Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit [Paperback]

Laura Penny (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 2006

“There is so much bullshit that one hardly knows where to begin...”

Taking no prisoners, author Laura Penny dissects—no, disembowels—the culture of globalized, supersized, consumerized bullshit, from Bush’s White House, with its “wallpaper of phony populist sloganeering,” to Big Pharma, with its “gateway prescription drugs.” With vinegar and wit, she shows us how this smorgasbord of phoniness alienates us from one another, breeds apathy, and makes us just plain stupid.


Decoding the Bullshit: A Few Choice Phrases

•astroturfing: the fabrication of phony grassroots concern by PR firms

•Capra-corny: see Tom DeLay’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington spin on his conversion to politics from his previous calling (bug murderer)

•increased productivity: business-speak for getting rid of the people who produce things

•kakistocracy: government by the worst citizens; see also plutocracy, Republican Revolution

•the Lady Hal: the recorded female voice that says things like “Your call is important to us”

•think-of-the-childrenism: the ultimate equal-opportunity piety; see No Child Left Behind Act

•The War on Some Drugs: the prohibition of venerable old substances for the benefit of the manufacturers of newfangled patented ones

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The odious lies of advertising and PR; "morbidly obese CEO bonuses"; news networks that are "content providers" rather than sources of journalism; "nutraceuticals," "cosmeceuticals" and lifestyle drugs; overly powerful and financially motivated insurance companies and HMOs; and, of course, the reliably unreliable politicians—Penny's political and corporate targets in this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink sendup are largely American (although she reserves some ammunition for her homeland, Canada—or, as she lovingly calls it, "Soviet Canuckistan"), and rest assured the U.S.A. comes off pretty badly in comparison to its neighbor to the north. Penny, 30, is a teaching fellow at King's College in Halifax. Her common-sense, ordinary-language observations are peppered throughout with historical context and riffs on current pop culture. (Some of the latter feel on the verge of being dated.) Penny's exemplars and analyses of official and corporate insincerity give an otherwise flip and insubstantial work some credible heft—even with the subtitle's blatant attempt to ride Harry Frankfurt's coattails. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Put Penny’s slim but venomous diatribe . . . at the top of your must-read list.” —USA TODAY

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (May 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400081041
• ISBN-13: 978-1920769673
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 0.7 x 7.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,275,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as bad as all the reviewers' venom would have you believe, August 2, 2005

By 

Bill Lewin (Boone, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (Hardcover)

This book intends to be funny and sarcastic, which it is. True, as another reviewer mentioned, it offers little by way of suggestions as to how to combat empty language (for that, see The Evasion English Dictionary by Maggie Balistreri), but the author's purpose is met and she does a fine job. The tone is an amped-up NPR commentary, maybe an underground radio rant. Perhaps some of the negative reviews here have to do with the subtitle's curse word. People, if you're scandalized by cussin', judge this book by its cover and leave it be.

67 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth Hurts, July 28, 2005

By 

K Stein (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (Hardcover)

Good, crisp writing- witty and acerbic at times, but an interesting read overall. The disparaging comments I read are typical American blathering hyperbole fueled by the "I-hate-anything- that-criticizes-the-United-States-of-Americorporation." Ms. Penny has done an excellent job of describing the systemic infection of greed driven lies that has eaten away the true moral** infrastructure of America.
(**I hesitate using this term because it is bandied about so much these days that it has become a political cliche')

62 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad...., July 25, 2005

By 

Small Tax Maps (Dunbarton, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (Hardcover)

In these times of great technological advances, the masses have the ability to knock Kings & Queens from their socialist ivory towers. Sometimes the stones deserve to be thrown, as in the case of Ward Churchill. Ms. Penny does not.

Ideologues of both stripes pop up far too often on Amazon from Free Republic & Democratic Underground, tossing meaningless 1 star reviews. Anyone that's not in a persistent vegetative state can figure out for himself or herself if something is biased. This book is & that's OK.

I actually read the book & yes, some of the information is found elsewhere & the statistics & studies mentioned (shockingly) back up her points. The book is a well-written & funny opinion piece, in the tradition of Fran Liebowitz, not Michael Moore or Naomi Klein. It's old-school. No solutions are put forward, no one is asked to march on the evil corporations & there's no recipe for papier-mâché effigies inside. I look forward to her next rant.