Just don't pass it on

A gift for you, a shining star, destined to be wherever you are. A guardian angel to light the way, giving you love throughout your day."\nOh ... how sweet!\n"Send this message to 55 people in the next 30 seconds, or your puppy will die."\nAugh!\nForwards. They started out innocently enough. A political joke here, a "personal survey" there ... fun ways to fill an empty inbox. \nWhen used with care and discretion, a forward can be a helpful thing. How many students have been saved from the embarrassment of having no new mail at a public e-mail station, with 30 irate Hoosiers standing in line, by the ever-present forward? Thank goodness ... you know it's only a list of "yo' mama" jokes sent to you by that kid you sat next to in high school physics, but no one else has to know that you're hogging a computer for no good reason. \nAnd remember the time when a forward finally got New Kids on the Block on Total Request Live? There's nothing I like better than watching Carson Daly squirm.\nIt's all fun and games until someone loses an eye ... usually because he or she gouged it out at the sight of yet another message such as "For every 28,000 people you forward this to, Acme Charity Group will donate .056 cents to fighting (insert disease-of-the-month here)."\n"Hi, my name is Billy Bob Little Kid. If you don't forward this to all your friends, I'm going to die a slow and horrible death. Just remember, what goes around comes around!"\n"This message is a test of the new Microsoft Office 2025. If you forward this to 86 other people, Bill Gates will personally hand you a check for $20."\n"A young man in Zimbabwe failed to forward this message. He was eaten by a pack of wild hedgehogs just weeks later. Don't take the risk! Send this message on!"\nJust stop! Fellow Hoosiers, I beg you to stop the madness, here and now. I'll even give you a weekend to get it out of your systems. But as of Monday, let's make IU a forward-free campus. Just think of how the world will be a better place once we stop getting forwards: No more building e-mail hopes up just to have them crashing down. No more guilty moments of hesitation ... "Will I really never find true love if I don't take this quiz and pass it on?"\nI know it will be hard, but I promise you: You will not fall down dead if you don't pass on a forward. Little Suzie Jane will not have to have her left pinky amputated because of your lack of concern. And trust me, you will not miss out on getting free money from AOL for every 10,000 e-mails you send. (I think I tried that one. Hey ... I might be brilliant, beautiful and witty, but I'm only human.)\nStarting Monday, I invite all of us to band together and be strong. When you hear that little happy e-mail "dink!" as a new message arrives, take a deep breath. If it is a real message, read it, delete it or send it away to it's appropriate folder. (I'm also an advocate of a clean inbox, but that's another column.) \nBut if, and God save us all from such a horrible temptation, it is a foul forward, do the right thing: Delete it on sight, and then Control-x-y it out of its misery!\nYour friends, family and classmates will thank you for it. And if not, at least I will. If you're having a hard time fighting the forward urge, just give me an e-mail at letters@indiana.edu. Together, darling reader, we will get you some help and once again make you a valuable member of e-society.\nHey ... it's me, Laura. I just wanted to let you guys know that I'll be kind of sporadic around here for three long, tortuous weeks. It's not that I don't love you, and I don't want you to feel abandoned or anything. But we need to make some room on the opinion page for political stuff, and being the lady that I am, I stepped down off my proverbial soap box for a little while. So while I'm not going to be consistent, I am going to be every bit as hard-hitting and intellectual as before. Think of it as a kind of "Where's Waldo" game. Only it's "Where's E-Wald-o." Wow, that was clever!