HOW TO RESPOND TO UNSOLICITED CRAP
Picking up the mail is one of those tasks that I have mixed feelings about doing. I enjoy receiving all the magazines I subscribe to, but hate all the letters asking for money. I also get irritated by the unsolicited stuff from folks who know nothing about me other than my address, culled from some anonymous list being hawked by unscrupulous shysters with no morals and motivated only by avarice.

Today saw the arrival of a particularly nauseous piece of marketing; an invitation to join the "One Spirit" book club. Not only do I get a free tote bag, emblazoned with the words "Look at me, I'm a New Age Loser," but the chance to buy such bargain offerings as "Animal Wisdom" and "Animal Messages" (a two-fer), "The Spells Bible," "The Hidden Messages of Water," and the "Book of Angels."

I'd prefer the peddlers of this crap to simply shit in my mailbox so at least the smell would serve to warn me against opening the box. And the persons who shared my address with these folks should all be made to read every single book in the catalog and, while doing it, only eat the stuff recommended in "The Detox Diet."

Taking keyboard to e-mail, I decided to respond to the One Spirit company in the only way I know how - brutally skeptical. Here's what I said. Feel free to cut and paste this into any letters you may want to send to similar purveyors of puerile populism.

" Imagine my surprise at finding a copy of the "One Spirit" shill magazine arriving in the mail, unannounced and unasked for. Imagine my surprise to realize that some malicious, unthinking person had shared my address with your gang of shysters who peddle quackery and lies at discount prices. And imagine your surprise at getting this unsolicited e-mail, even though you think nothing of sending unsolicited junk through the good old-fashioned US mail to me.

Your marketing department's acumen at spotting a demographic is stunningly wide of the mark in relation to myself. I am a misanthropic curmudgeon whose skepticism is writ large in my hugely unpopular web blog, The Naked Bystander (http://thenakedbystander.blogspot.com) - go ahead, I dare you!

Your web site says you are "...the only book club dedicated to bringing you the most informative, most inspirational, and the most empowering products available today. One Spirit offers a selection of books, videos, CDs and merchandise, all carefully chosen by our editorial team." I counter that your editorial team is clearly misguided, mislead, and seemingly happy to flog pseudoscience, flim-flam, and gobbledygook from such charlatans as Sylvia Brown and Deepak Chopra, without any thought towards the consequences of maintaining the intellectual stultification of the American intellect.

Clearly you make money out of gullible people who think that homeopathy for psychic pets, belief in angels and pixies, and crystal therapy are all going to make their tragic lives somehow better. Better they spend their money on alcohol and drugs as a more effective way of escaping the misery of a pointless existence than turn to the claptrap and nonsense of New Age philosophy and superstition.

Am I angry? No, just irritated. Frankly, the more people who decide to treat their illnesses by appealing to angels, ginseng, rearranging their bedrooms using Feng Shui principles, and magic spells, the sooner they'll die off and get weeded from the gene pool - hopefully before they've had chance to breed.

So do me, and yourselves, a favor and take me OFF your mailing list so that I don't have to harangue you again if next month's edition of hogwash and baloney should find its way into my mailbox.

I trust I'm clear and I thank you for daring to read all the way to the end here. Feel free to publish this little outburst of vitriol in any of your promo pieces for the materials you push. I think the fact that you include one of the 20th century's most significant works of fiction, "The Lord of the Rings," in your catalog clearly sets the content standard for all the other "works" you offer.

Yours cynically

The Naked Bystander"