Don’t phone home

Are you sick and tired of coming home in the evening to a blinking answering machine, only to discover it’s not your doctor calling with the results of your lab work, or the school district calling about Junior’s grades, but it’s some auto-fellating politician or group talking about how they saved the world for humanity, made the world safe for democracy or deserve the opportunity to make the world safe for auto-dialers.

When politicians exempted themselves from the National Do Not Call Registry, which began in 2003, they opened the door for irate telephone owners to know exactly who was interrupting their dinner. Now, it appears, there’s hope for families who hope to enjoy uninterrupted sit-down togetherness. Shaun Dakin is CEO and Founder of StopPoliticalCalls.org. He hopes to pick up where the National Do Not Call Registry lets off by registering people who don’t want to be bothered by politicians wheedling votes or just patting themselves on the back at taxpayers’ expense. Telephone owners may register one phone number for free at www.StopPoliticalCalls.org, if they want to stop all politicians from contacting them. For $1.24, people can be more specific about who calls.

Once registered, Dakin’s group, the National Political Do Not Contact Registry, will contact politicians to ask them not to call registrants at home. The politicians’ response would be purely voluntary. The more cynical among us have noticed how responsive politicians have been to their constituents and figure we can probably expect a few more cold dinners before Congress picks up the ball and makes compliance mandatory.