By JIM BROOKS
The Nelson County Gazette
Since my first travels on this thing called the World Wide Web, one of my biggest pet peeves has long been what today is known as the urban legend. 
I first heard the term not as a reference to the Internet, but from the Folk Studies program while a student at Western Kentucky University more than 20 years ago. Internet urban legends share the same characteristics, but the ones spread via e-mail tend to gain credibility among recipients since we all assume our friends and acquaintances wouldn’t send us these things without knowing they are true.
And for some reason, receiving some of these tales via e-mail seems to turn off our ability to think critically, and we fall victim to yet another hoax.
There are very few new urban legends. Most I receive are variations of some that have been in circulation a while.
The latest one I received today is the one that claims that the government is trying to remove the national motto “In God We Trust” from the presidential dollar coins that have been in production since 2007. Here’s the text:
It has begun…Refuse new coins!
This simple action will make a strong statement.
Please help do this … Refuse to accept these when they are handed to you.
I received one from the Post Office as change and I asked for a dollar bill instead.
The lady just smiled and said “Way to go,” so she had read this e-mail.
Please help out … or world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!
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U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins
You guessed it
‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ IS GONE!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE
Together we can force them out of circulation.
Please send this to all on your mailing list!!!
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Anyone who checks will find as I did that this is a hoax. There is no government conspiracy to remove the national motto from coins. In fact, the coin pictured in the e-mail (the George Washington $1 coin) has “In God We Trust” engraved on it, but not in its usual position. The motto is engraved in the edge of the coin.
Some of the first dollar coins minted were indeed found to be missing the inscription, but this was due to stamping errors at the U.S. Mint and not the result of a conspiracy.
Apparently, Congress received enough guff about this urban legend to take notice; in 2008, Congress instructed the Mint to move “In God We Trust” back to the face of the $1 coins. The presidential dollar coins minted since the beginning of 2009 all bear the inscription on one side or the other.
JIM’S FIRST LAW OF URBAND LEGEND E-MAILS. In the 20 years I’ve been using e-mail, one of the easiest ways to spot an urban legend e-mail is that it asks you to forward it to all your friends, to as many people as you can, or eveyone on your e-mail list. Any e-mail you receive that suggests you do this is 99 percent sure to be a scam or urban legend.
Before you send it to all your friends, do yourself (and your friends) a favor: Visit the Urban Legend Reference Page at www.snopes.com and see if find the text of that suspicious e-mail in their database. The easiest way is to use the search engine at the top of the home page, using some of the text of the message.
Snopes.com is also a great place to check for email scams or viruses sent via e-mail. For example, if you receive an alert that you have received an e-mail greeting card from a friend; will opening it launch of avalanche of spywire that will take over your computer or send your hard drive into a death spiral? Snopes.com is a great resource to check.
The scary part is that some of these things we find in our e-mail in-boxes really are malicious; proceeding with caution isn’t a bad idea for all of us.
In the meantime, for those who wish to send an urban legend message to me, I ask that you write your message on the back of a $20 bank note and send it to me in care of the Nelson County Gazette. You can rest assured that I’ll give your message my prompt attention.
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