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Baby can't board
I'm not big on faux security but I can't say that I'm against anything that keeps babies and children off of planes. Apparently "every major airport" has prevented a child under 2 from flying because his/her name was the same as someone on the no-fly list.
Maybe I'm just being selfish but if I can't get to sleep on the redeye back from the West Coast because of a crying child, [joke has been deleted by the dignity of the author and he asks that you forget it was ever here].
Posted by Charles Star on 08/16/2005 | Permalink
Comments
For fuck's sake. Could you just report the news item and spare us your anti-child bullshit? I don't give a damn if you don't like children. I don't give a damn if you think small humans shouldn't be able to fly. Your comfort is not more important than someone else's right to travel. Put it in your personal blog, not the magazine's blog. Discuss the news item and then shut the fuck up. I'm sick to my ass of this inane garbage.
Posted by: cere | Aug 16, 2005 3:02:44 PM
"I'm not big on faux security but if it - coupled with injustice - means I can fly more comfortably, then I'm all for it!"
Glad to see you've got your priorities in order.
Posted by: boggled | Aug 16, 2005 3:10:47 PM
Personally, I like jokes.
Posted by: Steve Lambert | Aug 16, 2005 3:17:07 PM
Rats, I want to see the joke. Ain't no shame in not wanting to fly with screamers. Keep your spine strong, Charles, and don't cave to the pressure (and cussing) of breeder-centric pronatalists like cere, who writes:
"Could you just report the news item and spare us your anti-child bullshit?"
I'd sure love the mainstream media to just report news and spare us its pronatalist bullshit.
Posted by: Nina | Aug 16, 2005 3:49:18 PM
The person who said that children should be seen and not heard was only half right. If airlines wanted more kids on planes they would install more overhead storage bins.
Posted by: LaTreen Washington | Aug 16, 2005 4:30:01 PM
Forget the overhead bins. You'd probably still be able to here the little sods "fussing quietly". I think what's needed here is some wing space and plenty of sticky tape.
Posted by: Cluedweasel | Aug 16, 2005 4:44:40 PM
"For fuck's sake", you're all missing the point. Young children often exhibit erratic and unstable behavior -- classic indicators of terrorist activity. They should be kept behind a soundproof "security partition" at the rear of the plane.
Posted by: Damian | Aug 16, 2005 4:53:13 PM
p.s. Charles, perhaps you could e-mail me the "aristocrats"-style joke you must have had in there...
Posted by: Damian | Aug 16, 2005 4:54:30 PM
I have had to endure screaming hellspawn on far too many flights. Calling them "tiny humans" does not give them the right to disrupt an entire aircraft cabin. If their parents can't (or more likely won't) control them then they should leave them the hell home. Or maybe consider putting them in a pet carrier and stowing them in baggage.
Posted by: Old Fart | Aug 16, 2005 4:54:42 PM
Where are these children flying to? A job interview? A class reunion? An industrial seminar? If they didn't pay for their tickets, they shouldn't be allowed to fly.
I suppose one could be stuffed into a Sherpa carrier and allowed into cargo, if under the weight limit. But that means dogs get to sit up front, where they belong.
Posted by: Mischo | Aug 16, 2005 5:16:46 PM
Nina and Damian: I deleted the joke because it was hacky, not under pronatalist pressure or because it was offensive.
But since you mentioned The Aristocrats, Damian, I have an opinion about that also.
Posted by: Charles | Aug 16, 2005 5:26:31 PM
As a former child, I recall having to endure the endless, inane prattle of many adults, with their breath stinking of booze and garlic, their massive, scary pores and wrinkles, clumps of weird hair peeking out from everywhere, and that stench, oh that hideous adult-who's-been-on-a-plane stench!
So I say ban all those fuckers from planes. No more shreiking kids, no more boring smelly adults. Now we're getting somewhere.
Posted by: Jason | Aug 16, 2005 5:33:30 PM
You know what is always the truth? Those braindead miscreants who refer to their fucktrophies as "little humans" are invariably the big humans who think it is their intrinsic right to force the rest of the planet to endure the antics of their "little humans."
And my prior work experience also tells me that such miscreants are the first ones to get all profane on a blog, braying about "the RIGHTS of FAMBLEES" and the importance of Da Chiyuld...but they can't spring for a $300 seat in Coach to keep their little darling safe.
They are the most important thing in the world...that is, until their breeders have to shell out a couple hundred bucks for them. Then, it's Lap City, baby! (No pun intended.)
Posted by: Former United Airlines Stewardess | Aug 16, 2005 8:23:26 PM
For fuck's sake. Could you just read the damn news item, then go away if you don't like it and spare us your pro-child bullshit? I don't give a damn if you do like children. I don't give a damn if you think kids should be able to fly. Your opinion of someone else's opinion is not more important than his right to freely express his opinion. Put the pronatalist censorship crap in your personal blog, not the magazine's comments, then shut the fuck up. I'm sick to my ass of this inane garbage.
Posted by: erec | Aug 16, 2005 8:47:41 PM
Charles wrote: "Nina and Damian: I deleted the joke because it was hacky, not under pronatalist pressure or because it was offensive."
Then you'll just have to write us another, better one!
Posted by: Nina | Aug 16, 2005 9:08:18 PM
Children do not belong on public means of transportation, and neither do breeders.
I say drag them naked behind a truck.
Posted by: Pete | Aug 16, 2005 9:29:25 PM
Cere writes:
"For fuck's sake. Could you just report the news item and spare us your anti-child bullshit?"
FFS, I'm sick to death of entitlement-minded
breeders and their crotch crickets. I'm sick to death of constantly having pro-natalist views shoved at me. Could you just discuss the news item and spare us your pro-child bullshit? I'm sick to my ass of breeder's inane garbage.
Posted by: Caine | Aug 16, 2005 9:35:13 PM
Oh dry up, cere. You're no more tired of so-called inane garbage than everybody else is of whiny-ass breeders. Shut the fuck up yourself, loser
Posted by: Wade | Aug 16, 2005 10:04:35 PM
I feel obligated to make clear that intense loathing of children is not the official policy of Stay Free! magazine or this author.
Posted by: Charles | Aug 16, 2005 10:46:39 PM
Oh looky, Stay Free is run by BREEDER-PLEASERS!
What a fucking shock.
Please, all of you stayfree minipads, just die.
Or is it maxi-pads?
Posted by: Pete | Aug 16, 2005 11:04:44 PM
I travel for business a 15-20 times a year. I would really appreciate the pet carrier or "child room" approach. I can't tell of how may ruined mornings travelling with these glooping POS chewing on the seat in front of me giving me yet another cold while I try my best to ignore your poor parenting skills. Can't you make your kids sit the fuck down?
Going back 30 years... I travelled with my parents several times. They would not have tolerated anything like running up and down the aisles, blubbery snot running down the back of the seat (4 yr old as an example).
I had to *sit* there like an *adult*. What is wrong with that? Are kids that hard to control anymore?
Have you heard of Ritalin/Effexor/Adderall/Valium
That is all.
Dave
Posted by: Dave | Aug 17, 2005 12:00:28 AM
Hey, other people like jokes too! Horay!
Posted by: Steve Lambert | Aug 17, 2005 12:01:03 AM
WHY can't they put up a partition and put the childed and their charges into a soundproofed area. The last trans-Atlantic flight I was on contained a squealing toddler who literally did not shut up for more than 10 minutes at a time for over 9 hours. Why should a couple hundred exhausted, cramped, thoroughly uncomfortable travellers on long hauls be deprived of a precious few hours of semi-sleep because someone can't shut their child up. Idiot procreator: See your Dr. before you leave and get the kid some sedatives already. You and everyone else, including your kid, will be very grateful.
Posted by: Caelan | Aug 17, 2005 12:12:07 AM
The answer to this vexing problem is located -- hidden, some would say -- deep within the past. Back in "the day," children were actually mailed via the US Postal Service. This is not a lie, I am not lying, and that was not a lie. They weren't stuffed in bags, they actually rode with the postal carrier. This wasn't nationwide, and I can't remember the area/time in which it happened. Google isn't helping, either, but there was at least one webpage about it, and also a smallish author-published book, the type with those plastic comb bindings.
What could be safer than a child riding to his or her destination in the constant care of an official agent of the United States government? And surely some of those packages contain food, wouldn't you think? Let's open a few of them, no one will ever know.
The parent(s) get a few days sans child at their destination, the child inhales deeply the hardy scent of adventure, and the harried postal worker has a free junior gopher to boss around. "Get the letter!" "Throw all those rubber bands on the ground in a small pile!" "Kick the package! No, harder!"
Mailing children: Everyone wins.
Posted by: Anonmouse | Aug 17, 2005 1:48:40 AM
well, it's great to know that lots of people who frequent progressive/left sites & read progressive/left magazines can still act like UTTER MISOGYNISTS.
I too am annoyed by screaming children on planes & disturbed by our culture's obsession with fertility, but I don't think joking that people who have kids are/should be second class citizens is funny, original or okay. and I don't even want to have 'em myself.
we all know which people you're talking about, folks: women are the breeders.
children are a biological fact. hating on the people who carry and primarily care for them is some privileged bullshit if I ever heard any.
Posted by: colleen | Aug 17, 2005 10:15:54 AM
Equating women with wombs is misogyny. Letting fathers off the hook for their parental responsibilities while calling children a "biological fact" of being female is misogyny. "Woman" does not equal "mother."
Posted by: Nina | Aug 17, 2005 10:38:59 AM
The most embarassing thing about being a pro human leftist is that my polital peers have absolutely no sense of humor. Heaven (or whatever the acceptable afterlife name is these days) forbid anyone should make fun of someone else and teir sensitive little feelings and really, you selfish bitches and bastards, how dare you want to a few moments of peace and quiet on a plane ride you paid hundreds of dollars for when there are very special and perfect children who are totally PRECIOUS who have every damn right to scream because they are children and children and the future and you are worthless because you're an adult and doubly worthless if you're an adult who is not a mother. Shame on you! Ugh, I miss the old days when liberals were the fun people at any party and you didn't have to sanitize and sensitize every word out of your mouth for fear someone feels you're being mean. And what i love most of all is how vitupretive and venomous these people become when they feel aggrieved. Apparently the only time it's okay to use hurtful terms is when you don't agree with the holier than thou.
Posted by: jill | Aug 17, 2005 12:06:42 PM
Nina:
um, duh. that's exactly my point. children are a biological fact of LIFE and in our culture women have historically been the people to care for them both by choice and by force, thus whining about "breeders" and
how children bother you forces women who happen to have children into the role of "walking womb" rather than "people who happen to have children". is it coincidental that the slurs other commenters have used refer to birthing, which women happen to do? "crotch cricket?!" again, children are a biological fact of human existence, and expecting their parents to keep YOUR life 100% child free means you look at women with children as less than full human beings.
do you really think we'd be having this conversation if fathers, and society as a whole for that matter, were routinely expected to care for children to the same extent women are? women and children have historically been relegated to second class status in mutually dependent and interrelated ways. if you aren't aware of that, please do some women's studies 101 reading.
again, children are a biological fact. they will be here, and their mothers are not the only ones who should have to deal with them. that was my point.
Posted by: colleen | Aug 17, 2005 12:14:25 PM
"again, children are a biological fact. they will be here, and their mothers are not the only ones who should have to deal with them. that was my point."
I'm sure we all got "your point". But children are a choice. Pure and simple. There are FAR more means of birth control available to women than men. In addition, current laws make a man responsible for a child even in some cases where it is/has been/can be proven that the man in question is not the biological father of the child. THus, women have more options in controlling birth, and are largely not responsible (at least financially) for a child they brought into the world, because the law doesn't give a man the right to demand an abortion even though it DOES require him to pay up for 18 years. And since children ARE a choice, it only seems fair that those who make the choice should deal with the consequences of that choice.
We do it to smokers all the time. Smoking is a chioce that they made for themselves at some point. The price they pay is having to go outside or just not smoke in certain areas. By the same token, if a person (or couple) chooses to have a child, they need to recognize that choice for what it is and accept the consequences of it.
Some breeders fall back on the "it takes a village" argument at this point. Well, if that's the way you want it, then the village should get a say in who has children. That's fair, right?
Posted by: Charley | Aug 17, 2005 3:10:00 PM
I feel compelled to add, humor and vitriol aside; I don't think anyone in this thread has a problem with well-behaved children. I would posit that most of us don't have much problem with ill-behaved children, if it's evident that the parents are trying to control them or minimize their impact on the rest of us.
my problem is with parents who make no effort to control their kids, instead letting them run wild, either through indiffernce (including being numb to the keening wails that they hear every day, not realizing that others find it irritating) or through the active, indulgent blindness that renders everything their kid does as "special" or "precious".
Posted by: housepig | Aug 17, 2005 3:41:04 PM
Hold the phone, everyone. I don't want to throw babies into an active volcano or sentence women to a life of quiet desperation at home because they chose to have children. All I want is some fucking quiet on the airplanes. This conversation was amusing to me for a while, but it has stopped being funny. Chill out, people.
Posted by: Charles | Aug 17, 2005 4:13:00 PM
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