‘Do not call list’ blocks out telemarketers…except when it doesn’t

In 2003, a national registry known as the “Do Not Call” list went in to effect in the United States. Administered by the Federal Trade Commission, the registry is a database listing the telephone numbers of individuals and families who don’t want to be contacted by telemarketers.

There is good news and bad news about the Do Not Call Registry.

First, the good news: Any individual can place his or her name on the list free of charge by visiting the FTC web site, and once your number is there, it never expires. You never have to make this request more than once.

The bad news is, it doesn’t work.

Just today, for example, my wife and I were awakened by a telephone call at 3:34 a.m. to hear a guy named Jason asking, “How are you doing?” The caller ID said “Private Caller,” but Jason never got a chance to tell us what he was selling because my wife yelled at him, told him to never call us again and hung up.

Later today, the phone rang again and the caller ID said “Republic Energy.” Having worked 20 years in the energy business, I thought it might be a legitimate call so I answered it. A man with a heavy south-Asian accent launched right into his pitch to sell me final expense life insurance. I interrupted him in mid-sentence and this is what I said:

“Wait a minute. Tell me why your caller ID shows up as Republic Energy? This is some kind of a scam." When he kept on talking, I called him a liar and hung up.

That brings me back to the “Do Not Call Registry.” As soon as I put down the phone, I went to the FTC’s web site to see if my phones were still listed there, and sure enough, I got a message saying that both of our cell phones had been entered in 2016 and our land line was added to the list on July 1, 2003.

The problem is, we didn’t have this phone number in 2003. We didn’t even live in the 304 area code until two years after that, so I called the FTC to ask them how I could possibly have registered a phone number that I wouldn’t even have for another two years. “I wouldn’t be able to answer that,” the nice man said, “but I’ll be happy to take your complaint.”

Furthermore, he couldn’t help me with Jason’s 3:34 a.m. call or the “Republic Energy” scam or the daily calls I get that say “Miami, FL” or one that came in yesterday from “Farmington WV” or any of a dozen other calls that show up weekly as “Private Caller” or “Unknown Caller” or “Toll Free Call.” You see, in order to help me, he needed the actual telephone number the caller was using, but that doesn’t show up on caller ID, so there’s apparently nothing the FTC can do.

That leads me to conclude that the “Do Not Call Registry” is no damn good to me. It should be renamed the “Do Not Answer Registry,” because apparently, the only way you can avoid taking these unwanted telemarketing calls is by never answering your phone.

*     *     *

Quick facts:

The Do Not Call Registry does not apply to robocalls in the United States. There are separate laws regarding those.

It applies only to personal calls, not to business lines or business-to-business calls.

You may still receive calls from political organizations, non-profits, bill collectors and people or groups conducting surveys.

There are also several loopholes in the regulation. You can click here for more information.

Hell must be running out of ‘special places’ by now

It takes a special kind of slime to berate, bully, slander and shame a group of high school students who hid in closets and under desks for six and a half minutes while a madman with an assault rifle strafed their school with hundreds of bullets and murdered 17 of their classmates and friends.

No human being should ever have to endure such trauma outside of war, let alone be mocked and insulted afterward for speaking up about the experience and asking their country and its leaders for help.

You don’t even have to agree with them to show a little compassion after the life-altering event they went through at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day 2018. Yet compassion is the last human emotion you’ll ever get from today’s National Rifle Association and its army of lobbyists, propagandists, YouTube commentators and pocketed politicians.  

What we’re seeing from the NRA and its right-wing backers is highly disturbing. I can’t think of another word strong enough to describe my revulsion at the way these children are being attacked. Every respectable member of the NRA who joined that organization for the right reasons should cancel his or her membership tomorrow, then band together and start a new organization for responsible gun owners. After all, the NRA was founded in 1871 to teach marksmanship and gun safety, not to promote the sale and use of military-style weapons at the expense of human lives.

Today it’s a well-funded lobbying group that seems to have forgotten all about gun safety under the guise of defending the Second Amendment, an addition to our Constitution that was ratified in 1791 to make sure our American colonists could operate a muzzleloader in case the British ever decided they wanted their country back.

And why the hell is the NRA tax-exempt?  

I don’t know how much they pay Dana Loesch and her compatriots to promote the NRA and to place its agenda ahead of the need to keep Americans safe, but it can’t be enough to justify the words that spew from her face when she threatens those evil gun control advocates with “the clenched fist of truth.”

I hope for her sake that her two sons never have to face the terror that Emma Gonzalez faced that horrible day at her Parkland, Florida, school. I read on the internet that the Loesch children were both home-schooled, but someday they might go to a movie theater or a dance club or an outdoor concert or even a church where a killer is lurking, waiting to kill as many people as possible with a weapon of mass destruction.

If that happens, rest assured they'll have my thoughts and prayers.

Until then, hell is no doubt preparing another of its “special places” for Dana Loesch and the other so-called adults who are getting their kicks by beating up on young children whose only “crime” is asking their government to make their lives a little safer…in the hope they can live long enough to actually become adults some day.

It makes me wonder how many of those “special places” hell will have left after this.

You bet I have questions for this ‘unapologetic Trump supporter’

The first speaker at a candidate forum held last night in Fairmont was Evan Jenkins, the Republican congressman from Huntington who represents West Virginia’s 3^rd District and who is now running for the Senate seat held by Democrat Joe Manchin.

Jenkins began his presentation with the words, “I am a proud, unapologetic supporter of Donald Trump. I endorsed President Trump in the primary…and have stood with him every step of the way.” He then proceeded to endorse the Republican Party’s pro-life, pro-gun, pro-trickle down tax reform platform and boasted that he happily voted to repeal and replace Obamacare.

All I could think was, “Wow. So much information, so little time.”

You see, I went there seeking answers, but soon discovered that the forum featured a panel of three moderators who took turns asking questions of the candidates following their three-minute opening remarks. Not to disparage the panel, which did a fine job, but the forum was billed as being “open to the public” although unfortunately, the public wasn’t allowed to ask any questions of their own.

Therefore, I have decided to ask my questions here in this space. Later, I’ll email them to Rep. Jenkins for his response. So let’s get started.

Congressman Jenkins, the man you wholeheartedly support, Donald John Trump, has done the following things in a little over one year in office:  

* He pushed through and signed a tax cut bill that will give himself and other rich people millions of dollars in benefits while most of us get a few dollars a month for a couple of years until our taxes eventually go up. How is that good for most West Virginians?

* He has signed away numerous regulations that were put in place to protect us from harm, including one that allows coal companies to dump harmful waste materials into West Virginia’s streams. He also promised coal miners he would bring back all of their jobs, but has failed to do so. How does that benefit the average West Virginian?

* He is solidly in the pocket of the National Rifle Association, which openly places the sale of guns ahead of the safety of our children on its list of legislative priorities. You said in your opening remarks that you support him on that issue, but I wonder: How do your children feel about that? Do they feel safe at school?

* He has opened up national parks for natural gas exploration and wants to allow offshore drilling that threatens the ecological balance on both coasts of the United States. Aside from the environmental damage, doesn’t this also work against the coal industry by promoting the development of fuels that undercut the nation’s need for coal?  

* He has denied climate change, canceled our right to sue money managers who rip us off, eliminated our ability to be paid overtime in certain jobs, authorized the killing of endangered animals, appointed cabinet members who are on course to destroy the agencies they direct, weakened public education, gutted the State Department, pardoned a law-breaking sheriff, endorsed a pedophile for the Senate, refused to condemn white supremacists and taunted a nuclear madman while sucking up to the murderous dictator of our cold war enemy Russia.

* Next, he wants to squander billions of dollars on a useless border wall for Mexicans to fly over or tunnel under, and millions more on a third-world-dictator-style military parade to feed his inflated ego, all while considering cuts to our Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to reduce the budget deficit that his tax bill is causing to explode.

* Generally speaking, he has repeatedly and consistently failed to uphold and defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, failed to respect the office of president and failed to recognize the respective authority of the three branches of government.

I apologize if I left out something important...oh, wait! He has also found time to play golf at one of his own properties – at taxpayer expense – about one-third of the time he’s been president...and I haven’t even mentioned all of the women he has sexually abused, tried to abuse, cheated on, cheated with, paid to silence after having an affair, married and then divorced or allegedly raped in the years before you helped elect him to the highest office in the land.

In summation, Donald John Trump – the man you “unapologetically” support – has spent the past 14 months chipping away at the good parts of America, causing as yet undetermined damage to the environment, immigrant rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, all other basic human rights, public education, fair housing, government ethics, protection of our natural resources, protection of endangered animals, protection of our national parks, our relationship with our allies, our participation in treaties and agreements designed to strengthen and protect America and our standing among other nations in the world.

So, Congressman Jenkins, I guess my real question would be this: Which part of Donald Trump’s record makes you the most proud?

Human Rights shouldn’t be decided by alternative facts

On March 15, I attended an open forum hosted by Friends of the Fairmont Human Rights Commission. I came away with a lot of good information wrapped around one over-arching thought: People will be asked to vote on this issue next fall, and before they do, it would be nice if they knew what was true.

I’ll get to that shortly, but first, a brief history:

The ordinance at issue was passed by City Council last September on a 7-2 vote. It intends to repeal and replace a previous ordinance that dates back to 1978. The amended ordinance states that the City of Fairmont will “safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to be free from all forms of discrimination, whether as a result of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, blindness or handicap, and to provide for an inclusive community for all residents, businesses and visitors.”

Denial of these rights, the ordinance says, “is contrary to the principles of freedom and equality of opportunity and is destructive to a free and democratic society.”

Prior to its passage, the ordinance was challenged by an out-of-town religious organization that objects to the inclusion of gays and transgender individuals in the list of protected groups. They attempted to sway City Council to defeat the ordinance with some dubious claims and accusations and when that failed, they launched a successful petition drive to put the issue on the ballot for the November mid-term election.

That’s where the issue currently stands, with both sides no doubt gearing up their campaigns before people actually go to the polls.

Now it’s not my job – or my intention – to tell people how to vote when Election Day rolls around because I know people are likely to vote their conscience regardless of anything I do or say. I do, however, believe that people should know the truth before casting a ballot on an issue of this magnitude. After all, it was 62 million votes based on lies, fiction, fantasy and deceit that put Donald Trump in the White House in 2016. How’s that been working out so far?

So here are a few facts:

(1) While the amended ordinance recognizes the right of its various protected groups to fair and equal treatment, it does not contain an enforcement clause. In other words, the Human Rights Commission is asking all Fairmont citizens to treat each other fairly and honestly, but by itself cannot compel anyone to do so.

(2) In cases where discrimination is suspected or alleged, there are other avenues that individuals can take to pursue a remedy, and in that context, the commission can make referrals to those organizations, but it does not have the power to take any legal action on its own.

(3) The primary objectives of the commission are to bring the issues of freedom and fairness to the public’s attention through educational programs and other opportunities to distribute information, to promote harmony throughout the community, to promote equal rights, to study discrimination as it exists in the area and to make recommendations to City Council on issues relative to human rights.

“Times have changed since 1978,” says the Rev. D. D. Meighen, one of the major backers of the new rights commission. He said supporters felt that the previous ordinance needed dusted off, amended and replaced to keep up with the broadening issues of the day. In November, if the amended version stands up to voter scrutiny (a “no” vote for repeal will keep the new one in place) it will go into effect as Council intended. If voters say “yes” to repeal, the city will revert back to the 1978 ordinance which, by the way, does include well-defined powers of enforcement. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? 

It has been fairly well documented that many of the people who distributed petitions against the amended ordinance didn’t fully understand what they were opposing, and even some of the most vocal critics had to admit to news reporters that they didn’t even read the new proposal before organizing against it.

I’ve stated here before that I can think of only one reason why anyone would knowingly oppose freedom and equality for everyone, and bigotry is a pretty ugly word. If this is the reason why some people signed the petition, then I have no answer for them, but if they oppose this ordinance because of a misunderstanding, I hope they will become educated between now and November and vote based on the real and not the alternative facts.

“The importance of a HRC has been shared by many community and business leaders whose businesses constitute most of the business force of Marion County,” Meighen says. “In order to understand our future, we must know our past. The HRC will provide the history, show the culture and develop the programs to allow us to move forward.”

I know the Friends of Human Rights will be out delivering this message from now until Election Day. I plan to do that, too, and I hope a lot of people will be listening.

Republicans giveth (grudgingly) and Republicans taketh away

The West Virginia Legislature made big news this year by approving a 5 percent pay raise for school teachers, service personnel and other state employees, but not without a fight. It took a statewide walkout by teachers, several days of noisy protests inside the state Capitol, a lot of negative publicity and a dubious new revenue estimate by our party-hopping governor to bring the Republican-controlled Legislature to its senses.  

That was the good news.

A few days later, while teachers were still celebrating and students were returning to their classrooms, lawmakers also passed and sent to the governor a bill that dismantles the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, proving once again that Republicans can giveth and Republicans can taketh away.

By eliminating the entire department, lawmakers plan to spin off its programs into other state agencies, such as the departments of Education and Commerce. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the bill would also put Gayle Manchin, wife of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and current Secretary of Education and the Arts, out of a job. 

“This is going to destroy arts in West Virginia,” said Delegate Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, who argued against the bill. “Always, always the first thing to be cut is the arts.”

Also dying was a bill to provide free tuition to in-state community and technical colleges, which was sacrificed at the last minute to help pay for teacher pay raises. It sounded good on the surface but wasn’t all that clean. It included a number of hoops that students would have to jump through in order to receive the benefit, including a requirement to pay for and pass a drug test before each semester to receive the full tuition. The bill would also have required students to repay all or part of the tuition if they moved out of state within two years of graduation.

Here are some other notable bills that were introduced but not approved:

* Two proposed Constitutional amendments to enable lawmakers to amend or reject policies of the state Board of Education. Can’t they do that anyway through legislation?

* A Senate bill to require all “public, private, parochial and denominational” high schools to offer an elective social studies course on the Christian Bible. Strangely, it did not mention the holy books of any other religions, but seemingly would have required a private Muslim school to teach Bible classes...if such a school existed.

* A House bill to allow teachers, students and others with permits to carry concealed guns on the campuses of state colleges and universities, including inside school buildings and at sporting events. The legislation was basically written by the NRA, which provided the “model” for it, according to its sponsor, Delegate Jim Butler (R) of Mason County. Like we really needed a state law written by the NRA.

* In that regard, among the bills passed and sent to the governor was one that will make it easier for individuals to possess guns on school property and at school-sponsored events as long as they are locked inside a vehicle. So let’s say the governor signs this bill and next fall, a fight breaks out at a football game where 30 guys have guns locked inside their trucks. What could possibly go wrong?

* Another bill would impose a 20-hour per week work requirement on certain able-bodied adults without dependents in order to receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It doesn’t say how we’re supposed to find jobs for all of these people.

* And, of course, there’s the proposed Constitutional amendment that would take away a woman’s right to have an abortion. The exact wording says, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.” It will be on the ballot in November.

There’s a lot more I could mention, but I’m just trying to make a point. This is what happens when there are more than twice as many registered Democrats and Independents as Republicans in the state, but a lot of people either don’t bother to vote or they turned from blue to red during the presidency of Barack Obama. Either way it allowed Republicans to take over most of the state’s seats in Congress plus the governor’s mansion and both houses of the Legislature. 

Back in October 2016, just a few weeks before the election of that year, I sent a letter to the editors of all of the state’s major newspapers, pointing out how West Virginia’s transition from blue to red was working out for the people of the state. This is what I wrote:

Remember how we elected Republicans (in 2014) and gave them control of the West Virginia Legislature? Remember what they did?

• They passed right-to-work legislation that hurts unions and repealed the prevailing wage law so they could take money away from working people and give it to their employers.

• They introduced education bills that were opposed by state teachers and education leaders and would set education back several years.

• They introduced at least 13 anti-abortion bills that either were not supported by science or doctors or were opposed by women as unwanted intrusion into their lives and bodies.

• They passed a bill to drug test recipients of government benefits, which was clearly aimed at the state’s poor and minorities, many of whom need government assistance to survive.

• They tried to legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity – another step backward into the past.

• They also tried to make it illegal for anyone to provide health care services under the Affordable Care Act, which would have denied health insurance to about 10% of the state’s population and their families.

In other words, they advanced an agenda that was anti-worker, anti-union, anti-education, anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-minority, anti-LGBT and anti-health. There was virtually no group of voters they didn’t try to harm, except wealthy Republicans and their out-of-state financiers.

With another election coming up soon, I strongly urge West Virginia’s women, miners, union members, teachers, students, minorities, the economically challenged and everyone concerned about their health to band together with me to vote these people out of office and back into the Stone Age where they belong.

You know there’s a saying that goes, “Remember in November.” Well, it’s almost time.

 

Then we went out in 2016 and re-elected the same guys. It was déjà vu all over again.

Fast-forward to 2018 and what do you know? Things haven’t gotten a whole lot better down in Charleston. The Republican-dominated legislature is still trying to screw the little guy in virtually every way possible, like they have since winning the last two elections. But hey, we have another election coming up this year, which means we have one more chance to vote these people out of office and bring back the wild, wonderful West Virginia that cares about its people.

In conclusion, there’s an old saying that goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Well I’d like to add one more line to that adage that goes, “And if you can fool me three times, that makes me a real slow learner, and I’ll be getting exactly what I deserve.”

I can drive my own car, thank you very much

I just saw a TV commercial for a Cadillac that drives itself. It inspired me to make a few things perfectly clear:

(1) I don’t want my car to drive itself. I have known how to drive for 52 years. I used to do it for a living and I got pretty good at it. I don’t trust my car to know everything I had to know to get my driver’s license and the things I’ve learned from experience. For example, does it know what to do in the snow? How about heavy rain? Black ice? Fog? I do know, because I’ve been there and done that. Besides, I doubt my car could have passed the written drivers’ exam.

(2) I don’t want my car to park itself, either. I know how to parallel park. I taught my children how to parallel park. I don’t want to explain to my insurance agent that I was sitting there in the driver’s seat reading my text messages when my car accidentally backed into the $130,000 Maserati that was just starting to pull out of the space behind me.

(3) Nor do I want my car to stop itself. I don’t want to be driving along and have my car suddenly slam on the brakes. First off, I don’t need whiplash in my neck, and any sudden stop would probably throw my back completely out of place. Second, if my car has to slam on its brakes to avoid something in the road, that tells me that I wasn’t paying attention in the first place.

And that, my friends, is the rub.

When I was a kid, I watched the Jetsons fly around in their little jet-cars that never got stuck in traffic and could park – I mean land – almost anywhere, and I figured that by the time I was an old man of 68 we’d have those in real life. Sadly, I’m still waiting for that to happen.

But even George Jetson and his friends had to fly the damn things. They didn’t take off and land by themselves, which was a good thing, because in the Jetsons’ day, there were dozens of the things buzzing around all over the place, so good driving skills were required to avoid a major mid-air collision.

We’re constantly being reminded about the dangers of distracted driving, while at the same time designing cars that allow us to do exactly that. I mean, what am I supposed to do while my Cadillac is propelling itself down the highway, or parking itself in front of a Maserati? Should I read a book, set the buttons on my radio or recalibrate my Garmin? Maybe I should text message my friends or call Colasessano’s to order a pizza? Why do I need to do something other than driving when I’m supposed to be driving? I don’t see the need.

I’m extremely grateful that when my kids were growing up, we didn’t own a mini-van with a video screen in the back seat, because that’s just one more distraction the driver doesn’t need. I know the driver can’t actually see the movie, but he or she can certainly hear it, and if it’s showing something interesting, it’s bound to draw attention away from highway signs, pedestrians and the other cars on the road. Listening to the radio can be distracting enough without adding visuals to the mix.

And one more thing. Why would I want to start my car by pushing a button when I still have to carry my keys to make it work? Since I already have my keys, how much trouble is it to plug one into the ignition and turn?

I’m not anti-technology, so don’t get me wrong...not even where cars are concerned. I’d like to have a car battery that lasts more than five years, or tires that never wear out. I’d like to know my air bag wouldn’t break my nose if I ever needed it. These are improvements I could get behind, so why isn’t anybody working on them? And if the car feels compelled to do something without me, how about installing a self-washing tool or a small, Roomba-like device that vacuums the interior?

I’m happy that we progressed past the eight-track tape player to cassettes and later CDs, but I don’t want to plug my phone into my car, because that’s just another distraction to take my mind away from driving. I would like to have a self-darkening windshield like those Transition glasses that turn to shades in the sun, and maybe a cloaking device so I could do some stealth driving from time to time. I could really use a lighted ribbon board that encircled the car so I could send snotty messages to idiot drivers, and a hood-mounted machine gun so I could strafe the really bad ones.

And I still want a flying Jetsons car.

My wife says I’m just a curmudgeon and that I’m always mad about everything. She may be right, but she also said if you don’t want to drive your own car you should hire a driver or call for a cab. I’m okay with those suggestions, as long as the taxi doesn’t run all by itself and the “driver” I hire isn’t operated by remote control.