Does this ring a bell?

Our phone company (Frontier) is also our dsl internet provider that never attains broadband speeds. Fortunately, we also have cell phones. When we must provide a phone number to someone we do business with, we use the land line number. These days we’re getting lots of calls that we intentionally don’t answer since we don’t recognize the numbers, then they don’t leave a message. It’s annoying but better than listening to spammers, political spiels,, etc.

We’ve signed up for eliminating robocalls and things like that. I seem to remember politicians exempt themselves from legislation regarding telecommunications. That’s annoying. The purpose of democracy is not supposed to be to annoy potential voters or donors, is it? Any yet, in our “attention economy,” that’s what lots of politicians and political parties are doing, at least in our house.

thinking of cutting the wire?

Photo by J. Harrington

The good news is that my cell phone (an iPhone) has a setting so that all incoming calls from numbers not already in my contacts list go directly to voice mail without ringing and annoying me. Unsolicited text messages of a political nature promptly get the “Report Junk and Delete” button pushed. These two features give me at least a sense of control, unlike incoming calls in the landline. So... Here’s my idea:

Let’s start a movement to get legislation that mandates the “go to voice mail” equivalent for both landlines and text messaging. If a number isn’t already in our contacts list, it won’t ring and interrupt us. If we really want to hear from the Democrats, Republicans, MAGAts, or whoever, we can add their number to contacts. Businesses with commercial accounts could have an opt out provision so they can accommodate new potential customers but the rest of us, real more than just legal persons, have one less aggravation to deal with on a daily basis. What do you think? I like this concept so well that if someone like tRump promised to make it happen, I’d even consider supporting them. Does that give you a sense of how annoyed I am?

I am the coward who did not pick up the phone

by Laura Kasischke

I am the coward who did not pick up the phone, so as never to know. So many clocks and yardsticks dumped into an ocean.

I am the ox which drew the cart full of urgent messages straight into the river, emerging none the wiser on the opposite side, never looking back at all those floating envelopes and postcards, the wet ashes of some loved one's screams.

How was I to know?

I am the warrior who killed the sparrow with a cannon. I am the guardian who led the child by the hand into the cloud, and emerged holding only an empty glove. Oh —

the digital ringing of it. The string of a kite of it, which I let go of. Oh, the commotion in the attic of it — in the front yard, in the back yard, in the driveway — all of which I heard nothing of, because I am the one who closed the windows and said, This has nothing to do with us .

In fact, I am the one singing this so loudly I cannot hear you even now.

(Mama, what's happening outside? Honey, is that the phone?)

I am the one who sings, The bones and shells of us .

The organic broth of us .

The zen gong of us .

Oblivious, oblivious, oblivious .

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