Are you like me? Do you hate when you're at the theater or in a fine restaurant or attending your daughter's piano recital, or doing any of the things that high-falutin' folks like us do, and someone's cell phone rings right in the middle of the aloof isolation that you have bought and paid for with your hard-earned (but seriously, not hard-earned like in a factory or by cleaning rooms at the HoJo) dollars?

Well, innovation may yet allow us to still preserve our sense of righteousness without requiring us to have any uncomfortable conversations with our fellow man. The Chicago Tribune and other general news outlets are reporting today the aims of a company called NaturalNano, which is offering paint (yes, paint) that has been blended with copper particles through the use of nanotechnology, and consequently is capable of blocking radio signals from exiting/entering rooms, arenas and theaters that have deemed it necessary to coat their walls with it.

For those of you who haven't heard, nanotechnology perennially is touted as something that will change forever the way we eat, sleep, breathe and live, but somehow always seems to be just a little bit further off in the future. Maybe this time it's for real. Maybe nantechnology is going to solve a problem that really vexes society.

Or maybe we're looking for elegant solutions for problems that already have simple ones, or may not even need solutions at all. We are officially living in a mobile, fully accessible society, and it will only become more so. We shouldn't fight that. Any day now, pedestrians are going to be crossing the street while watching TV on their mobile handsets, and we better be ready to test the handling of our SUVs. Or the wife will be watching the ball game with her ear bud in, while her husband sits next to her watching the opera (What can I say? I'm so PC, I'm crazily PC), and we better be ready to accept one another for who we are.

Mobile connectivity is in every facet of our lives, and it needs to be. It can make us more productive, more responsive and overall more communicative with the world and the people around us. However, at the same time, we should be able to shut our phone off when appropriate. Our behavior as human beings has evolved to a point where we need to take some responsibility, and just say no to having the cell phone on when our attention needs to be elsewhere. We need to have the confidence to ask the person next to us to put their phone on vibrate (Who doesn't use vibrate these days?), or leave and answer it elsewhere. And that person needs to understand. And later, when we're in public somewhere and feel like we can scream at our kids or our shrink over our cell phone, maybe we should remember that episode, and should kick it down a notch and have a little respect, for the people around us and for ourselves.

The story about NaturalNano in the Chicago Tribune, written by FOT (friend of Telephony) Jon Van, mentions how the nano-paint might potentially be used in churches, so that ringing phones don't interrupt services. I've got news for you: If you've got your phone turned on in your church or temple or mosque or wherever you worship, your God, whomever He or She may be, has long since stopped smiling upon your path.

Nanotechnology can solve a lot of problems, hopefully. It doesn't need to solve this one. We do.

E-mail me at doshea@prismb2b.com.