I'm planning a full-length blog in my "Back to Basics" series on the theme of "time is all we have," but I'm going off-line for a week (17-24 October 2011) and figured I'd better throw this in now.

The back-to-basics point is that one whole hell of a lot of people are a hell of a lot too free making demands on my time, with the subsidiary point that technological innovations can be time-saving for some and annoyingly time-wasting for the rest of us.

Case in point: If the law allows RoboCall collection calls for Medicare even to cell phones, we have a precedent for allowing RoboCalls on all manner of legally serious matters. If a RoboCall might concern a legally serious matter, it is a risk to just hang up when perceiving that one has answered yet another call with no one on the other end of the line.

("Dead air" can also mean a call made with an automatic dialer that calls several numbers at once. I'll assert that the dead air indicates again that no one is on the other end of the line [as we used to say] and that this, too is a variety of crank call that should be hung up on at once.)

If there are legal risks in hanging up on dead air, one will be mildly coerced to stay on the line and listen to at least part of the message.

And that is a coercion to listen to ads and pitches — some political — and it is another way we are coerced to devote our time to doing something we may not want to do.

Lawyers who draft laws are well aware of the concept of "billable hours." OK where do I send the bills for the seconds and minutes of my time?

Alternatively, where do I send the receipts for reimbursement for caller I.D. and other technology that I'd need to screen the calls — plus, of course, the bills for my time buying and using such technology?

More on these matters later, as time allows  ....