Month: June 2009

A rant about mobile phones

This may be a spoof; it may be genuine. Either way, this post at crabbyoldfart.wordpress.com (warning: profanity) is humorous and thought-provoking at the same time. A couple of excerpts:

Back when I was a boy, we didn’t carry phones with us. In my day phones weighed 10 pounds, had rotary dials and were firmly attached to your father’s desk. They were phones of substance, damn it.

If I wanted to listen to inane teen banter I’d go talk to the staff at Old Navy. I sure as Hell don’t need to listen to the idiotic musing of every young person riding the Downtown 34 Express bus.

I am probably up against the boundary of fair use as it is, considering the comparative brevity of the post. Go read the original if you need a chuckle.

To be fair about it, I do have one reason to dislike the prevalence of mobile phone technology: it is now acceptable for phone companies to disconnect phone calls, something that Just Didn’t Happen when making calls between two (analog) landlines. (I have not used VoIP enough to know if disconnects still happen the way they do between mobile phones.) I used to joke about “kitchen phone” and “bathroom phone” with a friend of mine that I spent hours on the phone with several months ago (the carrier I was using at the time had lousy coverage in the area).

In general though, when they work properly, I don’t mind mobile phones one bit. The etiquette books do need to catch up on the rules regarding mobile phone conversations, however.

Artist’s fake bombs made from carrots cause uproar

You really can’t make this stuff up.

The BBC reported on an art project in Sweden that turned into a bomb scare. Or maybe, that was the idea from the beginning. You be the judge. (There is also a Radio Sweden article about the event for those that desire a perspective closer to the events.)

[Artist Conny Blom] taped bunches of carrots together with black tape and attached blue and red wires and a clock to them.

Police received worried calls from members of the public who thought they were real bombs. Mr Blom was forced to remove his art – and may face charges.

The article goes on to say that Mr. Blom describes the event as a “harmless stunt.” The police agencies involved may describe the event a bit differently; Blom may face charges.

The article I found lacked a picture of the actual carrot bombs themselves, opting instead for just a generic picture of a bunch of carrots. UPDATE: Nina from Sweden commented with a link to pictures on the artist’s site.

As much as I despise the use of intent to distinguish between criminal and non-criminal conduct, that may be the only thing that makes sense here.

If Blom was making genuine hoax bombs (which are illegal here in Texas, USA) and disguising the carrots to appear more like real dynamite sticks, then I can see pursuing criminal charges. But, if it’s obvious enough they are just a bunch of carrots made into “a caricature of a bomb” I don’t see why there is so much fuss. Given that Blom was working at the request of a local art gallery, I doubt there was much intent to have the bombs look convincing to all but the dumbest and most gullible passers-by. Of course, the quote from P.T. Barnum may be proven right yet again: “You’ll never go broke overestimating the stupidity of the general public.”

This event does speak volumes for how hyper-sensitive we have become to terrorism, across the entire planet. Prior to 2001, this may well have gone over as “oh, look, someone made a fake bomb out of a bunch of carrots, some wires, and a cheap alarm clock, how cute.”

One last semi-topical aside: I am reminded of a TV news report I saw once on a local station when I was a kid. A bum snuck onto a bus, whereupon the passengers in the back shouted “there’s a bum on the bus.” By the time the driver heard it, it had changed into “there’s a bomb on the bus.” When the report aired, this was kind of funny. I have a feeling it would not be nearly as funny today.

The new hugging trend

My news reading led me to two articles recently about the same topic: an article from Dayton Daily News and an article from the New York Times both reference to a huge culture shift taking place among teens about hugging and similar displays of affection. Namely, that the current generation does a lot more of it.

By itself, I don’t feel this is a bad thing at all. However, the reaction of school administrators is what has me baffled. Quoting the first article:

Attorneys are standing by to fight for the constitutional rights of students who might feel pressured by their peers into hugging. The day after the Times story was published, a legal Web site in Michigan warned that parents “should be alert to the potential downsides” of hugging.

I’d like to know what these potential downsides are.

Some [schools] have instituted a “three-second rule” to limit the length of a hug. A few years ago, in Bend, Ore, a middle school girl received detention for illegal hugging.

“Touching and physical contact is very dangerous territory,” notes the principal of a high school in New Jersey, where student — and, presumably, faculty — hugging was banned two years ago. “It was needless hugging — they are in the hallways before they go to class. It wasn’t a greeting. It was happening all day.”

I’ve got news for this school principal in New Jersey: daily life is dangerous territory. I have to laugh when I read this; it wasn’t all that long ago that there was a definite spike in the number of school shootings compared to years past. Heck, even back in the early 1990s (when I was in high school) I do remember being checked for weapons with a handheld metal detector on the way into a school dance. The Columbine tragedy didn’t happen until years later. That is far more deserving of the label “dangerous territory” than two or three teenagers maintaining a hug for longer than three seconds.

Some teachers get it, thankfully:

But Carrie Osbourne, a sixth-grade teacher at Claire Lilienthal Alternative School, said hugging was a powerful and positive sign that children are inclined to nurture one another, breaking down barriers. “And it gets to that core that every person wants to feel cared for, regardless of your age or how cool you are or how cool you think you are,” she said.

My take on it: We need more teachers like Carrie Osbourne in this world. Unless and until someone is really being coerced or shamed into hugging or being hugged against their will, really, I think we should let the kids be kids. Maybe that’s what it takes for this generation to turn out better than the ones before it.

Just plain bizarre: American family on Czech billboard

While whacking the StumbleUpon button today, I landed on this guardian.co.uk story.

A friend of Jeff and Danielle Smith was traveling across the Czech Republic when he spotted a billboard with those very familiar faces. Upon closer inspection he found they were indeed the Smiths and their children.

As it happens Danielle Smith is a blogger, and not surprisingly, blogged her own take on the story at extraordinarymommy.com. She picked a very sharp and damn near spot-on opening line: “So, this is the price we pay for indulging in social media, I guess.” The story goes on to mention she originally heard about this via a Facebook message.

Social media is only part of the equation here, I think. The guardian.co.uk article mentions that the shop owner “thought [the picture] was computer-generated.” So it’s really a mixture of several factors here: technological illiteracy, the world shrinking thanks in part to the Internet and social media, and (what I personally think is probably the most tragic of the three) a decline in manners caused in part by these but which was probably already in motion years prior to the Internet becoming a mainstream form of communication.

This decline in manners is made more evident by an edit Danielle makes to her post, adding:

…if you are part of the smaller percentage who are commenting only to say that a member of my family (or all of us) are ugly, I won’t be approving the comment.  I won’t allow it on my site.  I imagine you understand.

That’s right. People have been commenting on her blog, just to say her family is ugly. How tasteless. How shocking. How revolting. How stark a reminder of just how low we are sinking as a society. It’s tragic, when you think about it.