Sonic Youth

Earlier this week there was a story out of Washington (it's been an interesting week down in D.C.) about a local mall that has been having problems with roving groups of teenagers. The teens have basically just been hanging out, being loud, annoying the people who are there to shop and there were a few reports of thefts at the mall. To counteract this, the shopping center recently put in a new "Mosquito" sound device. The premise behind the Mosquito comes from the fact that there are are certain frequency you stop hearing as you get older and your eardrums begin to loosen. Originally this was used by teenagers as a ringtone to alert them to a phone call while in class, because the teachers wouldn't hear it going off. Recently someone decided to use this technology as a crowd-control device and set up a machine that would emit a constant buzzing noise set at variable frequencies. It isn't painful and (allegedly) causes no permanent hearing damage, but it gets very annoying, very quickly. The shop owners have setup the device to make a constant piercing noise at a frequency you stop hearing after the age of 18 in an effort to get the kids to move along, but at the same time not bother the older patrons. (You can test out yourself to see make sure you are hearing everything you should be here.)

Ignoring for the moment the issue of just how legal it is to set this thing up in a public area, I have to think that this is very short-sighted of these store owners. First off, in the current economy, should you really be sending anyone away from your store? It doesn't matter if these kids are only spending a dollar here and another there; after a while it will start to amount to a number that matters. Secondly, they are painting an entire age group with one brush. Yeah, there are teenagers out there who suck and only want to cause trouble. But even other teenagers think those kids are punks, so why should they be lumped in with them? Also, what is this going to do to those kids who are at the mall with their parents? They already weren't going to act up with their parents nearby and so they aren't the intended targets, yet they are going to be just as bothered by the noise as the punk kids and as a result will take their business (read: their parent's money) elsewhere. Not to mention, it won't exactly inspire repeat business once those teenagers reach an age when their hearing isn't so sensitive. Kids today have long memories and you can bet they won't be anxious once they turn 24 to spend their money at a location that they think tried to make them go deaf when they were 17. Besides, the shop owners are causing ill-will for no reason: I was remember when I was a teenager and constantly turning my headphones up as loud as they would go - we do just fine trying to make ourselves go deaf, thank you very much.

-You know who never fails to annoy me? People who are angry when weathermen are wrong, but wrong in their favor. Earlier this week all we heard about was Hurricane Earl coming this way. Now, to the credit of the reporters around here, none of them ever made it sound like it would be more than a one-day event, but even still they recommended stocking up on canned goods and batteries, just in case the storm turned. After all, weathermen are trying to predict the future. Even I fell for this warning, driving down to the beach house to secure all the windows and literally clear the deck. But, before Earl got to us it weakened considerably and when it did get here it arrived late at night and was finished before most of us even woke up the next morning. Now, you would expect most people to be happy that we avoided the worst of it and just be thankful there was no serious damage done. But, there are those among us who actually seemed angry they weren't spending their Saturday assessing property damage and cutting up fallen trees. I understand being angry when they underestimate the strength of a storm, but telling us to be prepared just in case the worst case scenario should happen actually seems like the wise idea. At least look at it this way: you won't have to buy cans of corn for a couple weeks.