Santa Fe man demands half a mill for being near iPhone
Apple a day evidently not keeping the doctor away
Arthur Firstenberg is suing his neighbour for $530,000 for refusing to switch off her iPhone, claiming that the electromagnetic fields generated are destroying his health.
Not only does Mr. Firstenberg want the iPhone switched off, but he also reckons that leaving the iPhone and a laptop charging overnight is denying him the sleep he so badly needs, according to the filing spotted by the Santa Fe Reporter. This is apparently why his half-million claim includes $100,000 for pain and suffering.
Mr. Firstenberg isn't new on the Campaigners-Against-Stuff circuit. We reported back in November 2008 how his Cellular Phone Task Force was campaigning to have the government pay for EMF-Free zones where fellow sufferers could hide out.
Since then, he's been trying to find some fellow sufferers and has been running advertisements asking people if the switch off of analogue TV has made them ill. Well, he's asking if the switch on of Digital TV is making them ill, but he waited until analogue was switched off to ask the question - apparently with some success, despite the ridicule of hardened conspiracy theorists.
Apparently, this time it's not just that the iPhone and laptop themselves that are causing problems. The filing alleges that shared wiring between the adjacent houses somehow transmits signals through the walls, "intensifying his exposure".
The Santa Fe Reporter has the filing in full, but we can't help feeling that people like Arthur Firstenberg just give everyone with irrational fears about new technology a bad name. ®
COMMENTS
Embarrassed
I live in Santa Fe, we consider Arty a nut job as well, but he won't go away. He lives not too far from me and I make sure he sees me on my Android or blackberry or what have you. I just wanted to say we're all not nuts in Santa Fe.
Say!!
This LessEMF clothing looks like it'll do the trick! woven from conductive threads and whatnot.
Also looks pretty comfortable too!
Say, is that thunder I hear?
KERZERT!!
Yep.
God bless America
So many nutters in one place. You gotta love 'em, not only do they think that they live in the land of the free but they provide so much entertainment to the rest of the world.
And so...
Like the peanut-allergic causing nuts to be banned on all flights, you would have all electronic technology banned so you and your ilk can perpetuate your weak genes. Seriously, I (and LOT of others) are sick of these allergic-to-everything minorities demanding impositions on the whole of society because 0.001% of the population has a problem with something. Guess what? A century and a half ago, a gentleman by the name of Charles Darwin posited a scientific principle that held that lifeforms with genetic properties that prevented them from adapting to changes in their environment became extinct through a process he called "natural selection". What you have is what is called a non-survival trait. You are destined for extinction because you can't adapt. The world isn't going to stop changing so that you and your maladaptive genome can survive.
Now please to die and fossilise so the world can continue evolving and future paleontologists can study your remains and speculate on what might have caused such an aberrant creature to evolve.
All you need to know about EMF sensitivity...
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/12/72265
I particularly like the refernce to Compulsive Risk Assessment Psychosis.
I seem to remember an article in New Scientist saying that in controlled conditions it was simply impossible for the supposedly afflicted to tell whether they were being subjected to such fields with any better than a 50/50 chance of success.
Give 'em an MRI and see what happens...
