Mind savers

Mind savers
Originally uploaded by xeeliz.

a friend on Flickr posted this picture from her recent transcontinental flight. "Can't fly without these now" she commented and tagged the photo "quiet". A recent NYT article about noise-cancelling headphones talks about a similar idea - there is too much external noise in our environments and it hurts to think. Sometimes, we need to technology to stop "alerting" or "entertaining" us, we need it to MAKE THINGS QUIET! Quiet is a privelege, a commodity. It has always been something difficult to achieve in many spaces and is becoming a rarity nearly everywhere. With the FCC trying so hard to permit cell phone use on planes, travellers look on in horror and reach for $200 noise-cancelling headphones if they can afford those. What I find curious, is the amount of push-back from the very consumers on behalf of which, supposedly, FCC is trying to remove the ban. Most want the ban in place, the LIKE the relative quiet of an airplane flight. It is unclear why the FCC thinks is to necessary to allow cell-phones in flight (even with Cingular suggesting it is not necessary and the CTIA being of two minds about it). It was rarely a burning issues, few people ever really pushed for it. Does FCC simply want to look like it's doing something important? This one seems at the expense of consumers, not to help them. Ah well... where are those noise-cancelling hedaphones? I gotta get myself a pair.