Ideapad

Hot on the heels of my unwanted catalog abundance, I received in the mail today the premiere issue of Refresh Recharge Renew, a new magazine from Rodale Custom Publishing.

Funny thing, that. Because I didn't subscribe first. Actually, I'm not a subscriber to any Rodale magazine at all. Never have been, although I did work for them for three weeks in 2004, and I pick up Men's Health on occasion at the airport. Nothing in that suggests that I should be on any of their mailing lists.

Yet lo and behold, here it is, a magazine that looks a lot like the healthy-living-past-age-50 magazines that show up (also unsolicited) at my parents' house. "Smart ideas for healthy, balanced living," promises the tagline on the cover. How's this for healthy: don't pad your subs list with unwitting recipients, and save us all a tree or two.

Perhaps, dear reader, you think my tone is a bit uppity and huffy for something of this nature. In response, let me point you to this magazine's website, which has on its homepage a rather easy-to-find Unsubscribe link. The page states it boldly: "Want to cancel your reFresh | reCharge | reNew magazine subscription? Just fill out this form and we will remove your home mailing address from our subscription list." But I didn't want to be on your subscription list in the first place! Why is it my responsibility to say so?

I thought email spam was frustrating. But the loads of unwanted printed mail I'm getting lately is in some ways much worse.