I Almost Posted it

The pace of news and information in this age is enough to make one breathless. Over at The Atlantic, Megan McArdle posted on the Anatomy of a Fake Quotation. Here is the quote as it got propagated:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

It turns out that the first quotation mark you see above was misplaced. It was originally posted by a Penn State grad now teaching in Kobe, Japan. Here is where that punctuation belongs:

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Dr. King did not say the first line, but he did the rest. Jessica Dovey, the teacher, posted a thoughtful reflection on the day's news and then added the King quote. The rest is history thanks to Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame. He tweeted it to his 1.6 million followers. From there is went viral.

Not a surprise since it is a powerful quote, with or without the opening statement. It expressed what many were feeling. When I posted my blog post yesterday to my Facebook page, I doubled my daily hits on this blog- and got a number of positive comments. We have all been touched by the news of bin Laden's demise. We also struggle in many different ways with its meaning.

When someone like Ms. Dovey  puts together a helpful way of understanding it, we respond. There was nothing malicious or suspicoius about what happened. But, like the way the news itself spread on Sunday night,  it does show the new age of information that we have come to live in.