1/28/2015
DON'T CALL111
GOAFS II: #130
DON’T CALL
1.28.15
I think most
of us have found that the Government Do
Not Call List, complaints.do not call.gov (or
donotcall.gov/ ) is a
lot like President Obama’s promises—big talk and little walk. The robocallers
simply ignore the rules and humbly apologize if you call them on it. They say
they will remove your number and they never bother since they know you are in
the Geezer Cohort and will probably forget them by the next time they call.
My landline
can block up to thirty calls and I have pretty much kept ahead of the robocallers,
they go through a dozen different numbers, locations, caller ID’s and finally
move on. But being greedy as they are, I have wondered what they are doing with
my name and number when they give up on me.
The other day
a light went on. I put two and two together and came up with a theory. For the
past few months it seems Sundays have been amateur day for the bottom feeding
scammers. Every Sunday I get an email from someone looking for my internet
server password. They are obviously and even extravagantly fraudulent. The
latest notifying me that I am in Lillian Edward’s will and entitled to a
significant legacy. Just contact the writer at this address (a link that
obviously means me no good).
In the same
way, I have been receiving at least one local cell phone call every Sunday from
a marginally literate Hispanic-sounding man wanting to help me rid my computer
of a problem he can’t describe or preserve my e-mail account or something.
These guys know virtually nothing about computers, barely speak English, and
never even heard of the government do not call list.
So here is my
theory. The robocallers hate to waste a name so they find a market for the
names of old people, on the verge of losing their wits, and sell their cast-off
names there. I can envision a cheaply printed booklet of “1001 Ways to Get Rich
on The Internet,” a best seller in the illegal immigrant community. It includes
a group of scripts and sampling of Geezer names and numbers and an offer to
provide more names for selected zip codes (so the scammer can “buy local” ) at
a real bargain price.
My wife says
I am crazy—maybe so but…I would be interested in any experiences you have had
with phone or email harassment and your ways of dealing with it… short of
getting off the internet and getting rid of all your telephones. I can live
quit nicely without a cell phone, but not a landline -- I do not have the
resources of ISIS to afford to communicate by personal courier.
One more
thing. Lately we have been receiving calls using my wife’s name and our home
phone number as the caller I.D. Since you can’t block your own phone or report
the call to the government, it can be quite frustrating. My solution is to set
the answering machine to pick upon three rings and let it take all calls except
those that come when we are home and recognize the caller I.D. I think this is
having two small positive effects. (1) It appears that the robocaller will try
a number of days and various times of day for a couple of weeks before it
changes the caller I.D. and number. This reduces the task of updating your
call-blocking list since it also appears that if you answer the call to find
out who it is, then block it, they change I.D. and number much more often and
fill up the blocking list much faster.
I have just
received a communication from Consumer Reports that is directly related to this
problem—I pass it along for your consideration.
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Dear Jerry,
Robocalls are hard to stop. Despite the Do Not Call
registry, the robocalls keep coming because they are cheap to set up.
You may now get most robocalls on your landline phone,
but some companies want to launch new kinds of robocalls to your cell phone.
The problem could get a lot worse!
But there is a way to stop these annoying and harmful
calls. Last year, people like you began to pressure the phone companies and
the FCC to implement blocking technologies that will stop the calls before
they reach your home. More than 130,000 people have already taken action.
Join us!
A lot has happened since we launched our work on this
a year ago.
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Together, we can accelerate these changes so that YOU
get the relief you want. Your phone company should do something for you, and
the solution should be free of charge.
Sincerely,
Chris Meyer,
Vice President, External Affairs
101 Truman Ave
Yonkers, NY 10703-1057
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I have not
done these things yet but I intend to.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
1/21/2015
WORST PILLS NEWS
GOAFS II: #129
WORST PILLS
1.21.15
For several
years I have subscribed to a monthly newsletter from The Public Citizen, Worst Pills, Best Pills News. It is
about a dollar a month and one of the best investments I have made in a long
time. Not a month has passed by that I have not found something very helpful.
Check them out at their website:
worstpills.org
The lead
story in the January 2015 issue was of special interest to me. It is about drugs
called Dopamine agonists. These are used primarily to treat three conditions:
Parkinson’s disease, restless leg syndrome, and a hormonal disorder called
hyperprolactinemia. Their basic function affects a part of the brain that not
only helps the disease in question but often leads to uncontrollable, compulsive
behaviors, like compulsive gambling and shopping, hyper sexuality, and more
rarely binge eating and “punding,” which is a compulsive fascination with and
performance of repetitive mechanical tasks.
The main
drugs that produce these side effects are:
· APOKYN
· CYCLOSET
· PARLODEL
· MIRAPEX
· REQUIP
· NEUPRO
The reason
these were of particular interest to me is that my wife has been diagnosed with
Parkinson’s Disease and at some point, if the diagnosis was correct, the Docs
will want to prescribe a drug to reduce the effects—if it is one of these, we
will be very thoughtful about using it.
Here is one
example to the unintended consequences of using one of these drugs.
A 47 year old woman started taking pramipexole (MIRAPEX) for
restless leg syndrome. After 6 months, she had spent $5,000 on purchases from a
TV shopping channel (“ugly clothes and jewelry I didn’t even need) and had
started setting her alarm clock early so as not to “miss a sale.” She went on
food binges, eating a dozen doughnuts in one sitting – “even though I wasn’t
hungry” – and would stay up late into the night cross-stitching. She lived with
these symptoms for 2 years before quitting the drug. Two months after she
stopped treatment, all of the strange behaviors had vanished.
Lest this get
overlong I will mention one other thing. If you or a loved one takes Warfarin
(COUMADIN) to prevent blood clots, you should read the article on PRADAXA
dosing. It is being marketed as superior to COUMADIN since the level in the
blood does not need monitoring. The latest studies show the drug is not safe
without monitoring and there is no simple test to determine the level in a
user’s blood. The maker will not develop a test because it would take the zing
out of marketing the drug.
Enough. We all know that unthinking
faith in the competence and integrity of the Federal government is risky these
days, in this area of medication testing and approval, it is very risky, to say
the least.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
1/14/2015
POEMS 2 AMONG THE HALLOWS
GOAFS II: #128
POEMS 2 AMONG THE HALLOWS
1.14.15
If the Time Capsule
last week left a bad taste in your mouth, here is a good antidote.
AMONG THE
HALLOWS
Ordinariness,
in a word, opens out into mystery, and the thing that men are supposed to do
with mystery is to hallow it, for it all belongs to the Holy One. Hallowed Be this House. Tom Howard
Beyond the veil of ordinary
things,
The door, the room, the meal, the
work, the play,
There press in on every side…
Mighty Mysteries, Ineffable
Immensities,
Heavenly Places, Spiritual Forces,
Rulers, Powers, Princes, Glorious
Habitations
Incandescent Vistas, Consuming
Fires, Unbearable Splendors,
Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels,
Angels,
Eternity Incomprehensible,
Unapproachable Light,
Shekinah,
Glory, Glory, Glory!
The sounds of…
Celestial Dancing
Myriad Hallelujahs
Trumpets
Flutes
Timbrels
Lyres
Harps
Bagpipes
Tambourines
Cymbals,
Silent Thunder…
Echoes of…
Camelot
Narnia
Perelandra
Middle Earth.
We walk among the hallows
In the presence of the unseen
That would ravish and terrify us
Were the veil
stripped away.
We are the poorer for our eyes
That often seeing, do not see,
Our ears that often hearing, do
not hear,
Our hearts that all too often stop
On the surface of
The ordinary things…
May we then be like Moses,
“Who endured as seeing Him
Who was invisible.”
12/02 JS
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
