Ace Weekly

They Keep Callin

As you reported last week, the federal Do Not Call list can still be enforced, while the telemarketers still try to have it struck down in the higher courts. Their phony pretext for this is "free speech," based on the fact that the regulation doesn't restrict everybody. How can it be fair, if it exempts charities and politicians (which is how the hustlers will disguise themselves if they finally lose)?

Of course, "free speech" is totally irrelevant, absolute jive, unadulterated BS, here, because the real contest is over private property: Your phone, your home, your time. The hucksters may say anything they want in a public forum, but your house is not necessarily one of those. And the neighbors are probably glad if it isn't.

So why are 52 million of us having to petition the law to protect our own homes? Because those loudmouth intruders are trying to break down the door! "Screw your No-Call list," they're saying, "We're comin' in, and yer gonna listen!" Forget for a moment that most people are NOT on a No-Call list, and that the minority who are listed are not in a buying mood, nor a charitable one. So what is the point of harassing these people? It sure ain't salesmanship.

If it prevails, be advised that Kentucky's own No-Call statute doesn't restrict everybody, either. Those exemptions won't be listed here, for the pure spite of not assisting those telemarketing scum. Point is, No-Call is about privacy, not speech. If I ran around your house screaming prophesy or politics through a bullhorn, you could call the police and have it stopped. That's how No-Call legislation needs to be framed.

Otherwise, that phone-sewage will jump its banks again, and the people will be forced use defenses that are not polite. One of these is to make telemarketing a most unpleasant occupation. Already there is worry about thousands of job lost for the otherwise-unemployable. Not universal concern, of course. More like my parents' sympathy for all those unemployed thugs of the Reich and the Empire after Nagasaki.

Bruce Williams

Lexington

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Guest Opinion

Purgatorio

By Will Kirkland

I am a student at the University of Kentucky and a parishioner at St. Augustine's Chapel, the Episcopal Church on the UK campus. The last service at St. Augustine's was Sunday, October 12.

The accusations of misappropriation of funds by the chaplain of St. Augustine's, Fr. Christopher Platt, and the subsequent decision by the Rt. Rev. Stacey Sauls, Bishop of Lexington, to close the chapel have been reported in local and national news media. However, no paper but Ace that I know of has reported [the opinion of many congregants] that the decision to accuse Fr. Platt and to close the chapel can be seen as a willful effort to destroy the St. Augustine's congregation.

When I told Bishop Sauls that, since campus ministry is done in the name of UK (students like me) I deserved a decent explanation as to why my church is being taken away, he answered, "You're entitled to feel that way."

The only justification I have heard at all is that "the congregation and the student ministry need to be disentwined so that they can each grow." Even if that statement weren't blatantly meaningless, having the congregation call it quits and handing over student ministry to a separate denomination seems to me to be an odd definition of growth.

[These decisions have] destroyed us, along with any Episcopalian relevancy on the UK campus.

Though there are theories as to why the Bishop wants to shut down the Chapel, I will prove myself a better man and will not submit unverified accusations and speculations to a newspaper.

I simply demand a reasonable explanation on the Bishop's part. I also call on anyone who may read this to share my outrage.

This is not merely a problem of parishioners at the Chapel, or of Episcopalians. Anyone who loves justice must join us, because next time the bell may toll for you as well.

I beg anyone who may read this, help us!