I like this image a whole lot. It was made by Callie Shell and appears in the TIME.com slideshow of Obama's First 100 Days with the following caption:
All who enter the Oval Office, Roosevelt Room and Cabinet Room are asked to leave their mobile devices in baskets like these, stationed around the West Wing.
It's tempting to read the photo as one of those "So it has come to this?" commentaries on the dominance of technology in our lives. Indeed, technology has changed everything. Or has it? The little system the White House has devised here is so civilized one might almost describe it as mannerly. They provide not a box, not a locked cabinet, but a basket. And that basket comes with a polite note requesting your compliance, complete with a calligraphic Thank You. The sticky notes are a lovely vernacular addition to the system; they all look alike, these devices do, and you wouldn't want someone to go Blackberry picking in that basket and wander off with the wrong fruit. Best to leave your Post-It calling card.
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