This article on the Huffington Post relates to a new rule the FCC is working on to prohibit or limit autodialers calling cell phones.
A few thoughts:
Auto Dialers are evil. If you want to annoy me, at least have the nerve to underpay a person to do it and bear my wrath if I deem to answer.
I question the ability of polls to survive anyway. The only reasons we have a land line are a) for our alarm system and b) to have a number to give out that we never answer. Don’t start calling my cell!
I am assuming the only people who still answer pollsters calls are elderly people, lonely people and people without Caller ID. Is this really an accurate, random sample?
Do polls matter anyway? I love this comment from the article:
Many pollsters are worried that the small ruling will have outsized impact, making it difficult to gauge public opinion on a wide range of issues. It could “create a political system where politicians can do whatever they want without knowing what the public thinks,” Mollyann Brodie, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, told The Huffington Post. “It should be of grave concern to both our political leaders and the American public at large.”
Since when do Lawmakers pay attention to public opinion? If they did we would have at least some basic Gun Control laws and be expanding, not putting at risk, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Lawmakers only care what their rich donor’s think.
I’m waiting for the election where all the polls turn out to be wrong and worthless. I don’t think that’s too far away-autodialer or not.
Most people have forgotten about the debates between William F Buckley and Gore Vidal. They were riveting television for the intellectual and political classes and turned into entertainment for the masses. They are legendary in the Gay community for Buckley calling Vidal a “queer” on national television in 1968.
Many people see these debates as the beginning of the loss of civility in public political conversations. I see them as the beginning of the end of civility, in general, when two such famously civilized men acted this way in public.
Some would say they were also, to a degree, the precursor to the Alexis/Crystal battles on “Dynasty” some years later. A Cat Fight Supreme….
And it was the beginning of the move towards confrontational, partisan “journalism” that poisons the airwaves today by focusing more on entertainment value and opinions than on presenting facts.
But, I loved Gore Vidal and his writing.
And I can’t wait to see this documentary!
Review From Michael M. Grynbaum in the New York Times:
Before partisan panels, split-screen shoutfests and brash personalities became ubiquitous on cable news, there were two men who despised each other sitting side by side on a drab soundstage, debating politics in prime time during the presidential nominating conventions of 1968. There were Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.
Literary aristocrats and ideological foes, Vidal and Buckley attracted millions of viewers to what, at the time, was a highly irregular experiment: the spectacle of two brilliant minds slugging it out — once, almost literally — on live television. It was witty, erudite and ultimately vicious, an early intrusion of full-contact punditry into the staid pastures of the evening news.
What transpired would alter both men’s lives — and, as a new documentary argues, help change the course of how the American political media reports the news. “Best of Enemies,” which opens July 31, makes the case that their on-screen feuding opened the floodgates for today’s opinionated, conflict-driven coverage.
I just had a moment that reminded me of this old blog post…
Amatuer cooks really should not have good knives…
I just got some really good knives…and almost had to call the EMT’s.
I was trying to make a tomato sandwhich, with Duke’s Mayonnaise of course….
The knife slipped and it suddenly looked like the Manson Family had come to visit…
I do love good knives, but I may have to accept my limitations….
Maybe dull Dollar Store knives really are best and safest for me.
But anyway….
Here is an excerpt and the link to the older blog post:
As I said before, my Mother really could not- or would not- cook.
She always blamed my Grandmother. She said she never bothered to teach her. Or she blamed my Aunt Goldie, who she said stopped my Grandmother from teaching her because she was too little and fragile.
Both my Grandmother and my Aunt Goldie were wonderful cooks. My Grandmother’s kitchen was about the size of a walk in closet, but she could turn out delicious Holiday meals, made from scratch, for a dozen people without seeming to make much effort. She cooked 3 meals a day until the day she died.
Goldie lived for “Southern Living Magazine” and sometimes seemed to try every recipe in every issue.
My Mother would call from work and ask if we wanted anything from the Drive Thru on her way home…
I remember growing up, my Father made enough money to have a house, 2 cars, a maid and support a wife and two children. He didn’t go to college, but he built a solid, middle class life. My mother worked, initially, for what was called “pin”money. For the extras….And to keep her out of trouble.
That is no longer the case….
And Robert Reich captures it beautifully…..
Do you recall a time in America when the income of a single school teacher or baker or salesman or mechanic was enough to buy a home, have two cars, and raise a family?
I remember. My father (who just celebrated his 100th birthday) earned enough for the rest of us to live comfortably. We weren’t rich but never felt poor, and our standard of living rose steadily through the 1950s and 1960s.
That used to be the norm. For three decades after World War II, America created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. During those years the earnings of the typical American worker doubled, just as the size of the American economy doubled. (Over the last thirty years, by contrast, the size of the economy doubled again but the earnings of the typical American went nowhere.)
In that earlier period, more than a third of all workers belonged to a trade union – giving average workers the bargaining power necessary to get a large and growing share of the large and growing economic pie. (Now, fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.)
Then, CEO pay then averaged about 20 times the pay of their typical worker (now it’s over 200 times).
I say part one as I’m sure there is more to follow….
Tonight one of my Facebook friends mentioned Janice in one of her comments. Janice Barnett is a great singer who provided the soundtrack to our college years. She gave great concerts and “took us to church”, which we probably needed, at the end. She was-and is- a great lady and a great talent. She meant an awful lot to kids who went to Washington and Lee University, Randolph Macon Woman’s College, Mary Baldwin College, Hollins College, Sweet Briar College and other schools in our “circuit” back in the day.
I found her on Facebook tonight, sent her a friend request, and she graciously accepted. I think it made the day for many of my college friends to know she is “real”, alive and happy.
We loved Janice and it’s nice to know that, 35 years later, we all still hold that special time and place that her music created in our hearts.
And we still love Janice!
Here is one of her greatest hits that we all danced many a night away to…..
Lost in the 21st Century 