I just watched the opening moments of “The Round Table Discussion On Women In Business”, hosted by President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau in the White House Cabinet Room.

Here’s my beef. I could barely hear what anyone was saying because of all those annoying press photographers!

The noise from all the cameras drowned out the voices.  A never ending cacophony of camera clacking sounds.

Here’s my peeve of the day. This is RIDICULOUS because the press could use silent cameras. In this day and age everyone is using digital cameras, which allows them to almost instantaneously transfer the images to their agencies. No one covers news stories with film cameras. There is no need to use a camera that has a shutter and a slapping mirror inside. They make digital cameras without mirrors that are completely silent.  They are called (obviously) “mirrorless cameras”.  Heck I owned a Canon camera called a Pellix that had no moving mirror which made it quieter.  That camera was made in the 1960’s for goodness sake!

Point of fact here folks, manufacturers of cameras have audio generators in the cameras to make them sound like a film camera of old.  They create the shutter sound because people are used to hearing it, I suppose. If you own a smart phone it makes a “camera like” sound when you press the button and take a picture.

I noticed that they must have mandated that no flashes were to be used as I didn’t see a single burst of light. Therefore they could make a rule that only silent cameras must be used to cover White House events.

Here’s another reason this is INSANE. At a professional golf game the photographers cannot make noise when the player is up. They can only use silent cameras.

Do we have our priorities straight?  Why is it that hitting a little white ball around with a stick has more stringent press coverage requirements than a meeting between international heads of states?

Telemarketers, bah humbug.

I have both my home and cell phones on the “National Do Not Call Registry” which was set up by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission in 2003.

AFTER 14 YEARS, does it work? NOPE, not as far as I can tell. I still get several calls per day from telemarketers, phishers, and scammers.

Has anyone gone to prison for breaking the law? Again, NOPE, not as far as I can find out. There have been some fines levied but that’s about the extent of any punishment.

Okay, here’s where my “PET PEEVE” comes in. The PHONE COMPANIES can stop all of this, but THEY WON”T!

They could easily monitor any number they have and observe if the registered user is generating an unusual number of outgoing calls. They can also coordinate with the FTC and FCC to make sure a “business” is not calling people on the Do Not Call Registry.  Right now IT’S THE RESPONSIBILITY of the SCAMMER to comply with the law.  I may be a bit of a simpleton, but a law that requires a lawbreaker to self-police seems awfully stupid.  That is about as effective as a convenience store owner hanging a “No guns allowed” sign to prevent armed robberies.  “Crap, I was going to rob the place but they won’t allow me to bring  my gun into the store”.

The other thing that the phone companies are allowing on their systems is giving the SCAMMERS the ability to SPOOF CALLER ID with fake numbers and names. This makes it IMPOSSIBLE TO REPORT a violation to the authorities.  They again have control over the signalling that generates the Caller ID messages. Once more it would be easy for the phone companies to check that the Caller ID originating from the SCAMMER is their registered number which would allow us poor slobs to file a complaint. They can easily prevent ANY caller from spoofing Caller ID.

BUT THEY DON”T! The phone companies are more than happy to let this go on because they are MAKING MONEY.

The phone companies get money from the SCAMMERS, for every phone line, every phone number, and every call made, which gives the phone companies little incentive to shut the SCAMMERS down.

MONEY TALKS and BOVINE EXCREMENT (you and me) WALKS.