PICAYUNE —
Don’t call me on my cellphone. I won’t answer.
Last week, I did what I’ve been threatening to do for years. I threw that slippery eel of a nuisance away. I had lived five decades without one. Why was I stuck with something I hated now?
Every time I met a car heading straight toward me in my lane with the driver oblivious and talking on the phone, I swore to get rid of my own cellphone. Every time some shopper in Wal-Mart bumped into me as she was explaining, loudly, to her phone that she was, well, in Wal-Mart shopping, I vowed I’d get rid of mine.
Once while I was giving a speech, a cellphone rang. That was bad enough. The man answered it and began a loud and inane conversation. I thought that day, enough was enough.
There is no escaping civilization now. People carry the blamed things on boats and into amusement parks. Those silly customized rings go off in movie theaters and nice restaurants. And when they do, everyone in the building starts slapping his pocket to make sure it isn’t his phone.
When did we all start having so much to say? What changed besides technology? Remember the days when you lived them, then went home and relived them with your spouse and family face to face?
I realize that I’m only hearing half the conversation when I am forced to listen to others on their cellphones. Unavoidable eavesdropping, I like to call it.
But I’ve never once overheard anything that resembled a profound thought, or even an urgent one. Instead you hear endless recaps of ordinary actions. We have become relentless narrators of our own boring lives.
“I’m at the Piggly Wiggly on the baking aisle. I can’t remember if I’m out of sugar. Maybe I’ll just buy some anyway.”
Fascinating stuff.
While I’m on this rant, I should say that people in general talk too much. That’s why nobody knows anything. If we’d listen more, talk less and process thoughts before spewing them into the ether, the world would be a more informed and tolerable place.
The older I get, the quieter I strive to be. It seems reasonable to me to retreat to the private cell of your own thoughts when you get past a certain point.
On the eve of some new telephone release last week, people slept in the street to be first in line to get the contraption. I’m not sure what exactly this phone will do besides call another one. Possibly wash and hang out dainties, or feed the family pet.
Reports of a new tsunami of talking headed our way depressed me. I could envision clerks who never look up to help a customer, spouses who never look into one another’s eyes, drivers with no hands free for the steering wheel, picnics with telephones instead of ants, children watching movies instead of playing tag and some stranger somewhere telling me and the rest of the world her private business.
That was what tore it. Don’t call me on your fantastic, expensive, new-fangled cellphone. Because mine is history.
(To find out more about Rheta Grimsley Johnson and her books, visit www.rhetagrimsleyjohnsonbooks.com.)
Columns
Signing off from using cell phone
- Columns
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Hood’s ‘open carry’ ruling strikes important balances
Attorney General Jim Hood’s office issued an opinion this week that went a long way toward establishing some order and applying some common sense to what has become a contentious and confusing debate both for proponents and opponents of free exercise of the Second Amendment.
House Bill 2, which becomes law July 1, was authored and led to passage by state Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton. Gipson has told the press that he believed the legislation was necessary to clearly define what a concealed weapon is under the law and to distinguish between “concealed carry” and “open carry” rights. But many law enforcement officers charged with enforcing the state’s “concealed carry” law and other contradictory statutes, the bill created some confusion and Hood’s AG opinion brought some clarity to the ongoing debate. -
The Loss of Trust
Amid all the heated cross-currents of debate about the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program, there is a growing distrust of the Obama administration that makes weighing the costs and benefits of the NSA program itself hard to assess. The belated recognition of this administration’s contempt for the truth, for the American people and for the Constitution of the United States, has been long overdue.
- Vocability Words can be both familiar and extremely confusing when taken from their usual context. Ask any wine enthusiast about legs, fat or bricks and they may assume you are speaking “Vinonese.” Ok — I made that word up; but the language of wine does indeed include legs, fat and brix which have entirely different meanings from what you might assume. Working with definitions from http://www.wineschool.com/vocabulary.html, try your basic knowledge of “Vinonese.”
- Vocability Words can set a tone for a situation, alter someone’s perception of an individual or group — in short, there is power in them. The Bible cautions, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue...” — Proverbs in 18:21, ASB. With that in mind, I will be focusing on words, some recently used and some obscure, to test the readers and build on what you already know. There will be theme weeks, for instance next week will focus on words involving wine — for no particular reason! So try your vocabulary skills with the following and see how you score. I’m always open to suggestions for material.
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A hard rain is gonna fall...
By Kathryn Jean Lopez/Syndicated columnist
After disappearing during his term in office and bringing scandal to his family and state, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is going to Washington, having won election to Congress. And that’s far from the worst story reflecting the current character of our nation.
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Not your mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal
By Rheta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
I haven’t seen the Ladies’ Home Journal in about a million years, except maybe in the dentist’s office when I was trying to avoid a television permanently set on Fox News.
Somebody’s grandchild was selling magazines for a school project, and Ladies’ Home Journal was the only one on the list I recognized. Now it comes to the house.
Let’s just say: It’s not my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal. This month, right behind a feature called “A Country of People Who Never Stop Eating” is one called “Nice Girls Do Get Tattoos.” -
Health care market needs oversight
By Gene Lyons/Syndicated columnist
Sometimes the best journalism explains what’s right under our noses. In Steven Brill’s exhaustive Time magazine cover article, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us,” it’s the staggeringly expensive, grotesquely inefficient and inhumane way Americans pay for medical care.
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VA’s appalling failures not recent
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
While recent national press attention to ongoing problems at Mississippi’s G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center in Jackson is welcome and needed, the failures of the overall VA service apparatus in Mississippi are not recent problems.
In short, former U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery — Mississippi’s “Mr. Veteran” and author of the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name — must be spinning in his grave. There have been significant failures and poor service to veterans documented by state and local media since 2008. -
Dolley Madison politically savvy
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists
When Dolley Payne Madison became first lady in 1809, she instituted Wednesday evening gatherings at the White House where political rivals could meet and talk. They were called “squeezes” because so many people showed up and crowded the room. As Cokie wrote in her book “Ladies of Liberty": “All were welcome as long as they were appropriately dressed. And all went — skipping a Wednesday night might mean missing a vital piece of political information or being left out of a crucial deal.”
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Mississippi isn’t immune from national college tuition trends
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
Higher education in Mississippi has not been immune from national trends cited in a recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report which concludes that over the last five years, the global economic downturn and a “no new taxes” political climate have increasingly shifted the burden of higher education finance to students and parents at a time when enrollment is increasing and the percentage of state support is decreasing. - More Columns Headlines
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Hood’s ‘open carry’ ruling strikes important balances
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