The end of Western Civilization? Nah...only a prank

"This is why we can't have nice things."

You probably heard this phrase from your mother, usually after an incident that resulted in the damage or destruction of something valuable in the house. A nice lamp demolished by throwing a ball inside the house after repeated calls to cease and desist from your parents.

The reaction this phrase and the accompanying look usually brought was enough to elicit regret, remorse and shame. If that didn't do it, the whipping with the yardstick would bring about the proper attitude adjustment.

That was one of the ways we learned respect from our parents. Respect for property, respect for authority. The lessons served us well.

I bring this up because I believe, like other 48-year-old adults have for generations before me, that respect is something that is lacking in some of the younger generation today.

I pause here for the obligatory "out of touch grumpy old man" comments.

Finished?

The evidence I offer for looming demise of Western Civilization?

College students and the Internet.

I know what you're thinking: so what else is new? College students have been ruining things on the Internet for nearly two decades now, what has brought you to this conclusion?

A poll on our website. An innocent, community-minded poll. College student and Sentinel intern Andreas "Andy" Lenz from Germany, during an interview with Le Mars City Administrator Scott Langel came up with the idea of a contest to decide the design of the welcome signs for Le Mars.

In addition to running two pages of designs in the paper, we posted the entries online, so former residents and anyone with a passing interest in Le Mars could vote as well. The contest and poll are in no way binding on anyone, it was our intent to get the public involved and help the city council with their decision.

Welcome signs have about five seconds to give drivers an impression of the community they are about to enter. They are an important first impression and traditionally aren't updated that often. We were pleased to help facilitate the discussion of a new design.

Everything was going well until a week ago. We noticed a huge spike in the number of votes for sign design #16, which is actually just a slogan: "Welcome to Le Mars the quintessential homespun Iowa town."

Later in the day, we received word that a website, www.collegehumor.com, had targeted our poll to "ruin." Ruining online polls is one of their regular features. This one was entitled "Ruin a Poll: Everyone vote design 16." Before the link to our poll was this phrase "Those quintessential, homespun Iowa people won't even know what hit them." It appears our poll is the 43rd one "ruined" by users of the site.

I registered as a user of the site to see what comments were appearing. Commenting allows registered users to use anonymous names to leave comments. We allow the same on our website.

Here are a few of the comments that I am able to print:

"Haha. I live 15 minutes away from LeMars. Im getting a kick out of this."

"The sign should just say: Le Mars: Meth Capitol of the World That town is beyond dirty"

"next, lets ruin the poll on the home page for the site....give this town something to talk about"

And, the one that made the most sense: "How long is it going to take for internet polls to automatically ignore the highest voted entry and just go to the second?"

Point taken. We have reported the results of the poll, with number 16's results getting a large asterisk. The prank was funny to many, I'm sure, but when it comes to ruining the poll, we simply refuse to play.

We've worked too hard to get our nice things, and we won't give them up so easily.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.