Matthew Steinbach
opinions@theotherpress.ca

  
   

Don't waste your time on that email petition

By Rebecca Vaughan

I swear if I get that “I Went to a Party, Mom” email one
more time, I’m going to knock somebody out. If you haven’t
seen this one, you’ve likely seen one like it: an email that
tells some kind of heart-wrenching story through a verse

or some collection of clipart or photos, and at the end you
are made to feel like a heartless cad if you don’t sign this
petition to stop drunk driving or kidnapped children or some
other terrible issue.

The latest one I got told a sad story about a girl being
killed in a car accident after being hit by a drunk driver, and
ended with this paragraph in large, bold, red type:

“If you receive this petition and do nothing but delete
it, your selfishness knows no bounds. Signing is such a small
effort to make. After you have read the poem, please add
your name at the bottom. And never forget, DON’T EVER
DRINK AND DRIVE, not even once, thinking that it won't
matter. IT DEFINITELY WILL MATTER!!!”

How’s that for inducing guilt? First of all, I would
suggest that anyone who drinks and drives has more
important problems than just not signing an email petition.
Secondly, I question the critical thinking skills of anyone
who passes this email on to me, simply because there was no
reason given for the petition. Did they want stiffer penalties
for drunk drivers? For what province or state? In Canada or
the US? It didn’t say. It just asked for 5,000 signatures, and
for the last person to send it to MADD (Mothers Against
Drunk Driving). For what? To clog their inbox too?

Sadly, yes. I checked snopes.com, my
usual quick-reference for urban legends and the
like, and found that “unfortunately, no matter
how well-intentioned, this petition is actually

having a negative impact because people who
don’t know what to do with it are bombarding
MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) with it,
clogging their email and taking up the time of staff
members who now have to spend time responding
to it rather than helping drunk driving victims.”

MADD’s website has even posted a statement
about the petition:

“The petition circulating via e-mail
accompanied with the poem titled ‘I Went to
a Party Mom’ did not originate with nor is it
endorsed by MADD.

While the petition you received probably
began with good intentions, MADD did not initiate
the campaign. Some variations of the e-mail
use language that we feel to be inappropriate.

Moreover, the e-mail asks you to participate in
a petition, which does little to advance the fight
against drunk driving.”

So take the time to discriminate which email petitions
deserve your time and attention and stop them from filling
inboxes everywhere (including mine!). Here are a few tips:
1. Take a look through the email and look for a “call to

action,” or some solution offered. Sure, everyone wants

to stop drunk drivers, but how are they proposing to do
that? Simply putting your name on an online petition
and passing it on doesn’t launch anyone into action; it’s
really just a bunch of signatures under some depressing
story or statistic. What is the originator of the email
proposing to do?

2. Is there contact information for the originator of the
email petition once the required number of people have

“signed?” Who is going to deliver it to the authorities
the petition is appealing to? And besides, who’s to say
that one person didn’t generate all the “signatures?”

Do a simple Google search or check snopes.com, which
is a good quick-reference for stories that get passed
around online. Usually you will find the email petition
(in its various forms), missing kid (who wasn’t missing)
or truth behind the story with just a little follow up.

So join the rebellion! The next time you get an email

petition, don’t buy into the guilt for not signing. Check it
out, and let the passing on of time-wasting, guilt-inducing,
lame petitions stop with you!

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Wit rising tuition fees in today’s
universities and colleges, a sort of “dark
cloud” has crept upon poor, unsuspecting
students, providing less relative bang for
their buck, while continuously sucking
their pockets dry. Mere credits are no
longer enough to justify the expense of
being provided a future, a future we’re all
entitled to. I am personally tired of sitting
underneath this “dark cloud,” inside an
institution of contradiction, where I am
taught to be smart, yet simultaneously
treated as if I were an idiot. Only a rich
fool would sit in his class and condone the
methods and costs of the current education
system as fair. If this “dark cloud” doesn’t
pass soon, then I must beg the education
system and all its teachers to leave me be.
Without change, I will be forced to say,
“Please don’t teach me. Go on and take my
money but give me nothing in return. For
I would much rather endure the money-
hungry hand of my college in blissful
ignorance than suffer from being aware of
it.”

What I mean by an “institution of
contradiction” is that the college, as an
institution, is to serve the purpose of
educating peoples. But it isn’t doing that.
We, as students, can’t be getting smarter,
because we pay absurd tuition fee after
absurd tuition fee; fees so high one would

have to exhibit a certain amount of stupidity
to pay without hesitation. The college is
supposed to deter us from making foolish
decisions and aid us in making smarter
choices. Clearly we’re not learning, as
student after student is incapable of finding
the smarter path, a more acceptable,
affordable price for a postsecondary
education. Our college, our local institution
of contradiction, has lassoed us like cattle,
and subjected us to unnecessary fees, fees
only a sub-par intellect would accept.

My least favourite fee I have paid is
also the same one that makes me feel most
stupid; the cost of textbooks is a fabricated
crock of shit. A textbook is supposed to
contain a certain amount of necessity and
value; we students buy them not only
because we think they will help us become
smarter, but also because we are simply
instructed to. The simple act of purchasing
a textbook in college shows that we’ve
been taken for suckers. Having purchased
textbooks in the past and present, I must
say they are probably the biggest amount
of expensive bullshit I have ever paid for.
Many pages out of all texts will go forever
unread, while even some chapters never
see the light of day. So why am I paying so
much for something that has so little relative
value? I am paying for them because I am
being scammed; I pay because that’s how
scams work.

Teachers are aware of this money-
making scam, hence the reason why many
are writing a new $145 textbook themselves.
Education and education paraphernalia
serve to be a potential money-making gold
mine, and have become increasingly tapped
over the years. Education, via the local
education system, has become a scam; it has
manipulated itself into a business, turning us
students into customers.

We, as students/customers, have been
served salad and charged for entrees in
today’s education system. Where’s the
justification? The bill is blatantly unfair, so I
must, as any self-respecting customer would,
argue the bill we have been over charged
with.

Here is my argument/rant as a student/
customer: I want 15 dollars back for every
class that is cancelled; I want teachers to
pay a fine of 5 cents for every page they
don’t use in our supposedly “must-have”
textbooks; and, I want sex instead of free
condoms from the DSU.

What I want is some sort of
ridiculousness brought forward that will
legitimatize the rising costs of ridiculous
tuition fees.