When good will goes bad

• Update: very pleased to report that while MADD does exist, it disowns this particular poem. They also give good advice on much more constructive courses of action.

I do not forward circular emails, warnings, prayers, or any other of that ilk. Ever. No exceptions.

A recent and interesting essay by Orson Scott Card points out the dangers of doing so. Who among us hasn't received (or, blushingly, passed on) a hoax virus warning that we believed, or a cute little snippet of wisdom that we want to share, or an online petition for something years out of date ...

"... it is my firm belief that the forward button on your email software should be disabled until you can prove you have visited Hoaxbusters," says Mr C. Absolutely right. But he also goes on to point out that very often what you are forwarding is actually copyright to someone, which opens a whole new can of worms. Anyway, read the article. It's salutory, and apart from anything else will give you ammunition the next time someone sends you something that will allegedly amuse you.

But I wouldn't be saying this now if my ire hadn't coincidentally been raised by an online petition recently received. Well, it calls itself a petition, though as far as I can see it it doesn't actually petish anything. It just consists of a poem about someone killed by a drunk driver. At the end of this is:

"MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) IS HOPING TO GET 5,000 SIGNATURES ON THIS, THEN PASS IT ON TO SIGN."

When it reaches 5000 we are asked to pass it on to the MADD address in Dallas, TX. It currently has 1243 signatures, of which the last is the distant New Zealand (nowhere near Dallas) relative who passed it on to me. Oh, and let's not forget its final parting shot, in 48pt bold red text.

"If you receive this petition and do nothing but delete it, your selfishness knows no bounds.

Signing is such a small effort to make."

Um - I beg your pardon?

Excuse me?

You preachy judgemental sanctimonious smug self-satisfied obnoxious odious conceited little creep, excuse me?? How dare you - how dare you judge me for not sharing your little crusade? Let me not for one second devalue or disrespect the suffering of people who have lost loved ones to the drink-driving morons out there (the ones whose selfishness really does know no bounds, I might add). People who have had the core of their lives ripped out by some fool with an avoidable one too many. But don't you dare judge me for not sharing your values. Especially as, can I point out again, you haven't actually asked me to sign any kind of petition or do anything that will make the blindest bit of difference. You have asked me to add my name after an unattributed, maudlin poem and then clog up the bandwidth of a server somewhere in Texas, breaking the news to some official that I have never heard of and who has never heard of me that I'm against drink driving.

No. Won't. Kindly pull down your trousers, sit on something very spiky - the Eiffel Tower would work, or the Seattle Space Needle - and swivel. Very quickly.