The Internet has certainly been a boon to the human species. It has brought the wisdom of the ages into easy reach of our fingertips. Of course, it has also brought the ignorance of the ages into our easy grasp.

The Internet has enabled people far apart to exchange messages, whereas once upon a time they had to rely on the mail, homing pigeons or letters carried in forked sticks -- whichever was faster. (I always found that the Priority Forked Stick service was the most reliable).

The Internet has turned the mailing of dirty magazines in traditional brown-paper parcels into an anachronism, which has not led to an improvement in public morals but has caused joblessness in the brown-paper parcel industry.

That brings me to my point, such as it is: What a shame that this new world of communication has merely redefined some older follies. Electronic substitutes for brown paper parcels aside, a main offender remains the chain letter, now reborn in the Internet age. Oh cursed be the chain letter!

To be sure, most of these e-mails are innocuous and most are helpfully labeled for the discerning recipient. Anything that says: "This is incredible -- circulate it to all your friends" can be safely translated as: "This is too incredible to be true, so keep it to yourself and give your friends a break."

Likewise, if it says, "I wish I had written this," that means: "I wish I had been sober enough not to have wished I had written this, because I may be a retired person with a lot of time on my hands but I still have my dignity."

The other day I got an e-mail that any senior would love. It purported to be from a baby boomer lamenting how Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous 1941 date-of-infamy speech after Pearl Harbor, as excerpted on the National World War II Memorial in Washington D.C., had omitted the words "so help us God" in the engraved quote, because, well, you know, "We're not supposed to say things like that now."

Well, that is shocking, until you realize that, while Roosevelt did use the phrase in the speech, it wasn't part of the quote reproduced on the memorial -- so the whole thing is bunk, just another urban legend to be refuted on sites like snopes.com.

But that's par for the Internet course, which has numerous sand traps for the careless and credulous. What irritated me was how this bunk was pedaled. At the conclusion of the message, it said: "If you agree, pass this on and God Bless YOU! If not, May God Forgive You!"

Call me old-fashioned, but I reckon people who circulate lies in honor of God should not suggest I am the one needing to be forgiven. In any event, this sort of e-mail comes too close to a supernatural threat, which is the hallmark of the traditional chain letter.

In the days when mail carriers were bowed down by brown paper parcels, superstitious friends would send chain letters to their sensible friends. These letters would make clear that great calamity would descend on anyone who did not mail 10 copies to others. Why, a man in Pittsburgh failed to do this and a terrible thing happened to him -- he was transferred to Cleveland!

That this tradition lives on in the Internet age is deplorable. Technology advances incredibly, stupidity plods along inevitably and the only advantage is the savings on stamps. The other day I got an e-mail threatening destruction from a pair of comely Hindu gods if I did not play the electronic chain letter game. No way! And I don't care if a monsoon does settle over my house.

Still, I find it disconcerting that I am now menaced by the Almighty that I know and other people's deities as well. Not to worry -- I have never passed on anything like this. Am I cursed or do I have bad luck? Of course not, well, other than working in the newspaper industry.

By the way, how did chain letter circulators ever know that something terrible had happened to someone for not joining in? They didn't! Wake up, people, and hit the delete key.

Except for this column. It would be very bad luck if you did not e-mail or post this column to 10 others. A liberal fellow failed to do this and woke up a conservative. He thought Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh made sense! A conservative gal did not send it on and she woke up supporting the Fairness Doctrine. Don't e-mail me to say that you weren't warned.

First Published: November 4, 2009, 5:00 a.m.