"Prominent black comedian Bill Cosby was killed this morning in a tragic car accident in South Central Los Angeles," reads the latest phony celebrity obituary to go viral online (see screenshot above). "The cause of the crash was blamed on the cell phone he was using to update his Twitter feed when driving in his car."

Nothing of the kind has been reported by any legitimate news source. The story is a two-month-old hoax originally posted on the same website responsible for false reports of actor Johnny Depp's death in January. (That website has since been removed for terms of service violations.)

Update: Bill Cosby 'rebuttals' death rumor - "As you well know, a dead person cannot rebuttal. Therefore, I am rebuttaling to tell you that when I heard the news I immediately began rebuttaling and went into denial. My wife has just informed me that there is no such word as rebuttaling, she says the word is rebutting. But I don't care, because I'm alive!" More on Bill Cosby.com

See also:
• Johnny Depp Is Dead
• Eminem Is Dead
• Britney Spears Is Dead
• Miley Cyrus Is Dead
• Jon Heder Is Dead
• Matt Damon Is Dead
• Jeff Goldblum Is Dead
• Emma Watson Is Dead
• Dolly Parton Is Dead
• Kanye West Is Dead
• Steven Tyler Is Dead

In an interview with the LA Times a few years back, renowned folklorist Alan Dundes ventured to explain why Super Bowl Sunday has become the focus of so many larger-than-life "urban beliefs" in the United States — for example the claim that every year during half-time the water systems of major cities verge on collapsing because so many people flush their toilets simultaneously.

Wrote Dundes: "Every culture's legends express that culture's values. Super Bowl legends usually involve numbers and a sense of enormity. The idea of big numbers, of being bigger than other people, is very American."

Or maybe we're just prone to exaggerate. Who isn't?

Read more...

We've gone around and around over the years on the question of whether the practice of "cow tipping" — described on Wikipedia as "the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for fun" — is fact or fiction.

Some scoffers point out the obvious: cows don't normally sleep standing up. Others object that toppling a half-ton mammal is easier said than done. Both arguments make sense to me, not to mention the fact that if it does exist, cow tipping is a pretty clear-cut case of animal cruelty and ought to be illegal, if it isn't already.

Notwithstanding those objections, someone near and dear to me swears with hand on heart that she actually witnessed an instance of cow tipping during her youth in rural upstate New York. Being a professed agnostic on the subject, it pains me to admit that it may well be true. I've long wished the victims of these alleged assaults could speak on their own behalf.

Now comes this headline in today's Knoxville News Sentinel: "Man Tipped by Cow at UT Farm."

Revenge is sweet.

Read more:
• The Physics of Cow Tipping
• Florida to Consider Ban on 'Cow Tipping'
• How to Cow Tip
• Experts Dispute Cow Tipping Theory
• Is There Really Such a Thing as Cow Tipping?

Imagine you're a parent and you get this email from your kids' elementary school principal:

Dear Parents,

Turn off the TV for once and pay attention.

Regarding math:

The math we do is really easy. If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress. We do part of it in class. How on earth they can NOT finish it is beyond me, but please help them with the part that we do NOT do in class. If your child is one of the mediocre few who excels on the homework, please contratulate them with a warm handshake or perhaps a halfhearted high-five, since finishing this homework is the equivalent of a twenty-year-old wanting to be congratulated for knowing how to tie his shoes....

It only gets worse from there.

The parents of children attending Litchfield Elementary School in Litchfield Park, Arizona actually did receive such a message, KPNX-TV News reported yesterday. Oddly enough, the fact that it was a joke intended for faculty members only doesn't seem to have mollified its unintended recipients. Litchfield's principal has been put on administrative leave and school superintendent Dr. Julianne Lein called every parent individually to apologize.

Read more:
• 'Joke' Letter from Principal Sent to Parents
• Full Text of the Letter