On Monday morning as I breezily walked into the Chief's office for the beginning of the workweek, said a few "good mornings," sat at my desk and began checking my email.
The first one I opened was like a slap. I was awoken from my dream state with an assault of pictures and words I can only describe as shameless propaganda and an exploitation of emotion.
I've received my fair share of chain mail (those unentertaining pieces of tripe that threaten you to forward the message to 15 recipients right now or die a miserable death). I've deleted them all and replied the sender with a cold rebuke, which usually works.
But this latest one has me convinced that too many of us have become desensitized to what it is we're reading in these messages.
It was entitled "Pictures the news doesn't show you" and depicted a series of images of American soldiers in full combat attire doing all sorts of wholesome things. Each soldier carried a very prominent M-16 while petting a kitten or high-fiving a young Muslim boy surrounded by laughing Muslim men. Another soldier sat on the ground cradling a toddler - who knows why the toddler needed cradling.
The email finished with a message saying "I better not hear of anyone breaking this one or see it deleted. Pass it on to everyone and pray. Send this to 13 people in the next 15 minutes. Go."
Pardon me? I told the sender in as nice a way as possible that I do not appreciate such messages.
She responded with the weak excuse that she usually deletes chain mail but passed this one on because a friend sent it to her.
Okay, so she's a sucker. But did she read the damn thing?
Out of curiosity, I emailed everyone on her forward list to ask if I was the only one disturbed by the message's content.
I received one reply (thanks Chuck) saying he deleted the message, but was not overly offended.
Do people not realize that they've just been threatened? I asked myself.
Obviously the whole idea of chain mail is underscored by threats, and those are usually taken as seriously as they're given.
But come on now, this is getting out of hand.
There's a chasm of a difference between sending a message that shows what you're feeling and trying to force others, either through shame or threats, to not only agree with you, but to participate in furthering your message.
It's genius really, downright Machiavellian.
Come to think of it, maybe I should get on board. I could get people to stop forwarding chain messages by launching my own chain message I think I'll start right now. Tell 50 of your friends to buy the Chief newspaper this week and read the opinion page. Do it in the next two hours and something good will happen to you.
Go!
