What did you do this morning? Likely as not you logged on, opened up your email account and sighed at the amount of spam clogging up your inbox. But spam isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And hot on the heels of revelations that two lawyers started it all, we thought it was high time for some positive PR for spam. Here goes…
1. Spam makes you feel wanted.
You’re feeling a little down in the dumps. No one has bothered to ring and suggest a pint down the pub for days, your partner isn’t talking to you and even your mum seems more interested in the Olympics than finding out whether your boss is being nice to you. Spam is the answer. Spam is always there. It’s proof that someone cares.
2. Spam is always optimistic.
Have you ever received spam which is pessimistic? Which promotes euthanasia or is in any way, at all, nihilistic? No chance. Spam says that it’s all out there, waiting to happen; that life is already great but that it can be improved just a little. Professor Pangloss would have loved spam.
3. Spam keeps you guessing.
“Full time job! International company seeks representative for UNITED KINGDOM. Full time or part time.” You can read this a hundred times, and still not know whether the company is advertising a full or part time position.
4. Spam is exclamatory.
Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, if you’re looking for GRATUITOUSLY CAPPED SENTENCES AND the consistent misuse of EXCLAMATION MARKS, spammers are your friends!!!
5. Spam comes in languages other than English.
For the world wide web’s democratic essence, read the English language’s colonisation of the known world. Not for spammers, though. Their art knows no linguistic frontiers. What does it all mean? Who cares!
6. Rather like Henry Miller, spam celebrates sex.
The Times Literary Supplement reminds us of the unflinching embrace of the flesh present in the work of Henry Miller. Likewise, the work of spammers. They toil selflessly to bring us news of how Paris Hilton had sex with aliens and how good it was. Libertarians of the world, unite, for mankind was born free but is everywhere in consensual chains of endless desire and requited lust, thanks to the spammers.
7. Spam is apolitical.
Ever get sick of the way politics intrudes in every part of your life? Of course you do. The antidote is in your spam folder. Life, there, is lived sans contention and immune from ideology. What bliss. Photo courtesy of The Alieness.
8. Spam is there to help.
“A man with a small penis is not a 100% man.” So say many spammers but their intention is not to poke fun. Instead, they kindly offer all kinds of cures for those who might not regard themselves as “100% man”. Which is nice. Photo from Creative Commons.
9. Spam creates employment.
Legions of Google minions are retained to wage war against spam, and legions of spammers are retained to create spam. Who employees them? Does it matter? At least they’re not on street corners, snarling at dogs and skateboarding.
Blawg Review #174…
After two consecutive Olympic-themed Blawg Reviews, I was tempted go for a third despite my initial decision not to do so. Like most of America, I am officially entering post-Olympic withdrawal, and a celebration of what were truly a remarkable……
Susan Casey’s new book, The Wave, is soon to be published. It brilliantly illumines the world of professional big wave surfing, at the same time as exploring the phenomenon of rogue waves (specifically, those which top 100ft).
Suitably inspired, we thought we’d take a look at a different kind of professionalism than is usually to be found on these pages. Those featured in our magnificent seven of alternative professionals may not wear suits for a living, still less spend their time in the boardroom, but they couldn’t do what they do if they weren’t every bit as dedicated, focused, driven and downright professional as those at the helm of a City law firm, finance house or PR company.
Hamilton is the star of The Wave, and no wonder. Based on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the man is a force of nature, a 6″3′ powerhouse who makes big wave surfing look like a walk in the park. But it isn’t. The wave known as Teahupoo, surfed by Hamilton in Tim McKenna’s picture below, is a killer. Only years of focus, training and preparation make Hamilton able to ride this wave with such aplomb.
2. Danny Way
Warning: do not watch this footage if you are afraid of heights (and squeamish). American skateboarding star Danny Way has been rebuilt more times than the bionic man. He’s also made a small fortune from a sport so often wrongly derided as ‘for kids’. Definitely not one for a suit and tie, Way nevertheless deserves respect – as much as he would appear to need a permanent personal medical staff.
3. Shane McConkey
Professional skier Shane McConkey died in March 2009 while skiing in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. His death robbed the world of extreme sports of an athlete known for combining BASE jumping with skiing, as seen in such feats as skiing into a BASE jump off the Eiger. RIP.
4. Shaun White
There are those who say that White, snowboarder extraordinaire, has the kind of hair that is inimical to success. We say, like Forbes magazine, that if White earned $9 million from his endorsements in 2008 alone, what’s he worth now? We also say: don’t try what White does at home. Or anywhere, really.
If BMX riding is jejune, does it matter? Not to Macaskill, a man who’s worth a lot of money thanks to his remarkable ability on a bike.
6. Lynn Hill
There are rock climbers, and there’s Detroit-born Lynn Hill, the woman who made the first free ascent of the infamous Nose Route on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Currently sponsored by the Patagonia gear and clothing company, Hill has done it all, taking phenomenal risks in the pursuit of her calling. Take a look at the intensity of her gaze: this woman would have been a genius at whatever she’d chosen to do.
She has the best name of any sportsperson, ever. She also looks pretty good, too, and is even better at her chosen discipline, wakeboarding. And discipline is the name of the game: as with everyone here, however outre their worlds, however extreme their sports, if they weren’t disciplined they’d not only be impoverished but also, quite possibly, dead. Respect.
Fantastic sting by the News of the World, whose legendary undercover reporter, Mazher Mahmood, has pierced the heart of some disgraceful match-fixing in professional cricket. Hats off, yet again, to Mahmood, but, strangely, we feel slightly sorry for him. Will he ever be able to retire into the sun and live a normal life? Somehow we rather doubt it.
Pictured: something which is decidedly not cricket.
An Englishman’s home is his castle. This ancient tenet of English society means that when a burglar breaks into an Englishman’s home (or castle), the homeowner, or feudal Lord, is entitled to defy him. The tools of defiance are many and varied but include diplomacy (“isn’t it past your bedtime?”), wheedling (“please, my good fellow, won’t you go away?”), lies (“see that castle across the street? It’s full of gold bullion”) and weaponry (“is that a nuclear missile in my pocket, and why aren’t you terrified to see me?”).
This last, however, causes problems. When a homeowner, eager to defend his castle, shoots a burglar, all hell breaks loose. Tabloid hacks break out in sweats as they find themselves compelled to blame European laws and the politically correct for daring to wonder whether such force was necessary when, really, all that is in issue is whether shooting dead an intruder was proportionate to the perceived threat and context.
In the US, this question was recently answered in the affirmative by the excellently named Judge Carlisle Overstreet. The 65-year-old judge shot and killed an unarmed bandana-wearing burglar after the man broke into his home and started coming upstairs. According to the estimable Legal Blog Watch, the dead burglar, John Howard Jr. (who, says the Augusta Chronicle, delighted in the nickname ‘Killa’), was one of two men who broke into the judge’s house in the early hours of the morning. The other, William Omar Jacobs, turned himself in and was denied bail.
This sorry or inspirational tale begs a question. If it had happened here, would it be the first time in recorded history that a judge had killed a burglar? In fact, is this unprecedented across the pond, too? And more to the point, if anyone says the judge acted disproportionately and that he really shouldn’t be canonized, are they politically correct stooges from a morally abased, utterly bankrupt European superstate (or something like that: we confess that tabloidese eludes us)?
Pictured: a judge says “Clint Eastwood isn’t the only one who likes large handguns.” But note: she’s not Carlisle Overstreet.
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It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.
Edmund Burke, from the Preface to Brissot’s Address.