From: "Rich Gauszka" 


"Frank Haber"  wrote in message
news:42b4baad$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> I'm really hoping we'll get back to being friends as soon as possible.
>
> So give it a week(end), and come back as a consultant, or at least get a
> dynamite evaluation/recommendation letter (g).
>
> Or borrow $1000 from a friend and have a blast.
>
> Or go tour Chernobyl.  (I read today that 20-something Finnish kids are
> signing up for tours of the Dead Zone in droves!  And the NY Times says
> the KidOfSpeed web site is a fraud, and everyone's fantasy hottie chick
> isn't. I'm crushed.)
>

Well she did have a motorcycle helmet ( I'm only semi crushed ). I wonder
if the NYTimes read Neal Gaiman's journal?


http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/05/fraud-exposed-and-true-thing.asp

I am sorry to report that much of Elena's story is not true. She did not
travel around the zone by herself on a motorcycle. Motorcycles are banned
in the zone, as is wandering around alone, without an escort from the zone
administration. She made one trip there with her husband and a friend. They
traveled in a Chornobyl car that picked them up in Kyiv.

She did, however, bring a motorcycle helmet. They organized their trip
through a Kyiv travel agency and the administration of the Chornobyl zone
(and not her father). They were given the same standard excursion that most
Chernobyl tourists receive. When the Web site appeared, Zone Administration
personnel were in an uproar over who approved a motorcycle trip in the
zone. When it turned out that the motorcycle story was an invention, they
were even less pleased about this fantasy Web site.

Because of those problems, Elena and her husband have changed the Web site
and the story considerably in the last few days. Earlier versions of the
narrative lied more blatantly about Elena taking lone motorcycle trips in
the zone. That has been changed to merely suggest that she does so, which
is still misleading.

I would not normally bother to correct someone's silly Chornobyl fantasy.
Indeed, correcting all the factual errors and falsehoods in "Ghost
Town" would consume as much space as the Web site itself. But the
motorcycle story was such an outrageous fiction that I thought the readers
of e-Poshta should know.

Mary Mycio, J.D.

Legal Program Director
IREX U-Media
Shota Rustaveli St. 38b, No. 16
Kyiv 01023, Ukraine

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