SR - Re: Fw: PLEASE help a seven year old girl

[Tim McDaniel]

On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, Cad and Martha <cadmartha at drbcom.com>
sent out the classic JESSICA MYDEK letter.

1) Chain letters are bad.  Even in a good cause.  Please
don't send them.

2) It's false.  There is no evidence of any real Jessica
Mydek, and the American Cancer Society denies any such
project.

For a good time^H^H^H^H summary, see

<a href="http://snopes.simplenet.com/spoons/faxlore/mydek.htm">

which includes:

    The ACS position is quite simple: they "do not endorse
    the use of chain letters."  Ever. They've also told me
    that this particular "use of the Society's name is
    unauthorized."  Also, they don't know any Jessica
    Mydek. Indeed, they're doing their level best to
    investigate where this wild e-mail came from. It
    certainly wasn't from them. (Check out what they have to
    say about it at American Cancer Society's web site.)

The latter is <a href="http://www.cancer.org/chain.html">.

    Above and beyond my conversations with them, common
    sense alone should show this up for the hoax it
    is. Think about it for a sec. One of the primary
    purposes of the American Cancer Society is the direction
    funds towards cancer research (and the Society is good
    at this -- since its inception in the 1950's, it's done
    exactly that with $1.7 billion). The concept of the ACS
    "donating" funds towards cancer research is akin to the
    notion of a hockey player "donating" all the goals he
    scores to his team.

    Then there's the matter of unnamed corporate sponsors --
    there just ain't any such critters. Companies donate
    monies to worthy causes, and their reward for doing so
    is becoming identified in the public's mind not only
    with that particular cause but also with the larger
    concepts of service to one's community and a sense of
    social responsibility. These are powerful images to
    plant in the minds of consumers, far too powerful to
    just be thrown away by remaining anonymous.

(There was also a suggestion that "Jessica Mydek" was a
cloaked obscene phrase -- "just suck-a my dick" -- but that
may be an example of humans seeing patterns that aren't
there.)

-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work address.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.
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