ShareThisThey come in the early, pre-dawn darkness, while the suburbs quietly slumber. Unmarked cars and station-wagons, slowly idling, creep from house to house. Though few are awake to hear it, the noise that follows them is unmistakable.Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.There's no sound quite like a half-pound of glossy advertisements striking the pavement.For those reading this in newsprint, the odds are good that you've just paid a visit to the edge of the driveway. And the odds are just as good that your daily paper had company in the yard, on the porch, and on the doorknob. Free papers and advertising bundles, like coffee-chains and rabbits, seem to multiply when you're not looking.Looking across the neighborhood, you can instantly tell who's left for vacation. The lawn, stoop, and driveway are covered in unwanted double-bagged ads, begging to be thrown away. In a landfill far away, shiny plastic-wrapped pizza ads from 1987 are preserved like Egyptian royalty. Two decades old and still waiting to be redeemed.Meanwhile, poorly-wrapped "complimentary" papers neglected for a weekend are reduced to paste on the sidewalk. Wet soy-based inks leech permanently into the concrete to proclaim a 24-hour sale that ended in October.In a world where Spam is blocked with extreme prejudice and your number can be added to a national list of those that cannot be called, the unwanted bundle of ads on the porch is like a strange holdover from a time long-ago. A time when coupons were not printed with grocery receipts and no one had ever heard of a preferred customer card. A better time, maybe, but a time that's long behind us.This is not to say that no one clips coupons anymore. Some folks anticipate the arrival of a Valpak like the first cup of coffee in the morning. The rest of us, meanwhile, wish they were banned by law.And the rest of us could be in luck.A bill recently introduced in the Maryland General Assembly would prohibit the residential delivery of free, unsolicited newspapers. The bill does not directly address Door Stores and coupon packages, though these are often bundled with the free papers in question.It's just a start in one state assembly, but it would be the first law of its kind in the country. And it's the subject of some strong opinions.Some fear that prohibiting such papers puts free speech at risk and could hurt community publications. However, the proposed law would only bar delivery at the request of the homeowner. Local papers would surely save money by skipping uninterested homes, where the paper never leaves the sleeve.And so far as the freedom of speech, few would argue that the First Amendment was intended to protect Pizza Palace. Had Thomas Jefferson himself suffered a mountain of maternity discounts on the porch of Monticello, the Second Amendment would have featured a clause for paperboys.Soon the day will come when our lawns and porches remain pristine and unsullied by unsolicited advertisement. Homeowners will scuff drowsily across the driveway in slippers and robe to retrieve just one roll of paper. And representatives across the land will begin new legislation on the last and final insult to the nation's front step.Because seriously, who uses a phonebook anymore? (Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban, and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Protecting the nation's front steps and driveways
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Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
