It’s About Making Babies!

Regina Lynn, regular Sex Drive columnist for Wired.com, makes a point that Rude People, Not Tech, Cause Bad Manners.

I mentioned a few weeks ago an incident where text messaging ended up with a girl cooing and cuddling for half an hour with a boy.

I think that is the most important problem with cell phones, text messaging, pagers, etc. A person that wants to communicate with another electronically has no idea how ‘available’ - between obligations - the recipient might be. Regina might consider those that don’t care if their party is available to be rude. I wouldn’t disagree. But there is an onus, once a communication starts, to continue to a conclusion.

Abuses of people, by continuing a conversation past the time one of the parties is comfortable did not originate with electronic gadgets. I experienced one form of conversational intimidation as a recreation for bullies, in the US Navy. Some senior enlisted would deliberately prolong a completed conversation - because they could. They made a game of it.

Other conversational abuses exist. A co-worker at a company in Silicon valley got a call from his wife. Every morning, every afternoon, at least twice a day. And never for less than 45 minutes each call. Sometimes this seemed selfish, and an unwarranted waste of the company’s time and money. Other times I resented the work that he didn’t get accomplished, that impacted my tasks. Every day. Neither seemed to resent the communications, yet the calls were a glaring disrespect from her for his work, and disrespect from him for his employer and coworkers.

Working part time at the local theater, several people carry their cell phones all the time, and use every spare moment text messaging someone. The company requires we check each auditorium every 15 minutes for viewing quality, to assure quiet in the auditorium, and to detect anyone with a cell phone or other electronic gadget - to prevent pirating images and clips of movies, to prevent the light source from irritating other guests. Oh, and to make everyone take their feet off the seat in front of them (it tears up the seats, really). Some of these checks don’t happen, but the text messaging isn’t interrupted. Bathrooms are to be checked every 30 minutes. Some of those checks don’t get made. Etc. I see the same problem at a local grocery/take out store. People standing with their cell phone, in conversation or texting, and orders waiting or shelves unstocked.

It isn’t only the town bully that I consider rude. It is a family member that wants to chat with someone on the time clock, or someone at an event they intended to view or participate in. It is someone wanting to flirt with a person making business arrangements or out in public, where distractions could become safety issues quicker than you could drop your phone.

Sorry, Regina. I think tech gadgets have opened up entire new vistas of otherwise well-behaved individuals to disrespect the choices others make on spending their time.

MSNBC’s Daily Nightly post By Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor mentions the protest in Jena, LA.

There are two linked issues that I noticed, one that 6 teens were charged, initially, with attempted murder over the beating of another. The other was three teens suspended from school but not charged, for hanging three nooses in school trees. The district attorney was quoted as saying the three kids that got suspended hadn’t broken any laws.

That has to be somewhere between disingenuous and silly. Let’s look at the nooses. Saddam Hussein, if he were here, would consider the noose to be a weapon. On a school ground. Wait - a weapon on a school ground, and no laws were broken?

Then, there is assault. I googled ‘define assault’. A number of results, this from dictionary.net.

3. (Law) An apparently violent attempt, or willful offer with force or violence, to do hurt to another; an attempt or offer to beat another, accompanied by a degree of violence, but without touching his person, as by lifting the fist, or a cane, in a threatening manner, or by striking at him, and missing him. If the blow aimed takes effect, it is a battery. –Blackstone. Wharton.

Assault is a chargeable offense in most towns and states. The use of a noose in public is also a pretty blatant symbol of vigilante attacks - making a pretty effective and believable assault. How about illegally impersonating a state execution officer?

There is the terrorism aspect. In the small 3,000 population community of Jena, MSNBC describes the population as primarily white. Displaying multiple nooses, in the years since Columbine and other incidents remind us that violence and security have to be taken seriously at school, sure seems intended to intimidate or threaten a minority community.

The nooses were hung in school trees. That means that someone had to retrieve them. At community cost. Malicious mischief, defacing public property. How is this different than painted graffiti, except that you use a ladder instead of paint thinner?

If the district attorney bringing the charges (or not) wanted to make the problems go away, the time honored way is to have the sheriff pick up the youths, and tell them that charges won’t be filed if they enlist in the Navy within 48 hours. It has been illegal to threaten people into the service for many years. In 1973 when I joined the US Navy, there were three (3) of seventy three (73) of us in my boot camp company that claimed the judge gave them exactly this offer. As I recall, all three were white, if that matters.

I grew up and went to school in rural NW Iowa, an all white school. From what I recall, any time you get multiple people engaged in an attack on one kid, attempted murder charges were quite credible. I imagine the district attorney planned to reduce charges to assault, battery, etc. depending on how the case against the defendants developed and what the details deemed appropriate. At the same time, there may be reason to look at the victim and how the incident was reported - if there was a deliberate attempt to manipulate the legal system to be harsher than necessary on the accused, that should be investigated and punished.

All in all, I don’t know the details of the incidents in Jena, LA. But it sure seems to me that the district attorney was either negligent or ignorant, when he made a statement than seems so silly to this pig farmer’s son.