This is just soooo wrong...on soooo many levels!

I received this email this morning:

Hello Dear

I am interested in establishing and operating a very viable business as a means of investment abroad. I do not know too well on how this is done in your country, so I will need you to help me in this regard. My preference is any good profit yielding business and I would appreciate any viable ideas you could come up with.

I will also need you to help me look for properties like homes and lands for sale as I am proposing to invest the sum of Twenty Million British Pounds Sterling (£20 Million) for this. I do not know if you can and will be of help to me. For a brief on my personality; About me, my name is Mrs Comfort Porky a Saudi National,living in London, retired Business woman. I am married with my late Husband survive with my 2 lovely kids.

Dear friend i wish to let know that contacted you to be my business partner is not by accident but by the will of God, the most reason why i contacted you to be my partner over this project is because of my dangerous sickness which am passing through i don't know whether i will survive it or not, for six years now i have been suffering for kidney problem which i have been denying me so many thing.

Now for the project, am making it on behalf of my kids, i will like us to make investment of Hospital or School, this is my own dream i don't know of you. So you are advised to give me your own opinion.

Let me assure you that this business is 100% genuine and real, all that matters is your full cooperation by once you send me your full information's as listed below.

Your Full name..........................

Your Mobile number........................ ...

Your Telephone number.....................

Your fax number.........................

Your Residence address.............

Your current age.........................

Your International passport......................

Nationality :.................................

Profession ...................................

Your photo...........................

Thanks and waiting to hear from you.

Yours Sincerely,

Mrs.Comfort Porky.

Mrs. Porky is a Saudi national? In what dream world?? And does she really think I am going to send her , on a silver platter, everything she needs in order to counterfeit my passport and steal my identity? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the email's "sent" address hails from Russia...so a Muslim widow with the surname Porky (PORKY?? Doesn't the idiot who wrote this have even a clue about the relationship between Arabs and pigs??) who is living in the UK (and has somehow amassed £20 Million) sends me...a complete stranger...an email from Russia with a 100% genuine business proposal but I have to hurry because she is dying of kidney failure? Really??

The only thing more pathetic than this completely stupid fiction is the sad fact that, somewhere in the world, someone even more moronic than the sender is going to fall for this. Probably not an American, though...80+ percent of us are too insular to even have a passport.

Whatcha gonna do??

A few days ago I went to the Post Office. It’s located in a mall and as I exited my car, I had to turn to find the source of loud voices, as did the man exiting the car parked right beside me. Walking towards us was a young couple, arguing in full voice. As my neighbour and I watched, the young man reached out and grabbed the woman, wrapping his arms tightly around her and stopping her from walking. She struggled violently and broke his grasp, then resumed walking towards the mall entrance, but he caught up with her and grabbed her again, restraining her. She again broke free and resumed her forward progress and while he caught up with her, he apparently saw they had witnesses and this time kept his hands to himself.

As the pair walked past us, the man from the next car looked to me and said “What was that all about?” I shrugged and replied “I don’t know, but if he touches her again like that, I’m calling a cop.” My neighbour nodded and we maintained our watchful positions until they entered the mall where the security staff could watch over her.

***
We have a tenant who is harassing another tenant and we are preparing to evict him. She has a restraining order that he has violated at least twice, and he has been arrested and briefly jailed. There is nothing compelling us to evict him, but his behaviour does violate his lease and we feel that she should not have to lose her home in a place she loves with neighbours who are her close friends because he can’t behave in a civil manner. We served him with notices of breach of his lease and an advance notice of our intent to cancel his lease (in keeping with terms of the lease) and he claims he will be seeing an attorney to fight it.

***
On an internet forum I frequent, one of the members has recently begun soliciting funds for a charity. At first blush, this might seem innocuous…even laudable…but on closer inspection the “charity” appears to be a scam. Inspection and careful perusal of the associated website revealed a lot of fluffy chatter about the founder’s “cause,” but no explanation as to what that cause might be. No charter, no plan, no pictures of needy victims…just garish photos of a blowsy blonde wearing an excess of clotted make up and trying to look sexy, plus a lot of poorly written hype using too many exclamation points.

When asked to explain her “charity,” its purpose and beneficiaries, Blondie dissembled frenziedly, using a lot of ALL CAPS and even more exclamation points. A great deal of drama ensued, polarizing the participants into “tell the truth” and “quit picking on Blondie” factions. Finally, in a flurry of breathless all caps and punctuation marks, Blondie obliquely acknowledged that the charity was, in fact, herself.

Suggestions that Blondie cease soliciting funds until her charity was legally sanctioned fell on deaf ears. When one of the more erudite members of the community called the fund-raising campaign a scam and threatened to contact Blondie’s state attorney general and lodge a complaint, the “quit picking on Blondie” faction revved its objections to a fever pitch.

I was astounded! Here was an internet scam growing before our eyes, the founder of which admitted that the pseudo-charity was for the purpose of lining her own pockets, and people were strenuously advocating that the whistleblower mind her own business!

***
Are we our brother’s (or sister’s) keeper? Has the world changed so much since I learned to tell right from wrong that people feel perfectly justified in publicly restraining an unwilling partner, seeking redress for an eviction caused by documented harassment of another, or proudly revealing…and publicly soliciting support for…an admitted fraud?

And why are such acts finding support? This, perhaps, is what baffles me the most.

The man restraining his girlfriend was viewed dimly by my fellow parking lot denizen, but a person doesn’t behave in such a manner in public without feeling justified in doing so. What has gone on in his life…what kind of support has he received…that allows him to think it is perfectly acceptable to restrain an unwilling and struggling woman, in public or in private?

The tenant has been arrested and his victim has a restraining order against him. He has violated the restraining order on at least two occasions and has admitted it. We reminded him of his obligation to not intimidate, harass, or otherwise disturb the peace of other tenants, per the conditions of his lease. So what kind of support has he received for this kind of behaviour that he thinks a court will grant his bid to remain in the flat and continue to harass the victim who lives next door?

And the internet scam…why on earth would a bunch of apparently intelligent people support the person perpetrating the scam instead of the person who reported it to the authorities? Instead of castigating the perp, why are they perceiving her as being “picked on” when she was asked to stop? This makes me feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole…it makes me question my perception of right and wrong…it makes me wonder if I am out of synch with a world in which right and wrong have swapped places while I wasn’t looking.

I still stand ready to do the right thing…but can anyone tell me what the right thing is anymore?


Photo by navets, Flickr