The writer worked for the McCarthy campaign in 1968.

Incivility Is Not New

The premise of George F. Will's Nov. 20 column, "IPod's Missed Manners," is extremely flawed and quite silly. His thesis that "many people have no notion of propriety when in the presence of other people" because "multiplying technologies of portable entertainments . . . enable 'limitless self-absorption' and will make people solipsistic, inconsiderate and antisocial" does not make historical sense.

While cell phones and MP3 players may draw more attention because they are trendy, technology is not needed for "limitless self-absorption"; this so-called trend is decades old. Reading a newspaper or a novel in public or on the Metro has the same effect. Does Will equally decry these older technologies for having eroded our level of civility and as a result our civilization?

-- Milton Alan Turner

Cleveland