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Some of you may recognize this coin-operated curiosity: It’s called a phone booth.
Phone booths used to be everywhere, providing an office for agent Maxwell Smart … and a sanctuary for Tippi Hedren from killer seagulls in “The Birds.”
Now, they’re so rare that Peter Ackerman wrote a children’s book, “The Lonely Phone Booth,” about one of only four remaining outdoor phone booths in all of Manhattan.
“I walked past this phone booth every day with my kid when he was three years old,” Ackerman said. “And at a certain point, he said to me, ‘Why is that phone in a box?’ And I realized that he didn’t know what a phone booth was, which is so bizarre!”
Does the world also no longer need Superman?
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Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:22AM (11 children)
Superman would by misogynist and hated by the SJW's of today. After all he doesn't sport a title like super person. There is no room for a male gender identity in todays world of gender equality. Either you identify and support female equality, equal to correct 1000% of the time or you are a pig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:26AM (1 child)
My superhero is a genderfluid AI android who will mow down all humans equally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:47PM
I am really not sure how it is a net gain for soylent when people start hurling the insults nearly immediately.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:42AM (3 children)
Far as I am concerned, you can change your shirt color if you want to, you can change your hair color if you want to, you can change your eye color if you want to, you can even change your gender if you want to.
Frankly, I don't give a damm ( Hat tip to "Gone With the Wind" ) which bathroom you use. Neither am I much concerned with what package you carry.
All that means anything to me is what kind of person you are.
Are you kind, generous, fun-loving, adventuresome, trustworthy? Or some greedy scum? Your mind is what defines you.
All the rest is all decoration - to be adorned as you see fit. That's the beautiful thing about being a human. We have incredible ways of adorning ourselves.
In the event that the goal of the relationship is to reproduce, of course biological gender consideration is required. But most of my relationships are purely platonic - and people are most comfortable with themselves when they are at peace with who they are. People who are spending their energies trying to be something they aren't are just projecting a fake image.
Well, that's at least one 66 year old male goat's take on it. Submitted for your edification, or ridicule, as you see fit.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by KiloByte on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:30AM (1 child)
You hardly can change your gender yet. There's a costly invasive procedure that produces organs that kind-of look like the real thing but are not fully functional. It will improve in a decade or two, but for now, most of those who claim to be of a gender opposite to what they are avoid such operations.
But this is not what the "identity politics" crowd preaches. What they want, is to allow everyone self-identify as an attack helicopter, and not only have their delusion listed as the true gender on their ID but also to have the taxpayers pay for the maintenance and oil checks (or whatever the delusional person wishes), and make it a crime to refer to them using correct pronouns.
As for bathroom segregation, the reason for that is not to have a person get the warm feelings of "I am really of gender X". The purpose is to avoid harassment that immature people, both kids and adults, tend to have in mind in toilets (the phrase "bathroom humour" is not baseless), and let people do nr. 1/nr. 2 in peace. If you do what the rabid left wants, you'll immediately have elementary school boys who don't even know what "trans" or "identity politics" mean pull this trick to get into the girls' bathroom (and vice versa).
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:29PM
- Gender reasoning exercises: Symbol, substance, and tabooing your words (More Trans, module 1-1) [genderanalysis.net]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @05:11PM
The issue I really take with it, as somebody who is very unaffected by this phenomena of multiple genders, is the mental health of not all, but many of the so-called genderfluid.
If you were unaware, there are people online who change their gender on a regular basis. For you, it may seem as simple as a change of clothes, but is it for them, truly? Is it not, at some point, indicative of a crisis of identity?
Where is the line drawn? I would say the line should be drawn at the point of self-harm - that is the definition of a mental disorder, right? When a condition begins to get in the way of your life? Well, unfortunately, one of the most cosmopolitan surgical procedures of our time, transgenderism, with some of the most outspoken support groups in the forms of Hollywood, University programs, Television segments, etc. unfortunately still leads to many frequent suicides.
It is not gender that is wrong. It is that SOMETHING underlying much of this subculture is wrong - and not in a "sinner" or "saint" sort of way. People are dying because of it.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:33AM (2 children)
Someone sounds a little triggered. Need a safe space?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:43PM (1 child)
No safe space require, because you can't hurt me. And, stop trying to lure men into your safe space with you. You claim that you don't swing that way, but you keep hitting on guys here.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:49PM
-3.1415927/10, would not read again. "Nuh-uh, YOU" hasn't worked since first grade, shortstack. Up your game.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by ewk on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:01AM
Oink, oink... :-)
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deadstick on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:54PM
Wow, memory trigger. When I saw the Superman movie in 1978, my local movie palace had decorated the lobby with a phone booth, with some discarded clothing in it.
Somebody stealthily added a pair of pantyhose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:25AM (1 child)
I am surprised that by now, there are any surviving phone booths.
Even cellphones are considered a throwaway item now.
In my area, all public phone booths seem to do is attract a destructive and dangerous clientele who either vandalize the area or deal drugs.
It served its purpose well, thirty years ago. As far as I am concerned, they are magnets for troublemakers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:19AM
Drug deals serve a public service...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:16AM
Still somewhat common in Australia. They have started putting wifi in them :D
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:08AM (1 child)
They've served The Doctor well so far.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by TrentDavey on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:30PM
If you are referencing the TARDIS, you are off-topic as it is technically a Police Call Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_box [wikipedia.org], although it has probably gone the same way (I'm not located in the U.K.).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:52AM (2 children)
They are being shut down due to allowing anonymous calls. Now we can't allow such horror to continue in our midst, can we? Think of all the terrorists who could use such modern inventions to commit acts we deem unlawful these days. The calls would be virtually untraceable ... like it used to be 10-15 years ago.
Fuck this shit.
A free nation will have anonymous ways to communicate and the leadership will protect that freedom. By opening every letter, listening to every phone call, the Rothschilds bankers stole all our financial future and made us slaves. Anonymous phone booths are disappearing because that was their plan.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:42PM (1 child)
I think it may be that a cell-phone tower is more profitable than a phone booth.
On average, cell-phone users pay $40 per month. That is like 3 local payphone calls per day (per person) to bring in the same revenue.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:20PM
It's also an upkeep thing. Easier to main 100 cell towers surrounded by fences or on restricted access rooftops than 10,000 phone booths on street corners. You need a lot less guys particularly.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:45PM (1 child)
Maxwell Smart didn't even need the phone booth, he had a phone in his shoe [youtube.com].
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:32PM
Well, he needed it to get into the building.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:14PM
Superheroes changing in phone booths is a stupid idea. [youtube.com]
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:32PM
Of course they get rid of the phone booths. After all, they don't want people to escape from the Matrix.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:34PM
Upon reading the article, being in New York, my first thought was, "Great, now where will all the homeless people pee?"
Washington DC delenda est.