Five of the six hospitals named are nonexistent, and the sixth one is untouched by bombs.
Satellite TV and millions of rabble-rousing mosque preachers and TV demagogues have combusted to produce a kind of mass insanity in the Arab world reminiscent of the Orléans Rumor in France.
What I think is most frightening about the rumor is that the attempt by police officials to quash it with facts was woven into the story: obviously the police were in league with the kidnapping ring.
There were voices of reason but they were ignored -- and in one instance an attempt to chide people into their senses backfired. The people who believed the rumor wondered how the kidnappers managed to spirit their victims out of the city without the police noticing. One man said sarcastically that obviously the kidnappers were using a submarine.
But that was it! The submarine was woven into the ever-increasing complexity of the story, which had no basis in fact whatsoever. It had started as a prank by schoolgirls.
Yet if you study the rumor you can see why a prank turned into a runaway freight train. In the modern era, in a large city in Europe.
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