How many of you have had this experience? You get a call or a letter from a local good cause and decide to pitch in - say, the police widows' fund or firefighters collecting toys for kids - or you send a few bucks to MoveOn or the Sierra Club. Because you know they do good work, and you want to help out, right?

Next thing you know, you start getting unsolicited mail and, worse, phone calls from all sorts of other good causes - breast cancer, autism, diabetes, the 98%, Wildlife Federation, the Democratic Party, etc. etc. You're on the Do Not Call list - but that doesn't work for charitable organizations. They share (or sell) their lists among each other so that every one of them has you marked as an easy touch.

At my house, it has got completely out of control. We get at least one, sometimes three or more, unsolicited phone calls per day. Our mailbox is stuffed with pitches every day. How many trees do these "progressive" people waste for mailers that just get thrown away?

It is so bad now that all this mail goes straight in the trash - I mean recycling, of course - and anyone who calls gets yelled at to "Take me off your list NOW".

Don't these people realize they're shooting themselves in the foot by inundating their potential supporters to the point of barely controllable rage? I used to be fine with sending some money to a few good causes, but they have only themselves to blame when I now say:

FUCK ALL Y'ALL!