Semi-random thoughts

• I sign few of the online petitions that I am presented with, because most of them are addressed to people who couldn't care less what the general public thinks about what they are doing. Almost all the ones that I do sign are addressed to businesses. But even some of those fail to gain my support. For instance, I got one addressed to a bank which asks that it absolve a co-signer of a loan from his responsibility to pay it, because the primary debtor died. No. Not even though this was a student loan, and the student was his daughter. He was not just "helping his daughter" take out the loan--he promised to pay off the loan if she didn't, for whatever reason. It makes no difference that federal student loans are forgiven in such circumstances. He made a deal, he has to stick to it. 
• It's amazing how many of my entertainer friends had pictures with Joan Rivers to post. 
• I got some spam titled, "Would you sleep with a Married Woman?" Of course I would. I sleep with my wife every night.
• I'm flabbergasted by the recent jump in readers of my glob from Japan and New Zealand. I haven't written anything about either country. 

Semi-random thoughts

• Fedex hates me. I firmly believe they looked at a map of the upper east side of Manhattan and said, where can we put our drop boxes so they're all 9 blocks away from Caprice? It's this beautiful semi-circle with Central Park on one side.
• I received an e-mail asking me to sign a petition directed to a Catholic bishop in Wisconsin. I'm sure he is really going to be swayed by a Jewish atheist from New York. Not. 
• Today I had my annual bone density scan. Getting strapped into position was serious (if brief) bondage fun.

Petitions--so many are a waste

I got an email from change.org, an online organization that lets individuals start petitions, and helps them collect signatures. The subject of the e-mail was "What 1,461,948 signatures did:," and it contained descriptions of about a dozen petitions which were successful in achieving the originators' goals. There was one thing that stood out to me about this list: all but two of these petitions were addressed to non-governmental entities (three if you include the University of Virginia). This confirms what I've thought for quite a while.

I am bombarded with e-mails requesting my signature on petitions. Even though I agree with the goals of a large majority of them, I sign relatively few. This is because most are directed to the government, which I know will not normally be swayed by these petitions. About the only time they are is when they bring to officials' attention subjects that they have heard little or nothing about.

Petitions to Congress about gun control, or abortion rights, or the minimum wage, or any other controversial topic, are useless. The petition solicitations from members of Congress to Congress are, at best, a method of getting supporters to feel good about their support. At worst they are more about soliciting campaign contributions than the subject matter.

I've even seen a few petitions directed to judges--anyone who thinks the U.S. Supreme Court will take any notice of a public petition has no idea how the court works. The same thing goes for petitions to churches--they are not going to change their beliefs because of a petition.

However, private concerns, especially companies dealing in consumer items, are very responsive to petitions. They know that every signer is a potential lost customer, so they try to accommodate as many as possible. These are the petitions I am most likely to sign.