We’d like to take a moment to recognize a phenomenon: the on-line petition. Does anything define this era — the anger to want to change something, and the laziness to not want to leave your chair — better than the on-line petition? We think not. As has been mentioned previously, a very sad Patriots fan has put together a petition asking the NFL to take a look at the final 1:40 of the Super Bowl. There are 10 enumerated points about that span of time, followed by this incredible verbiage:

Nowhere in the above rules does it state that in the conditions of what was happening on the clock should be stopped. Also in addition to this six seconds were added to the game clock. Had this illegal clock stoppage not occurred there would have been 40 seconds less time on the clock, 46 seconds less if you consider the six seconds added on after the play. This means that after that play, if the clock was running the way it is supposed to by the rulebook, there would only be 42 seconds left on the clock.

You are penalized 15 words. And may God have mercy on your soul. The thing is up to about 20,000 signatures now, but thankfully many of them are fake.

Serendipity — actually, reading Access Vikings comments — brought us to another petition. It appears that one year ago this week, David Dunkleberger (if that is his real name) of Doylestown, Pa., became the first of what is now more than 1,200 people to sign the “Fire Brad Childress” on-line petition. Again, from the petition:

We, the undersigned, request that Mr. Wilf terminate Brad Childress as Minnesota Vikings head coach immediately. He does not possess the coaching expereience nor does he possess the skills necessary to coach a National Football League franchise. By hiring a replacement, the Vikings stand a chance to become a better football team that is not limited by the shortcomings of its head coach.

Perhaps it’s a harmless bit of venting, but we can’t feel much but bemusement upon reading these things. Giving power to the powerless with the push of a button. Is that what we’ve become? Maybe we just don’t understand; or maybe we’re just bitter because our petition was rejected with the following statement from GoPetition (update!):

Unfortunately the team at GoPetition has not been able to approve your petition entitled “Petition to give ducks the vote”. Your petition did not meet the requirements of our Terms of Use. Please review our Terms of Use. You are welcome to submit a fresh petition after reading our Terms of Use.

Question: If you could create an on-line petition — and really, you can! — what would you fight for?

Other things:

*Not a good night for local hoops squads. Sweet mercy, what happened at the Barn last night?

*Indiana hoops is in big trouble. That’s what they get for hiring Kelvin Sampson.

*Roger Clemens on Capitol Hill. 8:30 a.m. Showtime.

*Bloggers cost Jim Fassel the Washington job, he says. Must have been a petition.

*Fasola-link! Six degrees of Osama Bin Laden.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 8:17 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.