Blogger Grobstein wrote a post a while back about clever ways he likes to deal with telemarketers. I'm not personally in favor of just hanging up, or being rude, mostly out of pity for the poor soul whose job it is to call people's houses unsolicited. I am in favor of clever solutions and ways to turn the situation into entertainment. I think this would be a good opportunity to share my favorite methods of blowing off telemarketers:
Ask them to loan you money. If they decline, try to get them to loan you whatever they're selling to exchange for money.
Act as if you know they're a friend or a relative pretending to be a telemarketer, "I know it's you Jim. Ha ha. Very funny, you can stop pretending now."
Act very old and lonely and ask them to be your friend.
Tell them that you only pay for things with sex.
Tell them that whoever they asked for on the phone is dead, then go into a whole bereavement routine and try to elicit sympathy.
Tell them you need 911 and ask them to call for you.
That's all I can think of for the moment, and I know some of those are fairly random. If anyone has any other favorite methods, don't hesitate to post them in the comments section!
Update: Note that I've never actually used any of these...
Welcome to Adam Kraus's random mixing of essays, commentary, and humor, all presented in a blog format. Hopefully you will find it interesting.
8.26.2004
8.24.2004
War President Hopeful
Andrew Sullivan, whose blog you should check out if you have the chance, provides something of an answer to the question I posed earlier asking whether personal experience in a particular domain gives someone more credibility in making decisions involving that area.
However, given that there are legitimate questions surrounding the necessity of the war we were led into, and that we are currently fighting a War on Terror - which very likely will mean more instances that could call for some kind of military action, many of them ambiguous and preemptive - and given that this war is based very heavily on intelligence gathering and interpretation which is all undergone in secret (much of it by the executive branch), it's very important to me to have some ability to asses the president's judgment and level of respect for war. I'd say that issues that tell me something about a candidate's attitude / likely attitude toward war are very relevant.
My good friend Lawrence rightly decries the assertion by the Kerry campaign that somehow having been in combat makes you better suited to be a war-president.I don't agree, especially for this election. This misses the main point, which I think those who emphasize Kerry's war experience are getting at, that someone who has been in a war has more appreciation for the gravity of the act and the horrors it can entail than someone who only deals with it in the abstract. Having been in a war doesn't make you a more effective military leader or strategist (being a general in a war is another thing), but it will guarantee a respect for the import of war which will lessen the chances of needlessly endangering troops. Some people (doves) think that this is the only important thing to consider. I see other important factors, such as national security in both the short and long terms, and to some extent tactial geopolitical factors, none of which is much affected by combat experience. So being a veteran in a war isn't a deciding factor for me.
However, given that there are legitimate questions surrounding the necessity of the war we were led into, and that we are currently fighting a War on Terror - which very likely will mean more instances that could call for some kind of military action, many of them ambiguous and preemptive - and given that this war is based very heavily on intelligence gathering and interpretation which is all undergone in secret (much of it by the executive branch), it's very important to me to have some ability to asses the president's judgment and level of respect for war. I'd say that issues that tell me something about a candidate's attitude / likely attitude toward war are very relevant.
8.08.2004
Political Self-abnegation
This is worse than Kerry positioning himself as the herald of more aggressive taxation of the rich.
8.04.2004
Tell Me How It's Different
Dennis Prager, whose opinion I respect but do not always agree with, makes an excellent point in this column:
I also get annoyed when artists speak out about political issues, as if their talent and competence in one area translates to universal virtue or ennoblement of perspective. There is however another, much more interesting question brought up by this. Does being smart and articulate and even persuasive give you any more authority to opine on politics and global issues? For instance, there are plenty of people who have an opinion about the military draft, or about the policy establishing democracies in place of oppressive theocratic societies that limit freedoms, but most of these people haven't been in the military or lived in a theocracy (or will be directly affected by policies aimed at eliminating them for that matter). So I would ask, what makes people who are smart and can construct convincing arguments who argue about how the country should conduct itself any different than artists who are socially prominent, and maybe even revered for their talent, pontificating about the right thing to do?
This is where the issue of credibility comes in. It certainly helps to be in the field of whatever issue you're addressing. But is there some kind of general moral credibility, and if so, how can one gain it? I suppose one philosophical answer would say that given any moral question, there is a correct answer that all humans would eventually reach if given the time and the ability to think it through sufficiently (perhaps this is Kantian). Following from this, it would be true that the more intelligent among us would be bestowed a natural moral advantage (or at least latent advantage). In this case, someone could through contemplation alone claim moral superiority even without having experienced anything. Or does someone need to have some kind of personal experience with the issue that they're dealing with to have a legitimate opinion? What does this say about the opinionists that litter our literary and journalistic landscape?
The first thing you have to do when hearing Hollywood stars make foolish comments is to avoid being surprised.
As a rule, over the last few centuries, artists have been more likely to be morally confused than members of almost any other profession (except academia).
Many, perhaps most, great artists are geniuses in one area and underdeveloped elsewhere in life. It seems that when God grants great artistic talent to an individual, that individual is given few other gifts, least of all moral clarity or wisdom.
I also get annoyed when artists speak out about political issues, as if their talent and competence in one area translates to universal virtue or ennoblement of perspective. There is however another, much more interesting question brought up by this. Does being smart and articulate and even persuasive give you any more authority to opine on politics and global issues? For instance, there are plenty of people who have an opinion about the military draft, or about the policy establishing democracies in place of oppressive theocratic societies that limit freedoms, but most of these people haven't been in the military or lived in a theocracy (or will be directly affected by policies aimed at eliminating them for that matter). So I would ask, what makes people who are smart and can construct convincing arguments who argue about how the country should conduct itself any different than artists who are socially prominent, and maybe even revered for their talent, pontificating about the right thing to do?
This is where the issue of credibility comes in. It certainly helps to be in the field of whatever issue you're addressing. But is there some kind of general moral credibility, and if so, how can one gain it? I suppose one philosophical answer would say that given any moral question, there is a correct answer that all humans would eventually reach if given the time and the ability to think it through sufficiently (perhaps this is Kantian). Following from this, it would be true that the more intelligent among us would be bestowed a natural moral advantage (or at least latent advantage). In this case, someone could through contemplation alone claim moral superiority even without having experienced anything. Or does someone need to have some kind of personal experience with the issue that they're dealing with to have a legitimate opinion? What does this say about the opinionists that litter our literary and journalistic landscape?
8.02.2004
College: Why isn't it Fair and Balanced?
It's a well-known fact that academics tend to be much more liberal than the average professional. I remember reading a poll that the highest proportion of faculty campaign contributions to Republicans of any Ivy League school was at Princeton, where the faculty gave something like 17 percent (how's that for reliable fact reporting). The question that's gone unanswered is why.
Intellectuals on the whole, including writers, artists, thinkers, tend to be liberal. This has led many to infer that the more intelligent or intellectually engaged one is, the more likely one will be liberal, and hence that liberalism is somehow a more correct or thoughtful stance. But this is based on a faulty premise. The problem with this is that intellectuals are by no means necessarily smarter than their professional counterparts. Speak to someone who goes to an Ivy-League or equivalent school and you'll hear time and time again that the brightest people were routinely going into competitive high-paying competitive careers in business and finance. More discussion on the relationship between intelligence and intellectualism on Oren Cass's blog, here.
We could take the Arnold Schwarzenegger approach and say that intellectuals as a class don't do manly things, like build things, or make vital decisions, that they are "girlie men" who fear war, want to nurture the sick and needy, prefer peace and negotiation to conflict and aggression etc. - and hence become Democrats. But there are some better answers I think.
For one, take the free market. Intellectuals (the definition of which seems to me to be a worker whose product is not produced for the market) don't participate to the same extent as their professional counterparts in the market economy, and aren't rewarded as much when they do. Works of art, scholarly ideas, purely intellectual products don't command nearly as high a price in the free market as products that were specifically designed for the market. But the work that goes into producing a great painting or doing thorough research isn't any easier than the work it takes to produce something marketable. So it could be that intellectuals tend to be liberal as a matter of self-interest, because liberalism tends to de-emphasize the market, in which their efforts are rewarded less.
Another explanation is more psychological in nature, but I think it might have some credibility. Everyone's job affects their way of thinking, and hence to some extent their perspective on life. If you're an academic, your job is to constantly learn new things, and to think of new ways to categorize what we do know or explain what we don't know. If an academic is constantly required to learn new facts and new advancements in the field, they're going to naturally benefit from having as open and accepting an approach to new ideas as possible. It's possible that this approach is translated into openness and acceptance on the political front as well, which amounts to pluralism, multi-culturalism, multilaterism - all views that you would find in liberalism. The identification with liberalism in this case would be in some way due to force of habit.
Whatever the liberalism of academics is due to, it is not some kind of superior intellectual contemplation. As I wrote in a previous post, professors now, humanities included, are specializing in narrower and narrower areas of scholarship. Within the boundaries of their fields, they may be serving a very practical end, but when it comes to global pragmatism nothing much is required of them. I would not say someone with a PhD. who spends his or her life studying the literature of the Southern Caribbean is any more qualified to assess this country's political situation than someone who didn't end up thinking for a living, but went to college, did well, and pays attention to the what's going on in the world. In fact I'd say that the second person is probably more in touch with the whole range of issues that politics involves and thus can be expected to take the more thoughtful, intelligent position when it comes to politics.
(Note: this is not to say whether or not liberalism originates in deep thinking, just that the liberalism we see associated with professors does not originate from their qualities of thoughtfulness and learnedness.)
(Counterpoint: But political science professors surely are better equipped to assess political causes and effects than the layperson or the obscure academic specialist, and even political science departments are heavily left-leaning. Perhaps the other two factors are still at play here. Also, perhaps the schemes and dreams of the left have up until this point provided much more fodder for idealism. After all, if you're not going to actually be implementing any of your ideas isn't it more interesting to spend your time meddling in the possible, rather than the practical?)
Intellectuals on the whole, including writers, artists, thinkers, tend to be liberal. This has led many to infer that the more intelligent or intellectually engaged one is, the more likely one will be liberal, and hence that liberalism is somehow a more correct or thoughtful stance. But this is based on a faulty premise. The problem with this is that intellectuals are by no means necessarily smarter than their professional counterparts. Speak to someone who goes to an Ivy-League or equivalent school and you'll hear time and time again that the brightest people were routinely going into competitive high-paying competitive careers in business and finance. More discussion on the relationship between intelligence and intellectualism on Oren Cass's blog, here.
We could take the Arnold Schwarzenegger approach and say that intellectuals as a class don't do manly things, like build things, or make vital decisions, that they are "girlie men" who fear war, want to nurture the sick and needy, prefer peace and negotiation to conflict and aggression etc. - and hence become Democrats. But there are some better answers I think.
For one, take the free market. Intellectuals (the definition of which seems to me to be a worker whose product is not produced for the market) don't participate to the same extent as their professional counterparts in the market economy, and aren't rewarded as much when they do. Works of art, scholarly ideas, purely intellectual products don't command nearly as high a price in the free market as products that were specifically designed for the market. But the work that goes into producing a great painting or doing thorough research isn't any easier than the work it takes to produce something marketable. So it could be that intellectuals tend to be liberal as a matter of self-interest, because liberalism tends to de-emphasize the market, in which their efforts are rewarded less.
Another explanation is more psychological in nature, but I think it might have some credibility. Everyone's job affects their way of thinking, and hence to some extent their perspective on life. If you're an academic, your job is to constantly learn new things, and to think of new ways to categorize what we do know or explain what we don't know. If an academic is constantly required to learn new facts and new advancements in the field, they're going to naturally benefit from having as open and accepting an approach to new ideas as possible. It's possible that this approach is translated into openness and acceptance on the political front as well, which amounts to pluralism, multi-culturalism, multilaterism - all views that you would find in liberalism. The identification with liberalism in this case would be in some way due to force of habit.
Whatever the liberalism of academics is due to, it is not some kind of superior intellectual contemplation. As I wrote in a previous post, professors now, humanities included, are specializing in narrower and narrower areas of scholarship. Within the boundaries of their fields, they may be serving a very practical end, but when it comes to global pragmatism nothing much is required of them. I would not say someone with a PhD. who spends his or her life studying the literature of the Southern Caribbean is any more qualified to assess this country's political situation than someone who didn't end up thinking for a living, but went to college, did well, and pays attention to the what's going on in the world. In fact I'd say that the second person is probably more in touch with the whole range of issues that politics involves and thus can be expected to take the more thoughtful, intelligent position when it comes to politics.
(Note: this is not to say whether or not liberalism originates in deep thinking, just that the liberalism we see associated with professors does not originate from their qualities of thoughtfulness and learnedness.)
(Counterpoint: But political science professors surely are better equipped to assess political causes and effects than the layperson or the obscure academic specialist, and even political science departments are heavily left-leaning. Perhaps the other two factors are still at play here. Also, perhaps the schemes and dreams of the left have up until this point provided much more fodder for idealism. After all, if you're not going to actually be implementing any of your ideas isn't it more interesting to spend your time meddling in the possible, rather than the practical?)
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