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Rogue CopsOctober 13, 2006 Cue: Monty Python chanting "Spam, spam, spam, spam; spam, spam, spam, spam . . ." Bring up volume then fade to audible background. See, I'm on this editors' e-list, Copyediting-L. As a professional resource, CE-L, as it's known to its subscribers, ranks a close third behind my brain and my several dictionaries. Some days it ranks ahead of the dictionaries. Some days it pinch-hits for my brain. CE-L is run out of Indiana University. Like Joe McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, and Ko-Ko, Lord High Executioner of Titipu, SpamCop has a little list, the SpamCop Blacklist (SCBL). Indiana University is on the SCBL. SpamCop thinks that Indiana University is a spammer. Like a respectable midwestern university has nothing better to do than [bring up soundtrack] spam, spam, spam, spam defenseless Web surfers all over the planet [fade soundtrack]. My ISP worships SpamCop. SpamCop sez "You spam!" and ISP echoes "Bad bad bad bad." So I haven't received any CE-L mail for nearly a week, except for a brief 24-hour window when several days' worth of messages poured into my inbox all at once. The word that comes to mind is "iatrogenic." I didn't even have to look it up; I've loved this word for years, ever since I read it in a discussion of childbed (puerperal) fever. Women generally got childbed fever because their attendants had dirty hands. These attendants were usually doctors, because midwives knew enough to wash their hands. So "iatrogenic" refers to problems caused by attempts to solve a problem. SpamCoppers, are you listening? True, spam is a pain up, down, and out the wazoo, but I'm not among those who think spammers should be sent to Guantanamo. Well, OK, maybe they should be sent to Guantanamo, but I've got a long list of advertisers who should be sent there first. Let's start with the ones pushing political candidates. I nominate the SpamCops for guard duty. Anyone with an e-mail account knows that spam filters are fallible. Plenty of spam gets through. Plenty of legit e-mail arrives in my inbox with "[SPAM?]" added to the subject line. Who knows how much doesn't arrive at all. Spam filters are blunt instruments -- sort of like racial profiling and busting anyone who tries to carry a bottle of shampoo onto an airplane. Blocking all e-mail originating from Indiana University makes about as much sense. The blocker looks a lot like a blockhead. And the really big PITA that that none of them take responsibility. They all act as if it's out of their control, and what's more, they're doing us a favor. Who we gonna call??
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