Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Jon Benet Ramsey

Jon Benet Ramsey would be 23 years old this year.  Her mother died in 2006 of ovarian cancer, and her father has since remarried moving on with his life.  It is a little known fact the child beauty queen's parents should have been indicted.  When the older brother reached adult age, there were rumors and rumblings that he had commited the murder and how could anyone be expected to lose both children to a horrible crime.  Eventually, the prosecutors took the case to a Grand Jury who found sufficient evidence to charge John and Patsy Ramsey with child abuse and murder of the young girl.  In 1996, we all watched as her parents insisted it was an intruder.  The District Attorney decided that there was not enough evidence to pursue the prosecution of the Ramseys.  That opens a big can of worms.  How much money did he waste taking it to the Grand Jury to get an indictment that he didn't want in the first place?  The Ramseys were a wealthy couple.  Was freedom for sale after the murder of a little girl?  The Jon Benet case of course sparked a huge controversy over child beauty pagents, but was the media too focused on the beauty pagents instead of the abuse?  This case shouldn't have been about whether Patsy Ramsey was trying to live out some sick dream through her child.  Newsflash, we all want our children to exceed and succeed at something that we couldn't.  We can focus on the falacies of that all we want, because it takes the bite away from what we really should have been focused on.  CHILD ABUSE.  Parents kill their children almost daily.  Researchers estimate 250 to 300 children are murdered by their parents every year in the United States.  This number doesn't include spouses or significant others of parents or other family members--siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, stepbrothers or sisters.  BUT that number is laughable.  The true estimates are far more shocking.

How much does that number go up?  Here's where it gets tricky.  No one really knows.  The Children's Defense Fund which is a group that is actually supposed to be worried about this statistic and child abuse is now spending more time and money on the current anti-gun movement in this country.  A colossal waste of money and resources when you consider that the most common method of suicide in this country is hanging/suffrocation.  Plus with the United States just over 3900 suicides per year (adults included), we actually rank 34th in the world for suicides.  Japan, China, South Korea are in the Top 10.  Even Brazil has a higher suicide rate than the United States.  And the UK, who's rate is often tooted off as one of the lowest in the world is ranked 38th.  Considering the statistics, focusing on a child committing suicide with a gun over the abuse problem in our country is ridiculous. 

Of course, there are no true statistics for children killed by supposed loved ones in this country.  We know that an estimated 6 MILLION children are abused per year.  We know that 80% of the children that die under the age of 4 die from abuse or neglect.  Based on proven cases of abuse, we know that almost 6 children a day die from abuse in the United States.  That takes that previous pulled out of someone's rectum number from 300-ish to almost 2200 children murdered a year through abuse.  This is the worst record for any industrialized country.  The United States are #1 for number of children dying from abuse of the "civilized" world.  Additionally, there are no statistics for children that commit suicide during their teen years because of severe abuse or neglect during their youth.  How many of that almost 3900 suicides might never happen if we could resolve the abuse issue?  Even if we don't include the count of suicides due to abuse and neglect, we set ourselves a cut above every other non-third world country in failing our abused children miserably. 

In a study conducted of 9 months of court documentation, 75 children were murdered between the summer of 2009 and spring 2010 by their fathers involved in custody and/or visitation cases.  Yet, consider that 70% of all children murdered by a parent are murdered by their mothers (study conducted on known parental murders between 2001 to 2006).  Let's do the math:  that means in the same 9 month period 257 children were murdered by their mothers.  What this should tell us is that the published statistics are short by quite a bit.  Afterall, the 75 count is only for fathers in court battles that were documented.  The 332 total then for the 9 months could be significantly higher when considering non-court battle documented deaths--which is more common, of course.  Still, that would ONLY count parents, NOT custodial guardians, grandparents or other family members, or significant others not assisting or assisted by a parent. 

FACTS: 

Most children are not killed by guns.  The most common death for a child in this country is to be beaten to death--either over several days, weeks or months or in one spurt.  Typically, the one spurt had been preceded by months of abuse, although not contributing to the fatal abuse. 

An estimated 30% of abused children will become abusers themselves, and 36% of women and 14% of men in prison were abused as children.

More shocking, 80% of 21 year olds that suffer from psychological disorders were abused as children.  

The estimated cost for child abuse and neglect in this country: $124 BILLION a year.   That of course doesn't include the court costs or investigations after the children are dead.  It doesn't include the costs of incarcination after the fact either.  It also surprisingly doesn't include foster care.  All it includes is how much the states spend on social workers and programs.  What a f*cking joke, excuse my "french". 

WHAT WE HAVE IS AN EPIDEMIC IN THIS COUNTRY where the people that we have investigating will go to great lengths to investigate non-starters.  Probably because it's easier to investigate the non-starters and get them off their to-do list.  Plus, it's going to be far less heart-breaking to investigate a child that got slapped for cussing at his mother.  So, when there are muliple complaints and the investigators find the child chained to a tree, they still leave a little girl to eventually be brutally murdered.  We know that there are children who get spanked and probably deserve it.  There is a lot of truth in "spare the rod, spoil the child", but spankings are not abuse.  Broken arms, collarbones, regular bruising in excess...these are neon signs.  Yet, we do nothing to prevent it.  Courts routinely turn children over to family members--with knowledge of previous abuse, because our laws allow known abusers to have a second chance at abusing someone that they have already placed the fear of God into. 

For those that think guns kill people, well, I'll concede it is one way.  For those that think guns kill children, think again.  We get so hell bent on the quick answer, we don't bother to ask why. We love to go after the small potatoes, grab some signs and take up what we perceive will produce a tangible win. Get the guns--even though guns are not the leading cause of suicide or even murdered children. NEGLECT AND PHYSICAL ABUSE ARE THE LEADING CAUSE OF CHILDREN'S DEATHS IN THE UNITED STATES, and that's not including a likely large percentage of the teen suicides.  The case of Jon Benet Ramsey should've been a wake up call.  Instead, it's a blip in most of our memories.  A laughable moment where a woman paraded her daughter around like a prostitute.  It wasn't laughable.  It was a crazy woman who murdered her daughter and got away with it because they had money.  What's laughable is we will go into an outrage over one shooting of 26 innocents, but bypass the 2200 plus children that are murdered by their families every year. 


***REMEMBER THE INNOCENT, NOT THE GUILTY***

NOTE:  It was far more difficult to find the innocents' names than the perpetrators.  What is wrong with us?   

STEPHANIE CARTER, 4, murdered by her stepmother after being chained to a tree and severely neglected after her father remarried.  Her mother had passed away from lupis in 1998.  2000

KELSEY BRIGGS, 2, beaten to death by her stepfather after several months of documented child abuse including a broken collarbone, broken legs, and multiple bruises and abrasions. 2005

TANNER LEE WEBB, 3, beaten to death by his stepfather, again after several months of documented abuse.  2006

LUCAS WEBB, 4, beaten to death by his mother and stepfather. 2012

BRADEN and CHARLES POWELL, 5 and 7, axed to death by their father while in a custody battle with their grandparents after he killed their mother in 2006 which couldn't be proven at the time.  2008

LUKE AND GATLIN ARMANDIAZ, 6 months and 2, hung by their father. 2011

BABYBOY GORE, 7 months, suspected to have been murdered by his parents 2007.  No one turned the parents in for the missing child.  Virginia investigators eventually discovered their 6 year old daughter caged.  She had been caged for at least 1 year.  She would've been 2 when her brother was killed.  His body was discovered buried in the backyard. 2011

CAYLEE ANTHONY, 2, by her mother. 2011 (her mother was acquitted)

NOAH, JOHN, PAUL, LUKE and MARY YATES, 7, 5, 3, under 2, and under 1, drowned by their mother.  Notice the bible thumping names--just because they say they're Christian parents doesn't mean they are.  2001

CHRISTOPHER CONAN MILKE, 4, murdered by her mother's accomplice in his kidnapping. 1990.

BABYBOY BERRY, newborn, suffrocated by his mother. 1998

DURENROSTRO CHILDREN, 2 girls and a boy, 4, 9 and 8 respectively, murdered by their mother. 1994

CHRISTOPHER, MICHAEL, and XAVIER SOCORRO, 5, 8 and 11, murdered by their mother. 1996

TAUSHA LEE LANHAM, 7, starved to death by her mother. 1998

DARREN and his sister DAIL-ZSHIA TORRES, 6 and 4, stabbed to death by their grandmother, 1993.

SERENITY DEAL, 5, beaten to death by her father.  2011

CAMDEN HUGHES, 6, strangled to death by his mother.  2011

VYCTORYA SANDOVAL, 2, beaten to death by her parents after being returned to her parents from foster care.  The foster mother begged the court not to return the child.  2011

EMILY and LAUREN Kahler, 16 and 18, murdered by their father along with their mother and grandmother.  2009

WYATT GARCIA, 9 months, murdered by his father.  2010

TEIGEN PETERS BROWN, 3, shot during a court-ordered visit by his father.  2009

BEKM BACON, 8 months, killed by his father.  2010

JANIYAH NICOLE HALE, 1, killed by her father, a registered sex offender during visitation.  2009

VINICIUS and THAIS OLIVEIRA, 6 and 19 months, murdered by their mother with an angle grinder.  2006

MICHAEL DANIEL and ALEXANDER TYLER SMITH, 3 and 14 months, drowned by their mother.  1994

JOEL, JAZZLYN, JAXS, and PEBBLES JOHNSON, 12, 13, 15, and 17, shot by their mother.  2007

CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL BARRIOS, 6, tortured to death by a convicted sex offender and his parents.  2007

BRADLEY and EDWARD GARCIA, 3 and 1, stabbed to death by their father.  2011

PAIGE, LOGAN, and MADALYN HAYES, 10, 6, and 5, suffrocated in a garage with exhaust fumes by their grandmother in a murder-suicide.   2012



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Movie Ratings are Recommendations, not Mandates.

Last night I went with my 17 year old and his friends to get them tickets to see "Gangster Squad".  It's rated "R" and the theater required that they show their IDs to get tickets, so they thought I could get their tickets and go see the movie.  I thought it would be easy enough, and that's how it worked when I was their age.  I'm the parent afterall, and I can appreciate them making a parent buy the tickets.  A couple of them will be 17 in the next 3 months so we weren't talking about a big age difference here and each of us parents has done this during the last 6 months or so, so I wasn't worried that I was on the hook.  Imagine my dismay that I couldn't purchase the tickets, as an adult that is obviously one of their parents, unless I was either going into the movie with them or they were all 17.  I asked, "do I have to sit with them?"  The lady at the counter's comment was that I didn't.  I didn't elaborate at that point, but I couldn't help have it run through my mind "what difference does it make if I'm not sitting with them anyway?"  Frankly, I was now expecting a hugely gorey movie that I wasn't going to enjoy in spite of some of Hollywood's best talent being in it.  And, big bonus, I was going to have to sit in the movie by myself, because four 17 and almost 17 year old boys are not going to want to sit with one of their "mommys". 

The movie turned out to be less gorey than most.  In fact, it's based on the true story of the cops that brought down the most notorious gangster of the City of Angels.  It does have quite a bit of shooting, and a lot of bad guys being killed.  There is some amount of collateral damage to bystanders shown in two scenes.  All of which seemed far more realistic than those movies that show only the bad guys dying and somehow all the bystanders managing to avoid being shot during a shoot out in the middle of a busy market or street.   There wasn't a lot of cursing or foul language--probably since this took place in the 40s and people didn't curse as much then.  Still, the greatest part of this story is that 6 men fought off an entire group of gangsters, eliminating most and eventually arresting the gangster, with a loss of only 2.  Good triumphs evil in a truly David and Goliath fashion--something that over the years we've just become accustom to accepting isn't the reality we live in.  Yet this is based on a true story.  Six real Los Angeles cops who were the heroes, an unsung story that would've been completely unknown except in eventual folklore of the city, let alone nationwide or globally.  This story gets a rating of "R", and it can't help but make me wonder what we would give Aesop's Fables if we started rating books.

Let's compare a little.  Marie Antoinette, a historical movie, that covers the guillotine and of course Marie's tragic end got a PG-13.  The Matrix 3 was PG-13 when it came out.  I was recently told that they changed it, but I remember the 10 minute soft porn scene between Keanu Reeves and his co-star.  A minute would've been a lot as sexually graphic as it was.  But after 10 minutes, I was ready to take my just turned teen out of the damn movie.  The scene had zero, and I mean zero, nada, zilch, value add to the actual story line of the last Matrix movie.  It was soft porn that HBO and Showtime would only show during their after hours programming, and yet the movie still had a PG-13 rating.  Star Wars movies have always been PG to PG-13.  There's lots of killing, albeit imaginary aliens and spaceships and sometimes some very emotionally adult themes.  Dead father who's a criminal who turns out to be alive.  An emperor hell bent on the annihilation of all people in opposition to him.  A band of misfits including a rogue and a giant ape, a princess, an old wise man...Sounds almost like a fairy tale.  But the subject matter is highly thought-provoking if you want to be.  

Perhaps that really is the point.  I tend, admittedly, to be one who has layers and layers of depth and the actual subject matter is far more important than the shooting scenes or the action.  Ironic considering that I love action movies and avoid the rubbish romantic movies almost all the time.  But the truth is the action movies have a far more reaching depth than the romantic comedies or some of the historical dramas anymore.   The Duchess that starred Keira Knightley received a PG-13 rating with more sexual content and sexually charged issues, but failed miserably at actually covering the depth of the real Duchess of Devonshire and her impact on the British legislation and how her flamboyance and popularity helped shape her country.  Instead it focused on her miserable marriage, her husband's affairs, the only affair she was known to have had, and all this impact upon her.  The movie failed miserably in giving her any real credit about who she was and her triumphs.  Perhaps if they had covered more of her smart conversations that she had with many of the men of the time, prior to the women's right to vote in England, that would've received a rating of R.  Afterall, there seems to be a growing movement in this country that would turn back the clock on women's rights and how outrageous and offending a movie would've been that showed a smart sassy woman, so well loved and truly intellectually capable.  

Unlike movies about the female historical figures, Lincoln and J.Edgar received rated R ratings.  Lincoln has some amount of depictions of the Civil War and the battlefield tragedies.  The rated R rating for any of the political rangling would be completely out of place.  In fact, in my humble opinion, a movie of such strong historical value and so wonderfully directed and acted should've had no more than a PG-13 rating.  Our children can watch more terrifying stuff on the History Channel, the Military Channel and Cartoon Network.  J. Edgar likewise was a fantastic accomplishment, and although I'm not a DiCapprio fan, exhibited how much talent he has.  The only reason that J. Edgar probably received a R rating was because it touches on the rumors and very real possibility that Hoover was gay.  This is seriously the only thing that I could find that really earned it a R rating.  Was he gay?  Wasn't he?  Homosexuality still sends the damn ratings straight to R.  Even the funniest comedy that has very little, if any truly sexual content at all, The Birdcage, received a rating of R simply because of the gay issue.  Female impersonation is always funny--whether Tony Curtiss in Some Like It Hot, Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes in Too Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, or Robin Williams significant other in a movie version of La Cage Aux Follies.  But nothing, nothing, will get a rated R version faster.  Gay is still a four letter word in this country.  Anything that offends the myriad of closed minds always goes to a rating of R. 

Frankly, Band of Brothers which was a made for television, cable or not, movie series is far more gorier, graphic, and politically charged than Lincoln, J. Edgar and Gangster Squad combined.  And children everywhere could turn that on their television anytime around the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veteran's Day.  Let alone the dozens of times in between that the History Channel or their sister channels will play it as filler.  Historical value aside, what earns a rated R for most movies seems far too arbitrary.  Who in the hell do they have doing the ratings?   Supposedly random families like mine.  Are they always the same families?  Do they have a check sheet or do they just watch it and decide abracadabra R, poof G, fluff PG, oooo offensive R?  How is offensive defined? 

Do I really care?  Not really.  If I decide to purchase tickets as a parent for my 16 and 17 year olds, I don't care what you rated it.  I'm the parent and I'm making the choice.  If I purchased the tickets, then it's not your place.  Frankly, not even if I purchased it for 12 year olds would it be your business.  Of course, if they were 12, I wouldn't be offended if you only allowed me to purchase them for my kid and not a group that can't all be mine.  How do we draw those lines?  I don't know.  When I was a kid, if a parent bought the tickets, we were golden.  If one of our friends was over 17 and bought tickets for the group, no one questioned.  Should they have in that case?  Is the year going to be that big of a difference?  Most 17 year olds are hanging with kids their own age.  Is it really that traumatic of a cognitive difference of 6 months at that point?  No, I seriously doubt it.  I've observed my kids and their friends over the years.  Kids tend to surround themselves with other kids capable of the same level of thought overall.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but these guidelines and recommendations are not written for the exceptions but for the average. I'm frankly more offended that I was told I had to go to the movie with them, that as the parent I'm not allowed to purchase tickets for 16 and 17 year olds to go to a movie that is less offensive than what they watch on television or YouTube.  Let alone the response that I didn't have to sit with them, because seriously, then what is the point? 

The point might be that they don't want them responding incorrectly.  Well if they were raised correctly they won't anyway, whether I'm there or not.  They're not going to want to be evicted from the movies.  Is it because I need to be prepared to discuss the content of the movie with them if needed?  How many teenagers do you know that are going to discuss the content of a movie with their parents?  Teen years are about defining themselves separately of us.  Psychologists tell us over and over that the first 5 years of life are the most formidable for the personality development process.  The next five years define our role models--typically sub-conciously, our parents--and the role that the kids perceive that they play in society.  After 10 to 12 years old, our children will attempt to define themselves separately from us.  This happens until the late teens to early 20s depending on the individual.  This pattern is the same for over 90% of the population.  So really if a parent is willing to buy the tickets for the kids should the theater question it?  Probably not.  The movie ratings are guidelines and recommendations, not law.  If the kids turn out to be very young compared to the recommendations, who is responsible?  The theater, society or the parents?  We fail to hold parents responsible anymore, and in that failure, fail to trust the responsibility to them.  Technically, I don't have control over their actions whether I'm sitting right next to them, in the same movie, or in a different theater watching a different movie.  What I have is that I know the boys and their parents and I know what anyone of us would do if they misbehaved.  We would hold them responsible for their actions and behavior, because we've raised them right.  We expect them to apply those "right" concepts to their actual public actions and behavior. 

The argument might be made that our society is debase enough and we're trying to "control" how much more debase, lessen the "bad" effects, blah, blah, blah.  We're trying to "control" each other to our own opinion.  It's nauseating.  The movie ratings system is a recommendation and the parents should be the ones that decide, not some staffer standing behind the theater ticket counter.  It's absurb and insulting.  While I love the movies, I don't like someone changing that it's my decision as it was my parents' decision.  It's not the theaters, nor the ratings system, and before anyone goes there, we've already decided in the 90s that it is not Congress' decision.  Therefore, I'm not offended by being asked if I'm a parent, but I am offended that the theater thinks they should decide based on a recommendation from some arbitrary group of individuals that are unidentified whether the actual parents are capable of making that decision. 



Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Put that thing away or I'll get the Air Marshal

Seriously, I fly often enough that I've heard that said to someone.  The commercial flight ban on electronics started in 1991. Electronics have to be turned off during take-off and landing.  After 9/11, some electronics were ok in airplane mode and some were a "no-no" no matter what.  We can have certain items legally on after the plane reaches cruising altitude over 10K feet and the pilot comes over the intercom to give the "go".   Those certain items are part of the FAA approved list that was actually finally published in 2009.  Don't expect any government agency to move fast, right?  It includes anything in airplane mode that needs an airplane mode--like our precious cell phones, PDAs--iPads, Tabs and the such, music players and computers.  The airlines of course are offering "in air" Wi-Fi, albeit most at an extra cost.  The FCC recommended the ban in 1991, but very few of us are probably aware that the FCC has been urging the FAA to get off their perverbial butts and reconsider their rules on electronic devices.  In fact, the FCC asked them to re-consider previously, and in 2004, the FAA did "reconsider".  It took them until 2007.  No changes.  So the question then is really how much danger are you in?

One, consider that in the 1990s, cell phones were just becoming a new household commodity.  The phones didn't have all the fancy seach equipment for satellite connections and consistently cycling to find the nearest network.  No, those phones to our kids today would be little more than walkie-talkies.  They were expensive to maintain and most people didn't use them all day, everyday.  They certainly didn't do away with their landlines and substitute the cell phone.  In the 90s, the FCC recommended ban only extended to devices using the 800 MHz frequency range.  Pretty limited range when you consider that your 3G and 4G phones operate at 1710 MHz to 2690 MHz, depending on the phone, network, et cetera.  All cellular phones operate between 700 and 2690 MHz.  Funny thing is that aircraft communications operate either at low frequency--200-415 kHz (that's right kHz), medium frequency--2850-3000 kHz (aka. 2.85-3.00 MHz), high frequency--2.85-24.9 MHz, and VHF (the most common now)--108-135.9 MHz.  Huh?  There's not even a potential overlap of these signals. 

So why is it the FAA ever expanded these rules to beyond the 800 MHz range?  First of all they didn't even capture the ones in the 700 MHz range.  What was the use?  Well, about 6 months to a year ago, the FCC started asking the FAA to reconsider its rules again, and last year the FAA struck back with an interview on 60 Minutes with the Boeing engineer who wrote these rules.  Yes, a Boeing engineer in Wichita, Kansas.  In the interview he cited two examples of the supposed danger basically explaining that the search program most phones use.  It could hang up one of the antennas on the aircraft.  Ok, one.  The aircraft, any aircraft, is built with redundancy upon redundancy.  The safety of life factor for engineering any aircraft demands it.  Any system will have at least two antennas and at least one back up system.  But, if you have 200 people on an airplane, he explained, 200 cell phones (or more--hell, I carry 2, plus my Tab and iPod) could theoretically interfere with all of the aircraft's antennas--potential for disaster.  Hmmm.

Perhaps it's the engineer in me or the former aircraft electronics technician or just friggin' common sense, but bullsh*t.  First of all, the antennas that are passive wouldn't give a care if your cell phone is searching from here to Timbuk too.  Seriously.  Passive antennas receive signals--all signals technically, but it's the system that they're attached to that is looking for a certain band of signals and processes only that band of signals.  These passive systems take the hodge podge and through a series of electronic circuits cut down the signals retrieved by the antenna to the specific signal the system is looking for.  The flight systems for navigation are passive systems.  It receives a mishmash of signals because the antenna is a dummy, grinds it down to its one frequency it's looking for and voila--navigation signal.  It doesn't give a rat's butt about all the other signals coming in unless they are on the same frequency.  Note previous paragraph, not the same frequencies, not even remotely close.  Secondly, non-passive systems that send signals could be interfered with.  Ok, same hogwash.  Let's put it this way if every signal could interfere with a aircraft radio transmission you couldn't even listen to the radio while sitting on the tarmac.  Sounds overly simplified but it's a fact.  Consider something that a lot of people are more familiar with:  Police Radar.  The thing sends out a signal, receives it back and does some mathematical calculations to determine your speed.  Radar detectors pick up the signal and tell you "whoa there Charlie" with an annoying beep or some other nonsense; they are passive.  Jammers are devices specifically built to scramble the signal when it gets hit.  How?  It sends out its own signal on the same frequency.  Jamming devices have to be built for the specific radar you are trying to stop from catching you.  If they are not on the right frequency, the cop's radar will still read your speed.  Our cell phones, in theory, could act as a jamming device close enough to the antenna on the right frequency, but as we've established, our cell phones are not on the right frequencies. 

Frequency bands are regulated--at a global level.  Have been since the beginning of the last century, particularly after World War 1.  Radio stations that we listen to on our way to work have the same Frequency Modulated (FM) and Amplitude Modulated (AM) frequencies as they have for more than a century--yes, a century plus.  I mean honestly do you ever remember a new frequency over the 107 point something or under the 88 something?  No, of course not.  Those radio signals are picked up by any and every passive antenna on the planet in range, but they are sliced out of the processed signal because they are not in the right bandwidth.  So this Boeing engineer on the FAA board obviously had some proving to do.  Guess what?  They were asked to produce tests where these anomolies could occur.  Even more interesting was that they couldn't prove any of it.  Not Boeing, not other aircraft companies, not the FAA, nobody. 

I distinctly remember someone claiming that cell phones could ignite gasoline fumes at a gas station pump in the 1990s.  It turned into decals and signs all over every gas station across this nation stating not to use a cell phone in the area of the pumps.  In fact, the Sam's Club pumps in Wichita still have those ridiculous decals.  (Must've been a Walton kid that came up with it.)  Turns out that was hogwash and nobody knew it until a little Discovery television show, Mythbusters, came on the scene trying to blow something up with a cell phone.  You can still get a good laugh if needed on YouTube with them actually having to artificially ignite the plastic room they built because nothing they did with the cell phone worked.  The poor cell phone had been ostracized for its inability to protect itself from stupid people who shoot off at the mouth with no testing behind their little hypotheses.  In fact, the last time I was on the aircraft, I had my iPod going full volume and was reading on my Tab and never heard the notice from the pilot.  Neither stewardess even tapped me on the shoulder to remind me.  In fact, it was the shaking as the wheels made contact with the ground that made me realize--ooops, I didn't turn off my electronics.  The reality is with Wi-Fi in the air the pilots could put the planes on auto-pilot and could forget to pay attention to where they are going.  There is probably a more likely reason for a ban on electronics.  Last month there was actually an incident that made brief headlines because the aircraft staff was too busy on their electronics to pay attention that they had overshot their destination. 

The FCC has taken back their 1990-91 recommendation.  They've told the FAA to reconsider their previous recommendation and the currect FAA regulations.  The FAA wants no part of it.  Instead of worrying about the clowns in the cockpit playing Angry Birds, they will put all their energy into an improved list of "approved devices".  Even the staff on aircraft know it's all hogwash now.  I have a better threat.  Excuse me, Air Marshal, can you arrest the FAA for stupidity?  Oh right, the Air Marshals are governed by the FAA regulations too...and of course, I probably don't want that weirdo next to me on the phone yelling over their popped ears for the whole flight either, but hell, that's what my iPod is for...