Check it out

      About 8 years ago, I received an e-mail stating something along the lines of "Target stores do not support veterans."  The body of the e-mail indicated that Target refused to donate money to a veteran’s organization.  Something about it did not ring true and I decided to research it.  I called Target and was referred to their website where there was a posting that explained that the e-mail was completely wrong.  I posted this to my friends who had received the e-mail and resolved to always check any e-mail chains before I decided to share them.

     Eight years later, Facebook has made internet hoaxes even easier to pull off.  Just this week I have seen my friends post as fact items about a pistol packing grandma, a comeuppance delivered to a racist airplane passenger, and a picture supposedly showing President Obama failing to salute the flag.  A quick visit to Snopes revealed all three to be false.  While the first 2 were nice apocryphal stories that were funny or made a strong point, the third was just partisan propaganda designed to make POTUS look like he doesn't respect the flag.  I strongly suggest that before sharing any post from a friend you check it for accuracy so you can say here is a funny story (the grandma) or I hope this would happen in real life (the racist passenger), while indicating that it is not a true story.  In the case of political items, rather than writing  "If this is true it just show that he hates America", how about checking first and not reposting at all.