Slate eBook Club - Best of 2003

by Slate. com

  Forty-five minutes after I logged on, my psychic line rang.

  "Hi, this is Natalie. How can I help you?" I asked, unable to give the recommended opening for fear it would be held against me in my next life. "Hi Natalie," the caller said. "I want to see what's going on in my relationship in general." I asked "Cindy" to think about her boyfriend while I shuffled the cards and did the spread. Things looked bleak—among her cards were the devil and death, and the final outcome card was the 10 of swords, described in my deck as the card of "ruin." I wondered how to break this to Cindy, particularly since I hadn't a clue as to what was really going on in her relationship. I blithered for a few minutes about her concerns that she was investing a lot in a relationship she was worried was going to eventually hurt her. Then Cindy started talking. She said her relationship was very good, and they've been talking about marriage for two years, but according to her boyfriend, the time was never right. It soon became clear that she didn't care what the cards said; she just wanted someone to talk to.

  After about 15 minutes, our call was interrupted with a recording saying she had one minute left. Then a recording said she had added more time to her call. I had done some Web searching to see how much my potential callers were paying for my advice, and my best guess was that it was about $1.99 a minute. Cindy came back on, and we talked for 15 more minutes. For her $59.70 I told her that she had conceded all the power in the relationship to her boyfriend, and she had to find a way to make the decision whether they would marry more mutual. I realized that she wanted confidence from me—I remembered how much I disliked wishy-washy psychics.

  Not long afterward, I got a call from "Claudia." She wanted to know if things were really over with "Tom." She explained that she and Tom had been together on and off; he had been abusive in the past, but he came back this time promising that she was the one. They were supposed to go out that night, but when they were talking about their plans, Claudia asked Tom if he was really committing to the relationship. He responded by saying he didn't want to see her anymore. From the way she recounted the story, I could tell that as soon as she hung up with Tom, she had called me. Claudia wanted to know if she and Tom were really kaput.

  When she mentioned that there had been abuse, I decided I didn't care if every love card in the deck turned up—the answer was going to be that the relationship was over. Fortunately, the reading was stink-o except for the last card, the ace of disks. That card meant the beginning of good fortune, usually related to finance or work. I told her that Tom was going to bring her nothing but misery, that she had to completely free herself from this relationship because there was a happier future for her if she did. After 10 minutes, we got the signal that her time was almost up, so Claudia re-upped for another 10. After I finished putting a stake into Tom, she asked about someone at work, "Phil," who seemed smitten with her. That could explain the ace of disks, I realized! But I was worried that Claudia would hop into the sack with Phil if I told her things looked promising. I just said I couldn't tell if Phil was the one, but that freeing herself from Tom would allow her to slowly find someone better.

  After Claudia hung up, I waited fruitlessly during the next hour for another call, then finally disconnected. For the next few days, I logged on at least two hours a day. Often I would have no calls, but sometimes there would be a spate of them. "Roxanne" wanted to know if she should ditch her boyfriend and go to a new guy. The cards said "No." "Helaine" wanted to know if the guy who broke up with her five months ago was going to come back. The cards said "No." "Nina" wanted to know if the guy who dumped her three weeks ago might change his mind. The cards said he might, but it would just cause her more pain. "Darla" wanted to know if the guy she had been seeing on and off for 40 (yes, 40) years was going to get serious this time. The cards said he wasn't capable of being serious.

  Then I got a call from "Denise," wanting to know if she is going to get enough money from the insurance company for being rear-ended because she needs the money desperately. I wanted to say, "In that case, hang up the phone!" as well as explain to her that I was an expert on love, not claims adjustment. I laid out the cards anyway. I realized I really didn't want to give this woman advice, so I hemmed and hawed, and she let her time run out at five minutes.

  Finally, a man called. "Carl" wanted to know if his former girlfriend of eight years, who was now involved with another guy, was going to come back to him. I told him the reading said no.

  "I don't understand," he said. "I call a lot, and I've heard all sorts of things. The last time I called I was told we were going to get married and have a kid."

  Oh, dear. I explained to him these were just tarot cards and that no one who reads cards for him has the answer. I asked if he had any reason to think his former girlfriend was interested in getting back together.

  "Sometimes she gives insinuendos like that," he said, coming up with an inspired neologism.

  After he explained the situation a little more, I suggested that maybe she liked stringing him along while she saw whether her new relationship worked out. He sighed and answered with a small voice, "Yeah, that could be." Then he said, "I don't want to get cut off without saying thank you."

  I knew the company had taken him for $59.70; for that money I hoped I'd done him some good.

  Later I talked to a friend about my guilt over participating in this scam when most of my callers would be better served by seeing an actual therapist. "Not necessarily," she said. "Sometimes you just want someone to give you an answer. Therapists don't give you an answer. Haven't you ever been to a psychic?" When I confessed that I have, she said she had, too.

  The next day I was about to go back to my phone re-inspired when I checked my e-mail and found one from ESP Net. "I am sorry to inform you that your Psychic extension will be deleted … as you have not been logging in and/or not working the required amount of hours to keep your extension." I had been working for the company for four days.

  My third eye popped open, and I realized that while I had been worrying about exploiting callers, ESP was exploiting me. I was just someone churning through the system, generating hundreds of dollars in calls for them while never being able to meet the various minimum "talk time" requirements that would result in getting paid.

  During our interview, ESP's manager "Sandy" told me I would make $7 an hour. (The contract indicated I could make as much as $12 an hour.) But it turned out the "per hour" meant not how much time I was logged on but how much time I had callers on the line. Various places in the contract and the guidance site indicated that during a "pay period" of uncertain length, I had to have talked for 30, 120, or 600 minutes in order to qualify for a paycheck. I realized I could make more money if I set up a card table in front of my house and asked for donations for readings.

  It turns out, however, that the company is so disorganized that as of this writing, I can still log on and take calls—it would be volunteer work, of course. So if you want an earnest adviser who can tell you whether that special someone who just dumped you is going to come crawling back, start calling psychic hot lines and asking for "Natalie."

  The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld

  Recent works by the secretary of defense.

  By Hart Seely

  Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 10:03 AM PT

  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is an accomplished man. Not only is he guiding the war in Iraq, he has been a pilot, a congressman, an ambassador, a businessman, and a civil servant. But few Americans know that he is also a poet.

  Until now, the secretary's poetry has found only a small and skeptical audience: the Pentagon press corps. Every day, Rumsfeld regales reporters with his jazzy, impromptu riffs. Few of them seem to appreciate it.

  But we should all be listening. Rumsfeld's poetry is paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is about indirection and evasion: He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions conf
use and beguile. His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams'. Some readers may find that Rumsfeld's gift for offhand, quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank O'Hara's.

  And so Slate has compiled a collection of Rumsfeld's poems, bringing them to a wider public for the first time. The poems that follow are the exact words of the defense secretary, as taken from the official transcripts on the Defense Department Web site.

  The Unknown

  As we know,

  There are known knowns.

  There are things we know we know.

  We also know

  There are known unknowns.

  That is to say

  We know there are some things

  We do not know.

  But there are also unknown unknowns,

  The ones we don't know

  We don't know.

  —Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

  Glass Box

  You know, it's the old glass box at the—

  At the gas station,

  Where you're using those little things

  Trying to pick up the prize,

  And you can't find it.

  It's—

  And it's all these arms are going down in there,

  And so you keep dropping it

  And picking it up again and moving it,

  But—

  Some of you are probably too young to remember those—

  Those glass boxes,

  But—

  But they used to have them

  At all the gas stations

  When I was a kid.

  —Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

  A Confession

  Once in a while,

  I'm standing here, doing something.

  And I think,

  "What in the world am I doing here?"

  It's a big surprise.

  —May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

  Happenings

  You're going to be told lots of things.

  You get told things every day that don't happen.

  It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—

  It's printed in the press.

  The world thinks all these things happen.

  They never happened.

  Everyone's so eager to get the story

  Before in fact the story's there

  That the world is constantly being fed

  Things that haven't happened.

  All I can tell you is,

  It hasn't happened.

  It's going to happen.

  —Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

  The Digital Revolution

  Oh my goodness gracious,

  What you can buy off the Internet

  In terms of overhead photography!

  A trained ape can know an awful lot

  Of what is going on in this world,

  Just by punching on his mouse

  For a relatively modest cost!

  —June 9, 2001, following European trip

  The Situation

  Things will not be necessarily continuous.

  The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous

  Ought not to be characterized as a pause.

  There will be some things that people will see.

  There will be some things that people won't see.

  And life goes on.

  —Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

  Clarity

  I think what you'll find,

  I think what you'll find is,

  Whatever it is we do substantively,

  There will be near-perfect clarity

  As to what it is.

  And it will be known,

  And it will be known to the Congress,

  And it will be known to you,

  Probably before we decide it,

  But it will be known.

  —Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

  Bimbo Contest

  Barbie issues first public statement in wake of high court defeat.

  By Dahlia Lithwick

  Posted Friday, Jan. 31, 2003, at 3:17 PM PT

  This week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to hear a rancorous appeal from Mattel in a trademark battle over the right to parody Barbie in song. Mattel sued MCA Records and the Danish band Aqua, after Aqua called Barbie a "blond bimbo" in their smash 1997 dance single "Barbie Girl." (For complete lyrics in Czech and English click here.) (For an insightful in-depth legal analysis of the intellectual property issues at stake click here.)

  In refusing to hear her appeal Monday, the Supreme Court permitted a 9th Circuit decision dismissing all of Barbie's claims prior to trial to stand. The 9th Circuit ruled last summer that Aqua's free-speech rights in their parody outweighed Mattel's right to see its trademark untarnished and undiluted by Aqua's mean lyrics. Barbie also silently suffered having Judge Alex Kozinski—author of the 9th Circuit opinion—liken an early Barbie to a "German streetwalker." Barbie broke her silence today to speak out about the lawsuit, issuing the following press release from the steps of her Barbie Dreamhouse in Malibu:

  Ladies and Gentlemen:

  It is with a heavy chest that I learned of the Supreme Court's decision this week not to hear the appeal of my case against Aqua. I want to say for the record that I believe strongly in free speech and that for only $1.99 I will phone you or your child at home and speak freely to them about all things Barbie™. So call now. I also want to add that as a feminist, an international spokesmodel, and an artist, I respect the court's decision about the right of everyone to capitalize on and exploit me and not just the people at Mattel.

  I also want to assure you that despite our disappointment at the Supreme Court's ruling, the people at Mattel remain dedicated to the principle that Barbie™ is neither a bimbo nor a natural blonde. And that as long as I represent the company, Barbie will stand for purity, chastity, and innocence. And that Mattel's new line of Lingerie Barbies™ that stirred up all that controversy this past Christmas will continue to be sold and marketed with all the good taste and respect for childhood that makes Barbie™ the perfect gift for your toddler. In fact, today I am honored to announce a new Mattel Public Service Initiative, wherein one dollar from the sale of every $45 Lingerie Barbie will go to a special fund for German streetwalkers, to buy them better work clothes, which you can help me pick out for them, on my Web site.

  I want to add that this lawsuit has taken a real toll on me and my family. To finance this suit we've had to mortgage the Barbie Camper, sell the Barbie Corvette, and I had to lay off at least half the staff at the Barbie Beauty Shop, where I am now working part-time myself. Skipper has endured a lot of really cruel teasing at school. Ken has been drinking a lot more, and we're having to downgrade to that plastic Fisher Price furniture with the yellow foam mattresses.

  Finally, I want to express my deep regret about the court's decision to hear Mickey Mouse's intellectual property lawsuit earlier this year, while refusing to hear mine. It's hard to believe that the Supreme Court would be more interested in the fate of that tired little Disney rodent than they would be in mine, but I guess that just goes to show you that sexism is still alive and well in America. Maybe someday when everyone on the Supreme Court looks like me and/or Ann Coulter, women, feminists, and America's downtrodden will finally be treated equally in the eyes of the law.

  Thank you.

  Disclaimer: The above material is intended purely as a parody of Barbie and in no way reflects an attempt by Slate to capitalize on Barbie's name, likeness, or image. Any references herein to "Barbie" are purely coincidental.

  How Big Is Rhode Island?

  Plus, why the state is the nation's yardstick.

  By Andy Bowers

  Updated Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2003, at 11:46 AM PT

  In the end, the massive wildfires in Southern California burned an
area that many reports described as about the size of Rhode Island. Now, that's probably a phrase you've heard before. As the smallest U.S. state, Rhode Island has the distinction—or perhaps the misfortune—of being one of the news media's most convenient geographic yardsticks. As in, Hey! This thing is so big, it's as big as a whole state! Just how big is Rhode Island, anyway?

  Rhode Island comprises 1,545 square miles. However, if you exclude the area of Narragansett Bay, the land mass of Rhode Island is 1,045 square miles. And those two measurements are handy for journalists, because something can be either 1,000 or 1,500 square miles, and still be about the size of Rhode Island.