My wife works for a small rural School District in Washington State. Since about 2010 the school has been receiving packages (~ once a year) containing Warren Jeff’s Jesus Christ Message to All Nations. The hardcover volume comes addressed by the ‘Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints’. I am assuming they expect this ‘literature’ to be shelved in the school library for the education of the students.
Question 1: Has any Doper experienced or heard of this occurring at other Elementary/Middle Schools around the country?
Question 2: These volumes are nicely printed and bound so the distribution costs can’t be insignificant. How do these people afford to send these things out?
Question 3: Anyone have a clever (i.e. nasty) idea for getting this crap back to the sender without offending the Post Office or doing something illegal?
Just pitch 'em. They’re probably on one big mailing list so anything trollish isn’t really going to do any good. You might be able to find out who put them on the list, and try to get off of it.
Is the law about taking an offensive mailing to the Post Office and requesting they never again deliver mail from this sender still in force?
This was a rule from late 60’s, IIRC - I remember they had to modify the rule because so many were taking letters from the Draft Board ("Selective Service, in new-speak) and invoking this rule.
Gee…it’s fun to think of nasty forms of revenge…
But may I suggest that you remember that you’re not talking about junk mail in your private mailbox at home?
You’re talking about a public school, a government institution.
In today’s politically correct world…be careful. And discreet.
see above: the operative word is 'discreet"
And try to imagine that ,instead of a Mormon tract, you had received a Koran in the mail…
Never heard of Jeffs’ particular outfit doing that; however, I’ve heard of quite a few other non-profits (religious and non-religious) sending stuff to local libraries, both public and school.
Either they’re printing the stuff themselves, in which case they’re not concerned about the costs for a number of reasons, or they’re paying to get it done by someone else, in which case they either pay for it and the money they’re using for that might come from donations or the “someone else” is doing it at greatly reduced costs or even free.
The library is a government entity so it likely has a policy in place on what to do with donated material. Doing something on the fly isn’t generally a good idea; best to stick with the extant policy and not worry about the material.
Public officials get unsolicited materials sent to them all the time. I’m guessing they almost never read any of it, and it most likely gets boxed up and sent to the thrift store down the street.
Since Sears, Roebuck no longer distributes catalogs, there is a need for items like this – find someone (like a campground) in the area who has a functioning outhouse.