Ring ring ring.

I’ve been getting a lot of wrong numbers lately. Not “Is Bob there” wrong numbers, but ones that go like this:

“Hi, is Nancy there? Yes? This is Nancy? OK, I’m wondering if it’s too late to get my 9-year-old registered for the indoor soccer league.”

When I told this person I had no idea what she was talking about, she asked again if she had Nancy, read me back my number, and then threw the ball into my court — you’re Nancy, this is your number, now what about the soccer league? It took a minute to convince her she really had the wrong person.

Two days later, someone else called, asked for me by name and asked where she was supposed to drop off the boxes for the book sale.

I suspect much of this comes from my other website, GrossePointeToday.com, which I am all but severed from — other than killing spam out of the comments and doing what I can here and there for Sheila, my partner, who is using it in her editing class at Wayne State. We link to various community pages, run an events calendar, and people get confused which one sent them there. At least, this is my theory.

Today someone called, asked for Nancy, and started into a description of a vintage jukebox. When I realized he wasn’t asking for a story to be written about this jukebox, but rather wanted a professional appraisal, I cut him off and told him I didn’t do that.

Again, “But this is Nancy, right? And this is (my phone number)? You don’t do antique appraisals?”

No, sorry. But I gave him a name and number of someone nearby who did. He seemed grateful.

Yesterday was the best of all, though:

“Yeah, this is Jerry.” African-American man’s voice, someone who’s either seen a few dozen summers or works regularly as a blues singer. Hi, Jerry. Who are you calling?

“Well, I’m wondering if you’re open. The dispensary, that is.”

I did some reporting recently on medical marijuana, and that word — dispensary — is one you don’t hear much outside of the green-cross world.

“The dispensary? What?”

“Yeah, for, you know, marijuana.”

“Sorry, but you have the wrong number. This is a private residence, and I don’t have any pot.”

Again! He’s incredulous, and reads back my number. “I was told this is the dispensary.”

“It’s my house, Jerry. And I don’t sell marijuana. You’ve been misled.”

Something strange is going on. We’re talking about severing our land line soon, and I was hoping to get it done before robocall season really ramps up. So far, we haven’t gotten any robocalls, but if we keep getting asked whether we have weed for sale, I might keep it around a little longer. Jerry sounded like he really needed something to take the edge off.

So. It’s Wednesday night, the Tigers are rain-delayed (even though it’s not raining, and hasn’t rained all evening) and will probably be rained out (because the rain is coming, and it looks pretty wet).

Let’s pop over to the bloggage, then, eh?

A tale of two rudenesses. Which is worse — tying up a table in a busy restaurant for 2.5 hours, or bitching about it to the diners’ faces? The confrontation and the thrown LIVESTRONG bracelet — which followed the playing of the cancer card — are the whipped-cream topping on this particular schadenfreude pie.

And speaking of yellow rubber bracelets, how Lance Armstrong is like Lehman Brothers:

In both cases, a culture of excess and risk led to record-breaking performances, and then to catastrophe. In both cases, the behavior in question was driven by a distinct set of social forces, including a win-at-all-costs culture, lack of regulation, and the credulousness of journalists and the public.

In many ways, the structure of professional cycling resembles a trading floor: small, tightly knit teams competing daily, with great intensity and effort, for marginal rewards. … (And) just as Wall Street firms hired Ivy League PhDs to invent new financial instruments, so did cycling teams hire doctors to perfect new pharmacological instruments.

Sounds about right.

Rain, rain, rain, ring, ring, ring. I’ll let you know if anyone interesting calls tomorrow.

Posted at 12:16 am in Same ol' same ol', Uncategorized |
 

88 responses to “Ring ring ring.”

  1. Dexter said on October 18, 2012 at 12:37 am

    I don’t miss the robocalls; we cut the land line a few years ago since we never used it, and good riddance. However, once in a while my cell rings and it’s a call from a far-away area code, so it goes unanswered.

    I record a few satellite radio shows onto a little voice recorder and walk around with it on low volume tucked into my baseball cap. I exited my car this afternoon , listening to it, and I hear a little girl’s high-pitched voice. I assumed it was some of the neighborhood kids playing, but she was screaming at me. I turned my recorder off and heard “ARE YOU DEAF?!” I looked back from my door and she had followed me onto my porch, carrying a large plain business envelope. “Do you want to give to my foundation?” I was not about to get into a discussion with some eight year old tiny girl about what her foundation was.
    Anyone who has ever been in any US city has seen the kids with a crayon sign and a tray of M&Ms which they attempt to sell for $5 a bag “for Little League” or for “school”. A few years ago I saw some heavily made-up high school cheerleaders in a Toledo gas station who were selling some little trinkets to raise cash for the football team.
    I think I bought a bag of M&Ms from the boys one time somewhere and I know I bought some stuff from the cheerleaders, mainly because I thought it took a lot of moxie to solicit men at a gas pump for cash.
    But today I just said “no” and went inside the house, and thought a long time about parents and school officials who send little girls up on porches with plain envelops asking fr cash for some sort of foundation. Hell, maybe she was just plain hungry and I should have just given her a few singles…but I didn’t.

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  2. Dexter said on October 18, 2012 at 1:05 am

    Your story about Jerry the reefer man was a hoot. I had a case of mistaken identity happen about ten years after I had been done with the US Army… but I think it was actually a scam-plan.
    Since I was a kid when I went in, my army documents had me listed as a resident of my parents’ house.
    My younger brother still lived there when this happened.
    An African American man, about my age , knocked on the door there, and my brother answered. The man asked for me, saying he had been in the army with me and wanted to share old times. He said his name was Jimmie Steele.
    I remember this well because my bunkie in Basic Training was Jimmie Steele. Jimmie was memorable because he was a true expert rifleman ; he won battalion honors by acing every shooting accuracy contest we had. I can still see his freckled face and short bright red hair. He was from Shelbyville, Indiana.
    Who was this impostor on my parents’ porch, ten years later? What the fuck was that all about? God only knows.

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  3. MarcG said on October 18, 2012 at 3:49 am

    The story of two rudenesses left me gobsmacked. Around here, when you are seated at a table in a restaurant, you basically own that small piece of real estate for as long as you want. It is not unusual for people to have diner, then desert, then a cognac and coffee, then some friends walk in and join them, so another bottle of wine, please. And on it goes and nobody bats an eye. No one would dare to consider that they are hogging a table. Of course the tab gets larger, but so does the tip. The guy in the restaurant who wanted their table would be ostracized by everyone in the place, including the waiters!
    Anyway, I have some very tart berries in the freezer that I picked last summer, and I cannot resist trying the shadenfreude pie recipe. I have always wondered about that pie….

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  4. Dorothy said on October 18, 2012 at 5:39 am

    That’s just spooky, Dexter.

    Safe travels today, Julie. We’re headed to CMH in about 2.5 hours ourselves. Have a terrific October weekend, friends.

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  5. Deborah said on October 18, 2012 at 5:42 am

    In response to yesterday’s thread about government vs privatization: the other day Little Bird got her state ID at a place we found out wasn’t run by the state but was one of those outsourced deals. She had to pay $41 for the ID and was told by the woman who issued it that it would have cost her $10 if she had gone to the official state operation. That there is the problem with privatization.

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  6. ROGirl said on October 18, 2012 at 6:48 am

    When I changed my phone service a few years ago to my internet provider they listed my number as a business, so I started getting mountains of mailed offers for business credit cards and phone calls from sales people. I got the phone number listed correctly, but I still get credit card offers and a few robocalls for the business listing.

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  7. Suzanne said on October 18, 2012 at 6:58 am

    Another interesting tidbit I heard this morning about profit driven entities is that U. of Phoenix is closing a bunch of their campuses and laying off staff. Maybe the word is getting out about that in most of for-profit education, it really is all about the money and not about the students learning anything.

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  8. Heather said on October 18, 2012 at 8:07 am

    I suppose as a journalist you have to answer all your calls. These days I don’t pick up unless I recognize the number, and I don’t pick up my land line at all. It’s better for everyone–I tend not to have a lot of patience about that type of thing.

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  9. beb said on October 18, 2012 at 8:18 am

    My wife took me to Vinsetta’s Garage for lunch this summer, soon after they opened. The place is a hoot because it really is a converted auto repair garage and aside from clearing out the center space and hosing down the worst of te oil and grease, the place it pretty much unchanged. Their specialty is a bake mac and cheese which takes 20 minutes to prepare and is worth the wait. It’s also enormous, feeds two easily. Even though it had just opened for lunch that week the place was packed. So a wait for a table on a Friday Evening, well, I can believe that it would a long wait.

    But to complain about the wait? Tacky. To play the cancer card…. Seth MacFarlane has used that bit a couple times on Family Guy, and even though it is just as cartoon I wanted to bitch-slap the character for such a whiny self-absorbed appeal. I’m sorry the evening ended so badly for the woman involved but really, there’s no arguing with ass-holes.

    We get a lot of calls that appear to have no one on the line when we pick up. Robo calls of some sort. Nothing as hilarious as Jerry the Reefer man, but I would get creeped out after a while getting calls for things like soccer sign-ups that I was never involved in.

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  10. alex said on October 18, 2012 at 8:19 am

    Re-watched the debate last night and it’s quite a different experience than when you’re hanging on the edge of your seat and worried about the outcome. I had spoken with my parents earlier, who were happy with Obama’s appearance but wish he’d hit Romney even harder than he did on several issues where Romney left himself wide open. They thought Romney came across horribly, pulling things straight out of his ass that any fool should be able to see were preposterous lies, and that his demeanor was unsettled and made him look weak. I had recorded the show for my partner, who wasn’t able to view it live on Tuesday, so we spent the evening with it.

    On the second viewing, I have to ask myself how do so much of the mainstream media call this a tie or a slight victory for Obama and not an enormous embarrassment for Romney? As my partner watched last night he said we should have had a drinking game with “in the last four years” as the cue. Pretty much every terrible thing that has ever happened in the world didn’t get fixed in the last four years according to Mr. Romney.

    My dad was lamenting about some of his friends — people who are supremely intelligent and superb performers in their professions but absolutely incurious otherwise and they don’t pay any attention to public policy and world affairs. Low-information voters come from all classes and even those with advanced degrees are susceptible to misinformation when they’re buried in their work and seldom have time to read and reflect about anything. My dad got into it with one friend, a lawyer, who is all apoplectic about the socialist takeover, and my dad is absolutely befuddled how this guy could have such a warped understanding of things except that he simply doesn’t bother to get his information from anywhere but Fox News.

    I look forward to the third and final debate. If anything, it will leave most Republicans holding their noses on election day if they aren’t doing so already.

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  11. Kim said on October 18, 2012 at 8:52 am

    That restaurant war reminds me of parents on the sidelines at my kid’s soccer game, bitching endlessly at the referees for blown calls, lack of fitness, failure to control the game. Their expectation is that the referee will suddenly realize yes! I’m such a failure! Thank god you pointed out my shortcomings so that I can see clearly the path to rehabilitation. It says more about narcissism than anything, I think.

    I get calls constantly on my cell for “Michael,” who I think owes a lot of people a lot of money. I now recognize the numbers so am able to ignore and send a customized text message that says “I have reported you (again) to the Do Not Call people. Once again, I am not Michael and have no idea who he is.” It hasn’t worked.

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  12. alex said on October 18, 2012 at 9:01 am

    Kim, these collection agencies sometimes get fixated on the idea that you’re covering for someone. I lived in a 750-unit high rise and would get calls from these people accusing me of not being forthright because I lived at the same address as so-and-so and therefore… .

    I never answer my phone anymore either. It’s usually just some outfit trying to collect for the families of slain policemen and I doubt much of the take goes toward the purported mission. But it’s handy to keep a landline, especially when I don’t want to give my cell phone number out or be bothered at work. There’s a schizophrenic high school classmate who moved back into the area recently and if she had any way to get ahold of me otherwise she would be pestering me night and day.

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  13. coozledad said on October 18, 2012 at 9:04 am

    I guess it’s God’s fault that Mitt and his family all have rat-trap mouths, but whose fault is it they’re all pricks?
    http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/108711/mitt-the-jerk#

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  14. LAMary said on October 18, 2012 at 9:14 am

    My last name is not unusual and I’m listed in the phone directory as M. last name. i get calls from collection agencies nearly every day for Moses my last name, Mavis my last name, Michael my last name etc. Moses is especially popular. My cell phone gets calls from the county department of family services telling me I’m behind in child support payments. I call them back and tell them they’ve got the wrong number but that doesn’t keep them from calling me again a few weeks later. I feel bad for the woman who thinks the department is working on collecting her child support.

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  15. Peter said on October 18, 2012 at 9:46 am

    Deborah, I didn’t read yesterday’s thread, so I hope I’m not going over the same old, but boy, stuff like that would send me in orbit.

    The good thing about currency exchanges is that you know you’re going to pay a lot more before you even go through the door, so you can’t say you weren’t warned.

    My complaint is with licensing. Because of the switch to on-line testing, the costs have gone up exponentially. An intern in my office will have to spend over $1200.00 to pass the tests to become an architect – and that’s provided she passes them all. I realize I’m a lot older, but for me it was $50.00. Those testing centers are just printing money.

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  16. del said on October 18, 2012 at 10:19 am

    Still thinking about that restaurant story and its many layers.

    Those LIVESTRONG bracelets were such a big thing. People seemed inclined to flaunt them, much like St. Lance.

    I’ll always connect them with a City of Detroit official who caused me great distress by refusing to perform his public duty. When I sought action he first referred me to his underling. The underling was not inclined to act, but he gave me a business card for his private sector job moonlighting as a wine distributor, and, did I want to buy a few cases of wine? No thanks. So then I went up the ladder to meet his boss, several weeks later. We met in his office. He too refused to do his job, but, by the way, did I want to make a cash contribution to a civic/charitable “foundation?” Guess what I’d get? Some LIVESTRONG-like bracelets.
    From a box of nearly a hundred that were sitting on his desk.

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  17. Connie said on October 18, 2012 at 10:40 am

    We got rid of the land line when we moved to Oakland County Michigan. We have cell phones with 574 area codes which is Elkhart/South Bend. Sometime people get confused, but I think that is more and more common. My daughter tells me it is very common in college towns, with cell numbers from all over the county. It is nice to not have to worry about long distance charges any more.

    I will answer calls from unfamiliar numbers only if they are from our local exchange.

    Our house in Elkhart was for sale for almost two years when just as we submitted a short sale offer for approval they decided to foreclose. It took Citibank four months to get the sale offer handled. We sold the house in April. Citibank forgot to tell its foreclosure unit that the house had been sold and the first mortgage had been fully paid off. I continued to receive very nasty collection calls all summer and when I told them the house had been sold they just laughed. I stopped answering all calls from the 866 area code. I finally got several levels of supervisor up the chain and got assigned to a problem resolution team. Who told me they were working to resolve my problem. My problem. I was quite sure it was their problem.

    Any way it took 8 weeks for citibank to figure out the mortgage had been paid off, take it out of foreclosure, and take all the post sale date foreclosure stuff off my credit record. The whole experience was a misery, but it is over.

    I do not use my husband’s last name but somewhere in California there is a Connie with his last name who has credit problems. I get calls from collection for Connie E*** a couple of times a year. I have never ever used that name, but telling the caller my name was Connie O*** was not persuasive, and he kept asking for my social security number. I don’t think so. And now that I think about it I have not had any of those calls since giving up my landline.

    So Nancy is it possible you are getting these calls from some local trickster?

    Sorry for babbling on.

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  18. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 10:44 am

    Deborah @ 5: and the problem with vote suppression for profit. Privitization is government by cronies for profit, a legal end run around laws against cheating in procurement and the spear point in the Norquist campaign to end federal government in the USA. When mailing a birthday card costs $13, stupid Murricans may awake to the evils of the privitization paradigm, or they may just succumb like sheep to the ultra-laziness of sending lame-O e-cards.

    If a proponent of privitization can identify an area in which going “for profit” has produced more economic, efficient or effective results than government I haven’t heard of it. Private prisons have led to an increase in people being jailed by corrupt judges and jailers in gross miscarriages of justice, as well as to criminals running loose for lack of proper supervision. Not to mention the loony irony of Chuck Colson and his paid Christian prison outreach programs. Marvin Bush’s reading curricula (how to read kid’s books upside down)? Nothing odoriferous about that deal, at all. FedEx surpasses USPS for private vs. time sensitive business mail? Bullshit bigtime. Take away the GOPer poison pension-funding requirement and USPS is very effective and very cheap. Are US airlines offering a better service than AmTrak? Nope, not since deregulation.

    Alex, the drink might not take effect so quickly if you change over to “doubled the deficit” for the trigger. Then again, it might. I’d like to see a lightning bolt land inches from Willard every time he repeats this bald-faced lie. Obama has, by any math Willard E. Coyote wants to employ, has decreased the deficit from $1.2 trill to $1 trill or so. And of course, that includes putting current costs of the illegal invasions and occupations on the books, which Shrubco never did. This is a ginormous fracking lie, and stupid Murricans lap it up like Bowsers drinking from the crapper bowl.

    http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012104217/what-was-romneys-biggest-flatest-outest-debate-lie-obama-doubled-deficit

    And speaking of fracking, this is one in the solar plexus for sane public policy:

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/pennsylvania-fracking-law-opens-drilling-college-campuses

    Hogging a table? If you keep spending money, the table is yours. If you base the tip on when you finished your entrees, you are a jerk. Waitstaff have stations and make more money on full meals. If a large party closes the restaurant, it is not going to produce a salutary effect on the tip, in most cases. Occasionally, if drinking and rounds of cognac with the coffee ensue, the tip can grow ridiculously. I once got $600+ off a table of 14 Swedish scientists who were attending a conference at UGA. Of course I also ferried them from campus to the restaurant. Their English wasn’t extensive, so I basically got all of them to order T-Bone with baked and sauteed mushrooms, and everyone chose medium rare. Easy as can be. And they ordered beer by the case. A splendid time was had by all. They tried to outdo each other buying after dinner rounds, with guys ordering out of earshot of their compadres and proffering tips with the orders.

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  19. Judybusy said on October 18, 2012 at 11:10 am

    Sometimes I have something so amazing to share, it’s worth taking a hard left swerve. Has anyone seen Beasts of the Southern Wild? I did last night. It is an astonishing film, one I think this crowd would love. Here is the trailer.

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  20. Charlotte said on October 18, 2012 at 11:19 am

    Okay — all those people in the restaurant were annoying. The guy was a boor — but the woman? Oh boo hoo I had caaaaannnnnnccccerrrr, I’m going to give you my precious Livestrong bracelet and cry. My entire family is riddled with cancer survivors (well, and non-survivors) and if any of us had pulled a stunt like that my 101 year old grandmother would have beaten us about the head and neck with her walker. Yuck all the way around.

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  21. MichaelG said on October 18, 2012 at 11:23 am

    I keep a land line for three reasons. The satellite people require it, the alarm people require it and I need it for my DSL line. I don’t answer it and I don’t talk on it. Anybody who calls is selling something or is a wrong number. All my friends, etc. use my cell. Around here we have three area codes so having a home number with one area code and a cell with another is common. I expect this is true in lots of places. In LA you need a program to keep track of area codes. I live in 916 but my cell number dates to when I lived in Auburn which has a 530 area code.

    Since I only talk on my cell, I don’t have any of those annoying phone callers other than the occasional wrong number. Nothing you can do about that.

    I would have been sympathetic with that table woman but then she had to come all victim at the asshole. That’s when she became just as bad as he and lost me.

    U. of Phoenix is closing three branches here but has another five or six that are going to remain open for the time being. Why and how do they have so many branches in this area? I know their business is all about milking student loans but they seem to be fairly inefficient at it. What education?

    Privatization is all about sending money to cronies.

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  22. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 11:26 am

    Binders of women? In the decades of the 80s and 90s there were exactly ZERO women partners at Bain Capital. And those binders were compiled by MA women’s groups before Willard was elected.

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/170623/romneys-seven-biggest-debate-lies#

    Rmoney’s bullshit claims about working in bipartisan fashion as MA governor? 800 vetos, almost every one overridden by MA legislature. Another major league whopper:

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/170637/romneys-false-claims-bipartisanship-massachusetts

    A friend just sent me this by email:

    A person named Max Jukes sent the following LTE to the Temple Daily Telegram, Temple, TX and we await to see if this predominately R-oriented paper publishes it:

    We’re not against capitalism, we’re against its abuses.

    We’re not against religion, we’re against its misuse as a political tool.

    We’re not against democracy, we’re against the manipulation of the democratic process by corporate forces.

    We’re not against the American Dream, we’re against its unattainability by anyone but the outrageously wealthy.

    We’re not against defending the nation, we’re against putting corporate interests above those of education, infrastructure, and the improvement of American life.

    We’re not against America, we’re against the abandonment of its values in the name of economic and political security.

    We’re not against profits, we’re against profiting at the expense of, and detriment to, the health and well-being of American families.

    We’re not traitors. We’re not unpatriotic. We’re not elitist.

    We are Democrats. This is our America, too.

    And we want it back.

    VOTE 2012

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  23. LAMary said on October 18, 2012 at 11:28 am

    I suspect people are getting hip to U of P. There are also several new players in the distance learning market who are taking away some of the business. I know I’m not seeing freshly minted U of P degrees on resumes as much as I was two years ago.

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  24. Bitter Scribe said on October 18, 2012 at 11:31 am

    I was probably the last person in the U.S. to get a cell phone. It’s so reliable that I unplugged my landline less than a year later. Why do I want to pay $25 a month to AT&T so I can get robocalls?

    The woman in the restaurant should have told the guy to fuck off, and if he didn’t take the suggestion, she should have kicked him in the nuts.

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  25. Little Bird said on October 18, 2012 at 11:38 am

    My land line seems to only receive robocalls and what I assume is a collection agency (more like five of them) trying to reach some guy named Lawrence. One time it was a robocall FOR Lawrence! And twice the person on the other end of the phone argued with me about whether or not there was in fact a Lawrence at this number. Next time I’m going to get all worked up, cry, and tell them he died and WHY do people still call and ask for him?!?!?

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  26. John (not McCain) said on October 18, 2012 at 11:57 am

    I will never understand how it came to pass that there are prisons in the United States run by for-profit companies, and there’s never a word of complaint in the major media. Do people not see the problem with having a business that benefits the more people there are in prison? I realize most people don’t give a rat’s ass about guilty people, but what about the wrongly convicted?

    And I think it was Plato who wrote something to the effect that the way to judge the level of civilization in a society is to look at its prisons. Which means the US is as civilized as a group of seriously pissed off chimps.

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  27. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 11:58 am

    I have told a collection agency looking for a guy that used to live in our condo who shared my name, “Michael’s dead you insensitive prick, and we’re on the federal no-call list. Do not call back.”

    How are phones for welfare to work participants a GOPer campaign issue? And if I point out that the Teabanger issue ad on this subject is racist as hell, and that the phones for people on govt. support started when Raygun was president, I’m a racist?

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/170617/group-running-racist-obama-phone-ad-has-close-ties-congressional-republicans

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  28. velvet goldmine said on October 18, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    Nance, this phone call thing is either so cutting edge that you’re one of the first victims — some kind of Google ad identity bedroom farce — or, as Connie, suggested, you are getting punked. Either someone is making prank calls, or (worse still), the person could be disseminating your name and number everywhere. Have you asked the callers where they got the name/number in the first place?

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  29. brian stouder said on October 18, 2012 at 12:06 pm

    The sudden onset makes me think ‘prank’ (for lack of a better term).

    Paging: Dwight the Troubled Teen

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  30. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    Tagging with yarn.

    A single law firm that doubles as a private equity firm, has represented sports owners in the last four lockouts, all of which I’m fairly certain violate US anti-monopoly statutes. Coincidence? Yeah, sure. There should be legal action from the feds, since these owners almost all get stadiums built for them with taxpayer money by using creative blackmail.

    John (not McCain)@26: What about the wrongly convicted by Judge brothers-in-law of the prison entrepreneurs. Private prisons are notorious for substandard food and medical care, and unvetted, sadistic personnel. So, guilty or not, the punishment is not just inhumane, it’s cruel and unusual, guilty or not.

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  31. Sue said on October 18, 2012 at 12:29 pm

    One of the things Scott Walker did when he took office was privatize the emissions testing process, farming it out to privately-owned car repair places, and suddenly the number of failed tests went up a couple of percentage points, and people were being told by the same places that do the tests that they need expensive repairs, only to find out that the actual repairs needed were basic and relatively inexpensive.
    BUT – I took my car to one of the two local garages that now do the test and it passed, no hassle and no wait. Same when my husband had to have his car tested. I didn’t have to drive 20 minutes to the emissions testing place which might or might not have a 20 minute wait. You folks know I’m more than happy to blame Scooter for anything, but I can’t call this a bad idea. The local businesses don’t rake in money ($2 per test is what they receive I think) but it would generate some business for these folks because an honest place will probably get business just from the normal percentage of failed tests. Can’t say why shady businesses would get the testing contracts or keep them once they start getting reported. And I’m sorry folks lost their jobs at the state level, but at the same time they didn’t lose them to $7 an hour no-benefit jobs; a good garage usually offers decent jobs. So I think this was an experiment worth trying and will probably be successful once it’s tweaked a little bit.

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  32. Deborah said on October 18, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    I get 3 or 4 robo-calls every day on my cell. If I answer it’s because I hope to yell at them and tell them to quit. There’s always a hesitation before someone speaks or it is just a recoding altogether often from some organization that is offering to take care of debt problems. Sometimes they leave a voicemail giving a call back number as if I would. Mostly I don’t answer them, they are irritating.

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  33. DellaDash said on October 18, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    Cast my vote early, yesterday, knowing full well that it would do nothing towards turning Tennessee red the tiniest bit purple.

    Even with my voter registration card, I couldn’t have passed the kindly yet firm grey-haired bouncer at the door if I didn’t have a picture ID.

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  34. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    Anybody think this is democracy in action?

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  35. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    Something new on the tube this evening: A bio of Ethel Kennedy on HBO. Got a good review from Hank.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/hbos-ethel-a-kennedy-daughter-born-late-reaches-into-the-vault-of-memories/2012/10/11/62ef955a-0c46-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html

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  36. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    Livestream of Springsteen concert for Obama in Ohio. Just picked this up. Think it;s ending soon. http://www.newsnet5.com/subindex/news/news_livestream1

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  37. alex said on October 18, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    Sue, years ago the state of Indiana required annual vehicle inspections, which of course were performed by private garages that tried to strong-arm people into buying unneeded repairs. Public outrage put an end to that racket.

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  38. coozledad said on October 18, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#

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  39. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    Another powerful essay from Ta-Nehisi Coates re the burden of being a black president. Very touching. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/the-burden-of-a-black-president/263775/

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  40. Dexter said on October 18, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    alex…every year I was told I needed ball joints for my car. I finally found a mechanic who was just playing the game, made you honk your horn and you passed the inspection and got your sticker.
    The danger is that ball joints are nothing to fuck with. Faulty ball joints can wreak horrible carnage on the highway if the ball joints fail and a wheel comes off. The whole thing made me feel like any mechanic that told me I needed ball joints was a crook and a money-grubbing ass-hat. This isn’t true, I found out. That goddam Indiana inspection was a fraud, all down the line.

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  41. Connie said on October 18, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    Alex, I understood that Indiana vehicle emissions testing was required only in those counties so designated by the EPA due to air quality issues. That included the Chicago suburbs, the Louisville suburbs and a few other places. I lived in Jackson County for 14 years and Elkhart County for 10 and never had to have my vehicle testing.

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  42. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    Funny commentary on being nominated for the National Book Award:

    http://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162705301/from-boy-king-of-texas-to-literary-superstar?ft=3&f=100876926&sc=nl&cc=bn-20121018

    Nothing like the National Girl Award:

    http://www.baselines.com/music/Scott_PL_CD/When_Youre_Laughing.mp3

    Speaking of the Boss. He has officially endorsed the President now.

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  43. nancy said on October 18, 2012 at 3:15 pm

    That was a good TNC essay, Jolene. Of course, what stays with me is his use of the phrase “continue on,” which has always bugged me. It seems redundant, or somewhat so. You “go on” or you “continue,” but when someone says “continue on” I think of Tyra Banks: Two lovely ladies stand before me, but only one will continue on in the hopes of becoming America’s next top model…

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  44. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 3:39 pm

    Agree, Nance, if only TNC had you or me as a copy editor, he might make something of himself.

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  45. jcburns said on October 18, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    I kept saying to myself “this employer coercion MUST be illegal.” Apparently it’s not, and it’s also yet another place where the Citizens United decision has corroded our national fabric. Salon has the story here.

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  46. Scout said on October 18, 2012 at 3:41 pm

    Bitter Scribe @ 24 FTW: “The woman in the restaurant should have told the guy to fuck off, and if he didn’t take the suggestion, she should have kicked him in the nuts.”

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  47. Bitter Scribe said on October 18, 2012 at 3:53 pm

    Dinesh D’Souza gets d’sack. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

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  48. Minnie said on October 18, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    Every day for months, maybe a year now I have gotten at least one urgent phone message about lowering my credit card interest rates. A voice offers the choice to press 1 to speak with a counselor or 3 to have my number removed from the calling list. Of course pressing 3 does no such thing. Usually I just hang up, but sometimes I’m in the mood to monkey around with the “counselor”. One woman was so appalled by my harmless antics that she dialed me back to read me the riot act. I was unfazed by her outrage, which only seemed to irritate her further. The meanest response is to blow a police whistle into the receiver. This results in entertaining cursing on the other end of the line. I only do this when I’m home alone for fear that my husband will have a heart attack at the sudden shrill blast. Last night when the call came, I took on my querulous old woman persona (not too far from reality), managing to keep the “counselor” waiting while I asked semi-coherent questions and rummaged about looking for my credit card. I’m still getting a kick out of that one.

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  49. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    Connie is right; I don’t know exactly which counties were involved, but Lake & Porter Counties (the latter being where I’m from) in northwest Indiana had the testing requirement. Yes, a number of approved testing stations were also chiseling shyster mechanics, but while some of those were punished and had their approval lifted, the program ended — I think — when Chicagoland air quality improved to where it was deemed no longer necessary.

    I would bow to any other explanation that’s based on facts versus inattentive recollections.

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  50. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    (Hint to parents: in the off-season, if you’re concerned that your kids are using, check the holiday ornament boxes in the basement for stash or secreted syringes. For what it’s worth. They become cognitively invisible to adults outside of late Nov. & Dec.)

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  51. alex said on October 18, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    Jeff, Connie — I wasn’t referring to emissions testing. What Dex and I remember was a general automobile inspection where they could deem any part of your vehicle defective and make you pay them to fix it. You’d get an annual window sticker that showed you had passed inspection and busting people for having expired ones was another great source of Hoosier revenue back then. I remember riding along as a kid when my dad would take the vehicles in for their annual extortion appointments. I think the legislature had put the kibosh on it by the time I was driving, but it was still going on well into the 1970s.

    Indiana had another arcane practice whereby the political party occupying the governor’s office would get to reap the profits from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, grant specialty plates with low numbers to big donors, etc. That all came to an end when a Democrat finally became governor. The Republican legislature was not about to allow the other side to enjoy that perk.

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  52. Sherri said on October 18, 2012 at 4:45 pm

    Fred Clark has much more about Dinesh D’Souza and how being a racist homophobe for decades was just fine, but sleeping with a mistress, not so acceptable: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/17/no-no-no-we-were-fine-with-the-racism-but-the-adultery-is-upsetting/

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  53. Bitter Scribe said on October 18, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    I see a parallel between D’Souza and Anita Bryant. Bryant was the darling of the Christian right while she campaigned against gays, but when she split from her preacher husband, they dropped her like a rotten orange.

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  54. nancy said on October 18, 2012 at 4:58 pm

    D’Souza was also the guy who decided, since there are no more laws restricting non-whites from using drinking fountains, etc., that racism is dead. There is only “logical prejudice,” practiced by whites when they see roving gangs of Negro youths, etc.

    He really is a p.o.s. The woman he spent-the-night-with-but-nothing-happened is a real piece, too. Someone found a blog she ran, called something like, “I, Denise, lust after…” And that’s pretty much what the blog was about (it’s been taken down). It’s the internet-gal equivalent of the essay read in “Throw Mama From the Train” — “100 women I’d like to pork.”

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  55. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    Speaking of odd contacts, I just got a DNC fundraising email from Barbra Streisand. This must be the week for musical megastars to do their part for the party.

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  56. Sue said on October 18, 2012 at 5:35 pm

    Regarding the tale of two rudenesses, I did the math on 4 people taking up a table for 2.5 hours on a Friday(!) night versus the number of patrons who might have reasonably occupied those four chairs over the same time period and realized that while the waitress *might* have broken even with a 50% tip, the restaurant certainly didn’t.
    So ‘it’s ok because I made it right with the waitress’ probably doesn’t cut it.
    And Jolene, a few years ago I watched a few minutes of a Barbra Streisand fundraiser concert that took place at her home. She was hilariously, cluelessly obnoxious. The piano played oh-so-softly in the background as she spoke of her wonderful commitment to whatever cause she had everyone roped in there for, and it was obvious that she assumed the audience adored her and hung on her every word. It could have been a parody, it was that awful.

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  57. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 5:43 pm

    Nancy @43: I believe modern day Reactionary American politicians continue backward all the time. With regaud to modern day GOPers continuing has become a valuable auxilliary verb, as in “”continue lying”, “continue discriminating”, or “continue stealing and leaving the disadvantaged to pick up the tab for the uncaring mess.”

    JC, if your employer is the federal government that sort of blatant intimidation is illegal as hell. Recently as 2000, GoPers tried to claim Gore had broken the Hatch Act enabling laws. Didn’t get far, since he’s smarter than all of them put together, and after the Brooks Bros. riot, they lost steam and knew it was in the Scalito bag. Didn’t everybody in the USA see Ken Blackwell awarding the machine contract for Ohio to the wienie Diebold CEO, for machines that were eminently hackable and produced no paper record, and were ruled out for Contracts by 45 other states? and the wienie Diebold CEO guaranteeing a Shrubco win in Ohio, that in the end included Cuyahoga and Sandusky counties? Yeah right. And the whacko Paul Broun, that says “evolution is a lie from the pits of hell” keeps getting elected by the majority UGA students in Clarke Co. GA. And there is nothing untoward. GOPers have gamed the system like it is going out of style.

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  58. Sherri said on October 18, 2012 at 5:44 pm

    I knew they thought Obama was an Islamic socialist anti-colonialist* from Kenya, but I hadn’t heard that they’re now claiming he has a “Muslim Islamic marriage inscription” on his wedding ring: http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/17/1030281/romney-debate-watch-party/

    *I’ve always been confused by this; we’re supposed to be pro-colonialist now?

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  59. MichaelG said on October 18, 2012 at 5:48 pm

    So Nance, that Denise person has a binder full of the 100 women . . .
    And that woman in Maine has a binder ful of men.

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  60. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    Sue, She has a ridiculous voice. She’s a somewhat strange person. She made horribly embarrassing movies, in my opinion. My idea about this is, is somebody going to try to tell me the casino thug Adelson has a better right to express a political opinion? STF you reactioanary aholes, she’s an American citizen, like Bruce Springsteen is. These people have an obvious right to political opinions. And lots of them seem pretty damn smart.

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  61. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    And of course, if you dislike the gender and homosexual-hatred GOPer D-level celebs exude, than lash out against your better actors and musicians. Thes folks are wack delusional. Must be Kenyan and Socialist. C’Mon. Are you people nuts?This is extreme whackjobbhorreia. Socialists? Where? Assoles. Commonniss? Even more empatically: What the fuck are you talking bout’ mate Are you kidding? Not in my country asshat.

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  62. Linda said on October 18, 2012 at 6:09 pm

    Alex @ 10: “On the second viewing, I have to ask myself how do so much of the mainstream media call this a tie or a slight victory for Obama and not an enormous embarrassment for Romney?”

    The mainstream media is whipped. Over 30 years of working the refs have made the media afraid of their shadow, and any charge of “bias.” Some media types are regaining their nerve, but darned few. The media don’t speak “truth to power;” they bow before the powerful until they are really washed up. It reminds me of an interview with Matt Taibbi and a couple of other journalists after the 2010 elections. Taibbi said the Tea Party was crazy, and another journo saidd, “You can’t say that. They are the most powerful people in Washington.” Taibbi said yes, they were powerful AND crazy. But that exchange tells you a lot about what is wrong with political coverage.

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  63. Linda said on October 18, 2012 at 6:20 pm

    John (not)McCain @26:

    An obvious result was the terrible scandal in PA where a judge was taking cash to send kids to a for-profit correctional facility. Why do people think private enterprise is about “efficiency” when it’s about “making money?” The dynamics of capitalism are like fire: if you understand them, you can use them for a useful purpose. If you don’t, all bad hell breaks loose.

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  64. Deborah said on October 18, 2012 at 6:24 pm

    Minnie, thank you so much for the whistle suggestion and faking addled questions I am so going to do that. Now I can’t wait for my next robocall. Hilarious.

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  65. Sherri said on October 18, 2012 at 6:33 pm

    Deborah, a friend of mine used to always tell them he couldn’t speak English. He would talk as long as they wanted (in English) about how he didn’t speak English or any other language they suggested.

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  66. Jakash said on October 18, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    The disturbing thing about your robo-call story, Minnie, is that you’re still getting the calls. We get that credit card interest-rate call frequently, too. If I thought blowing a whistle or jerking them around would get me put on an “avoid” list, I’d do something annoying. But if they keep calling, regardless, it doesn’t seem worth the trouble, to me. Even more infuriating to me than the calls is the occasions when I pick up and there’s some glitch and the person or recording doesn’t even come on and I hear a couple clicks and then just get hung up on. Aargh!

    Re: the auto inspections. We have air quality inspections required once a year in Chicago. (Maybe it was less frequently when the car was newer — but you still had to get them, anyway.) We’ve always passed and when I see all the new cars sitting in line to be tested, it just seems like such a stupid waste. I wish they’d just take whatever money is put into that program and pay people to drive around specifically targeting cars and trucks that are clearly spewing noxious smoke and foul-smelling fumes into the air. Seems to me they’d come out ahead if they did that instead, as far as actual air quality is concerned.

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  67. Deborah said on October 18, 2012 at 7:15 pm

    I hear what you’re saying Jakash but it will so much fun to respond. My first bit will be to keep asking for Peggy. Oh this is going to be fun.

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  68. alex said on October 18, 2012 at 7:19 pm

    I used to play mind games with telemarketers when I lived in Chicago, feigning a thick accent and incomprehension at whatever the caller was talking about. These days not so much. I’m on the no-call list, for one, so anyone who is calling here is either a 501(c)3 as permitted by state law (which doesn’t mean it’s honorable or actually does what it says it does) or a total scammer trying to tease out information that I refuse to give over the phone.

    There was one not so long ago telling me that they were sending me a $500 gift card for the Home Depot but that I would have to give them a credit card number to cover the shipping charges. Yeah, right. And when I called bullshit on them they got abusive. Another time someone was pretending to sell me a subscription to the local newspaper and wanted my credit card number and when I said I would call the paper directly to order it, they insisted that the special promotional deal they were offering could only be had if I took it right then and there. Yeah, right. I said if they don’t let me have it at that ridiculously low price then I don’t want it anyway. But you’re not getting my info because I don’t know who you are.

    I doubt there are any cold callers with honorable intentions anymore so I don’t even bother to let them start. “I don’t take solicitation calls at this number” is what I tell them, and that’s only when I bother to pick up. And I don’t pick up because my old friend with schizophrenia tends to call when she’s off her regimen of Geodon and lord knows what else and she’s absolutely impossible to deal with while maintaining polite composure. I feel sorry for her but I’m not qualified to be her 24-hour shrink, and all she really wants anyway is for me to score her some pot which I cannot and will not do. It would be merciful to try to help her out, I suppose, but it would become expected and an obligation and I’m just not having it.

    I have an old Ameritech caller ID unit from way back. Still works. I remember when I first obtained it. I was living in Chicago and someone I didn’t know very well from my distant past had moved there. He turned out to be one of the most severe alcoholics I’ve ever known and I just couldn’t handle being drunk dialed at nine in the morning or in the middle of the night. That’s when I decided to get caller ID, which was a new thing then. Before I realized what a problem he was, I had introduced him to my social circle and he managed to be so offensive that I knew I had to sever ties with him. I couldn’t go out with him anywhere for dinner that he didn’t get into a fight with the neighboring table because he thought someone had looked at him funny. I know this must sound horrible to say but I felt relief upon learning that he’d committed suicide.

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  69. Connie said on October 18, 2012 at 7:35 pm

    Jakash, that’s called an autodial. A computer has called you and if the call is answered is supposed to transfer it to a human. My experience in the Citibank craziness was that you had about a 50/50 chance of someone actually being there to speak to you,

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  70. alex said on October 18, 2012 at 7:38 pm

    On a lighter note, do you think this lady’s a Michelle Bachmann constituent maybe?

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  71. Connie said on October 18, 2012 at 7:46 pm

    Go Tigers, see you at the World Series.

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  72. Connie said on October 18, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    My big beef is all the calls at work from sales people with an amazing product. Usually it is about copy machines or network services. Today it was healthy fresh vending machines. As soon as possible I politely say “I’m sorry I don’t take cold calls” and hang up. I want to be open for calls from my community members, so that is one of the byproducts. My staffing is way too tight to have someone else field my calls.

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  73. Connie said on October 18, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    Actually I don’t think the machine itself is healthy and fresh but you know what I meat.

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  74. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 8:05 pm

    I don’t get a lot of robocalls or fundraising requests (no land line), so perhaps I’m underestimating the annoyance, but . . . it might be good to remember there’s a person working (most likely) for a low hourly wage and no benefits at the other end of the line.

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  75. Charlotte said on October 18, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    So, Rick Hill is blatantly violating the 9th Circuit’s decision to uphold the spending caps on campaign contributions in the Montana Corrupt Practices Act — an act that his challenger, Steve Bullock, used as part of his argument against Citizen’s United. THis should get interesting: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/bullock-asks-court-to-find-that-hill-broke-donation-law/article_252f49c9-90eb-54b2-9a0a-f76a09d92868.html

    And BTW — I’ve met Bullock a couple of times (benefit of a low-population state) and he’s a smart, decent, interesting guy. I really like him and plan to vote for him — especially after Schweitzer’s granstanding, which gets tiresome.

    Go Tigers!

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  76. Deborah said on October 18, 2012 at 8:46 pm

    Yeah, you’re right Jolene the person taking my call isn’t the one who has instituted the the annoyance but I know they are recording them because they tell you they are. Maybe if enough people play games with them they will stop. But I think most of these companies get paid by clicks or phone responses so it is probably not something that helps me. Shit. It was fun to think about while it lasted.

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  77. Minnie said on October 18, 2012 at 9:02 pm

    Jakash, the autodial calls really are the most maddening.

    The credit card interest scammers don’t care that our number is on the no-call list, and I’ve found no way to stop their daily calls. Usually I ignore them, but every now and then the little devil on my left shoulder prompts me to keep them on the line for a spell.

    Jolene, it has occurred to me that the “counselor” probably is earning very little at a thoroughly unsatisfying job, and I do sympathize. However, after all these months of daily calls, I have come to feel a certain connection to these callers. They persist in annoying me, so I occasionally oblige by annoying back.

    Deborah, I learned the police whistle trick from my late mother. In fact it’s her whistle that I use. If you don’t mind I’ll borrow your idea of asking over and over for Peggy. Giggle.

    And I love the idea of repeatedly telling the caller that I don’t speak English – or any other known language, Sherri. I’ll have to psych myself into doing that without laughing.

    Oh, dear, now I’ll be answering all the nuisance calls just to try these suggestions.

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  78. Sue said on October 18, 2012 at 9:47 pm

    A question for MMJeff, hope you’re around tonight:
    Huffington is reporting that the soup kitchen Paul Ryan crashed in that ill-advised photo op last weekend is receiving a serious backlash. The man in charge said they’ve lost a lot in donations but can’t say how much because that’s private.
    MMJeff, how does this strike you? I’ll bet they’re getting harrassed, in fact I have no doubt that their phone is ringing off the hook with calls from nasty people, but if they’re suffering great losses in donations and/or contributions, that means that they’ve been supported up until now, and have been counting on contributions from, a big base of people who apparently are so rabidly pro-Ryan that they’re willing to leave the kitchen high and dry because the director publicly objected to Ryan’s behavior.
    I didn’t realize the pro-Romney/Ryan folks were so important to the poorest of the poor. I thought these were the folks who have been demonstrating their lack of concern for the hungry and the homeless quite blatantly for the last several months.
    I’m embarrassed to say that I’m suspicious. What am I missing, Jeff?

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  79. Jolene said on October 18, 2012 at 10:25 pm

    Sue, I didn’t think it was clear who was withholding donations. My first thought was that it might be liberals, who were annoyed w/ the shelter for getting involved w/ Ryan, and I hoped that wasn’t true. Your hypothesis makes more sense, but, really, neither possibility makes a lot of sense. I wonder how much truth there is to the claim that donations are dropping off. Seems kind of soon for such a pattern to be detected.

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  80. Prospero said on October 18, 2012 at 10:33 pm

    Sue. These people despise the poor and the cannon fodder. Like Tagg Romney, who would get his ass handed to him by the President. What a fucking ahole. Tagg: You were brought up a wuss and you really don’t want to challenge somebody that knows how to throw a punch when you are basically Donny Osmond, What a wimp. Tell your dad not to lie his ass off, particularly about women. You weenie. Try me, you shit. I will lay your wimpy ass out.

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  81. Sue said on October 18, 2012 at 11:16 pm

    Jolene, for it to have such an immediate effect I would think it would have to be a supplier. Maybe a store that gives a big discount on purchases or a company that donates a set amount of food every week. Or a funder notifying them of the loss of a yearly donation. Someone or thing with enough bucks or merchandise to send a message within days.
    But that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter what you think about what Ryan did or what the director said, the money part of it is a local matter and anyone yanking donations or goods would be found out faster than you can say gossipy insider. When the Wisconsin recall stuff was at its height, any business declaring itself for one or the other side experienced a backlash, and people aren’t forgetting it. Most local businesses stayed out of it because they would pay a price in local goodwill. So why would this man be experiencing a backlash of this magnitude at the local level? That was my point. I know the kitchen got harassed, of course they did. But who locally is willing to damage a feeding mission over something that shouldn’t be more than a day or two in the news cycle?

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  82. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2012 at 11:39 pm

    Sue, St. Vincent dePaul is a wonderful organization that I work closely with here in central Ohio. It is, as you might suspect, Catholic. Catholic social activism is one of many areas that create a delightful challenge for those who would tidily categorize and lump people based on one stance into a big pile of assumptions. St. Vincent dePaul folk will talk very liberal in social justice and federal spending areas, but can seamlessly move into discussing their deep concerns over Catholic Social Services and Mt. Carmel Health Systems being forced to extend birth control coverage and pay for abortions in heath insurance for their employees.

    There are StVdP folk who are more generically liberal and tend to sigh and shrug at Catholic moral teachings, but they are (in my experience) a minority. And their funders are members of their parish, because StVdP is organized on the parish level. We’re somewhat unique in Licking County because a number of our StVdP councils work jointly, and even in the Diocese of Columbus, that’s somewhat unusual. I suspect Youngstown has a co-operative of StVdPs, but I don’t know the answer to that. Parishes range from mildly liberal to strongly traditionalist in this area, so if the Vincent House were to have staff make a comment strongly for one candidate or another, or critique directly one or another, I would expect some pushback from whatever the countervailing quarter would be.

    All of which means: I’d bet you cash that a fair number of StVdP donors in Y’town are traditionalist Catholics, but the soup kitchen manager is probably Catholic Worker liberal (although even Dorothy Day was anti-abortion); when he took some shots at Ryan, and more problematically took indirect shots at the volunteer who let the Ryan crowd in for a photo opp, I’m not surprised that there was some pushback from the rosary and scapular side of their support.

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  83. brian stouder said on October 18, 2012 at 11:55 pm

    I followed Sherri’s link to the article about Dinesh’s dalliance (was gonna say ‘Dinesh’s debauchery’, but that seemed to elevate his silliness right up to almost sympathetic levels) because I wanted to see a photo of the chick, and I came up empty. But this made me say “Huh? Wha??”

    * Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch quotes from a post by Odie Joseph II at Smart Girl Politics, which bears the unfortunate title of “Whatever Happened to Good Ole Hypocrisy?”

    “Feminists and liberals … tore the traditional family to shreds until they reduced us to the shining bastion of zoological (but even animals aren’t this bad and do not depend on the state to care for them) cesspool equality that we have now in every American ghetto and which is seeping out into the middle and upper classes in less animated ways.”

    Her bogeymen are just like those of her boyfriend: Black.

    As women spearhead the demise of the ideal, the alternative to hypocrisy, they spearhead the demise of social order as we know it and love it. Henceforth, all of us will be staring down the barrel of life in a hip hop video or government-funded project. …

    See, this is the problem I have: What the hell is she talking about? What does this even mean?

    I guess I’m turning into a clueless old man, but these right-wingers today are just flat-out loopey.

    This is front-of-mind, because earlier I watched the president and the governor speak at the Al Smith banquet in New York, and I was reminded of Mitt’s insistence (along with Fox News and the entire right wing) that the president is a liar regarding whether or not he referred to the attack against our people in Libya as an act of terrorism.

    I simply don’t “get” it.

    Leave aside – just for one moment – the plain fact that the president DID most assuredly refer to the attack as an act of terror in his eloquent (and consciously Lincolnesque) remarks in the Rose Garden the next day.

    What difference would it make if he had not – as Romney wrongly (and repeatedly) asserts?

    What?

    Is the right wing trying to say that the president is actually behind the attacks? Or that the attacks somehow serve some purpose for the president? Or that – for whatever reason – the president profits from them, and/or profits from shielding the terrorists?

    What would the president have to gain by dishonestly presenting a terror attack as something other than a terror attack?

    Between Dinesh the dishonest adulterer and his indecipherable poppycock (so to speak) about ‘the real Obama’ and this hopelessly Byzantine Fox/right-wing meme about how an ‘act of terror is different from a terrorist attack’ – I think my cognitive skills and understanding of the english language are simply failing me. (or else they’re so full of shit that it’s coming out their ears – one)

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  84. Prospero said on October 19, 2012 at 12:03 am

    Them Romney boys. True warriors. Look how they carried on that family pugnaciousness by trying to convince a bunch of Gaulloise smokin’ and cognac drinkin’ Parissians to accecpt the bizarre fracking lord of the Morons.

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  85. Prospero said on October 19, 2012 at 12:13 am

    Lets have it. Tagg stripped down to his magig u-trou and getting his obnoxious RMoney face bloodied by the President. And then the ahole can be arrested for threatenining the President. What a fracking buncha morons these people are. They think they;re the Osmonds or something. Ypu can’t threaten the President with bodily harm no matter what sort of asshole your dad acts like smirking like an Orthodox ikon you moron. You can be arrested you fracking RMoner twit. You threatened the President. What a flaming asshole. You’re going to wear your gear from Iraq, right, you fracking ahole?How do shitheels like this get away with spouting? Dad served in France? My HS friend Randy Gillis got killed in Vietnam while <itt was pretending, So fuck you. Tagg. Whatever the fuck that name is suppposed to mean. Palin solidarity?

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  86. Prospero said on October 19, 2012 at 12:15 am

    Ahole threatened the President. Arrest his mealy ass.

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  87. Prospero said on October 19, 2012 at 12:16 am

    Send him here. I’ll be happy to kick his Wonderbread ass.

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  88. MarkH said on October 19, 2012 at 1:00 am

    I just spoke with him, prospero. He’s on his way.

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