the positive PR this will generate for
his
school will help him get on that tenured track he is coveting. Oh
wait, he
THINKS that, he actually tells the finder that only science will find
the
mysteries of the universe locked in his rock if he gives it to the
school,
and that if a dealer gets it instead, it will only be cut into
pieces.
He starts thinking about the grant money he can get when he writes the
paper on it. Maybe he will get to speak at the Rotary Luncheon? Even
now his
students that laugh at him will HAVE to respect him.
I could go on, about how "science" will have to look at the donated
object
through glass, as the committee at the school responsible for it
won't
allow it to ever be cut...but I won't.
Shove a TV camera in front of about anyone, and it amazing what comes
out
of their mouth sometimes.
Steve Arnold
**************Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you
now.
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000006)
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