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[at-l] Cell Phones -- Perception



>"...No one on this list nor even the entire list collectively, is in any 
position to roll back the popularity of cell phones. If that is your goal, 
you missed the boat. That tsunami is already miles inland," reports Jim B.

I remember back in the early 70s when I was invited to a meeting of the Fin and Feather Club, a hunting and fishing group in Millinocket, Maine. I talked to them about litter and trash in the back country, especially the piles of trash next to every fireplace at the campsites on the wild Penobscot, and St. John Rivers. The members thought I was talking nonsense. "What do you want us to do?" they demanded. "The nearest dump is 100 miles away." There were 70 people in the room. Everyone of them thought can dumps had become a natural part of wildness and no amount of talk would ever roll back their popularity.

I remember also when the city where I was born first talked about sewage treatment plants. The chairman of the Planning Board was adamant. "This is a foolish idea," he exclaimed. "We have spent millions piping sewage to the river. What better place for our sewage than in a river. It's what God intended."

And when I hike the Mahoosucs, Bigelow and Nahmakanta these days, I can't help but remember the stories I wrote 32 years ago claiming Maine still owned 400,000 acres that it had preserved and then forgotten about when it's 6 million acre public domain had been sold 150 years earlier -- and the chorus of derision that greeted those stories. 

While the Martin Luther King holiday remains fresh in our minds, who would have thunk that blacks would ever vote in the south, right alone that the south would have black mayors and members of Congress or that a Louisiana governor would pardon a black law breaker in celebration.

I like to think words and actions still have influence even in this new era of instant gratification, 15-second attention spans, and belief in comfort and safety regardless of cost.

Weary