Le Journal
du Chihuahua
numéro 10, 30 octobre 2005

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Sommaire

Editorial: le Journal du Mouton reparaît
La chronique de Mister Oli: Rhetoric And Sources Of Fake History
The Chihuahua's Word: How To Recognize An Urban Legend
La crónica del tejón: el matador Pepe Chocolozo dio las orejas de un toro al museo de la Marmola

Editorial
 Le Journal du Mouton reparaît
La nouvelle maquette du Journal du Mouton, très semblable à celle du Journal du Chihuahua, pourrait laisser penser que le Mouton a été racheté par les éditions du Chihuahua. Il n'en est rien, le marquis d'Oliveras l'a fermement démenti depuis sa demeure de Lavaplatas en Andalousie. Le Mouton a simplement cherché la meilleure présentation possible et en est arrivé à celle de son concurrent direct.

Parmi les ressemblances, remarquons également la présence d'un éditorial, d'une rubrique didactique et d'une chronique mondaine pour laquelle le sieur Le Baron a été remercié et remplacé par une comtesse inconnue dont on ne sait rien sinon qu'elle a un chat et qu'elle s'amuse avec d'une manière assez commune chez les gens qui ont des animaux domestiques. Parmi les améliorations, les petites bandes dessinées humoricides on été supprimées. La regrettable histoire du lutin des bois a dû être maintenue à la demande d'un ou 		deux abonnés qui représentent près de 50% des lecteurs.

Bien que le Journal du Chihuahua n'ait déposé aucune plainte contre son plat concurrent et plagiaire éhonté, l'avocate Gargamela Iturritxe a engagé une procédure judiciaire visant à la ruine du Journal du Mouton. On pourra se demander où réside la logique de l'avocate qui cherche toujours à nuire au marquis et qui semble cette fois défendre ses intérêts malgré lui.

Le marquis a préféré s'abstenir de tout commentaire et s'en est allé faire l'ouverture de la chasse à la limace.


Une limace albinos que le marquis s'apprête à capturer
 Les limaces sont ensuites expédiées aux  personnalités connues pour avoir contrarié le marquis. L'avocate Gargamela Iturritxe en aurait  déjà reçu plus de 200 kg.

Pour distancer l'herbivore essoufflé, le Journal du Chihuahua a créé une page d'accueil pour retrouver facilement les anciens articles.

Enfin, la rédaction a désormais fixé une règle de base: un article doit être visible en entier sur un écran de 1024 pixels par 768 avec les réglages par défaut appliqués par la plupart des navigateurs. Cette règle semble ignorée du Journal du Mouton qui en profite pour étaler les aventures du lutin des bois sur des hectares de pixels stériles.


Mister Oli's Chronicle
Rhetoric And Sources Of Fake History
Let us take the example of Viking exploration of  North America to show how some people who defend interpretations of facts that go against official history, blatantly fake history. With Internet, those people publish their analysis as easily as professional historians. In some cases, it is easy to discover false information by analysing the way it is written.

Vikings were the first European navigators to reach North America. They established several settlements, commonly refered to as Vinland, around Baffin Island, the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland.

To analyse rethoric of history fakers, we compared two websites, one defending the thesis that Vinland was Vancouver Island [1], the other inviting the reader to vote whether the Vinland Map is a genuine or a fake [2].

The Vinland map was found in 1957 in an edition of the Tartar Relation [4] allegedly from the 15th century, by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, John of Plano Carpini in English, or Jean de Plan Carpin in French who visited Central Asia in the 13th century.

The Vinland map [3] found in 1957: a genuine or a fake?

This map, shows Greenland and part of North America, called Vinland. It has been scientifically studied since 1957 and experts still not agree whether it is a genuine or a fake.

We selected an interesting site stating that Vinland was Vancouver Island because the Vikings would have sailed from Greenland to British Columbia around Alaska. Arguments are supported by unproved affirmations such as "the Vikings almost certainly did... such was their nature", "The best interpretation I can make", "one must imagine", or "That’s important!" emphasizing a fact presented as key, that is only necessary and not sufficient at all. Not only scientific demonstration is missing, but twisted interpretations are made up when
 questionable sources do not match the thesis. This site [1] shows how Vinland looks like Vancouver Island.
 
Vancouver Island (left) and alleged Vinland (right) [1]

Unfortunatelly Vinland is reversed on the map. This is stated to be because the Vikings knew the Earth was round and represented Vinland reversed as being on the other side of the Earth. Nothing is written to support such a weird idea, whereas the site about the Vinland map [2] explains several methods to authentify maps.

References

[1] http://forest.facts.tripod.com/vinland1996.htm
[2] http://webexhibits.org/vinland
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland_map
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartar_Relation
October 23, 2005



The Chihuahua's Word
How To Recognize An Urban Legend
This article is re-explaining the concept of urban legend exposed in April 2005 in the Journal du Chihuahua in Mister Oli's Chronicle that was written in French. A lot of non French speaking readers were recently victims of urban legends and  would not have ridiculized themselves if they had understood that utmost necessary language.

An urban legend is a story that spreads rapidly by word of mouth, by e-mail, on websites, in newspapers or on television. It is not true but it is scary or exciting and easy to believe. It tackles the basic fears and fantasmas of human beings and adapts to the news. The albino crocodile living in the sewers of New York has transformed into a giant crocodile roaming the waters of New Orleans.

Let us remind the reader of a few legends about legends chihuahuas. Chihuahuas are rats that have been bred and selected to look like dogs. That is why they look like rats. They are also said to descend from vampires. A very common legend
states that a couple of Québécois brought back a cute little dog from Mexico, went through customs without declaring it, and the cute little dog almost ate the baby because it was a Mexican sewer rat that they had confused with a dog.

An urban legend spreads easily but is also easy to detect. The legend is too often considered from the victim's side. You must imagine you are experiencing the same thing on the criminal's side. How would you proceed? I recently saw on Canadian television the story of little pet crocodiles becoming too big, being thrown into the toilet bowl, and thriving in the sewer. That bright channel was showing a hand putting a little crocodile in the bowl. Knowing how a toilet bowl is made and connected to the sewer, it was clear that the crocodile could not go through.

Live dogs are said to be used by fishermen as shark baits... You are a fisherman, you know you have to catch 10 sharks a day, you need a bait, cheap if possible, are you going to spend your time 		catching live chihuahuas and hook them by the snout? How are you going to find 10 chihuahuas a day? How much time is it going to take? Maybe it would be better to hook a runover rat picked up on the side of the road? Or a shiny piece of metal...

Legends are sometimes based on real facts. There are shark fishermen, some of them may have used dog carrions, but this is far from proving that most of them use live dogs as shark baits.

With the Internet, urban legends also spread as pictures with a story or just a title. The pictures can be fake or genuine. A genuine picture can support a legend if the description is faked. And some genuine pictures may look fake because they do not match human fears.

www.snopes.com
October 23, 2005



La crónica del tejón
El matador Pepe Chocolozo dio las orejas de un toro al museo de la Marmola
El matador Pepe Chocolozo "El Tío", el novio de la abogada Gargamela Iturritxe, dio las orejas de un toro blanco al museo de la Marmola.


El toro blanco cuyo orejas fueron regaladas por Pepe Chocolozo "El Tío" al museo de la Marmola

Mientras la recepción dada por el museo, la abogada dijo a su novio que tenía que casarse con ella porque los verdaderos hombres se casan con  		abogadas. Pero Pepe Chocolozo dijo que no, y Gargamela Iturritxe se fue muy ofendida, sin escuchar las razones del matador.

La abogada es bien conocida por el museo para siempre decir sin probarlo y sin escuchar nadie, que las obras propuestas por el marqués son falsas.

Interrogado sobre las probables razones del matador para no casarse con su novia , el marqués de Oliveras dijo que no había duda que el matador fuera un verdadero hombre y que estaba claro que tenía que casarse con una abogada. La sola explicación de la respuesta del torero, es que, según el marqués, aunque "El Tío" sea un verdadero hombre, quizá Gargamela Iturritxe no sea una verdadera abogada.
El marqués añadió que no quería decir que Gargamela Iturritxe era una falsa abogada sin pruebas, que el mismo tenía 1000 razones para no casarse con ella y que "El Tío" que la conocía mejor que el, podía tener 1000 otras razones.

Interrogado sobre esas razones, el marqués dijo que por ejemplo, Gargamela era una aristócrata que no podía aceptarse, que su nombre completo era Iturritxe de Guipúzcoa, una verdadera aristócrata de nobleza vieja aunque las lenguas viperinas digan que es cristiana nueva, y que sentía la necesitad de tener un novio salido de barro al matar los animales nobles.