Tuesday evening roundup

Our first topic of the evening is... Droids! Shortly after my phone committed suicide in mid-March--upon spending over an hour on hold with United--I quasi-reluctantly upgraded to a smart phone. For the first month or so, to the great annoyance of everyone around me, I was like a kid in a candy shop with that thing. "Look! It makes honey badger noises!" Or, "it doubles as a solar panel!" (except it doesn't; that was a mean joke).

I got a Samsung Galaxy 2 ($10 with contract, baby!) and I love it. I like it better than the other people's iPhones I'd previously availed myself of. So you can imagine my apprehension amid the recent Apple-Samsung kerfuffling. The good news is, no one is coming to take our Droids. The neutral news is, Samsung made a bad bet and some hasty decisions that have come back to bite it.

Our second topic of the day is... kids these days! So those of you who tend to get indignant about these things can ready your indignation muscles, because the Times' Room for Debate on the topic has something for everyone. Here are some choice excerpts:

From Why I don't let kids in my bar:

Businesses have every right to dictate policy regarding children and strollers. Strollers can take up the space of three paying customers and create a hazard when left in high-traffic areas. Parents wrapped up so tightly in their new family world don't realize that their unruly children ruin things for those around them who are trying to enjoy a nice meal or a drink at the bar.

Common sense, right? This woman disagrees:

They think it is parents of young children who have become self-absorbed, but I think it is something else. It’s our society. It’s broken.

We no longer have any tolerance for other people’s needs.

Because people need to bring their children to a bar? And not watch them there while they trip other people? I blogged about accommodation yesterday. Here's her point of view on it:

It’s the same respect I show on the subway when I put up with people of all shapes and sizes who lean into my space or eat garlic potato chips and breathe my way. It’s the same respect I show when I walk down the street and move out the way for people on scooters or who need extra room. I help older women cross the street if they need it or stop in the cross walk for someone who takes a little longer than the light because they are slower. It’s called living in a society.

I, personally, don't feel the need to show respect to people who lean into my space. I give them the same dirty looks that I give parents who let their kids wreak havoc without even trying to rein them in. I also don't get scooters and don't feel the need to give them extra room. I don't think any of those categories are aligned with older women who need to cross the street. She goes on about how her kids have as much right to be on planes as everyone else. True enough, but rights come with responsibilities, and those of us sharing in small spaces like cities and especially smaller spaces like planes have the responsibility to make that shared, compact space comfortable to everyone to the best of our abilities. Your kid has the right to be on a plane; you have the responsibility to bring entertainment for it and try to quiet it down when it screams. I have the decency to cut you some slack if you make that effort, but I also have a right to glare at you as if you're evil incarnate if you don't. And it's not only for everyone else's good that you do that; this guy pretty much explains it brilliantly:

No parents want strangers telling them how to raise their kids. 

But children absorb and internalize how their parents behave. So what happens when a kid sees his mother hogging tight restaurant space with a gigantic baby stroller while anesthetizing him with portable DVD player playing at full volume tableside? What life lessons does he learn when this father lets them run between the legs of servers who are carrying bowls of hot soup? It teaches children that they can do what they want whenever they want and ignore the needs of other people.

and

Watching their moms and dads politely interact with other grown-ups in a restaurant teaches children how to say please and thank you, sit still and appreciate the hard work of servers and busboys hustling to make a dime. Indeed, a restaurant can help raise a child, but only if the parents teach and practice good manners themselves. 

But dragging your screaming tykes into a restaurant at 9 p.m. on Saturday night is inconsiderate: Leave them at home! Other couples are taking break from Dora the Explorer, trying to rekindle the magic which creates children in the first place.

Please understand that I want your kids to learn manners. By all means bring them out with you, within reason, but don't outsource the parenting to the people around you. Yes, yes, sometimes things happen and you can't help having to bring your kids somewhere they're going to be a pain. I understand. Sometimes we all find ourselves in tough positions (but babies at bars are not one of them unless you work at a bar). But the bottom line is that even if you must bring your kid to Barney's and you must also let your kid run around at Barney's, it's still up to you to make sure your kid isn't tripping everyone else up.

Next topic: just days after we talked about the benefits and pitfalls of seeking online medical advice, CNN has come out with a nice analysis on the matter. It echoes what I wrote about my experience: don't let the user groups freak you out.

Oh, it's been a while since I've updated you. It's now Day 12 and I'm essentially back to normal, except that I still feel the need to rinse with baking-soda'ed water after every meal and I still haven't reintroduced crumby foods to my diet (if I'm going to gain weight to assuage concerned friends, I'm going to do it by way of Newman's O's (non-dairy, mint)). Like I said yesterday, I still have a few pounds to spare, but in the event that those pounds come off thanks to my deliciously high-carb diet, and I make an effort to bring them back, the Newman's O's are going to have to wait another week or two.

***

Lastly but not leastly, the following conversation transpired in my cubicle today:

B.: Oh! For a second I thought that was the Kazakhstani flag.

 

(Pause)

 

A.: Huh. I've never gotten that before.

B. was referring to my (light blue) camping towel, which was hanging to dry (I biked to work and used it to dry off after showering). And it was momentarily mistaken for the flag of Kazakhstan. Who knew.