Many people are familiar with the story of the boy who cried wolf. For those who are not, this is an old European fairy tale (which has no fairies) about a young shepherd boy who gets bored watching the sheep all alone, who cries ‘wolf’ to get attention. He does it so many times, when a real wolf shows up, the villagers ignore his cries and he’s eaten by the wolf.
Lately, my email inbox has been clogged with a plethora of ‘wolf!’ cries from politicians seeking donations, pundits from right and left flogging their particular ideology, and con artists trying to rook the unsuspecting into their latest scam.
The politicians use emotionally loaded language designed to inflame, excite, and anger; they try to spread fear in order to get votes. Words and phrases like ‘witch hunt,’ and ‘socialist’ are bandied about to frighten or energize potential voters for or against particular candidates or issues.
Once neutral terms like ‘liberal’ or ‘woke’ are now used as pejoratives, written in ALLCAPS for emphasis. I suppose some people are still affected by this, but from my point of view, these people have cried WOLF one time to many, and I no longer pay them any attention, especially since their frantic messages are almost always ended with requests for money—the crazier the message, the more money they ask for.
I just wish the wolf would go ahead and eat them so my inbox would have a little less trash to be deleted. Same goes for the pundits. A so-called expert who has to use hyperbole and capital letters to get a point across, in my opinion, has no valid point to make.
The con artists, though, go to the top of my list of people I don’t want to break bread with; people who inspire me to break something else—arm, leg, finger, maybe.
The one that seems most prevalent now—besides the blatant effort to get my personal information to facilitate the delivery of a package that I did not order—are the ‘hair on fire’ emails about the demise (recall) of the U.S. dollar that can only be avoided if you click on further links and follow the ‘investment’ advice of so-called financial experts, most of whom are identified as ‘former’ bank executives, or who I’ve never heard of. When this first started, the deadline for recall of the dollar was supposed to be in July – it didn’t happen.
So, now they’re not giving a specific date, but pointing out that all these well-known billionaires and major CEOs are taking action, so you should click on the link and follow their advice because ‘soon’ the president will go on TV and announce the recall of the US dollar. You should also check on the link to see if the bank you use is on a ‘blacklist.’ Funny thing is that link just leads to another video from an expert trying to sell you something. These screamers are coming from all over the place, but a lot of them come from Florida, which seems to be home for a large number of high-tech con artists these days, second only to Delaware.
These would be amusing if they didn’t come so often and in such quantity. They kind of remind me of the old ‘You’re a potential sweepstakes winner, but you’ll forfeit your winnings if you don’t act now!’ I used to think those were over the top, but like most things, just when you think they’ve gone as low as they can go, they dig some more.
The problem with all this, whether politician, pundit, or scammer, is that you can’t really ‘unsubscribe’ from them. Oh, they have the ‘Unsubscribe’ link, but clicking on it only causes the next such solicitation to come from a different email address.
The only sure cure to all this is to go off the grid—and by that I mean off the Internet and ditch the cell phone. Of course, that’s not a realistic solution for most of us, so for now, all I can say is thank goodness for the Delete key. | NWI
