In one corner are those whose modems are virtual umbilical cords. Etiquette evolves, he said. You don't use your fork to fling food at people and you don't interrupt polite conversation to take a call from your stockbroker, snipe those in the other corner. The barbarians, they declare, are at the next table. And they are blurring private and public space.
Business is private.
Breaking up with your husband or wife is private. Rosemarie Burns wonders what happened to shame. Powell eventually moved. Today, her advice would be drowned out by beeping beepers, jingling handheld computers and whiny cell-phone renditions of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony going off at cafes, conferences and churches. Some fully expect restaurants to one day provide table holders for palm-size electronic gadgets.