I am perhaps the only person in Portland who tossed and turned last night, unable to sleep for fretting about the Charter. And my son at Western Oregon University tells me many readers probably drifted in the waves of Charter details, not following at least half of them. So let's turn to something hopefully more people can relate to: multiple companies leaving phone directories in every driveway. I do not want your phone directories, multiple companies. Most of them go straight from the driveway into the recycling bin in the garage, adding weight and bulk which I have to pay the garbage haulers to collect. I especially don't want the two sets you all deliver, since we live on a corner and you leave one bag on each street frontage. I don't want Lake Oswego's yellow pages, even though we live three blocks north of the border. I don't want the "new, improved, better than those other guys" directories. All I need and want, is one set of books from the company I choose for my domestic phone service.

This is obviously trivial - that's one reason I'm writing about it, to take a break from Charter Review. But if we were to add up all the energy and trees used in creating, delivering, and recycling all those unwanted phone books, the numbers would surely be significant. This is a call for restraint, multiple phone companies! Don't make us come after you with a city ordinance mandating only the phone company serving a residence may deliver unsolicited directories.

Now back to your regular programs. But probably a continued break from Charter Review, at least until my headache subsides.