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Slow Dance

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

Slow Down

 

Some of the most melignant e-mail hoaxes are tales about sick and/or dying children.

 

It's disturbing to think that you or I could write something that was just meant to make the reader ponder, and then have somebody come along, steal it, say it was written by someone else, real or fictional, and use our writing to perpetuate something they made up about a dying child or anything else, just to sucker people into passing it on.

 

But that's exactly what happened to David L Weatherford's poem "Slow Dance" It was hijacked for use in a dying child hoax, and Weatherford was stripped of any credit for the poem, which was then attributed to a fictional dying kid.

 

The poem touches on concepts such as regret and the realization that life is short, things most kids just aren't capable of feeling to this degree.

 

It never made sense to me that a child could have written it, dying or not. Little kids usually aren't that introspective and just don't write that well.

 

This is the poem as written by David L. Weatherford. Personally, knowing it was written and published by someone legit and not by the sick people who made up the big lie known as the Jessica Mydek, Amy Bruce, or any variant of the dying child hoax, redeems the poem in my eyes.

 

--

 

SLOW DANCE

 

by David Weatherford

Published: 1991 by the Russ Berrie Company

 

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask "How are you?"

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

Ever told your child,

We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say "Hi"?

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift....

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

 

--

 

This is what breakthechain.org says about the "Slow Dance" dying child hoax.

 

The poem was written by David L. Weatherford and published in 1991 by the Russ Berrie Company. It was added to the chain letter in early 2001. Wetherford is uncertain how the poem came to be associated with the dying child hoax and does not endorse its inclusion. Heartwarming and inspirational, it lowers our defenses and make us less skeptical of the rest of the message. Other versions of this "dying kid" chain letter feature an ASCII-Text "Elmo" or other feel-good messages instead of the poem.

 

Dr. Shields' involvement with this letter is a case of False Attribution Syndrome. He has nothing to do with this hoax other than the fact that he forwarded the message and automatically attached his "signature" to it.

 

In a 2001 statement on their website, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine denied Dr. Shields' involvement with the hoax and asked you to delete it and help stop its spread.

 

The message implies that the American Cancer Society is tracking forwards of the message, but the ACS denies any involvement with this or any other e-mail scheme to provide help to a needy child. Besides, E-mail tracking as it is described in the letter is technologically impossible.

 

Most of us would love to help the fight against cancer, especially if it were as easy of forwarding an e-mail message. Bottom line, the fight for cancer takes money. The American Cancer Society doesn't make donations, they collect them - your donations and mine. Hoaxes like this one hurt organizations like ACS because they force them to divert valuable time, personnel, and resources to respond to the lies. Break this Chain!

 

--

 

Here's my debunk of the hoax.

 

Slow Down

 

We all want to help children, especially when cancer is involved. When help seems as easy but unlikely as forwarding an e-mail, -our emotional distress often overrides common sense because the chain mail originators do everything to make us feel sad or guilty or both, enough to forward their lies.

 

This is a sick idea of a joke, it is a chain letter as such; a poem stolen by a hoaxer and used as part of a sick hoax and a lesson for us to consider.

 

The poem was not written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. The letter was not sent by a medical doctor Dr. Yeou Cheng Ma, -but some spammer who gets their kicks fantasizing about dying children and making the masses cry over a child that doesn't exist.

 

Please do what you can to stop helping fulfill the dreams of the sick puppy who stole the poem and put it in the stupid chain letter saying it was written by a dying child. Don't fall for this crap, and don't- take to heart what- that spammer says in their closing statement AFTER THE POEM.

 

Slow Down

 

Have you ever watched chain letters come round and round?

Or felt as your head

hit the wall then the ground

Ever followed emotion's erratic flight?

Then gazed at the screen and screamed "This isn't right!"

You'd better slow down.

Don't forward so fast.

Time is short.

The patience won't last.

Do you forward anyway, without asking why

your friends and you

keep getting chain letter lies?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

Thoughts of fictitious chain letter children

Running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't forward it so fast.

Time gets wasted.

The tolerance won't last.

Ever told your friend,

I've sworn off chain letters starting tomorrow?

And in your haste,

forwarded them another sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To send anything but chain letter lies?

You'd better slow down.

Don't forward it so fast.

Time is run out.

The friendship won't last.

When you move so fast to pass it on everywhere,

That's no way to show you really care.

When you worry and forward away

It is like holding onto the wrappings

and throwing the gift away.

Time can't be replaced

Don't waste it on forwards.

Hear the call

To stop the freakin forwards!

 

PLEASE don't FORWARD THIS TO HELP a little girl who doesn't exist. ALL FORWARDED E-MAILS ARE not TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL COUNT.

 

Dear -Suckers:

 

PLEASE don't pass this mail on to everybody you know. It is not the request of a special little girl who will soon leave this world as she was never in it to begin with so does not have cancer.

 

Thank you for your wasted time and tears this is a chain letter, that tries to give you no- choice for all of us to save -an imaginary little girl that's not dying of a serious and fatal form of cancer -that non existant children all seem to get, it must be something really catching in Never-Neverland...

 

Please don't send this to everyone you know... or don't know. This little pretend girl has 6 months left not to exist, and that was years ago, so what's the deal with that-

 

and as her un-dying wish, she wanted to send a -stupid sappy letter she did not write, telling everyone how to live their lives since she never will. She'll never make it to prom, graduate from high school, or get married and have a family of her own. -Good grief, this was taken right out of the Jessica Mydek hoax that circulated in 1997 through 2000 or somewhere around there. However, this is true, she will never get married and have kids, I don't know of any non-existant people that did...How would they do that anyway? Just have a baby out of the blue? *blip* Instant baby!

 

By you sending this to as many people as possible, you can -show everybody how gullible you are! And, you get to annoy the heck out of strangers, acquaintances, and turn friends into enemies!

 

-give yourself and your fellow human beings a well deserved break! Stop torturing yourself and irritating everybody else, because nobody likes to be head-gamed.

 

because with every name that this is sent to, The American Cancer Society will not and cannot donate 3 cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan, which would be bogus anyway since she doesn't even exist. One poor fool is said to have sent this to 500 people!!!! -Then again, maybe that was the same guy/girl/hermaphrodyte? who tried to make up a sappy letter, included the poem to the Jessica Mydek lie, thinking some of us wouldn't notice the wording was the same, and spammed some networks and is probably laughing his/her demented head off at everybody who bought into the stupid thing!

 

So I know that we can but should not send it to at least 5 or 6. Just think it could not be you one day since you're not among the nonexistant people cooked up in the head of some sick spammer. It's not even your money, just your time and emotions being wasted on this crap!!! "PLEASE don't PASS ON AS A LAST REQUEST"

 

Not signed by Dr. Dennis Shields, Professor

Department of Developmental and

Molecular Biology

Albert Einstein College of Medicine of

Yeshiva University

1300 Morris Park Avenue

Bronx, New York 10461

 

Check out what's said about "Slow Dance" at any hoax debunking site, including breakthechain.org and truthorfiction.com They and many more are listed at.

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