The Truth About Holly

Lyn wrote:

You called her yourself?

Yes. I called the company and asked for Holly and intentionally left out
a last name so that if there were two Hollys working there they would
ask me which one I was looking for. I did not want to make the mistake
of posting what I did if there was a second Holly and I got it wrong.
Holly answered the phone. She did not ask me which Holly I was looking
for. There are not two Hollys working there. Catnipped pointed out
another lie that was perpetrated regarding the claim of the business
address being the home address as well, which I mentioned in my OP.

Megan



"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Learn The TRUTH About Declawing
http://www.stopdeclaw.com

Zuzu's Cats Photo Album:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and
material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his
way."

- W.H. Murray

CatNipped wrote:
yes I was a fool, but
rather than beome cynical because I was taken in, I will instead
continue to be a fool because I won't close my heart to someone who
needs my help just because someone who didn't took advantage of my
willingness to help!
As you said, there *are* people who are suffering as she pretended
to be, so what you felt isn't invalidated because of what she did.

I'm making a mess of this - I am so, *SO* sorry! I can't believe
this has brought me to tears because of what I was made to do to you
guys!
I gotta go!

Hugs,

CatNipped

Look, Lori. It is so not your fault, and please don't weep about it. We
were all taken in, and you were kind enough to post updates. I can't tell
you how to tell the genuine posts from the not, I haven't figured that out
myself, although I've never experienced such an elaborate what? can't
think of a word - myself.
So please don't beat your breast about it, you did good. Judging by the
facts you had, you did exactly the right thing.
It is *not* your fault, okay?

Purrs & hugs
Tweed

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:12:10 -0600, zuzu22 wrote:

Despite the fact that I get into it with some people here, there are
also many people I like and respect very much and I believe that nobody
deserves to be lied to and taken advantage of. I'm not thrilled with the
prospect of writing what I am about to write, but I get very angry when
people are intentionally lied to and fraud is perpetrated, and that is
exactly what has happened in this group. It makes me even angrier when
someone takes advantage of good hearts and fakes medical conditions in
order to garner attention, especially when there are people here that
are dealing with very real medical issues that cause them a lot of pain
and hardship.

Holly is not in the hospital and has not had brain surgery. At about
10:30 this morning Holly was answering the phones at her job. The
address her "husband" provided and claimed was their home address is NOT
their home address. It is in fact the address of the firm where Holly
works. It is listed at their website he http://www.mwcarchitects.com/

Since she apparently works the front desk she probably is the first to
get the mail, which would eliminate any questions by other employees
about why she's getting so many cards all of a sudden.

I was very suspicious of Holly when she first started posting in
alt.cats as much of what she posted was full of discrepancies and
outright fabrication and she seemed desperate for attention. I became
even more suspicious of her when I started seeing all the "updates"
about her supposed surgery and so many things described in the emails
just didn't wash.

There is a lot of this type of behavior on usenet so at first I didn't
make much of it and chalked it up to the nature of the beast. However,
when someone starts using lies as she did and takes emotional advantage
of people, especially those who are dealing with very real hardship in
their own lives, that's where I draw the line. I feel bad for those of
you that got sucked into her lies (and I sincerely hope that nobody that
sent her a card included money in it), but hopefully you can learn from
this that you can't believe everything you read and should be very
careful about taking people at face value. A healthy amount of
skepticism (and some fact checking) goes a long way.

Megan



"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Learn The TRUTH About Declawing
http://www.stopdeclaw.com

Zuzu's Cats Photo Album:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and
material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his
way."

- W.H. Murray


Presidents' Day will be next Monday. Let us remember President Lincoln's
famous saying:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time
and all of the people some of the time.
But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."


Live and learn. Best wishes and purrs to all who are feeling badly about
this incident. MLB

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2005-02-18, L. (usenetlyn) penned:

If this is true, it really, really sucks. It takes away my faith in
humanity. Holly's "story" affected me greatly. I have been going
through a vey difficult time recently. I have lost most of the
eyesight in my left eye - I have a condition that is rare for someone
my age (41), and no one has any answers for why this happened. When
I read Holly's "story" I felt shameful. I felt bad that I was
feeling sorry for myself, when so many other people were going
through things which were a lot more serious and a lot harder to
deal with. I felt guilty, and I felt deep sympathy for Holly and
her condition. I emailed her personally and wished her well (I did
not mention my situation at all). In some small way, I felt a
connection to her, because she had changed my perspective; she had
helped me to understand life a little better and given me
perspective. I'm not writing this for sympathy. I simply want
Holly to know that her actions can affect other people - maybe
people she doesn't even know - greatly. It sickens me that someone
would "invent" something so tragic, when tragedy exists everyday,
for others.

When I was a freshman in college, I emailed a particular friend fairly
often. (He was the GM of my Rifts campaign, for your RPers out
there.)
He was fairly caustic and sarcastic.

Anyway, at some point he mentioned something about a horrible cancer
condition. I don't remember the details. I sent a lot of emails to
him. He didn't mention the cancer thing very often, and I thought it
was just because he was, you know, being stoic and whatnot.

Long story short, after much trauma on my part because I thought a
friend of mine was going to die, it turned out that he'd just been
joking. You know how email is; tone is sometimes hard to convey.
It's hard to explain how someone would joke about having cancer, but
there it is. I was so upset. I made him call me long distance and
then cursed a blue streak at him for several minutes. I missed a
final exam (I don't recall if it was before or after finding out it
was a "joke" or misunderstanding). Fortunately the professor
understood how traumatic the situation was and let me retake the
exam.

This was different, in that I am very sure my friend didn't mean to
hoax me, but I do remember how upset and foolish I felt. I didn't
talk to him for a long time thereafter; I don't think I ever saw him
the same way.

It did have a good side, though, in that I learned to be very careful
about tone in my text messages (I still screw that up occasionally,
but at least I try), and I have learned to try to give people the
benefit of the doubt when it sounds like they're saying something
snotty. Without tone and facial expression, it's so easy to
misunderstand.

Anyway, despite the fact that you were the victim of a hoax, maybe
some good still came of it. While Holly herself may not have had
brain cancer, it's certainly true that there are people out there who
do. It's almost always the case that someone in the world has it
worse than you, and sometimes I find that realization to help me come
to terms with my own problems. There's a German saying, "Wer
Gluecklich sein will muss unter Sich gucken," which roughly
translates to, "He who wants to be happy must look at those who are
less fortunate." I'm not trying to tell you how to feel about your
own problems, which are certainly worse than anything I've had to
face, but I wonder if thinking of a silver lining might not help.


Hello, Pollyanna!
It doesn't help.

Tweed

wrote in message
...
Lyn wrote:

You called her yourself?

Yes. I called the company and asked for Holly and intentionally left out
a last name so that if there were two Hollys working there they would
ask me which one I was looking for. I did not want to make the mistake
of posting what I did if there was a second Holly and I got it wrong.
Holly answered the phone. She did not ask me which Holly I was looking
for. There are not two Hollys working there. Catnipped pointed out
another lie that was perpetrated regarding the claim of the business
address being the home address as well, which I mentioned in my OP.

Megan

Yep, "James" mentioned in one of "his" notes to me that Holly had done their
web site, so her name is right there on the bottom of the front page of
their site in case there's anyone out there who wants to call and wants to
get the right Holly.

Hugs,

CatNipped

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Learn The TRUTH About Declawing
http://www.stopdeclaw.com

Zuzu's Cats Photo Album:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and
material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his
way."

- W.H. Murray

"mlbriggs" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:12:10 -0600, zuzu22 wrote:

Despite the fact that I get into it with some people here, there are
also many people I like and respect very much and I believe that nobody
deserves to be lied to and taken advantage of. I'm not thrilled with the
prospect of writing what I am about to write, but I get very angry when
people are intentionally lied to and fraud is perpetrated, and that is
exactly what has happened in this group. It makes me even angrier when
someone takes advantage of good hearts and fakes medical conditions in
order to garner attention, especially when there are people here that
are dealing with very real medical issues that cause them a lot of pain
and hardship.

Holly is not in the hospital and has not had brain surgery. At about
10:30 this morning Holly was answering the phones at her job. The
address her "husband" provided and claimed was their home address is NOT
their home address. It is in fact the address of the firm where Holly
works. It is listed at their website he http://www.mwcarchitects.com/

Since she apparently works the front desk she probably is the first to
get the mail, which would eliminate any questions by other employees
about why she's getting so many cards all of a sudden.

I was very suspicious of Holly when she first started posting in
alt.cats as much of what she posted was full of discrepancies and
outright fabrication and she seemed desperate for attention. I became
even more suspicious of her when I started seeing all the "updates"
about her supposed surgery and so many things described in the emails
just didn't wash.

There is a lot of this type of behavior on usenet so at first I didn't
make much of it and chalked it up to the nature of the beast. However,
when someone starts using lies as she did and takes emotional advantage
of people, especially those who are dealing with very real hardship in
their own lives, that's where I draw the line. I feel bad for those of
you that got sucked into her lies (and I sincerely hope that nobody that
sent her a card included money in it), but hopefully you can learn from
this that you can't believe everything you read and should be very
careful about taking people at face value. A healthy amount of
skepticism (and some fact checking) goes a long way.

Megan



"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing."

-Edmund Burke

Learn The TRUTH About Declawing
http://www.stopdeclaw.com

Zuzu's Cats Photo Album:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/zuzu22

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and
material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his
way."

- W.H. Murray


Presidents' Day will be next Monday. Let us remember President Lincoln's
famous saying:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time
and all of the people some of the time.
But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."


Live and learn. Best wishes and purrs to all who are feeling badly about
this incident. MLB


Ack! I forgot about President's day - so I'll have to wait until Tuesday to
call her.

Hugs,

CatNipped

CatNipped wrote:
"L. (usenetlyn)" wrote in message
oups.com...

snip
If what Megan posted is true, and I suspect it is, All I can say
is:
Holly, please get some help. You need it desperately.

hugs,
-L.

I really, *REALLY* hope this doesn't make you cynical or change how
you felt
(that's the thing I feel most bad about - not the fact that *I* was
taken
in, but that I *HELPED* take in others who *SO* don't deserve that
kind of
treatment)!

As I said in my post to Megan, to paraphrase, yes I was a fool, but
rather
than beome cynical because I was taken in, I will instead continue to
be a
fool because I won't close my heart to someone who needs my help just

because someone who didn't took advantage of my willingness to help!

As you said, there *are* people who are suffering as she pretended
to be,
so what you felt isn't invalidated because of what she did.

I'm making a mess of this - I am so, *SO* sorry! I can't believe
this has
brought me to tears because of what I was made to do to you guys!

I gotta go!

Hugs,

CatNipped


{{{{{Hugs, CatNipped}}}}} You were trying to be a good friend to
someone you believed really needed help and emotional support.

Like everyone else, I'd rather extend comfort to someone who needs it,
than withhold it from someone who does not. And, if someone really HAD
sent hate mail to a person who was genuinely sick in the hospital and
recovering from brain surgery, I would still think that was a terrible
thing to do. And Holly may very well have had brushes with cancer in
the past.

But today has been quite an education, and has left a sour taste in my
mouth. Loneliness, I can understand. Just about everyone feels lonely
sometimes. And the feeling can be crushing, and isolating. I would have
been willing to be online friends with Holly if she had simply joined
the group as another cat lover. But I have a real problem with a
person who feigns a serious illness--or several--in order to get
sympathy, while continuing on their daily business while we all thought
she was in the hospital. Perhaps I'm extra sensitive to this since
another friend of mine has just undergone extensive treatment for her
Hodgkin's Lymphoma. (Fortunately, her stem cell transplant was a
success, and it looks like the Hodgkins is in remission in her case.
YAY!!!) And here I was feeling bad for not sending Holly a get well
card... I do wonder if Holly will ever be back posting as herself,
now.

If you read this, Holly, please do get help. It's okay to be lonely.
It's not okay to lie about a serious illness in order to get sympathy
and attention. I think you owe us an apology.

Melissa

On 2005-02-18, Christina Websell penned:

Hello, Pollyanna! It doesn't help.

Tweed

Well, I wasn't specifically talking to you, so you can't really say whether it
helps her or not.

Obviously people are upset, but if we get derailed by suspicion and anger,
aren't we just further gratifying a personality whose only possible goal was
to draw attention to themselves and to disrupt the group?

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

After reading all the posts concerning this travesty, I'm glad that I didn't
pick the siamese kitten card to send her.

But on another note, wonder what her employers would think if all the emails
that "James" sent to catnipped about Holly's "surgery" were forwared to
them? I know where I used to work, they would frown upon personal use of
business email accounts, espeically when it comes to defrauding others

--�
The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy
former-blonde in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)© email me at
nalee1964 (at) insightbb (dot) com
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep

Magic Mood Jeep© wrote:
After reading all the posts concerning this travesty, I'm glad that I
didn't pick the siamese kitten card to send her.

But on another note, wonder what her employers would think if all the
emails that "James" sent to catnipped about Holly's "surgery" were
forwared to them? I know where I used to work, they would frown upon
personal use of business email accounts, espeically when it comes to
defrauding others

--�
The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy
former-blonde in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)© email me at
nalee1964 (at) insightbb (dot) com
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep

Indeed - we had a seminar conducted by our legal counsel at my former office
about how anything you send from a business email address is not *your*
property but the property of the company. They have every right to read,
intercept, scrutinize or otherwise deal with any correspondence sent under a
company's name. It is their property. Gotta be careful with this practice!

OB Cats: Just trimmed one of the artichokes for stuffing and Persia came
around the corner and was stretching up batting at the cabinet and my leg.
Heck, *I* don't even want these artichoke trimmings!

Jill