I've been reading about cell-phone jamming in the Times.  What a great little gadget!  Where can I get one?

I rarely use public transit nowadays, and since I'm moving most of my operations to my side of the Charles, I don't anticipate having to use it much this winter.  The cost of it coupled with the truly sad state of service makes cycling a better, faster, and, most of all, freer option.

So not only have my calves, thighs, and buttocks benefited immeasurably (and I have photographic proof in case you're interested), but I never have to sit, trapped, through inane one-sided phone calls while in transit anymore.  It does happen at the gym sometimes, although surprisingly rarely, and pretty frequently at coffee shops, which I visit with some regularity.  I can definitely think of some recent episodes where I could have used a jammer.

It's my impression that denizens of the coffeehouses tend to think their side of the conversation is actually interesting for those around them and put a little more effort into it on their account—they tend to babble more than yak, going into much more colorful description and greater detail at a more leisurely pace than a typical bus yakker, whose one-sided discourse tends to consist of repeated phrases and monosyllabic ejaculations—"wha?" "Huh?" "Yeah?" 

Coffeehouse gasbags seem to feel on the one hand defiantly entitled by the fourteen bucks they just spent for their Double Half-Caf Venti Low-Fat Mochaccino to bloviate at will, and on the other hand a sense of responsibility towards those around them to bloviate wittily at the very least, and to be mysterious and fascinating if at all possible.  It is one-sided cell phone chat of a higher order than you find on buses and trains and in check-out lanes—sort of the NPR of cell phone gab in a world of A.M. radio.

Still, it's the new second-hand smoke. 

I've always found the psychology of making a public nuisance of oneself pretty fascinating, and cheap cell phones with unlimited talk-time have really brought the issue to the fore. 

There are clearly those of a certain stratum who think that yakking on a cell in public is a sign of sophistication. It's hard to know how to dispatch such types effectively, since they also often believe that shouting obscenities and clawing peoples' eyes out with long-elaborately-painted press-on nails is a sign of sophistication, too.

You have the salesmen and white-collar warriors, as well, who have as little to say on their cells, but live in a bubble of mutually-assured delusion with others of their ilk.  Their calls are not about sophistication, but about self-importance.  They will also react with vein-popping violence at the unmitigated gall of anyone coming between them and their business, and are better left alone.

But clever people are just as apt to fall victim to temptation when it comes to taking that call and prattling on self-consciously, sometimes seeming to think that they are entertaining and edifying the masses with a taste of highbrow theater.

The cell phone is the perfect way to pass the time.  You don't have to think too much, just yak away, and you can bug those around you, and for the most part, they'll suck it up.  This is precisely the mindset of the bully, our current standard-bearer in the realm of public life. 

The bully knows he is imposing on others, and part of the pleasure of doing so is seeing them suck it up.  He also knows that if someone pipes up, he can usually be smacked down without event, because no one will back up the pip-squeak.  The rest of us don't want any trouble.  We just want to get to where we're going without getting knifed, shot, pissed or shat on. 

And we sometimes more readily identify with the bully, even when we are being bullied, because we have all been the bully ourselves. Yes, my friends, the bully is us.  And, having been the bully, we know it's more fun than being bullied is. 

The warped social values that we're seeing played out in our public life, where it is not the individual's responsibility to be polite to others, but the responsibility of those he's rude to to suck it up or go away, was beautifully captured in one brat attack prompted by the story in the Times. It's worth quoting in its entirety:

To the Editor:

This is crazy! My children’s schools have my cellphone number in case of emergency. How dare a restaurant owner, therapist or public transportation vigilante rob me of that emergency contact. The restaurant owner and therapist couldn’t find any other way to stop people from using their cellphones?

Here’s an idea. The first instance of a person using his phone results in everyone getting a warning; the next person gets fired or can’t come back to the group. End of problem.

As for the public transportation vigilante, what gives him the right to decide the acceptable length and manner of anyone’s phone conversation? The girl said “like” too many times? Well,maybe his breath stinks; it doesn’t mean I get to throw him off the bus.

Find some grace, learn patience, wear headphones, politely ask the person to lower his voice, move your seat — in short, act like a grown-up. Leave your expensive, ego-boosting toy at home, and wipe that smug smirk off your face.

Susan Brandt
Baltimore, Nov. 4, 2007

And that is the spirit of the age, my friends. 

The first rule is always use children to justify bad behavior.  Using the mother-child relationship—the nucleus of society—to justify public cell phone use that never seems to have anything to do with private catastrophes that for centuries of urban life have somehow managed to get dealt with without the current technology, is really about placing private concerns above public life in all cases, when the more "grown-up" thing is to realize that both of these distinct realms have a purpose and a place.

Of course no one can argue with a mother's right to be in touch with her child, and that's bully Susan Brandt's point here.  Something in her tone argues against the wisdom of her words.

"Find some grace. Learn Patience."  Mmm.  Yes.  People who start off with "How dare you..." whenever confronted with their obnoxious excesses and sense of entitlement have clearly "learned patience."  People who end their tirade "and wipe that smug smirk off your face" have clearly "found some grace."

I like the "wear headphones" solution, myself.  Forget mutual respect in a public space.  Forget the burden being on those bullying others.  If you don't want to hear my loud, obnoxious one-sided rant, put some headphones on!  Nobody's making you listen!  It's a free country!  You got feet!  Move! 

A sound solution to anti-social behavior.  If I'm acting like a lout, then run away from me!

Actually, now that I think about it, this might just have the desired effect if it was well and consistently orchestrated.  I mean, imagine someone on a crowded bus starts yakking on the phone, and everyone just moves as far away from them as it's possible to get, but remains facing them, looking on with interest, concern, empathy, as if the caller were an actor in a one-man show, isolated there in the spotlight on the stage they've created for us, their captive audience.  When they finish the call—and they'd finish it pretty quick, I imagine—their public bursts into applause, and shouts of "Encore, maestro!  Encore!"

It might deter them in the future. 

Aside from that, I really like Susan Brandt's suggestion to "politely ask the person to lower his voice."  That's always effective.  I wonder what you would get from a Susan Brandt if you asked her that?  "Well, your breath stinks!  Why don't you stop breathing so much!" Or she might just stab you in the face.

No, Susan, I'm sorry, there is nothing to do for it, I'm afraid, but to jam it.  And if your child is anything like her mother, one can only hope you're being jammed when that emergency call comes. (She'll be fine, Suse.  We have hazmat and physicians standing by!)

But the truth is, it's a predicament.  What makes cell phones superior to smoking on a bus, from the public nuisance perspective, is that we can justify the former using the safety of our children as an excuse.  Although smoking was once touted as healthy, and then as benign to smokers and those in close proximity to them, and then as deadly to smokers but benign to those in close proximity to them, and finally as just plain deadly, cell phone use is still in the benign stage. 

Aside from jamming signals, Susan Brandt is a prime example of why appeals to restraint and respect of others in our public places is not an effective deterrent to obnoxious behavior.  When the prevailing ethos is, "I'm gonna get mine," and "if you don't like it, leave, bitch," the only alternative to jamming is some proof that cell phone use is not just obnoxious, but  flat-out noxious.  As in hazardous to health. 

One can only hope, for the survival of the commonweal, that news of massive brain tumors from microwaving the brain for several hours a day, seven days a week, over the space of years, will break soon.

Because remember, in society there is a price to be paid for everything.