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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!rutgers!att!whuts!homxb!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!brucer
From: brucer@drutx.ATT.COM (Bruce W. Robinson)
Newsgroups: misc.headlines,misc.misc,news.misc
Subject: Re: David's Last Wish
Summary: holloween horror story debunk
Message-ID: <9688@drutx.ATT.COM>
Date: 19 Dec 88 16:06:13 GMT
References: <4592@homxc.UUCP> <4593@homxc.UUCP> <749@odyssey.ATT.COM> <81945@sun.uucp>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 59

In article <81945@sun.uucp>, falk@sun.uucp (Ed Falk) writes:
> In article <749@odyssey.ATT.COM>, gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman) writes:
> > msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) writes:
> > > There was recently information posted to misc.misc or misc.consumers
> > > (I can't remember which) which explains that David is in England, and
> > > has already received enough postcards to make the record book, which
> > > will now forever close that category.
> > 
> > Today's Asbury Park _Press_ has a wire story on this.  "... The problem
> > is he doesn't really exist, ...
		etc.
> I'm amazed at how badly the story has been corrupted; the name and
> everything else are all wrong.
> 
> 	There is a young boy by the name of Ed at the Mountain View
> 	home for the bewildered who is terminally ill.  He has entropy
> 	and the doctors say he has less than sixty years to live....
>		etc.

                        ALSO:

In article <8544@alice.UUCP>, ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
> In article <4592@homxc.UUCP>, rick@homxc.UUCP (R.BUTTAFOGO) writes:
> > There is a young boy by the name of David at the Sloan Kettering Cancer
> > Hospital who is terminally ill.  His last wish is to be in the Guiness
> > Book of World Records for having received the MOST Christmas cards EVER.
> 
> A news article that appeared yesterday described precisely this
> situation -- a boy named David in Spring Hill, Florida who wants
> zillions of postcards.
> 
> The article goes on to explain that the boy does not really exist,
> but that ``bags and bags'' of postcards keep coming.
> 
>          etc
>
This reminds me of a subject discussed in the last chapter of a
popular lay-genetics books I read a few years ago called the
"Selfish Gene" by Robert Audrey (I think); he introduced the
concept of the "meme", an idea which survives because it acts
as if it has the will to survive.  Perhaps in some cases these
ideas survive because they are simply fun to believe in.

We've all probably heard horror stories about poisoned holloween candy,
red hot nickles, razor blades or LSD in treats, etc.  Is this for real or
simply another example of an idea that survives because it is believable?
Other examples: ghosts, tooth-fairy, god, fairness, democrats, and Amway :-)

There was an article recently in the (Boulder) Daily Camera newspaper
claiming that there has "never been a substantiated case of doctored
holloween treats", but they failed to adequately attribute the claim,
(just like I'm failing to properly attribute their article).

Does any netter have solid evidence of such Holloween malignancy?


      66
       >
       ^          ......brucer