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‘Do
not call’ list sends message to telemarketers Families can finally eat in peace since the ‘do not call’ list went into effect last week. Only calls from charities, pollsters and political campaigns are allowed to call numbers on the list. The list contains more than 50 million phone numbers. Now companies can face thousands of dollars in fines if they call these numbers. One exemption is if a person buys something from a company. That company would be allowed to call them within 18 months. Telemarketing companies are now taking the government to court saying the ‘do not call’ list violates their free speech rights. We guess that telemarketers don’t understand that they are violating everyone else’s rights to privacy. Why do people buy phones? Convenience, perhaps? How is it convenient if every 30 minutes you have to answer the phone to have someone ask if you want to buy something you would never want? Some people don’t want to have to use Caller ID. They want to be surprised when they answer the phone. Now, those not on the list have to sit there and wait to see who the call is coming from or screen the phone calls with an answering machine. When you see “UNKNOWN CALLER” on your Caller ID, at first you think, “I’m not answering that.” Then you begin to wonder, “What if it’s grandma on her cell phone and she’s lost on the highway?” So you answer it to find some annoying, fast-talker trying to sell you vitamins or a trip to DisneyWorld. Telemarketers also use something called ‘predictive dialing,’ where a computer dials many numbers at once. When someone answers their phone the computer finds a sales rep who is not occupied and connects the call. If all reps are busy the computer will just hang up on people. When this happens often it should be considered harrassment. Yes, telemarketers you have the right to free speech and can say anything you want. But when it comes through the end of someone’s phone it’s like you’ve entered their home. It should be illegal to buy or sell someone’s phone number for commercial advantage. If telemarketers want to get a phone number they should do it the hard way, like walking up to someone and asking for it.
Student
looks at singleness as a whole I am single. Look, there I wrote it. That wasn’t so hard, was it? For many people being single is not that big a deal. In fact, for many of my guy friends who think women are the spawn of Satan, they welcome the idea of being single. As for myself, I really never noticed that I was single until lately. Now you might be asking yourself, how could she have not known that she was single? Well, it’s really quite simple. I never really noticed because everyone around me was single too. Then all of a sudden this strange phenomenon happened. My girl and guy friends started to get together, thus leaving me to be the third or fifth wheel (I can never figure out which it is). And for all of you who are single, you know what I am talking about. That awkward feeling of being around happy couples with stars in their eyes, those couples who talk to each other 10 times a day on the phone without even thinking about it. Or what about all those AOL Instant Messenger away messages that say ‘I have the best boyfriend/girlfriend in the world.’ (Gross!) For example, my very best friend in the entire world has never had a boyfriend long enough to really even know his name. Then the other day she tells me she thinks she’s met “the one” and wants to start picking out colors for her wedding. “Excuse me, come again,” I said. Which leads me to the conclusion that everyone seems to be getting engaged or married around me. I wonder if anyone else has a mother (God love her) who calls him or her every Sunday just to tell him or her that people that they graduated with or that graduated AFTER them are getting married! Well, mine does. I mean God bless them for having found the right person to settle down with, maybe they can give me some pointers, but as for us single people, we really don’t need the slight, but ever so constant reminders that we are not getting hitched! Another thing I have realized about being single is that I am always broke. Yep, for all of you who think chivalry is dead, it really isn’t. Take my last boyfriend for example. God love him, the guy paid for everything. So when we broke up I realized that my checkbook slowly began to dwindle. (I guess for a guy he would be happy to have his cash back, but for us ladies this situation totally sucks.) Also, as I am fast approaching the ripe old age of 22, I am realizing that I will be graduating and leaving Midwestern soon, which means the supply of men will begin to dwindle in the years to come, which of course means even fewer dates. Aww, yes, dating, something I don’t do much of (not by choice). Does anyone else feel my pain when it comes to the torture of dating? You know, when you meet someone at a party and you introduce yourself and the whole time you are thinking “I wonder if I have food in my teeth or a booger in my nose?” I have always felt that, when a guy finds out I am single they think, “Oh, she must be crazy or maybe she has a sixth toe or something.” And ladies we do it, too. We are hesitant to give a guy our phone number because he might be some kind of mutant with a third eye in the back of his head, I mean why else would he be single, right? You see, I come from a fairytale family where my parents got married two weeks after they met. Yeah, that’s right, I said met, two weeks and married in the same sentence. So my dear mother always wants to hook me up with someone. However, she would like me to marry a preacher and for those of you who know me, that just ain’t going to happen. So it seems I am looking for someone in between a mutant and preacher. Great, I’m all set! (My sorority crush party is coming up soon, so I am glad I know what my options will be.) Aww yes, this leads me to the next problem with being single: rejection. Don’t you hate it when you finally scrape up enough courage to ask out a member of the opposite sex, only to be squashed down like a dirty mosquito? Or better yet, you find out they already have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. That has to be the worst feeling in the world. Therefore, I think all couples should wear signs somewhere on their bodies letting us know so that we don’t make complete fools of ourselves. Yep, being single is not all it’s cracked up to be. Now don’t get me wrong, being single does have its advantages, I just haven’t found any yet. Woods, a senior mass communication major, hails from Denton, Texas.
He
can smell the scent of puppy love Well, it’s happened. I have fallen in love with an adorable, young blonde named Cali. She has big floppy ears, razor sharp teeth and smells like a puppy. Cali (which is technically short for California) is a 12 week-old yellow lab my parents and youngest sister, Kristin, rescued from a pack of marauding coyotes during a thunderstorm one night. Kristin found her on the side of the road near our house in Benbrook. The dog had no tags or collar and was about four or five weeks old. The night before, my dad saw a “large” coyote roughly in the same yard of the neighborhood. Now, it is true there are coyotes that live nearby and I have heard their howls many a lonely nights. Kristin, who nearly ran over the puppy on her way home from some date or something, couldn’t bear the terrible thought of what could happen to the pup. When I first heard of the rescue story from my mom, I didn’t want to believe it myself. Here is my 17 year-old sister, in the pouring rain, grabbing this lonely little puppy from the street and standing on the front porch asking my parents if it was okay if they took care of her. My softhearted dad took the dog in, put up signs around the neighborhood for a lost dog and then eventually had the proper shots administered. Once it was evident that Cali was ours to keep, the long process of choosing the right name puzzled us for days. The name came from a suggestion of my Californian cousin. Our other dog, an older lab/terrier mix is named Tex. So, we all decided to drop the rest of the letters and that left Cali. Sidenote: One other name suggestion was Rhodie, short for Rhode Island. Cali is a very stereotypical puppy. She likes to eat, play, torment Tex, run and jump. She also likes to sink her syringe needle teeth into any soft flesh on my body. Although she lives back in Benbrook with my folks and I haven’t seen her in two weeks, I still bear the physical scars of our last date. Cali will indiscriminately try to chew on anything that she can fit her jaws around. My family was brought to tears of laughter the last time I was home when Cali decided to bite across the width of my right foot. Needless to say I was floored, literally. This little puppy stopped me from walking to the kitchen and reduced me to emitting a high-pitched, fetal-position yelp of pain. Hopefully things have calmed at the Palmer household. My parents have been sending Cali to obedience school (something not done with our two previous dogs) and my mom says that it’s kinda working. She responds to “Look” and “Sit” but there is no assurance that the “Do not bite Jason’s face” command has taken hold in her brain. Tex is not all that large of a dog and word from home is Cali has almost overtaken him in size. She will be a large dog when she’s done growing. That is evident from he big feet and floppy ears. For now though, she’s just too cute and those familiar feelings of puppy love have overwhelmed my heart. I don’t mind the chewing and the biting and gnawing of flesh. And there really is nothing better than the smell of a new puppy. Palmer, a senior mass communication major, hails from Benbrook, Texas.
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