SobekPundit

Still Pissed Off About the Hawley-Smoot Tariff

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

There is Justice in this World

A movie-goer who answered her cell phone in a movie theater gets hit with pepper spray.

Good.

I suppose that arguments that it's a bad thing would go something like this:  the movie hadn't started yet (it was during the credits), she was speaking very quietly, and it was a family emergency.  Also, it was Catwoman, which no one in the world is watching because they care what the characters have to say. 

These are weak arguments (except for the last one).  You turn your cell phone off before the movie, no questions asked.  If you don't, you will not remember to turn it off the instant the movie begins.  Although she claims she was speaking quietly, obviously she was loud enough that people knew what she was doing.  As far as the family emergency goes, there's no way to know before you pick up that the call is an emergency, and so you would have to answer every call just in case one of them was an emergency.  If you are expecting a call that might be an emergency, don't go to a movie.

When I saw "The Ring," it was in a theater that I will never again patronize.  The place was full of 14-16 year olds, every one of whom decided that they needed to shriek in high-pitched voices regardless of whether anything scary was happening on screen, so I couldn't hear the dialogue.  Most apallingly, two kids walked in maybe 30 minutes into the show and yelled, "Hey, is Dave in here?  Dave?"  I seriously considered throwing a shoe at them, but I would probably have missed (given that I throw like a girl - more specifically, a girl who doesn't throw very well), but if I had pepper spray ... well, I just can't say I blame the officer in the linked story.