how to win friends & influence people

or not. Greeting me in my in-box this morning was one of those horrible forwarded-within-an-inch-of-its-life email hoaxes. From a relative. Who believes it.

It came with the above picture and others that were even worse - I picked this one because it strikes me at ironic somehow.

I debated just deleting, as the instructions said to do if I didn't agree with it. But no - ya know what (that's me being folksy!) ? It's not OK to send something hateful to me & then say I'm not allowed to reply.
So here it is - my response:

Dear ones (not really, but I'm leaving names out),
In spite of your request not to reply, I am...because I am related to many of you and love you.

The information contained in this email is simply NOT true and is dangerous.

I looked up the author of this hate speech and found that it had been debunked on Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/allah.asp and that it has been making the email rounds since 2003.

Further, the whole jihad idea is from extremists, a tiny tiny fraction...Christianity has it's own extremists too...and they have done some terrible things as well. Please do not use God's name to promulgate hate. Our world, ever more global, needs education and understanding and love...not this. Please, let's not live our lives and make our choices based in fear and misunderstanding of those who are different from us. I'm quite certain that God expects better of us.

Sadly, I don't think my email will get forwarded to all the people who have read this dangerous made-up story. That's a shame.

with love and respect,
Kim

Why is this being sent now? Is it in regards to the election? To the wack-job insinuations that Barack Obama is not really "one of us" (wink)? This makes me sad. I know my email will get deleted. Or it may cause anger. At the very least, perhaps those who receive it will think twice about forwarding such things to me in the future.

post script:
I just received an email from my dad's cousin basically saying "right on"!

PSS:
I also got an email from my Dad. It was to me, the cool cousin & the close relative in question...it said "I know you are better than this". It also reminded that he is a "proud member of the ACLU and proud to wear the label of Liberal". Rock on, Dad - I love you!