Respectful Insolence

Given that my attempt last year to pull an April Fool's Day gag fooled no one and in essence went over like the proverbial lead balloon, I'm chastened enough not to try it again this year. Maybe by next year, I'll get up the nerve again.

In the meantime, this little gem came through a mailing list that I'm on, and I wanted to see what my readers thought of it:

Redondo Beach Surfer News. Where the sun shines most the time, and the feelin' is laid back.

Sunday Apr 1, 2007. 5:40am

Chiropractic treatment fights global warming

by Olga Re

With the specter of global warming on the horizon, many are doing their part to forestal this upcoming environmental catastrophe. Using fluorescent bulbs, hanging clothes out to dry, waiting until the dishwasher is full. But in a very unique way, Dr. Bella Scherzo, a Redondo Beach chiropractor, contends her treatment of the spine is fighting the war against global warming.

"We now know that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and heavy contributor to global warming."

Indeed, methane is capable of trapping 25 times more heat than CO2, and is expected to cause between 15 and 17% of the global warming over the next 50 years. So what does methane have to do with humans and chiropractic manipulation? Dr. Scherzo notes that spinal misalignment affects the function of the nerves that control the digestive system. Allow the digestion to proceed unimpeded, the food stays in the digestive tract for a shorter duration, there is less time for putrefaction and gas formation which leads to expelling methane, an act technically know as flatulence, or more commonly known as passing gas or farting.

"Not only that, but pain in general slows digestion leading to increased methane release."

Relieve pinched nerves, relieve pain, reduce global gas emissions, reduce the planet's fever.

Some environmentalists and politicians have approached Dr. Scherzo about purchasing carbon credits or buybacks. The theory is, they pay Dr. Scherzo to provide services to needy patients who would otherwise go untreated, thus reducing human methane release. These treatment credits offset their use of large homes, heated pools, Hummers, private jets and the like.

Dr. Scherzo notes plans to branch out to veterinary chiropractic.

"Do you know how much methane is emitted by cows and horses? Why the effect I could have, and the carbon credits I could sell, really boggles the imagination! It is time to get active. As an ecological healing profession, we could do some real good"!

What do you think? Fool or real? My guess is below the fold...

I'm pretty sure it's an April Fool's post for a number of reasons. First, I could find no evidence online that there is such a publication as the Redondo Beach Surfer News. Sure, it's possible that it's a little rag of a publication that has no web presence, but that seems unlikely. Second, I could find no evidence of the existence of a chiropracter named Bella Scherzo, either in Redondo Beach or elsewhere. Finally, scherzo is a musical term referring to a light or playful composition that is often a movement in a sonata or symphony and comes from the Italian word meaning "jest."

So, yes, it's pretty obvious that this is an April Fool's post. Even so, it's still pretty amusing because it would be entirely believable that some chiropractor or altie might say such a thing, if the writer of the jest hadn't made it just a little too obvious. Put a name that isn't such an obvious spoof as the chiropractor, and I might well have been taken in.