A Chain Letter For Good Luck
a chain letter for good luck
-Like so many others, and yes, it's full of
bull.
Do not throw this letter away.
-How can I throw away something that's only
displaying on my screen? This particular junk must have started as
snailmail.
It has the power to bring you good luck and
prosperity;
-Right, and Bloody Mary will kill you on Halloween,
Santa Claus will come down your chimney and give you a million bucks for
Christmas, and the Easter Bunny will lay you a hundred golden chocolate eggs
while teaching you the chicken dance.
failing to follow its directions could lead to
disaster.
-If you believe that, would you be interested in
buying a bridge I want to sell you?
This letter has been around the world nineteen
times and has been translated into twenty-three languages.
-I'm sure it's been around the world many more
times than that due to people allowing themselves to get duped into sending this
sort of junk. The thing needed to be stamped out before it ever started its mad
circulation.
It began in late 1864, when it was dictated to Mary
Todd Lincoln, U.S. President Lincoln's wife, through a medium, by the spirit of
her late son Tadd Lincoln. Despite Mary Lincoln's great belief in the spiritual
world, her husband would not let her follow its instructions, and early in 1865,
President Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth. Mary Lincoln went
mad with grief and eventually was consigned to an asylum.
-Bull crap. Here it goes, let's see how many famous
and not so famous names get tossed into this piece of junk in a sorry attempt to
make people think it's true.
After President Lincoln's assassination, the letter
was discovered by his vice president and successor, President Andrew Johnson.
President Johnson neglected the letter and was impeached, but at the last moment
he remembered the letter, and sent out 10 copies to various heads of state and
childhood friends, and he was acquitted by one vote.
-AS if any of them actually received the letter, as
if it had any influence on their lives, whoever believes this is very sad, and
foolish to the point of frightening.
This is not a hoax; the chain letter has power from
the spirit world.
-Please, it's a chain letter. As such, if it says
it's not a hoax, it most definitely is.
Hundreds of people have ignored it and suffered the
consequences.
Balderdash.
In 1892,
Right, another bid at credibility by tossing in as
many names and supposed dates to make people think it's real, here we
go.
Pierre Jean Hugo received a copy of the French
version of the letter and threw it out, and broke his leg the next day after
falling down the stairs. A neighbor of his, Francois Duchatellier, also received
a copy. Monsieur Duchatellier sent out ten copies and a week later inherited a
chicken farm outside Digne. His great-grandson later sold the chicken farm for
$10 million to Frank Perdue of Perdue Chickens.
-I doubt that story is true down to the last
detail. Even if the names, dates and events are correct, none of it happened
because of some absurd chain letter.
In the early twentieth century, the archbishop of
Sarajevo received a copy of the letter, and thinking himself immune to such
letters, rejected it. Six months later, he was assassinated and Europe was
plunged into World War I, perhaps the bloodiest conflagration the world has ever
seen. But when Jafar Abu-Shabazz in Kenya received a Swahili version of the
letter in 1938 and sent out ten copies, he not only married his childhood
sweetheart, but he escaped World War II when several of his friends and
neighbors were conscripted and died in the military. Talk about false name and
date dropping overload!
-Talk about possibly false or at least partly
inaccurate trivia and date dropping overload! Have you ever seen such a
desperately incoherent pack of lies promoting a piece of junk all crammed into
two paragraphs?
Send no money; money has no place in spiritual
matters.
-Right, don't want to get caught doing something
illegal, so this chain makes sure not to solicit money. The only spirit at work
in this chain is the spirit of manipulation and gullibility.
Simply make ten copies of this letter and send them
to friends, relatives or strangers via e-mail or a regular postal service within
one week, then sit back and wait for your luck to change.
-The only thing you would accomplish by inflicting
this bogus hoax letter on everyone around you is broadcasting what an easy
target you are for the amusement of chain letter and other spam originators. In
other words, you'd be shouting out for all the world, "I'm an
idiot!"
U.S. President George Bush didn't believe in chain
letters, but when he mailed ten copies in early 1991, he was able to defeat
Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War with minimal casualties.
-Wrong. Hussein wasn't defeated until more than a
decade later, and chain letters had nothing to do with it.
-President Bush sent a copy to Ted
Turner,
-Since when do you read George Bush's and Ted
Turner's email?
and as a result of his own diligence, Ted Turner
was able to establish CNN as a credible news organization with its spot coverage
of the Gulf War.
-And they all lived happily ever after! You know,
fairy-tales are nice, but they have a tendency to lose all their charm in chain
letters.
Trying to hoodwink people into passing on a hoax by
dropping a bunch of famous names throughout is hardly a new or cool trick, and
does not make the hoax any more true.
Ten copies are all that is needed to bring good
fortune.
-Right, and the Loch Ness Monster will hunt you and
your family down and consume you all by tomorrow morning.
Don't be like Northwood High junior Michael
Rogerstein who failed to copy the letter in 1963. He broke his leg two weeks
later and was unable to attend the prom with his girlfriend.
-You seem to have this weird thing about broken
legs. Would you like it better if I told you your leg would break tomorrow
instead of the original dire tall tale about your family and the Loch Ness
Monster?
Instead, she went with Virgil Forrest and married
him instead, and didn't even invite Michael to the wedding. Gillian Anderson
sent out copies and as a result has become a famous actress for her performance
as Dana Scully on the X-Files.
-So you're an X Files fan. That doesn't make your
silly stringing together of some disconnected factoids and conjecture any more
impressive.
Just send out ten copies. It works!
-No, don't. For the sake of your reputation and out
of consideration for others, just don't.
