Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: roy%phri@uunet.uu.net (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phone Gimmicks Put Common Sense on Hold Message-ID: Date: 9 Oct 89 13:35:22 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Roy Smith Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) Lines: 32 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 439, message 2 of 8 > X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 432, message 1 of 7 > The following item appeared in Richard Roeper's column in the Sun Times>, Wednesday, October 4, 1989. > "Hi kids, this is Jose Canseco of the Oakland A's. If you want to know > the true story about how fast I was driving when I got that ticket [...] This isn't for real, is it? If it is, it certainly fits any reasonable definition of obscene that I can think of. Even paying $20 to hear Wanda tell me what she wants to do to me isn't as bad. Yesterday, I saw a commercial twice (during the Giants-Eagles football game, which also qualified as obscene) which urged people to call one of two numbers ($2 for the first minute) to register their opinion on abortion: Should it be legal or not? The votes will be tallied and sent to the appropriate legislators (who, if they have any sense, will toss them in the trash, where they belong). This one really bothered me. I'm sure there are a lot of rabidly pro- or anti-abortionists who leapt to their phones to make sure their vote was counted, if for no other reason than because they feared that if they didn't, the other side would out-call them and win. I don't mind people expressing their opinions (even if I don't agree with them) and I don't, in theory, mind people taking polls, but what these guys were doing was just being mercinaries, willing to fight for whichever side would bid higher for their services, or more accurately, for both sides at the same time. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network"