Crying Babies and Gang Initiations: More Than Just a Friendly Warning?

A Swelle Public Service Announcment: You know those emails you get every so often (if you're a woman) from a concerned friend (usually female) that warn of frightening and unpredictable tactics used by would-be rapists and murderers? Like the one where the guy plays a recording of a crying baby on the doorstep in the night to lure out unsuspecting women? Or the guy who sneaks into the back of a woman's car while she's paying for gas, and immediately gives it all up when the police pick him up, saying that he was going to abduct and kill a woman for his gang initiation?

There's an interesting article in today's Guardian exploring what's behind these fictitious emails that typically appear to have come from police officers looking to 'serve and protect' via cyberspace. It's well worth the read, especially for those of us who mean well when we forward them to others. HINT - if any email you receive asks you to 'Please pass this on! Very scary! You may save a life!', that's the spammers' calling card. Just because it's not trying to sell you on the latest wang enlargement elixir doesn't mean it's necessarily altruistic (one came to Other Half with this tantalising first-person testimonial:  'I know I have tough and fat man-meat, it got more juicy too.' ?????).

Read the article here

I did a little Googling and also found that the terrifying (and highly suspect) story about gang members driving with their lights off, then killing the first person to flash their headlights is also false. There are no reports anywhere in the US (where the story originated) substantiating these claims, according to Snopes.com. The urban legend-exposing website reports that attacks on random strangers are extremely rare and that the usual gang intitiation, known as the 'jump in', involves the gang severely beating the new recruit. Good, then.

Oh - if you're wondering what the photo above has to do with this, it's nothing at all. I couldn't think of anything relevant I'd want to put with the words. It just so happened that I turned around from the computer and saw that my daughter, after making a picture with her thick chalks, left them arranged upright on the paper and I thought it was an interesting composition. So I snapped it, gave it the soft focus effect and there you go.