I think e-mail
just might be the most powerful communication medium ever invented.
Think about it.
In
a matter of seconds I can fire off a note to a reader in Jakarta,
Indonesia thanking her for pointing out that three months ago I stranded
a preposition in my column about dog poop. I can let her know that her
alert assistance is something I will always be grateful for.
The best thing about e-mail
is that it's all completely free – if you don't count the $49.95 I spend
every month on my high-speed
Internet
connection, or the roughly $150,000 I have invested in computer
equipment that is now worth a total of maybe $75 on a good day.
But there is a down side to all this instant intercontinental kvetching.
It's known as SPAM.
For the benefit of my younger readers, the overwhelming majority of whom
have grown up roasting their thighs reading e-mail
on their laptops, I should point out that back in the old days the word
"SPAM" referred to a vaguely meat-like substance that you ate. When I
was a kid in Hawaii there was nothing quite as wonderful as a SPAM
sandwich, or SPAM and eggs.
On an interesting side note, I have never heard of a constipated
Hawaiian.
Anyway, just imagine my disappointment later in life when the registered
trademark of one of my favorite foods became synonymous with e-mail
subject
lines like, "You can be ugly and stupid, as long as have a big tool!"
I'm pretty sure they are not talking about cordless drills.
So what this all boils down to is that each day I get somewhere between
50
and 100
messages correcting my grammar or providing me with other information
vital to my career or my life in general. For each one of these,
I get at least 20
unsolicited offers to improve myself in ways that involve enlarging or
otherwise enhancing the form and function of certain body parts.
I also get offers to achieve the status I always wanted with a fake
Rolex (yeah, but it's a Rolex! kind
of . . .),
watch uncensored Internet TV for free (you can't beat the price, and
it's UNCENSORED!), get a Master's Degree without attending any classes
(I'm thinking that just might be where Sarah Palin's strategists went to
school), earn hundreds a day working out of my home (hundreds of what?),
buy software for all needs and budgets (with all the documentation dated
1996 and written in Mandarin), or discover the "blueberry" path to
better sex in America(?!?).
I particularly enjoy the note I get about once a month from the widow of
a Nigerian diplomat who perished in an unfortunate automobile accident,
leaving $25 million in an offshore bank account. The widow
has utmost faith in my righteousness and reliable nature, and she is
sure that God wants her to give me all that money so I can make good use
of it. The note is always addressed to "fartengood@learnedsofar.com" and
begins, "My Dearest Friend fartengood."
Then there are the "giveaways." Call me a cynic, but I am willing to bet
that not a lot of people have ever actually received a brand-new iPhone
in return for filling out a "brief online survey." Oh sure, these things
look perfectly legitimate, asking for your Social Security number and a
major credit card just to make sure you're over 18.
Still, I have my doubts.
So what can we do about all this SPAM? If we can't stop it, can we at
least control how many SPAM messages make it to our Inbox?
Does the bandwidth wasted by SPAM threaten the future of the web
and our entire civilization? Do beautiful horny young girls right in my
town really want to get to know me better? Don't you get tired of
all these stupid semi-rhetorical questions?
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