Gaz's Thoughts

Go on, Forward this.

Warning this is a Rant. It will offend Everyone. Most especially it will offend people who think that forwarding a piece of crap chain letter will help someone. Hate Mail can be directed to the address at the bottom of this post or a comment may be left in the comments section of this post.

There is something that has been bugging me for a while and was pushed to the front of my mind when I received a forward from a person who shall remain nameless. I'm sure you've all gotten it, but I figure I may as well copy the contents of the email below for those few who have managed not to have to damage there minds on forwards. This does not include the hundred or so email addresses that were written above it that I will be signing up to spam.

FW: 7yr old with Cancer (this child is local)
This little girl lives in the Hunter Valley - please forward on.
Thank you
Hi, my name is Amy Bruce. I am 7 years old, and I have a large tumor
on my brain and severe lung cancer.. The doctors say I will die soon if
this isn't fixed, and my family can't pay the bills. 'The Make A Wish
Foundation' has agreed to donate 7 cents for every time this message
is sent on. For those of you who send this along, I thank you so much.
But for those who don't send it, I will still pray for you. Please, if
you are a kind person, have a heart. Please, please, PLEASE HIT THE
FORWARD BUTTON.
Amy Bruce
Wake Forest Outpatient Dialysis
ForwardSourceID: NT00010D52

That is what it says. First point of interest, this has been circulating for years. I've seen it from as far back as 2000, so if she was real, she's long dead by now. In the originals she had lung cancer from inhaling second hand smoke, and a large tumor on her brain from repeated beatings (Such fun parents). The current message we all are seeing doesn't even include the photo of a random dark-skinned child with pigtails like the older emails.
Furthermore, what kind of Idiot do you have to be to think that the Make-A-Wish Foundation would only donate 7 cents, even if they could Track the Email. Can i make this any clearer to you people out there? NORMAL PEOPLE CANNOT TRACK EMAILS THROUGH THE INTERNET! The only possible way someone could track the email was if someone very technically adept embedded a hidden script in the email. Unfortunately that script would not function very long through the subsequent forwarding, and format changes of the email. As well as the fact that Hotmail would detect and disable such tracking script for security reasons. It says it is being tracked just to get you to forward the email, ?Just in case? and to poke fun at Naïve new email users.

This means, for you dull ones out there, it would be impossible to collect accurate or even meaningful data about an email that could undoubtedly be forwarded thousands of times. This also means that it would be impossible to calculate the amount of money to be donated.

Tracking an Email in the way described above would be considered by most to be a significant privacy infringement, and there is next to no chance that any ethical charity organization would knowingly participate in such a practice. Furthermore, it is absurd to suggest that any responsible organization would base the amount of money to be donated to a sick and dieing very painfully child on the amount of times a email was forwarded. There is simply no reason whatsoever for imposing a cruel and callous restriction. If an organization is willing and able to offer financial help, they will do so directly and the amount donated will not depends on the random forwarding of an email.

ANY MESSAGE THAT CLAIMS THE EMAIL IS BEING TRACKED AND THAT MONEY WILL BE DONATED FOR EVERY FORWARD IS A GOING TO BE A HOAX!!!

Below is a direct quote from the Make-A-Wish foundation websites comment on Chain Letters.

Chain Letters
Each day, the Make-A-Wish Foundation and its chapters receive hundreds of inquiries about chain letters claiming to be associated with the Foundation and featuring sick children. However, we do not participate in these kinds of wishes. Some names associated with these wishes are: Jessie Anderson, Shane Bernier, Matt Dawson, Chad Briody, Amy Bruce, Jeff DeLeon, Rhyan Desquetado, Anthony Hebrank, LaNisha Jackson, Nikisha Johnson, Craig Sheldon, Craig Shelford, Craig Shelton, Craig Sheppard, Craig Shergold, Bryan Warner and Kayla Wightman.

You may recognize the 5th name in that quote? as well as several others.

And here is the link if you don't believe me - http://www.wish.org/about/chain_letters

Oh and just a extra little bit to tag on the end here, "Wake Forest Outpatient Dialysis" So what is wrong with her kidneys that she's not complaining about when she's bitching like a little kid about her cancer?

And just for the last little teensy bit of extra confirmation, click the following link for a news story about this email ?
http://times-journal.com/story.lasso?WCD=4560

So why do people continue to forward these emails in blatant disregard to common sense, it?s because they forward these emails and think, ?I?m doing something for charity, I?m a good person.? And they think that money will be going to help this little girl with inoperable cancerous tissue throughout 90% of her body, and it isn?t costing them a thing, which they are even happier about, They did something for Charity, and it didn?t cost them anything. But really nothing happened, the email was forwarded on, the chain letter continues on, people continue on oblivious to the truth, no money is funnelled into a dead imaginary girls coffin. Why not, If you want to help this girl, or this charity, instead of forwarding the email, go donate seven cents. Or better yet, donate some real money. Charities like this need money to keep running, and to keep helping people. They don?t need hoax emails being passed around and their name being dragged through the mud because they are cruel and callow because they'll only give 7 cents for every forwarded email. And valuable man hours are being put into answering queries about this and other chain letter hoaxes instead of into helping people and supporting there cause. So why donate some money, and don't forward on these hoaxes. Tell whoever you received it from that it is a hoax, and spread the word.

And since I am on the subject, lets move on to the other chain letters. Such as forward this XYZ amount of people and your wish will come true. With the ?true? stories of people having sent it on, and then they won the lotto, sold there house, or got hit by a bus. How do you expect this wish to come true? Do you people think there are little leprechauns inside the internet who read all these emails, backtrack them to the people who forwarded it to a dozen people, and violently rip the wish out of your head, which they can do because they don?t have to worry about damaging any of the non existant brains in there and then magically materialise your wish and give it to you, while you are none the wiser.

How about? NO!!! It?s a fucking hoax. Whoops see, now I swore. Look, fuck you people. What the fuck, do you think there is some magical energy surrounding emails? Do you think god is up there caring what the fuck you people do with your lives? How can you people live in such ignorance? My God? I mean, you people are alive? but how? why hasn?t natural selection done it?s part on you?
Life skills include not sending on some fucking email just because the email says so. Just because you sent an email message to 20 of your friends doesn?t mean a hot girl will be banging on the door in three hours with bondage gear in tow. Emails can?t make wishes come true. You 18, 19 and 20 year olds should know that. Anyone older shouldn?t have to even be reading this. And you 17 and below people reading this, with a few exceptions, need to learn this to? I have never credited people with an overabundance of brains, and certainly people who forward this crap I credit with less to none.

Goddammit, I haven?t even finished bitching about this one and I get another fucking email forward from the same person again. This one is also a hoax. George Arlington?s little 10 month to 10 year old daughter (depends on the email) her name is Rachel, she has, surprisingly enough, brain cancer. Wow, original huh?
Apart from the fact it started circulating in 2000, and if she did have brain cancer she?s dead by now.
This one originally said the American Cancer Society would donate 3 cents per forwarded email. But the ACS did a press release stating the following, ?The ACS has no connection to the letter and regrets people are fooled into thinking they are helping the organization by perpetuating this e-mail message.? The Email was quickly changed to AOL and ZDnet who was tracking the email and would donate 32 cents if the email was forwarded to at least 3 people now.

The email is as follows:
FW: To my child (don't delete-its being tracked) VERY IMPORTANT?
Hi. I am a 29 year old father. Me and my wife have had a wonderful life together. God blessed us with a child too. Our daughter's name is Rachel, and she is 10 years old. Not long ago did the doctors detect brain cancer in her little body. There is only one way to save her and that is an operation. Sadly we don't have the money for the operation. AOL and Zdnet have agreed to help us. The only way they can help is this:
If you send this email to other people, AOL will track this email and count how many people get it. Every person that opens this email and sends it to at least 3 people will give us 32c. Please help us. George Arlington

And if a company decided to help, they wouldn?t do it based on the erratic forwarding of such emails, instead they would give a amount of money to the dieing kid, or they would cover the medical expense of the operation for the kid. No company would give money based on the random forwarding of a email.

?God blessed us with a child.? Pfft, it is total bullshit, no-one would write something like that if there daughter was dying. If they were religious people they wouldn?t be perpetuating this over the internet, they?d be seeking donations in their church or something. But since they apparently seem to be emailing people in a vain effort to raise the money for their, *sob* imaginary 10 month old to 10 year old daughter they wouldn?t be saying god blessed them with a daughter. God blessed their daughter with Brain cancer, maybe they should look into that? Fuckers?

And if they were doing this, there wouldn?t be the unauthorised use of a poem written by Sally Meyer preceding the Plea for help. Nor would it be in such fanciful colours and in writing about six times the size of the plea for help. The poem is titled ?Just for this Day? and can be found in it?s original context, along with Sally?s other works on this site - http://trainland.tripod.com/poems1.htm

So How about not actually forwarding this letter, instead why don?t you donate money to your local cancer people, or a local charity? Instead of thinking you are doing some good by forwarding an email to people who will forward to more people until eventually someone with half a brain notices its bullshit and tells you so.

People are gullible, idiots are even more so. Do you idiots forward these messages because you see the person before you forwarded it so much, it must be true, and they did the same? Against common sense? Are you all sheep and only forwarding because the person before you did that?? Or do you?re really do it because you think you are helping out a person with cancer, or a charity?

Forwarding this kind of crap does nothing but to clutter inbox?s, waste bandwidth and give out a massive amount of email addresses to people who will actually sell or give these addresses to spammers.

The Hate mail can be directed to - prometheus-1988@hotmail.com

- Prometheus

-------------

Agreed, to all things stated above.

-Gaz

By: gazmiester 4 comments