I'm told that this Thursday is the last date. It is swamped down there with proposed bills, especially naming everything they can think of like "THE STATES....DIRT....."

We're trying to get a few important bills heard minimally, like urban renewal helping schools, fire, police etc. and is getting mostly deaf ears. Pathetic. Why do we need a year-round legislature?

I live in a community where several different telephone books (4-6) are delivered every season. Last month I finally caught a guy as he started to toss one onto my front porch, and rudely shouted at him to please keep it. I immediately felt really bad for the guy. Our homes here are pretty far apart, and I'm thinking he probably had to deliver them all before getting paid. So now I ignore the delivery guys, and simply toss them into the re-cycle bin.

The real victims here are the advertisers who are led to believe that the number of books delivered are going to people who will actually open them someday.

Atkinson
Burdick
There's the problem.

lw: they have more important issues to consider. There's "The Code of the West" and similar items that take time. This is why you need a year-round legislature.

Agreed. Burdick totally botched cellphones-while-driving -- now she can't (or more likely, doesn't want to) get this done. But hey -- Friends of Neil get to stay in power around here as long as they want, no matter how awful.

Wow, look at all that captured carbon!

It's insane the most worthless people make up laws against us. It should be trespassing and illegal dumping for them to leave that crap.

"It should be trespassing and illegal dumping for them to leave that crap."

I agree.. they should charge every member of the legislature for this now. Then we can do something about that pile of phonebooks...

Seriously, my pet peeve was that damn This Week they tossed on my driveway because i didn't subscribe to that piece of garbage known as the Oregonian.....

No more worries....I have moved to Vancouver. All that nice Oregon income tax right back in my pocket where it belongs.

Bojack readers are sick of me saying this, but I will again: This is littering, pure and simple.

Maybe we need an act civil disobedience! Let's go to these legislators' homes and leave brochures for our organizations.

Let's put posters o their lawns for our band's next gig. Let's put up signs for our kid's bake sale because they're cutting arts and PE from our schools.

Maybe just drop off our old magazines on their lawn. After all, people like magazines, so we'd be providing a service...

Atkinson
Burdick
There's the problem.

Add Shields to the list.

I've been trying to get him to respond to CRC and eminent domain for more than three years.

Code of the West, indeed.

Pete - good plan but focus it. If everyone who didn't want the orphan phone books brought them to one or two targeted legislators' front lawns or driveways and dropped them off, I think there it be a stronger statement, more likely to get the desired result.

If the legislators cry, "littering!" or "trespassing!" then we can ask, again, if that's the case why are the phone book distributors allowed to do this without invitation?

I can see some incredibly thick Pollyannas arguing that allowing this nonsense is good for business and employs printers and binders somewhere (an argument that has little merit because much of the material is automatically recycled and pulped and thus a waste - these things really do grow on trees).

Notice, also, that each one is delivered in its own evil plastic bag.

Anyone opt-out who has still received a phone book?

Remember, you need to opt out of more than just one. Here's DEX's:

http://green.dexknows.com/DexGreen/selectDexAction.do

Enter in zip code then select "0" numbers of books.

Who wants to join in a lawsuit?

Thanks for rallying folks around this issue Jack.

Dex, Superpages, the O, Foodday. I called them all and insisted they pick up the litter they left in my yard. So far, it's worked with all of them, although I suspect Dex and SP share the same distributor, as do the Oregonian rags.

The last time Superpages landed on my porch, they called that day, saying there was a mistake and they'd come pick it up. It was gone later that afternoon. I think somebody's getting the message that enough pissed off people could get their scammy business model sent the way of the telegraph. Certainly not an industry-wide enlightenment, but a glimmer of hope.

Msmith,

It's funny that you'd add Chip Shields' name to the list of people obstructing this bill considering he's bill's sponsor.

I agree, NW Portlander. I also agree the evil plastic bags are an important component.

Might the sponsors of the plastic bag ban bill want to weigh in on this as well?

Pragmatic Portlander:

My bad.

I guess this is the reason he's overlooked my requests for information.

The problem is that us civilized folk aren't willing to go to an uncivilized manner to deal with it.

Next time: let's dump all those phone books in front of City Hall! Watching Sam Adams navigate through the pile of crap in front of the front doors to our city government ought to get his butt in gear. Or the State Capitol...

While we're at it, let's also pile on our junk mail. Just think of all the cost savings if we could eliminate 1/3rd of the world's largest motor pool (that is, the U.S. Postal Service fleet of carrier vehicles).

I could come up with at least a dozen other laws that should be in place...but of course our government has more important things to worry about.

(Now that I think about it...if there is a law that can be passed that mandates a fee for a paper bag, why can't we mandate fees for phone books? $5.00 for rural directories under so many pages, $10.00 for urban directories, and $15.00 for multi-volume directories? And that's per company - if you really want the Verizon AND Qwest directories (excuse me, Frontier and CenturyLink), then you pay the fee to each company.)

Hope you folks get to do something about those worthless phone books. All of then used to wind up in our recycling bin less the plastic. Here in Northern Nevada, they don't deliver them to homes unless you get a new phone service installation. If you want one, they are available in racks at most of the larger supermarkets - and few people take them given that some of the addresses and phone numbers are already out of date..