According to Claire Cain Miller's article, most people who lack cell phones are "older or less educated Americans or those unable to afford phones." Says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "These are people who have a bunch of other struggles in their lives and the expense of maintaining technology and mastering it is also pretty significant for them." So basically, if you don't have a cell phone you must have bad problems. Unless of course you're among the 5% of non-cell phone users who, as in so many other areas of life, become cool by simulating those with actual problems. These are the refuseniks.

They are neither too poor to afford a phone nor too stressed to learn to operate one. They just don't want you to call them. Gregory Han says, "It's a luxury not to be reached when I'm out and about." The writer/editor doesn't even have a landline, and when he travels for work he has to provide his employers with a detailed list of ways to reach him, raising the question of how he still has a job. Jenna Catsos thinks being reachable via cell phone is "scary," and prefers handwritten letters. But she's also only 22, so this sounds like an affectation of youth. She says she'll probably need a cell phone soon, because she'll be couch-surfing — maybe lacking both an apartment and a cell phone is too close to actually being poor.

Gawker helpfully categorizes the cell-phone refuseniks into a few groups, including "people who are so incredibly important that the world will bend over backwards to find them when it needs them" and "people who are total jackasses." In my totally jaundiced view, most refuseniks think they're the former, but are actually the latter. Not having a cell phone is like a much less dire version of not getting your kids vaccinated — you still benefit from other people's willingness to do what you eschew. Yes, not having a cell phone makes it harder for you to reach other people, as well as for them to reach you — but if all your friends have cell phones, you can always stop by a pay phone and call them, no matter where they are. Your life is made more convenient by other people's decision to allow the "scary" intrusion of reachability. Of course, there are probably those who barely even use pay phones, who find all phone conversation outside the boudoir to be beneath them. These are people like that dude who tells you how much he wishes he could spend a year living in the woods without the burden of human contact. Having to talk to you is really rough on him, and he wants you to know it.

As you might be able to tell, a few bad experiences have caused me to associate not having a cell phone with being a holier-than-thou dickwad. But. When I came to New York, I discovered that my phone didn't work in my apartment. After a fruitless eBay transaction — the next time I feel like buying electronics on eBay, I'm just going to stand in the middle of the sidewalk wearing a "kick me" sign instead — I sort of gave up, and resigned myself to keeping up with my friends via Skype, or while sitting in the park. It was kind of like the opposite of not having a cell phone — I could only talk while I was out. But since I don't hear very well, I didn't do much of that either, and my cell phone use plummeted. Then, last weekend, I found myself telling someone at a party: "Yeah, I don't really have a phone." He looked at me with a new respect, and I have to admit, I felt pretty fucking cool. Then the next day I went out and bought an iPhone.

The Cell Refuseniks, An Ever-Shrinking Club [NYT]
Cellphone Non-Users: An Ethnographic Study [Gawker]

• Cellphone networks in the UK have been asked to remove the numbers of pimps and prostitutes from their service before the 2012 Olympic games. Kit Malthouse, deputy mayor for policing, says the numbers can come to act as a kind of "switchboard," with multiple girls working from one number. • In other cellphone news, researchers have figured out a way to accurately track friendships using cellphones. Through implanting a number of their volunteers phones with software that logged their calls and recorded their proximity to other tracked phones, they managed to create a precise picture of the various friendships and acquaintances in their study group based upon their movements. • Katherine Nadal, the 28-year-old Houston woman who cut off her infant son's genitals in 2007, has been sentenced to 99 years in prison and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Police believe that Nadal was high at the time of the attack, and shortly afterward she tested positive for cocaine, methadone and Xanax. • The number of men taking child-care leave in Tokyo has decreased in the past several years, while the number of women taking leave has increased. The same survey found that men left the workplace for a much shorter time, with over half taking leave for less than a month. • While it's certainly a good thing that there are now more women in journalism school—in many programs, woman make up the majority of the students—this article, which claims ladies are more suited to "creative" careers like journalism, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. • A new study, to be published in the Harvard Business Review, indicates that there is no significant difference between the number of male M.B.A.s who were laid off during the first months of the recession and the number of female M.B.A.s. However, women have fared better overall, due to the relatively stable industries like health care and education, while male-dominated industries, including construction, have suffered. • Instead of hiring broke teenagers, thrifty parents are trading babysitting duties with their peers. Some parents are actually forming babysitting co-ops to widen the pool of free sitters. • Oprah's "power list" has been released in the latest issue of O magazine. The list, which is "heavy on politicos," features Lilly Ledbetter, Sheila Blair, Donna Brazile, and Melanie Sloan. •

Usually manufacturers just slap a coat of pink paint on when the marketing electronics to women. Sony Ericsson clearly put a lot more thought into its Jalou phone, which comes out later this year, but still managed to come up with one of the most insulting pieces of electronics on the market. According to the press release:

Sony Ericsson explored art, architecture and furniture trends whilst delving deep into the couture and fashion world to ensure Jalou encapsulates some of the hottest fashion trends which will emerge next year. Structured forms, intricate corners, hidden depths and jewel accents are set to be some of the hottest fashion trends in 2010... Jalou reflects these trends with its delicate facet-cut diamond shape design, clean and expressive lines and variety of different shine and matt finishes, that give depth to the handset.

Jalou is "encased in a beautiful facet-cut jewel form," just like the engagement ring we desperately want on our fingers. Apparently, the hot colors in 2010 will be Deep Amethyst, Aquamarine Blue and Onyx Black, but if you simply must have a pink one, there is a more expensive rose-colored Dolce & Gabbana edition (which comes with a silk jewelry bag). Plus, the phone is only 73mm long, which the press release explains this is "shorter than your favourite lipstick." (Sony realized that sometimes ladies get confused by math.)

Since Jalou "exudes style as well as substance," Sony Ericsson provides a list of the phone's features and how a stylish woman might use them. For example, you can use the 3.2 megapixel camera to "snap your favorite outfit and send it to your friends." There's a button that turns the entire screen into a mirror so you can "check your hair before a hot date," and the phone "automatically updates with zodiac signs," since all women are into flakey stuff like horoscopes. It's also the first Sony Ericsson phone to feature a BMI calculator and the Walk Mate step counter, "to help you stay in shape wherever you go."

But as Mother Jones points out,

Vanity, body image, and horoscopes aren't the only stereotypes Sony Ericcson made sure cover. Catfights will also be all the rage in 2010. Jalou is derived from the french, jalouse meaning jealousy.

There's nothing wrong with designing an attractive phone (or even liking the color pink), but like Dell and Memorex, the folks at Sony Ericsson seem to assume that female consumers care mainly that the phone is cute. Certainly women aren't using their cell phones to make business calls, read news on their web browser, or download stock quotes like a man would.

As mentioned earlier, electronics companies are still designing products for women as a niche, as if we're a feeble-minded minority rather than half of all electronics consumers. The European Information Technology Observatory just reported that mobile phone users make up 2/3 of the world's population, so some women must have already figured out how to operate a cell phone. Maybe Sony Ericsson should have asked some of these ladies why they bought the wretched non-jewel shaped phones they're using now, rather than imagining how to make this newfangled device simple and pretty enough for a woman to use.

Communicate In Style With Jalou, The Irresistable Compact Fashion Phone From Sony Ericsson [Sony Ericsson]
Dolce&Gabbana Design Special Edition Jalou For Sony Ericsson [Sony Ericsson]
Diamond Shaped Phones Are Girls Best Friend [Mother Jones]
More Than Four Billion Mobile Phone Users Worldwide [EITO]

Earlier: Memorex Launches Electronics Line By Women For Morons
Dell Discovers Ladies Use Computers For More Than Diet Tips
Della Website Suggests Marketers Don't Consider Women Regular People

Joey's intervention took place almost entirely over text messages, because he ran out of the hotel conference room where his family had been waiting with Ken Seeley, and would only communicate with them via text while at his friend Pizza's house. Pizza is Joey's drug buddy. When I first saw his name in the subtitles, I imagined him as a white guy in his early 20s who's maybe into reggae and wears dirty hippie junkie knit hats that look like giant old hacky sacks, and probably earned his nickname during the gateway phase of his current downward spiral, because he'd always be the first one in the room to get the munchies and suggest calling Domino's.



But it turns out he's a portly, creepy, middle-aged man with an injured nose, who probably earned his nickname from working in a pizza parlor.



He ended up being a central figure in this episode.









Pizza swore that Joey was not hiding in his house.






So it's OK, because it all worked out in the end. Joey is trying to learn the true meaning of "serenity" in rehab, but judging from his recent artwork, it seems like he's not quite there yet.

• John McCain announced this afternoon that he is suspending his campaigning and postponing Friday's debate to head back to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Basically, he's decided that it's more important for him to come back to D.C. to weigh in on a legislative issue on which he has little expertise than to talk directly to Americans about why they should vote for him in less than 6 weeks because politics should take a back seat right now. There's nothing political about that, nope! [Washington Post]
• By the way, John McCain's the most absent Senator of the 110th Congress, having missed 64 percent of the votes since January 2007 (more than Obama or Tim Johnson, who had a stroke). He missed voting on a number of pieces of Iraq legislation, the GI Bill, Medicare reform, the economic stimulus package, bills on the house crisis, FISA and the Lebetter pay equity act, among others. But, this, yo, this is some important shit right here. And it's just a coincidence that he tanked in the polls this week. [Washington Post, Think Progress, Huffington Post, The Health Care Blog, AmericaBlog, Tuscon Citizen, Writes Like She Talks]

• Barack Obama gave a statement this afternoon that was intended to be an announcement of the joint statement he'd agreed to about the bailout with McCain, only to get off the phone and watch McCain get on stage and tell the world he thinks they should postpone the debate. Obama didn't refuse to, but he thinks the American people want to hear what the candidates have to say and that the next President should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Advantage? Possibly Obama.
• A new Pew research poll finds that Obama does 2-3 percent better when pollsters call people who only have cell phones. Yeah, he's got your youth vote. In most polls, that's the margin of error, too. [US News & World Report]
• Even Fox News' polls have Obama up. [Real Clear Politics]
• Bill Clinton says he hasn't campaigned more vigorously for Obama because of the Jewish holidays. He should probably just shut up now and try actually campaigning. [Politico]
• Katie Couric's Sarah Palin interviews start tonight. Watch there, comment and cry together in frustration here. [CBS News]