How to get robbed.

Like many, many people, I use Google's gmail service for all of my emailing needs. There are myriad reasons people use Google's package of web-based services: they might like how colorful the calendars are; they might like other things. One thing about gmail that I am neutral on is the news feed update bar at the top of the screen:

The red arrow and box show where the news updates appear.

And below all of that, you can see Jim Beveridge's inbox. I don't

know who Jim Beveridge is, but between emails from the

AOL Beta Administrator, The Planet Marketing, and himself,

he appears to be all business. Except for that forwarded message

about the VERY big kitty. I hope Jim stopped to check that one out.

It's important to give your brain a little break every once in a while.

It doesn't bother me to see a little tag for some story that the sharply-dressed, fair and balanced cats at Fox News think is crucial to get out there. It just doesn't really excite me, either. I think the only time I've ever clicked on the link to read one of those stories was when it was a BBC story about Richard Branson announcing commercial space flight for all (who have like $400,000 laying around) in his Virgin Atlantic Star Cruiser or whatever the shuttle is called. That was a grabby headline they put up at the top of my inbox, and I took the bait, and I was not disappointed. But usually nothing in that little space can entice me to click on the link to find out more. But today...

Today I was checking my email and I saw this:

CNN.com Recently Published/Updated - How to NOT get robbed when traveling - 1 hour ago

Now this, I thought, is going to be worth reading! But luckily I stopped to give the prospect of reading the story a little more contemplation before I took action. Why would anyone at CNN write such a story, I asked myself, and why would they feel it was crucial to present the word "not" in all caps? It could be that earlier they had accidentally posted a story on their site entitled "How To Get Robbed When Traveling", and had subsequently received many complaints from faithful readers who took the story's advice and pointers to heart and were then relieved of precious passports and digital cameras while on holiday in Europe. Would I really want to invest time into reading an article from such a careless and socially irresponsible news outlet? The other possibility I considered was that CNN wants people to get robbed while traveling, so they are trying to mislead people into reading an article that will give them a false sense of security. Maybe the article tells travelers that the best way to keep your money safe is to pin it to the outside of your pants, because people in other countries have got tourists' backs. If this is the case, then I obviously wouldn't want anything to do with this story. So I did not read it. Which makes me feel less informed, but also very clever.