Ring Rage

It appears that Bloomberg's New York is going to give Giuliani's New York a run for the title of "most stringently controlled big city." From an unbelievable story on NPR (listen to it at the top of the page - the interview is pricelesss):

If there's one thing you can't get in New York City, it's silence. But some legislators think that New York has heard too much of one sound in particular: cell phone ringtones. The city's Center for Reduction of Noise Pollution issued a public call to action last month, citing an increased number of confrontations spawned by a new phenomenon: It's called "ring rage," and it involves strangers getting into fights over obnoxious cell phone ringtones.

So what's the proposed solution? Everyone in the city has to use one of four city-supplied
ringtones - no other tones, rings, or sounds allowed! I wonder about the penalty for violating the ordinance.