Tuesday, June 23, 2009

What constitutes rudeness today? Does anything go?

Here's entertainer Patti LuPone's response to what she calls a "snide" NY Times description of her attempts to stop audience members from texting during shows and photographing the performers.

Ask me, we'd be safer in this great nation if we passed a sweeping phone control bill. Guns schmuns. Keep phones out of the hands of the obnoxious and self-obsessed. Gun abuse is a problem; phone abuse is epidemic, a plague.

Post m'friend Phil's comment: Everyone you know bitches about cell phone overuse, texting and rudeness. Everyone knows that talking on one's cell phone while driving creates the same level of danger for everyone as driving drunk. No one refrains. Let the other guy refrain. I gotta make a call.

Everyone knows about "being in the moment, " but everyone you see strolling in the park or walking on a quiet bike path or striding along a city street has a phone to his/her ear. As soon as they're done meditating, they're texting.

Legislation about driving while phoning has been ineffective. Something about easy 24/7 contact is seductive beyond the wildest imaginations of the pioneers of mobile personal communication.

Calling this phenomenon profoundly disturbing doesn't nearly do it justice.

1 comment:

philcycles said...

You cannot go to a movie today without some idiot using his phone to text. the bright screens-esp. iPhones-are distracting in the extreme, as is the behavior of the idiot when you ask him or her to stop.
The "turn off your cell phone' message before every film seems to have no effect. Perhaps an ax or bat would work, if not on the phone then on the idiot.
Phil Brown