You Cannot Serve God and Spam

Through Slashdot, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells the story of a supposedly nice Catholic little old lady...who thinks it's okay to make all our lives Hell.

The walls are covered with paintings of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and assorted saints. A devout Catholic, Fox works through her church to feed the hungry and volunteers at a senior citizen center once a week. But when the neighbors' windows are dark, the lights stay on until all hours as Fox's computers invade millions of unsuspecting in boxes...The several million spams she sends out each night....

I do feel for her health problems. I honor her for her charity work; clearly she does have a heart. But the Mafia gave to charity, too. There are plenty of other Internet-based businesses -- including ones that market by email -- which do not involve spamming. Furthermore, she taught others to spam. She's making money by abusing the privilege of access to the Net while doing her best to ruin the Net for everyone else. It's as if she were dumping sewage into the drinking water of not just one town, but of every town and village across the world.

And look, I know Jesus loved tax collectors, so I'm sure he'd have dinner with this lady as well. But he'd also tell her to stop sending him junk email. Maybe we should all send her some nice, respectful Christmas cards telling her the same thing. (Though I wouldn't enclose your email address....) :)

(Btw, the spunky anti-spam grandmother in the story sounded like a very nice lady indeed.)