There are many more urban legends making the rounds, particularly with email making it possible to spread rumors at an alarming rate of speed. Chances are, you'll hear one this week.

Years ago there was a mimeographed paper making the rounds that claimed that Madelyn Murray O'Hare was having all religious programming banned from the airwaves.  The notice instructed the reader to copy that notice and give them to everyone they knew.  Furthermore, they were to send a letter of complaint to the FCC.  This was not true, but it still turns makes the rounds today. All this rumor did was kill trees and waste the resources of the FCC.

In the 1970's there was the scare about acid on postage stamps.  Believe or not, that one is still circulating.

Urban legends are today's myths and folklore.  We love to believe them.  If we didn't, the tabloids would never sell.  Maybe it is our innate curiosity that leads us to swallow these stories.  But all urban legends form a pattern that makes them just believable enough& .

 Urban legends are
1. Popular narratives
2. Alleged to be true,
3. Transmitted from person to person, by oral or written communication (including fax and email).

 An urban legend does not have to be false, although most are. Urban legends often have a basis in fact.  I have been urged to forward email concerning missing children (found long ago).  Alleged contests from major computer companies (fake) and just plain rumors.

These stories always involve some combination of outlandish, humiliating, humorous, terrifying, or supernatural events . events that always happened to someone else. These are usually things that "could" happen and prey upon our innate fears, such as fear of disease, fear of humiliation or fear of ghosts.

3. For credibility, the teller of an urban legend relies on good storytelling and the citing of an "authoritative" word-of-mouth source (typically "a friend of a friend") rather than verifiable facts.  But there are exceptions to this.  The recurring story of Janet Reno appearing on 20/20 bashing Christians is one such story.  There is no record of that ever occurring yet the story even cites a date and a place the alleged event happened.  People assume that the story contains facts even though it is entirely fictional.

And sometimes, but not always, there's a moral to the story, e.g.: "behave yourself, or bad things will happen."

Even worse, some of these rumors are just plain hoax planted by competitors of the victims of the story.  Such as the Proctor & Gamble and Satan rumor or the glass in baby food jars.  Or even false rebates that jam the competitions mail resources, costing untold millions of dollars. A more recent variation is the scare concerning the odor eliminating product, Fabree.  That rumor was so persistent that the manufacturer is using their commercials to assure people of the safety their pet if they use the product.  They quote the ASPCA to substantiate their claims. We the customer ultimately pay for this in the end.

 Urban legends are a type of folklore . the traditions, stories, and beliefs of "the folk" . ordinary people. Urban legends "cry wolf" at crisis.  At their best they are annoying.  At their worse, they cost untold millions of dollars.  Carefully consider what you pass on to someone else. Verify the facts yourself.  If you have Internet access, visit http://www.urbanmyths.com or http://www.urbanlegends.com and check out the facts.  These web sites are also a good place to find out just how gullible we really are and have a few laughs.  Next time someone hands you a flyer or sends you an email that contains an urban myth, do us all a favor and file it in the circular file and free up your mind.  We all have enough to worry about without urban legends.