Saturday, December 18, 2004
Pure Evil
Well, it's almost Christmas -- but let's flip the coin and discuss a matter of pure, unmitigated evil. As a knee-jerk liberal, I tend to see both sides of every issue -- I was one of the few people I knew who could empathize with Kerry's apparent inability to see anything as black and white. But I do recognize one contemporary issue in which right is right and wrong is. . . well, unbelievably wrong.
I am, of course, referring to the absurd idea that people should be allowed to use cell phones on airplanes. Now let me be up-front on this: I don't care whether the cell phone transmissions pose a safety threat. My theory is that, by the time you spend 10 minutes on a crowded plane with a bunch of lunatics screaming into their cell phones in a variety of different languages, you'll pine for death. Besides, you'll die secure in the knowledge that you took those other people with you.
Does this sound a bit. . . extreme? I hereby invite any doubters to take the Greyhound-Peter Pan bus from New York to Boston on a Friday evening. My seatmate was an attractive youngwoman who spent most of the 4+ hours on the phone with her mother. The general topic of conversation (at that level of volume, the whole bus was aware of the general topic of conversation) was how her mother did not treat her as an adult. Let me assure you that, after only two hours of listening to her whining, it took all my self-control to refrain from butting in and saying, "Well, maybe if you started acting like an adult. . ."
Did I say "the whole bus"? I'm sorry -- I exaggerated. There were some people who had iPods and a few others who were on their own phone calls. The most memorable was the individual at the back of the bus who was apparently being picked up in Boston. Every ten minutes he made a call apprising the folks of his exact current location. You could picture the parents sitting in a replica of the war room from "Doctor Strangelove", sticking the pins in the map. "Scramble the bombers! Junior's nearing South Station!"
Dear Santa. . . are you there, Santa? I want something for Christmas. I want people in the government to continue the ban on cell phone use in airplanes. If you do that for me, I promise not to make any more jokes about your weight problem.
I am, of course, referring to the absurd idea that people should be allowed to use cell phones on airplanes. Now let me be up-front on this: I don't care whether the cell phone transmissions pose a safety threat. My theory is that, by the time you spend 10 minutes on a crowded plane with a bunch of lunatics screaming into their cell phones in a variety of different languages, you'll pine for death. Besides, you'll die secure in the knowledge that you took those other people with you.
Does this sound a bit. . . extreme? I hereby invite any doubters to take the Greyhound-Peter Pan bus from New York to Boston on a Friday evening. My seatmate was an attractive youngwoman who spent most of the 4+ hours on the phone with her mother. The general topic of conversation (at that level of volume, the whole bus was aware of the general topic of conversation) was how her mother did not treat her as an adult. Let me assure you that, after only two hours of listening to her whining, it took all my self-control to refrain from butting in and saying, "Well, maybe if you started acting like an adult. . ."
Did I say "the whole bus"? I'm sorry -- I exaggerated. There were some people who had iPods and a few others who were on their own phone calls. The most memorable was the individual at the back of the bus who was apparently being picked up in Boston. Every ten minutes he made a call apprising the folks of his exact current location. You could picture the parents sitting in a replica of the war room from "Doctor Strangelove", sticking the pins in the map. "Scramble the bombers! Junior's nearing South Station!"
Dear Santa. . . are you there, Santa? I want something for Christmas. I want people in the government to continue the ban on cell phone use in airplanes. If you do that for me, I promise not to make any more jokes about your weight problem.
# posted by Bill @ 5:40 AM 
