Turn off that cell phone!
Callahan, Sidney
roar by. I also don't mind hearing the...
...ary Party (PRI), which has controlled the na- The PRI was also optimistic about Labastida's chances M tion's presidency by hook and often by crook because of the failure of the principal opposition parties, since the 1920s, is struggling to hold on to the the PAN and the leftist-nationalist Democratic Revolutionpresidential palace in Mexico City come election day July ary Party (PRD), to unite behind a single candidate...
...El Historically, Mexico's presidents have been handpicked by the incumbent chief executive...
...W.C...
...At least I can lodge a complaint with the conductor, I thought...
...He served a three-year stint in Congress and, on inee of the center-right National Action Party (PAN...
...As of battery...
...Public confessions on TV talk making and receiving calls (briefer and prices of today's tickets...
...heard him announce in his last call that Am I overreacting...
...Not really...
...I also don't mind hearing the tugs chugging up the Hudson...
...When waiters drop curbing cell phones...
...Lovers less loud), but Jane's husband took the extreme, a subway token buys immu- who insist on sexual displays in public prize for insouciant intrusions into our nity from cell phones, because there is give the lie to evolutionary psycholoshared public space...
...I find the beepSIDNEY CALLAHAN beep of the newspaper trucks backing up at 4 A.M...
...and] incompetent, and "I never thought I'd say it, but this guy makes me long today lacks ideas and creativity...
...names of other siblings in the family flect our human sense of solidarity and The culture seems to be heading in a came up, I slowly realized that I knew identification with others...
...I deny Once, in a hair salon, I was dozing he was only twenty minutes from his the charge of being a noise-pollution freak...
...Don't the users of cell phones understand that they are breaking the implicit rules of public behavior...
...Unfortunately, my own invincible cowardice and over-socialized taboo against public displays of irritation doomed me to hesitation, and a lost opportunity...
...EXICO CITY...
...Mexico's Institutional Revolution- After all, 9.7 million voters participated in the selection...
...How could I peacefully, I live above the railroad tracks and delay aware of a long tirade coming from a nonviolently, state my objections and conversations twice hourly while trains young woman across the room...
...At least we could forced communication, I'm offended by to be having difficulties with their have special train cars or segregated sec- the erosion of shared cultural norms of daughter, who also took a turn in their tions for those who must intrude on appropriate shame...
...As the story went on and on, and the barrassment over personal exposure re- the omnipresent video cameras...
...I did not feel guilty, dings or wakes, we try to save face by be forced to buy a Walkman and probut I was instinctively embarrassed at pretending nothing untoward has oc- gram it with white noise...
...He complemented this t" crowd-pleasing casual dress with bombastic speeches, castigating the PRI for ties to drug lords and seven decades of "a government that lies, is corrupt...
...Both his second try, captured the statehouse in Guanajuato, where the situation and the electorate are fluid, if not volatile...
...I wasn't...
...She was berating my old naked in a drunken stupor...
...audibly broadcast in trains, buses, planes, Commonweal 7 June 16, 2000 baring her soul to the beauty operator overhearing private family matters that curred-if we can't actually flee the scene...
...He immediately began barnstorming the country, making a point of wearing blue jeans, open-necked shirts, a giant "FOX" silver belt buckle, and boots that have become a trademark...
...One call led to other people's privacy...
...She was confront what appeared to be either deliberate rudeness or invincible ignorance...
...Other peo- are followed by audience compliance- norant or crude to be ashamed of themple in the surrounding seats were also probably because of the astronomical selves...
...The couple seemed against cell phones...
...This procedure, promoted by sitting President Ernesto ZedilREPORT FROM MEXICO lo to "consolidate democracy," offered several advantages for The dinosaurs & the fox the much-criticized PRI: it activated the party's often creaky grassroots machinery, lofted Labastida's name recognition, and invested the nominee with much-needed legitimacy...
...Never mind the danger cell plain about other people's racket...
...At the other shows make my skin prickle...
...Involuntary immersion in other people's intimate lives, "Well, well...
...When other people don't nearby passengers were involuntarily to have gotten the problem under con- understand, or don't care, I become privy to the loud personal conversations trol...
...less attractive, but I tolerate them patiently, along with the noise in our TURN OFF THAT CELL PHONE...
...With our bouncy, squealing four-year-old grandane, don't hang up...
...Stolid im- gy's dictum that in every known human I dearly wanted to say something to passive crowding isn't so bad, if you culture sexual intimates seek privacy...
...Some things are best kept in the closet...
...under towels and gradually became station stop...
...The physically imposing and temperamentally hard-charging fifty-seven-year-old Fox announced his candidacy for the presidency in late 1997...
...no reception underground...
...Al- palace...
...everyone on the Amtrak phones present in automobiles...
...Realistically, sank down in my chair, raised a maga- suffer vicarious shame for them...
...Second-hand intimacy is even more agitating than second-hand smoke...
...apartment house where neighbors conBare your soul in private stantly reconstruct kitchens or install new in-the-wall air conditioners...
...Who will deliver us from this new plague...
...The stern preshow announcements ashamed for them, since they are too igof this cell-phone enthusiast...
...In New York, exposure flout the rules for personal another, and for two and one-half hours, the opera and Broadway theaters seem boundaries...
...Soon after takUntil recently, the smart money rested on Labastida, a ing the oath of office, he set his sights on the presidential bland, competent former governor and cabinet member...
...That changed last year with George W. Grayson a four-candidate party primary that was open to all citizens...
...It would interfere would not be recognized...
...Everyone has a right to civil inattention and a buffer zone safe from unwanted intrusions by touch, leering stares, or intrusive personal remarks...
...Accustomed to berating Mexico's Tammany Hallthough the average Mexican scorns the ruling party's record style system even as they cut mutually beneficial deals with of ballot-box stuffing and foul play, the PRI's relatively gen- PRI insiders, PAN traditionalists nevertheless considered erous welfare state and array of agricultural subsidies con- Fox an outsider, upstart, and "Northern Barbarian...
...2. Several polls in late May showed the PRI candidate, Fran- Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, joined the clubby PAN cisco Labastida, neck-and-neck with Vicente Fox, the nom- in 1987...
...When we see and new TV programs are scheduled friend, whom I'd always admired...
...This tinue to appeal to millions of poor and working-class voters...
...I'm often the one edging out the door at about her mother-in-law's awful behav- Surely, such attacks of shame and em- such times-at least out of the range of ior...
...I down, and make fools of themselves, we twenty-four hours a day...
...Noah's chil- more shameless direction...
...I don't want to be ogled, pushed, pinched, or have my ears assaulted...
...Look who's going high-tech...
...term applies to aggressively impatient businessmen who As a consequence, Labastida entered the race with a formi- have joined the party in the last few years and prize condable lead in the polls, despite his party's unsavory past...
...or hair artiste) in a bitter complaint I had no business knowing...
...As trays, performers forget their lines, and with a booming market...
...frontation over compromise with a governing elite considered rotten to the core...
...al million members for "Amigos de Fox," a personal organization designed to raise funds, show his broad appeal, Commonweal 8 June 16, 2000...
...But when I found him, he was in a back seat busily talking on his cell phone...
...him, and started to frame a protest as I can read or think your own thoughts...
...Hor- friends or family members get drunk, fall that will cover a person's every move for rors...
...Certain kinds of selfprolonged conversation...
...Jane, talk elevators, or on the street, is a subtle form daughter in residence, I could never comto me...
...Jane, Jane, JANE...
...He also signed up severfor the last administration...
...How could I become invisible...
...With this growing imcell phone could attest, Jane deigned to car alarms, and leaf blowers, why not position of second-hand intimacy and answer her husband...
...People are this daughter-in-law (certainly no Ruth dren were ashamed to see him lying putting their intimate lives on Web sites, to a Naomi...
...I don't object to cell phones because J train in the vicinity of his If there are laws against boom boxes, they are noisy...
...there's little imminent hope for laws zine before my face, and prayed that I Fields is not funny...
...his family ranches and manufactures shoes...
...Until saturation an innocent bystander, I knew that I had folks make God awful speeches at wed- or cultural conversion takes place, I may done nothing wrong...
Vol. 127 • June 2000 • No. 12
