For the full-length 1988 TV adaptation, starring Kirk Douglas, click here
As soon as I encounter another big "Pinocchio", I consult snopes.com, the self-appointed "definitive fact-checking site and reference source". I always thought that its name was a reference to John Snopes of Tennessee who in 1925 was prosecuted for exposing another big lie, the theory of 'intelligent design'.
Not so! As snopes' founder, David Mikkelson, explains, "Snopes come [sic] from a family of characters who recur in the works of William Faulkner. He typically had different families that represented a different strata of Southern society. And the Snopes[es] were on the bottom rung of the social ladder. But none of that has anything to do with the site. It just -- I knew the name Snopes from having read William Faulkner. It was my nom de net. And then when we started the site, it turned out to be sort of fortuitous. Because it is so short and catchy and distinctive."
Short and catchy, just like this blog entry, which, I hope, piqued your interest in Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", the Snopes Trial, William Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy, and Spencer Tracy's unforgettable "Inherit the Wind". And you thought you're reading this blog just for fun, didn't you, Des? I'm trying to educate you; I'm trying; I'm trying ... I give up!
Anyway, next time you read that Bigfoot was found dead on a lake shore in New Mexico, or that Pope Francis endorsed President Trump's campaign, or any other 'news' that's not fit to print, check it with snopes.com but beware ...
... because even snopes is "the ultimate black box presenting a gleaming veneer of ultimate arbitration of truth, yet with absolutely no insight into its inner workings" - click here.
