Archive: Radical Civility
Radical Civility, Taiwanese Style
When I started my Radical Civility campaign last summer I didn't think about whether civility was an area of academic study. I love academics, but they tend to exist in a parallel universe, not in the real world. And the...
By John Kelly | October 15, 2009; 11:30 AM ET | Comments (0)
Stage Combat: Cell Phones in the Audience
The new Broadway drama "A Steady Rain" doesn't get a very good review in The Post today. But it's already a hit in my book for the way star Hugh Jackman showed his irritation at a cell phone that rang...
By John Kelly | September 30, 2009; 09:30 AM ET | Comments (2)
Radical Civility: First We Kill All the Wireless Providers
Whose fault is it that people use cellphones inappropriately, yacking in restaurants, texting during movies? I always thought it was the person's fault, but now I'm not so sure. I saw a movie Saturday night ("Ponyo," the new Miyazaki). The...
By John Kelly | September 8, 2009; 09:30 AM ET | Comments (1)
George Washington: Father of Radical Civility?
George Washington had to put up with a lot of things during his lifetime--Redcoats, painful dental problems, Benjamin Franklin's whoopee cushions--but one thing he didn't have to put up with was people texting during movies. Movies hadn't been invented yet...
By John Kelly | August 19, 2009; 10:40 AM ET | Comments (0)
Radical Civility: A Crisis of Faith
I saw "District 9" over the weekend--a Friday matinee, actually (ah, the perks of being a columnist). The movie was great, but I'm afraid I have a confession to make: There was a man texting in front of me and...
By John Kelly | August 18, 2009; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Baggage Handler: What Airport Behavior Says About Us
In January 2008 Jason Barger boarded an airplane in Columbus, Ohio, with a singular objective: to spend the next seven days either on an airplane or in an airport. Think of it as the modern American equivalent of an Aboriginal...
By John Kelly | August 11, 2009; 08:00 AM ET | Comments (9)
Movie-Texting Justice, Beach Style
When we're at the beach for our annual vacation, we always try to see at least one movie, preferably a big, loud blockbuster. This year the choices weren't too good. "Transformers" is supposedly one of the worst movies ever made...
By John Kelly | August 10, 2009; 08:24 AM ET | Comments (13)
American Idiots: The NSO Experiments With Texting
What can pop-punk superstars Green Day teach the National Symphony Orchestra about the sanctity of performance? Quite a lot it turns out. I was at the Green Day/Kaiser Chiefs show at Verizon last night and a better example of the...
By John Kelly | July 30, 2009; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (9)
Talking to the Hand: Bemoaning Modern 'Manners'
I was about halfway through Lynne Truss's book "Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door" when I came across a very good point....
By John Kelly | July 29, 2009; 11:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Can Kindness Be Mandated? Howard County's Civility Experiment
Is Howard County nicer than it used to be? After all, in 2006 the county launched its "Choose Civility" initiative, a campaign inspired by the work of Johns Hopkins professor P.M. Forni. Has that made a difference in the quality...
By John Kelly | July 28, 2009; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
The Terrible Ten: P.M. Forni's Top Rudenesses. And Yours?
Earlier today I blogged about P.M. Forni, the Johns Hopkins professor who for the last decade has devoted himself to the cause of civility. In his latest book, "The Civility Solution," Dr. Forni tries to offer advice on defusing rude...
By John Kelly | July 27, 2009; 11:30 AM ET | Comments (14)
Meet Howard County's Mr. Nice Guy
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here." Those are the words the Italian poet Dante Alighieri found carved above the gates of Hell during his field trip to the underworld. They might as well be carved above the doors to...
By John Kelly | July 27, 2009; 09:00 AM ET | Comments (2)
Radical Civility: Your Slogan Here
Every movement needs a rallying cry. Here's your chance to help come up with ours. We have the name. We have the logo. Now all we need is the slogan. Several people have asked about T-shirts, buttons, coffee mugs and...
By John Kelly | July 21, 2009; 09:30 AM ET | Comments (3)
The Dangerous Side of Texting
As annoying as texting or talking on a cell phone during a movie may be, it usually doesn't result in anyone's death. (Unless, of course, a bit of vigilantism breaks out, as occasionally happens.) But texting or yacking on a...
By John Kelly | July 20, 2009; 11:00 AM ET | Comments (7)
NY Times' Ethicist Joins the 'Civility' Brigade
Randy Cohen, the New York Times' Ethicist, has a typically thorough examination of the practice of texting in his blog today. He examines when it's okay and when it isn't okay. When it isn't okay is when you're supposed to...
By John Kelly | July 14, 2009; 09:55 AM ET | Comments (3)
Can Rudeness Ever Be Polite? (The Answer Is No)
I have good news and bad news from my informal weekend survey of Washington-area civility. The good news? At a screening of "Up" last night at the Regal Cinemas in Rockville I didn't see a single texter. There was a...
By John Kelly | July 13, 2009; 10:45 AM ET | Comments (15)
Setting His Sights on Cinema: A Movielover's Lament
TJ Edwards thinks he knows why some people are rude at movie theaters, and it has nothing to do with some people just being rude. It has to do with the act of moviegoing itself, a once-magical experience that has...
By John Kelly | July 9, 2009; 09:48 AM ET | Comments (7)
A Modest Proposal: A Radical Solution to Movie Texting?
Reader Donna Hosek has an idea for how to deal with movie texters. Now, I can't tell whether Donna's being serious or whether she's being facetious but I like her creativity. Here's what she has to say: I don't...
By John Kelly | July 8, 2009; 09:22 AM ET | Comments (4)
The Fall of the Usher of the House: Violence at the Multiplex?
A common lament among those who decry the texting-and-talking atmosphere in movie theaters these days is that "Ushers don't do anything." They don't enforce the theaters' own rules. I have no scientific evidence to back this up but let us,...
By John Kelly | July 6, 2009; 09:30 AM ET | Comments (8)
More Common Sense From the Midwest
My contact at NATO (the National Association of Theatre Owners, not the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) sent me another example of a movie theater trying to stop texting before it even starts. The Pickwick Theatre in Syracuse, Indiana, created this...
By John Kelly | July 2, 2009; 09:02 AM ET | Comments (1)
Expanding Radical Civility: What About Concerts?
So far during the brief life of the Radical Civility movement, I have been focused on one thing: texting during movies. My aim has been to start modestly. But pondering inappropriate behavior in one setting inevitably raises questions of inappropriate...
By John Kelly | July 1, 2009; 10:00 AM ET | Comments (7)
Radical Civility Works! A Report From the Front
Can the simple act of asking someone to put away her cell phone in a movie theater actually work? Yes, if the experience that a reader named Ann had is any indication. Ann sent me this e-mail: I just...
By John Kelly | June 29, 2009; 08:00 AM ET | Comments (4)
Radical Civility Progress Report
Well, it's the end of Week One of my Radical Civility campaign. What can we say? Has the world changed? Have rude people suddenly been transformed from Goofus into Gallant? Probably not. But it's early days yet. Rome wasn't built...
By John Kelly | June 26, 2009; 08:00 AM ET | Comments (10)
Pleasantville: Do We Need to Go Back to the '50s?
There were a lot of things wrong with America in the 1950s: racism, McCarthyism, polio, unfortunate headwear. But most people agree that Americans were nicer back then, more polite to one another. Why? Derek Havens thinks it might have been...
By John Kelly | June 25, 2009; 10:20 AM ET | Comments (1)
The Movie Palace Guard: Anti-Texting Done Right
I have the answer for those of us who want to see movies without being distracted by texters: Move to the midwest. Extreme? Possibly. But while the theater you frequent (or used to frequent) may just shrug its collective shoulders...
By John Kelly | June 24, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (7)
The Text Best Thing: More People Join the Crusade
Our Radical Civility crusade is gaining speed. Even so, some people don't see what the fuss is all about. Witness some of the comments after my column yesterday. I need to keep in touch with the office, one person...
By John Kelly | June 23, 2009; 12:30 PM ET | Comments (6)
Radical Civility: Let the Sharing Begin
In my column today I announce the start of the Radical Civility movement. This is in response to the growing perception that people are getting ruder and things are going to hell. We can let that happen, or we can...
By John Kelly | June 22, 2009; 07:00 AM ET | Comments (22)
