The spirit of mankind - A True Story!

[firebreather]

It is a heart warming story, true or not does it matter ?
We have all seen examples of the greatness of humanity, quite a lot of them on here. There will always be detractors from how the world works and it would be great if we could add our adult sensibilities to the innocence of childhood.
They always say youth is lost on the young.

Keep the faith people are good at heart given half the chance.

Greg

 

[Jedadiah]

You know what, i liked that. True or not, i don't care. It brought a tear to my eye and lump to my throat. I've not heard it before so thanks Greg, Knowing you as i do, i think it may have affected you in much the same way.

To all those people who bemoaned that it was copied or made up, or just wanted to point out a short coming or make a clever comment or generally pour scorn, you are forgiven.

However, remember this, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing! Sometimes you really do spoil things and i think you sometimes put up posts without thinking about others. In a self perpetuating society, if you do nice things, nice things may happen!

 

[Tengu]

Id like it more believable if told as true.

Having said that there no harm in a story with a message

 

[Wayland]

Snip>
However, remember this, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing! Sometimes you really do spoil things and i think you sometimes put up posts without thinking about others. In a self perpetuating society, if you do nice things, nice things may happen!

Very well put. Compliments of the season to you. .

 

[Jodie]

I've found a nice one that Snopes says is true, although a bit exaggerated. The real story
is almost as heartwarming - quite often there's a nugget of truth in even the most unlikely
one: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/milk.asp

Personally I'm a big fan of good stories (who isn't!!) and I don't think there's a smidge wrong
with creating an inspiring tale to make people think or reflect. I enjoyed a really LOVELY
adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol (Scrooge et al) earlier this evening on the
television - a heartwarming tale, and utterly fictional - apparently to influence readers on
the miseries suffered by the poor in workhouses, ie. I understand it was written to spark
social reform as well as entertain (I could be wrong though). Anyway, it's a jolly good tale.

But I always run a google search on these stories before re-sending, and add the word
"snopes" to the search string - they're pretty good at weeding out the true from the 'as
true', and they usually provide the history of the tale.

I don't do this because I want to pour scorn on anyone but because the internet is awash
with good and bad and snopes is one of only a handful of sites that makes an effort to
help filter it - and in an even-handed way, rather than some bloggers who just poke fun.

Sometimes the stories are just as heart-tugging but have a less fluffy outcome - the Make
a Wish foundation is often inundated with people writing in asking them about the stories
that do the rounds about sick children who've supposedly made a wish. It just costs them
time and effort to have to respond to them:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/amybruce.asp
and
http://www.wish.org/about/chain_letters

I think there are plenty of genuine examples of kind-heartedness right here on the forum

 

[Greg]

Id like it more believable if told as true.

Having said that there no harm in a story with a message

Tengu if you have nothing good to say, don't bother!:tapedshut

When I started this thread I didn't care if it was true or not! All I wanted to do was pass on a message of how the human spirit can come good, most of the time!
You know, I was in Kosovo in 1999 during and just after the Serbs had left, I visited a friend in the Pristina hospital who had been involved in a car crash. Not much you might think and you would probably be right, but when I walked on the ward it was full of people of all ages young and old with various ailments - mainly limbs blown off by land mines.
These people had just been put through genercide but didn't complain! Their Mothers, Fathers, Sisters and Brothers had been at the very least killed! At the worst raped butchered and abused then killed! These people didn't go on, they didn't complain, they got on with their lives as best they could. But you still think you have a right to say what you have said where you live in a place that gives you what you want and the people don't ask anything in return!
To me Tengu there are people in this country of ours who will never be happy with what they have, they always moan and complain and never accept life for what it is even though it is a hell of a lot better than what it could be.
So I hope you and all the other people who have ridiculed or misconstrued the message of this thread at this special time of the year have a Merry Xmas and I really hope you all think about what you have written previously on this thread because true or not it is a story of human nature the way it should be!
Treat those the way you would want to be treated yourself.
Rant Over!!!!!!

To everyone else I'm glad you found it as learnful as I did and I hope both you and I can act in the same way in the future towards our fellow Man! ( Woman!). Able or otherwise. Thankyou and Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to you all!

 

[firebreather]

To everyone else I'm glad you found it as learnful as I did and I hope both you and I can act in the same way in the future towards our fellow Man! ( Woman!). Able or otherwise. Thankyou and Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to you all!

Here Here !!!!!

 

[Wayland]

Lets all take a deep breath lads.

Might be worth taking a look here before organising a lynch mob.

Sorry I was slow to notice it myself.

 

[John Fenna]

True or false - who cares?
Was the tale of the Good Samaritan true?
It still makes a good lesson on what can be done for peoples good side to be stimulated.
Be MICE to EVERYONE then some niceness may come back to you!
Merry Xmas!

 

[Fallow Way]

squeek squeek

 

[joejoe]

True or false - who cares?
Was the tale of the Good Samaritan true?
It still makes a good lesson on what can be done for peoples good side to be stimulated.
Be MICE to EVERYONE then some niceness may come back to you!
Merry Xmas!

spot on merry christnas

 

[John Fenna]

Erps - fingers move quicker than brain! - squeek indeed!
Must get unlazy enough to find spellcheck!
Yea - I will do that in a bit.....

 

[Mirius]

Tengu if you have nothing good to say, don't bother!

In the spirit of Christmas, I would ask that everyone close their eyes and take a moment to allow their irritation at Tengu to die down before they respond. Put it to one side and move on. I know from personal experience (not with her!) that these sorts of comments can be extremely irritating and hurtful, but my experience tells me that they are not intended in quite the way that they appear at first. Well OK, sometimes they are, but the motivation behind the intent is not always what we think.

Perhaps I'm being a bit overgenerous with Tengu, since I don't know her and have never spoken to her. Perhaps I'm being presumptuous, but take the spirit of the story and apply it to her as well please. People who display obvious physical disabilities in the story are more likely to bring about the feelings of generosity or pity if you will that mean we can make allowances. Speaking as someone who has issues of their own (no I'm not claiming any disability or asking for allowances to be made for me), we appear intelligent enough to make our own choices and yet sometimes we don't appreciate just how our actions and words impact on others.

So a Merry Christmas to you all!

 

[Mirius]

Erps - fingers move quicker than brain! - squeek indeed!
Must get unlazy enough to find spellcheck!
Yea - I will do that in a bit.....

I don't think that spell check will help you there John

Squeak, squeak!

 

[Glen]

True or false - who cares?

Some care some don't, to most of us it's not a big deal, to some by their nature, have little choice but to care about it more than the rest ( something to do with how they percieve the world? ) Tengu appears to be one of these people.

I think one of the nicest and most heartwarming things I've seen on this thread is

Id like it more believable if told as true.

Having said that there no harm in a story with a message

Which does seem to show that, for their part, they've come a long way to understanding and accepting the ways of many of the others.
Possibly I'm not so far removed from Tengu's situation myself and as such it may have been easier for me to see that as Tengu saying something nice, like how the initial story could be more easily accepted and understood ( in the message that it's trying to give ) by more people.


Here's a nice little anecdote of how some peope who have a somewhat different world perception can sometimes see more clearly that those who have a more standard one.

In the book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” Dr. Oliver Sacks encounters a room in which a group of patients with aphasia and one with agnosia were watching Reagan give a speech. Aphasiacs have difficulty understanding word meaning, while those with agnosia can not comprehend vocal tone, character, or expressiveness. The aphasiacs were laughing. Upon investigation, Sacks discovered the reason. Unable to understand the words Reagan was saying, the aphasiacs were left with simply his expressions and vocal emotion, and based on those factors, they had concluded he was lying. One of the patients with agnosia, however, looked on in stony troubled silence. When questioned, she responded that the president did “not speak good prose… His word-use is improper. Either he is brain-damaged or he has something to conceal". While the rest of the country was blinded by the splendor of Reagan-era politics, those who could not perceive the entire aesthetic package were immediately able to see the man behind the curtain.

 

[spamel]

Blimey! This thread is pretty much a parable in itself!

I'm not the sort of person who likes threads to be locked every five minutes, but in this case I'd love for this thread to be locked before any more hurtful or aggresive posts are made. It goes against the spirit of the season, the point of the initial story and offers nothing to the community.

Don't forget that this is a mainly faceless community, many of us have met, but many more of us have not. Nobody can be expected to remember who has what difficulties and disabilities, so nobody can be blamed for the terse replies they gave to Tengus' opinion. Maybe now, with the benefit of hindsight, some may feel they were a little bit out of order to say the things they did but after learning of her disability they can maybe understand why she said the things she did. Whatever, it's done now, I just hope nobody holds a grudge and can dismiss the rants and ravings as heat of the moment and get on with our lives.

Remember, try and be nice to each other no matter how much of a dick you think the person is!

 

[Jedadiah]

Life's too short to hold a grudge and i for one am short as well. I, like many others, say my piece and leave it there. I empathise with anyone who has difficulties and find challenges around every corner. However, if we patronised them and said ah well, they cannot help it', it would not benefit them at all. People with problems cannot be all grouped up and treated the same, we are all individuals and we should celebrate diversity. They are entitled to thier opinions. So is everyone. How can people be expected to learn of others feelings if they are patronised and tret with kid gloves. Tengu let others know her opinion and others let her know thiers. There is no malice and no victimisation, just lessons learnt in both camps.

Anyway, my comment was not exclusively aimed at Tengu, it was a general comment to everyone who did not take the story in the spirit it was offered and felt the need to post terse and thoughtless comments. If anyone is offended by my post i have a couple of words. 'If you cannot take it, don't dish it out' and 'Grow up!'. Also, John, can you pass the cheese please!

 

[John Fenna]

Oh - Squeek bl**dy squeek!


Grumble, mutter, spell check, mumble, grumble...........(fades into distance)

 

[xylaria]

can you pass the cheese please!

Isn't the story cheesy enough!!

I didn't really want to say because everyone was getting so gushy over it, but i thought it was trite rubbish. I can see the spirit to which it was made, but it does promote a patronizing view of disability that they puts others at a disadvantage by helping them.

My view is the world is richer place for the bluntness and quirkiness of asperger's, the giggles of downs, the better public buildings of wheelchair access, the creativity of sczhophrenia, the spacial thinking of dyslexics etc,etc, etc. Now who is getting gushy!!

 

[Cairodel]

I didn't really want to say because everyone was getting so gushy over it, but i thought it was trite rubbish. I can see the spirit to which it was made, but it does promote a patronizing view of disability that they puts others at a disadvantage by helping them. D

Perzackely Xylaria..!!!
I say this as one who spends a great deal of his (own) time visiting orphanages and other
organisations trying to help the infirm/disabled/not-so-well-off in and around Cairo, as well
as taking a monthly trip (nobody else wants to do it....) to the leper colony in Abu Zaabal,
delivering medicines and other suchlike on behalf of the British Community in Egypt.
PLEASE..!!!! If you want to tell me (true) stories about man's kindness, then do so,
but please don't try to feed me fables, fairy stories or any other such cr*p and expect me
not to check with Snopes..!!!