Monday, May 11, 2009

Email hoaxes

I have just received an email from a dear friend with whom I use to work. It is not the first time a concerned, loving but naive friend had sent me one of those emails about some poor child (graphic photos) suffering some disease with the message that AOL or some other company will donate 15 - 32 cents for each email forwarded.
They make me see red and I look up Snopes to prove they are false.
I hate telling my dear friends they have been hoaxed but feel such messages must be stopped where possible.
Having sent the message to her, I then found Maithri's latest post about a little girl, Zama, who has suffered terrible physical and emotional injuries in Swaziland and the way he has been able to help. I sent the link to my friend saying this was real and hopefully she would pass that on. Maithri and all those like him are true candidates for sainthood. Hopefully people may send him or other real charities a few dollars rather than clog the intertubes with useless emails.
My favourite is Medecins Sans Frontieres.

2 comments:

Fran said...

FWIW I do the same snopes thing - and send the emails. I hate feeling like the party pooper, but it is such a waste of time and email and so much emotional energy for those things to be perpetuated.

And Maithri, he is truly brilliant with his work, his words, his love.

Brian R said...

Thanks Fran. I cannot understand the mentality of the people who originally created the email. Back in the aeons of time, of course. What satisfaction do they get out of it? They could put their energy to something much more useful.