Rover

Απο την μια υπαρχει ενα μεγάλο μερος των μελων οι οποιοι ασχολουνται (σκοπος ζωής θα ελεγα) με το πώς θα κάνουν τους "αλλους" να σκεφθουν διαφορετικά.
Συλογη "αποδεικτικών" στοιχειων απο τους μεν και τους δε με σκοπό ΤΙ?
Εν μερει κάποιοι εχουν δικιο στα γραφομενα τους αλλα εχουν και μια "απολυτη" συμπεριφορά.

Νομίζω οτι διασταυρονωντας "πληροφορίες" θα βγει κατι καλό και όχι με "βομβαρδισμούς".

Ωρες ώρες αναρωτιέμαι που κολάει ο τίτλος Μύθος & Θρησκεία...

μήπως ο τίτλος "Εθνικοί VS Χριστιανοι" θα ηταν καλυτερος?

υ.γ δεν ειμαι με κανέναν, ειμαι με εμενα...

* ιδιατερο ενδιαφέρον στην προτελευταια παραγραφο.
υ.γ(οσο αφορα για τους "συγγενεις" στο site ειναι λιγακι λυπηρο να εχουμε τετοιους ανθρωπους αναμεσα μας, συγνωμη για τα σκληρα λογια αλλα ετσι ακριβως νιωθω)

Medical Urban Legends - 'Someone stole my Kidney!'
More information on a widely known (and believed) urban legend, the case of the missing kidneys.

Information for this story was obtained from Austin360.com

Years later, The Daily Texan is still refuting e-mail rumors about a story it never printed.

Apparently, an e-mail dubbed "A Reason Not to Party Anymore" recalls an alleged Daily Texan article about a UT student whose heavy partying resulted in more than a bad hangover...

This guy went out last Saturday night to a party. He was having a good time, had more than a couple of beers and some girl seemed to like him so she invited him to go to another party. He quickly agreed and decided to go along with her to the party...

The next thing he knew, he woke up completely naked in a bathtub filled with ice, a scrawl in lipstick across his chest. CALL 911 OR YOU WILL DIE. On the phone with EMS, the student explains the situation as best he can remember.

After the technician asks him to check his back, the student finds two 9-inch diagonal slits on either side. His kidneys were stolen. The second party was a sham, the people involved had to be at least medical students. ... Regardless, he is currently in the hospital on life support, awaiting a spare kidney.

The University of Texas in conjunction with Baylor University Medical Center is conducting tissue research to match the sophomore student with a donor.

It never happened.

By Angela Shah, American-Statesman Staff

The story puts a uniquely Texan twist on an urban legend that has been circulating in different forms for years. These legends -- cautionary tales that supposedly happened to a friend of a friend, or in a nearby town -- used to be spread by word of mouth. But with the advent of e-mail and the Internet, these tales are circulating more quickly and to more people.

The anonymity of the computer makes it hard to fight and sometimes can lend an aura of authority -- turning what was once a rumor into a sternly worded warning to be heeded at all costs. It has certainly worked in the case of The Daily Texan.

"It's amazing. It's a very bizarre tale," said Kathy Lawrence, the Texan's general manager. At one point, dozens of calls a day rang with offers to set up a fund to pay the victim's medical bills. Some even offered a kidney. The Texan staff struck back in December 1996 with a strongly worded editorial that said the story "is an assault not only on the credibility of the Texan, but also the University" and vaguely threatened legal action.

When the calls continued to come, a similar editorial was written six months later and a flashing, fluorescent purple alert was placed on the newspaper's Web site. The phones are still ringing. And the tale of the kidney heist is an electronic boomerang that just keeps returning to the basement at 25th Street and Whitis Avenue. The Texan is finding itself known for a story that never appeared in its pages.

"Once it got out on the Internet, it went wild," said Lisa Elliott, attorney for Medical Manager Research & Development in Alachua, Fla. "I don't think the e-mail will ever die." Elliott, too, has a special relationship with the kidney story. An employee of the firm located near the University of Florida is listed as the original sender on the string of forwarded e-mails bearing the kidney story. Like the Texan's Maureen Ryan, receptionists at the Florida company are hip to the hesitant voices on the telephone line. The callers are immediately transferred to a prerecorded message, a woman's voice patiently yet insistently explaining that the e-mail was a hoax and to contact the FBI for more information.

"Our tagline adds credence. It's absolutely a hook," Elliott says about the e-mail. "We're actually a medical software firm. We sell an accounting product." There are warnings telling of the hoax on Web sites all over the country: the New Orleans Police Department, the United Network for Organ Sharing and the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society. "If they would look at it in a common-sense way, it couldn't happen," Elliott said. "The infection would've killed him."

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Before the tale became trapped in its Texan Ivory Tower, another version of the urban legend was set on Wall Street, where a young stockbroker living the high life in New York attends the party. A recent version replaces the stockbroker with a 20-something high-tech executive on a business trip to New Orleans or Las Vegas. The rest of the story is the same. A beautiful woman. A second party. And the morning after in an ice-filled bathtub with scrawled lipstick.

If it sounds scripted for TV, it has been. The stolen kidney trade has been featured on episodes of television shows "The X-Files" and "Law & Order" and inspired "Kiss Me, Judas," a novel written last year. Bob Winans, a professor of English and folklore at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pa., said urban legends effectively play upon the fears people have about modern life and technology.

"Part of the appeal . . . is that the teller is vouching for the authenticity of the subject by connecting it to another person, though they are always removed from the storyteller," he said. "But that it always happened in a community near them or like them gives it more credibility." The lines between entertainment and reality are increasingly blurred toward extinction. When tourists descend upon unsuspecting Maryland towns because they are searching for insight into the film "The Blair Witch Project," a "mockumentary," maybe it's not so hard for some to believe that you could go to a party one evening and find yourself immersed in an icy bathtub the next morning minus a few kidneys. From time to time, there are reports in legitimate news media of criminal rings stealing and selling human organs.

"It doesn't sound outlandish to reasonable people," the Texan's Lawrence said. The e-mail particularly worries parents of college students, she added, who are already anxious about sending their babies off into the big, bad world. With the editorials and the Web alerts, the Texan staff hoped they had the final word. They didn't. In November 1997, the newspaper again wrote that no kidneys were stolen: Not at the University, not in Austin, not in a plane, not in a train, not even in a box or with a fox. Still, each week, there are eight to 10 callers, all with that incredulous voice.

"I think it's great if that means that whoever decided to do this thought to list a credible source (and) they would say The Daily Texan," Lawrence said. "If they did it because they think there are loony people in Texas to pull such things, then I don't think it's a compliment at all."