Urban Legends: Fact or fiction

Urban legends, according to Snopes.com, are "...narratives which put our fears and concerns into the form of stories or are tales which we use to confirm the rightness of our world view."

A good example of these urban legends might be the stories springing up during this election cycle about the two candidates for president. One need only look at the stories surround Barack Obama's education in Malaysia to find an urban legend about his being a student in a Madrasa, a conservative Muslim school. How do these stories come about? Often this is specifically related to how people view the world.

Another example is the apocryphal story of the woman in the grocery story who pays with food stamps and then drives away in a Cadillac. Either this story is mere legend or there are many such ladies in existence.

Other urban legends are just plain scary. And that is often the point.

Common urban legends go from the very scary to the sublime.

• Bloody Mary. Chanting Bloody Mary thirteen times summons a ghost out for vengeance. Ask a 6th grade girl; they'll tell you all about it.

• Lipstick on the mirror. A middle school principal, in a desire to stop the girls from kissing the mirror and leaving lipstick stains, gathers them together. The custodian shows how he cleans the mirror every night by dipping mop in toilet and then using that to clearn the mirror. Stops the girls.

• The U.S. government gives tax vacations for recent immigrants. They do not have to pay taxes for seven years. Not only that, but the government gives them many free things (cars, housing, clothing).

• President Bush refused to sell a house to Black people in 1995. This is a good example of a partial truth. While the sub-division in which he lived did have a racial covenant against selling to African-Americans, the Supreme Court had long before made it illegal and it was doubtful that the future president would have even known of its existence.

If you find these interesting, I encourage you to take Snopes.com for enlightening reading.

There are a number of reasons that urban legends refuse to die. These include:

• Even when proved not true, the stories continue to spread.

• I'm right and you're wrong. So, nyeah!

• The stories seem plausible if you are in the right mindset to believe them.

• They confirm a person's worldview. Truth is secondary.