Word and Web Wiz: TIPS / ARTICLES

Can The Spam

By Larry L. Nichols
WordandWebWiz.com
Copyright © 2003 - 2007
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

There is a battle raging on the Internet, it’s sneaking sheepishly into your email inbox and it’s busting its way onto practically every online forum and discussion group on the net. This “e-terrorism,” now totally out of control and spreading like cancer, is claiming a tremendously high numbers of casualties, many of these victims, just innocent bystanders, trying to mind their own business (no pun intended) on the web.

The culprit behind this horrendous electronic bloodbath is named “SPAM.” SPAM is simply put, unwanted, unsolicited, unasked for, aggressively shoved down our throats, marketing messages. It’s junk mail on the Internet, and it’s a cause of a lot of concern for all of us, as Governments, Corporations, and Techno-Gurus, continue to come up with more and more filters, legislation, and systems, that only seem to momentarily slow the actions of the criminals, but continue to hurt the rest of us law abiding citizens, who are playing by the rules.

Some claim this ridiculous name, “SPAM,” can be attributed to those very silly bits, indeed, brought to us by way of Jolly Old England’s very own: Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I love Monty Python, I hate SPAM, and so I simply refuse to associate the two. Case closed!

Meanwhile, others claimed it originally stood for “Sales Propositions- Aggressively Manipulated.” I’ve heard that for years. I know it’s a rumor going round the Net, but I just have my very serious doubts about that, I mean, it just doesn’t really flow, does it?

My studies have led me to the ultimate conclusion that the original source of the title “SPAM” dates back to the very early frontier days of email, when back at the computer labs at the University of Southern California; it was prolifically and quite fairly compared to that “@#$&!!” plastoid, salt loaded, lunchmeat stuff that was so fanatically brought to out attention by our well meaning parental units, who believed in serving up any food product delivered, hermetically sealed in a tin can. Yes, it was almost a religious rite sustained by the post “WWII” mindset.

Of course, who can forget, Andy Warhol, who single handedly did for pop culture what the “Fab Four” did for pop music, so eloquently giving SPAM it’s 15 minutes of fame with that very unremarkable painting, still hanging, to this very day, in the L.A. County Museum.

So why would they call it SPAM? Well, because it shares Spam’s two most notoriously notable characteristics: (1) Nobody ever really wants it or asks for it. And (2) It’s just plain hideously awful and totally disgusting.

O.K., so now that we have described SPAM and its origins, what shall we do about it? Well, personally, I think we should spread the word, telling everyone we know and contact with any sort of regularity, to never, ever, ever answer, reply, or respond in any way, at all, whatsoever, to SPAM. Then I believe the problem will greatly start to diminish, all by itself!

You see, the sad facts are, the jerks behind SPAM actually do make sales, and as long as this unrequited practice makes them some money, they really couldn't care less how the rest of us feel about this blatantly unacceptable and unethical practice.
I think we all need to take a stand and agree to do whatever we can to block the spammer’s way and knock them out of contention for any share of the bucks getting passed around on the net today.

I’ve notice, recently, how on many online forums, the spammers are now getting their posts followed up by Red Alarm Alerts, posted by mere citizens of the internet. They read: "SPAM: (DNO)," which stands for “Do Not Open!” Hey, what do you know, it's actually helping. Just average Joes and Joans like you and me, taking the time to try to help the administrator police the neighborhood and chase the bugs away.

It's just the fact that "People are People", and if they think they can get a really great deal on an item or service, they don't care if it's a spammer, an alien being, a bag of rocks, a blue cocker spaniel, or bowl of lime Jell-O making the offer, they’ll do business with the “perps” and unfortunately, this just encourages them to hang around, like the infestation of cockroaches that they are!

We ALL need to chip in to help ensure that our email inbox and the online forums are a place where readers are comfortable spending some quality time! If the people leave, we’re out of business, plain and simple. Readers simply want to have a stress free environment that is “SPAM retardant,” a web were it’s finally safe and sane again to play, learn, and hopefully, spend some money!

Now it’s true that a lot of these “improprietous” creeps pull most of their unethical business hi-jinks from far beyond our borders, so there is really nothing that one government can do about it. However, that fact, in no way, can dissuade governments from going ahead and passing a bunch more laws.

I mean that’s just what governments do! You can’t blame a scorpion for behaving like a scorpion, and you can’t expect governments to stop passing laws, even if they are completely ineffective and meaningless to the objectives they were intended to improve upon.

Also, it doesn’t help that the absolute current lack of technical savvy to stop these brutes, only gives them a not-so-false sense of security and allows them to move with immunity through all the land mines currently blowing the legs out from under honest and ethical business people who try to abide by the plethora of new laws passed infinitum!

So, the well meaning but misguided intentions of much of today’s new “statutes” and “systems”, so enthusiastically thrust upon us by "Big Government / Big Business," prove to have very little power, if any, to slow down the activities of these electronic "Bad Guys" or effect their immoral behavior in any way at all!

Face it, a lot of these crooks and cronies are either way too clever to get caught, or the long arm of the law simply runs out of jurisdictional real estate, and becomes a merely impotent and mute figure-head, unresponsive to the nasty and tawdry Internet practices of these slime-slingers.

Meanwhile, dignified and ethical "Netizens" like you and I, are continually being legally hampered, technologically quarantined and getting our hands ceremoniously tied by incursive legislation and filter systems that only hurt the good people whom the "LAW-MAKERS" and "Mega-Techs" claim they are trying to protect.

Whatever happened to good, old fashioned, "Common Sense" and when did "Big Brother" trade in his scales of equity and liberty, for a big bat to beat the whole lot of us together, innocent and guilty alike.

The blatantly "Spam-astic" get their unwanted, vile and disgusting messages through the system without a hitch. Meanwhile, on the email newsletter front lines, signed-up for, requested, double opt-in periodical and even plain, ole' normal personnel emails to Aunt Gertrude somehow get tagged as SPAM and filtered away into a holding tank somewhere out on the dark side of the planet Zircon! Simply Amazing!

We all need to pull together here and keep the Internet free from this terrible and spreading “DIS-EASE! The net is a wonderful meeting place of the minds, and we can't risk losing it now, due to these annoying SPAM Weasels! They have become absolutely shameless! We need to become absolutely merciless in dealing with these maggots.

Please, everybody, spread the word, don’t reply to SPAM, at all, unless, perhaps, it's to give ‘em a piece of your mind, and to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they are exactly what SPAM was, and always will be, dating all the way back to when it first arrived in that bright blue, air-tight, canister from our childhood, "SPAM" = Scientifically Processed Animal Matter!" Yuck!

We’ve all got to do everything possible, within our power to effectively and successfully "Can The Spam,” or very soon our customers and clients may all be “scared away” and there may be nothing left of this amazing, “www” (wonderful world wide) opportunity of fair, honest, mutually beneficial and ethical” trade that we have all worked so hard to create for the planet and it’s delightful inhabitants.

Spread The Word: “Can The Spam!”

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