The Joy of Email

By Paulette Tobin (1/30/00)

Every time I log onto the Internet to check my email or update this Web site I give thanks to the Gods of the Microchip for the blessing of online communication. I love email. Heck, I'm the self-proclaimed Queen of Email!

I wonder if our classmate, Gerard Beutler, knew just what he was starting when he emailed me before our 1998 reunion and said: "What if we had a Class of '73 Web site? Think anyone would be interested in that?"

As it turned out a lot of people were interested. Gerard's company has been hosting this Web site for about two years now, a site that's found an audience not only among our online classmates, but with many Eurekans and former Eurekans and EHS graduates from all over the place. It's a thrill every time I hear from someone new who has found this site, and a pleasure to know that it is helping people reconnect with old friends and their Eureka roots.

Having said that, I think all of us know that email has its dark side as well. Don't you hate it when you open your email box and get all excited because there are 15 new messages - and then 10 of them turn out to be junk? You know: the bad poetry, terrible jokes and sappy stories that have been forwarded about 18 times and have 50 miles of garble on them, or the ones warning you to beware of a terrible computer virus, or the online equivalent of chain letters?

One of my husband's co-workers once sent us a "joke" email file that was so big it crashed our computer system. We've also gotten unsolicited invitations to visit porn sites. And recently I did a story for the Grand Forks Herald about an email hoax that claimed women could get breast cancer from using antiprespirants. This kind of misinformation scares people and causes all kinds of trouble. A pox on all their houses to the idiots who perpetuate this stuff!

Recently the information systems director at the Grand Forks Herald, a great guy named Dewey, sent me this email which (ironically enough) was forwarded to him. I thought it was tremendous, so this week I'm sharing it with you. Next week I promise we'll go back to Eureka news. Here goes:

This should be required reading to get an email account and whoever wrote it should receive a Humanitarian Award. Wouldn't it be great if people read this and took it to heart? It might actually clean up some of the junk we get in our email.

If you send or receive email, here are some very important things to remember.

1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks. MTV will not give you backstage passes if you forward something to the most people. There is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true." Furthermore, just because someone said in the message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and it's legit," does not actually make it true.

2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their cousin. If you are bent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, please see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm. And I quote: The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell their stories. None have. That's "none" as in "zero". Not even your friend's cousin.

3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at: www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html. Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on (without the fake story please).

4. If you still absolutely must forward that 10th-generation message from a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing everyone else who has received it over the last six months. It sure wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the " " or << that begin each line. Besides, if it has gone around that many times we've probably already seen it anyway.

5. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it through an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with viruses. Try: www.norton.com/ or www.datafellows.com/hoaxes. And even then, don't forward it. We don't care. And you cannot get a virus from receiving an email, you have to download it or open it ... you know, like, a file!

6. If the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) did contain plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you really think this information would reach the public via an Internet chain letter?

7. If you're using Outlook, I.E., or Netscape to write email, please turn off the "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't care enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.

8. If your cc: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your message, you probably already have it stored in your old 8088, Franklin, or Adam computer.

9. Craig Shergold (or Sherwood, or Sherman, etc.) in England is not dying of cancer or anything else at this time and would like everyone to stop sending him business cards. Also, he's no longer a "little boy" either.

10. The "Make a Wish" foundation is a real organization doing fine work, but they have had to establish a special toll free hot line in response to the large number of Internet hoaxes using their good name and reputation. It is distracting them from the important work they do.

11. If you are one of those people who forwards anything that promises "something bad will happen if you don't forward this," it's too late. You're a lost cause already!

12. Women really are suffering in Afghanistan, and PBS and NEA funding are still vulnerable to attack (although not at the present time) but forwarding an email won't help either cause in the least. If you want to help, contact your local legislative representative, or get in touch with Amnesty International or the Red Cross. As a general rule, email "signatures" are easily faked and mean nothing to anyone with any power to do anything about whatever the competition is complaining about. P.S. There is no bill pending before Congress that will allow long distance companies to charge you for long distance when using the Internet.

13. The CEO of Proctor & Gamble has never been a guest on any of the TV talk shows to proclaim P&G's allegiance to Satan ... even Sally Jesse's (see for yourself at: www.sallyjr.com/faq.html. All the disclaimers to this fact are posted on the various shows web sites. This is one of the longest running hoaxes anywhere way before email was ever known by most people. (For a complete list of the info, ref: www.pg.com/rumor/. P&G is NOT a satanic organization, although I'm sure Satan is smiling over all the prolific emails that say it is and he probably says thanks to all the lost souls who pass on this garbage!

Bottom line, composing email or posting something on the Net is as easy as writing on the walls of a public restroom. Don't automatically believe anything. Assume it's false, unless there is proof that it's true. Got it? Good!

Enjoy this wonderful email and Internet tool we have but use it wisely. Please do some thinking before clicking.

(Paulette Haupt Tobin graduated from EHS in 1973 and today lives in Grand Forks, N.D., where she is a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald. Email her at [email protected])