I just received an email forward. I’m not into forwards in general. You can send them to me if you deem them important. If someone I love sends me something that they think is important, I will read it. However, I am extremely unlikely to send it on to another. I choose not to support the habit. As a general rule, they clutter up otherwise useful inboxes with uninvited attachments, badly formatted text, and a plethora of exclamation points, none of which I personally choose to endorse.
This forward, however, I feel demands a comment.
To spare you the aforementioned badly formatted text and unwanted attachments, I’m just going to quote an excerpt:
U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins
You guessed it - 'IN GOD WE TRUST' IS GONE!!!
If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!
DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE
Together we can force them out of circulation.
Please Send to all on your mail list !!!
(You see what I mean about those exclamation points? It’s enough to make me shiver, right there.)
I am not going to tackle a rant on the topic addressed in this forward. I do have an opinion on this matter, but that’s not the point that I wish to make here. (Chezza, if you want to take this one on, you have my blessing. Rock on, sister.) And I do not mean to belittle the person who sent me this forward, who happens to be a person whom I love very much.
What I wish to address is concept that if ever there was a reason for a boycott, this issue is it. (Forgive me for paraphrasing, but my fingers simply won’t let me type out 5 exclamation points at the end of a sentence. It’s just wrong.)
Of all the issues facing us in our modern society, in a world facing global warming, war, slavery, famine, and epidemics like AIDS, of all this horror in the world, is this really the place you want to put your energy? Is this really the end all, beat all trouble in our troubled country? The dollar coin is not an issue worthy of battle songs and sit-ins. People are dying out there, folks.
I say the same to people who band together in attempts to ban books like Harry Potter for corrupting our youth. Take all that pent up energy that you have, all that will to make a change – that’s good stuff and I commend you for having it – and please, please direct towards a real issue.
Here are a few suggestions to pick from, just off the top of my head:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/72529/
http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1010
Addendum:
A humorous addition to the above topic... As it turns out, the new $1 coins do have “In God We Trust” on them. It’s printed on the edge. Shawn pointed that out. Apparently in an accidental goof, 50,000 coins were circulated without the edge printing. They’ll probably be worth a fortune someday. If someone gives you one as change, I’d take it.
Shawn’s comment:
"I guess it's just your attitude when you receive such things. For instance, when I read [your blog], I thought: 'Oh, cool! New $1 coins!'"
I generally don’t approve of comments on my blog, but I’m going to give this one a nepotistic slide, just because my husband is the raddest person I’ve ever met.