"Pandora’s Voice Box" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Pandora’s Voice Box

We have laws because people don’t behave without them. Some people, some laws. At the extreme end of the behavior spectrum, for instance murder, most of us still wouldn’t commit one even if we didn’t have laws against it. But a lot of people would drive rudely, even dangerously, if they weren’t concerned about getting a ticket. Or consider, one of the main arguments against decriminalization of marijuana is that it would lead many who don’t already use it to light up.

Now the FAA has decided to change a couple of their "laws" regarding how people conduct themselves on airplanes. One would allow people to make wireless connections with their notebook computers. ‘Tis a grand thing, methinks. After all, if doing so won’t off-course a San Francisco-bound flight to Pyongyang, why not let people check the market, read their email, or make dinner reservations?

The second rule change will allow people to use cellphones, and there are a lot of people who have mixed and worse feelings about that idea. Yes, it’s grand if someone needs to make a quick call to say that the flight’s going to be late or to see if the children are still tied up in the basement. For that matter there are legitimate and even important discussions that people would justly want to conduct with families, friends and business associates. No doubt some of these interchanges could wait for a few hours until the person is back on the ground, but there is no doubt that the circumstances in many lives would improve by earlier communications. And few of us would begrudge the bettering the lives of people -- even strangers -- thousands of miles away.

However, and it’s a big but, the thought of being trapped next to some twit carrying on serial mindless chats from coast to coast is stultifying. Like, um, you know, no way...it’s bad enough to hear these people on the ground. Hey, not even to hear but to see them in their cars, their lips flapping in their empty heads; it makes you wonder if we’ve arrived at the back end of western civilization.

The problem is that the most egregiously banal will want to talk the whole time, and their battery life will sustain them. It’s doubtful anyone in our government can figure a way to manage the situation. Unless maybe they stop checking us at the gate for weapons.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.