"There's a simple rule of thumb (it's basically the foundation of polite society): if your behavior, or your kid's behavior, makes others uncomfortable, then you're being rude."

My understanding is that proper etiquette--that body of rules that form the foundation of polite society--dictates that it is each polite person's obligation to make others feel comfortable. Shushing people, giving dirty looks, sighing loudly, whining about others to the flight attendants--except in extraordinary circumstances, all that violates the simple rules of etiquette as I understand them.

When my family flew to Hawaii on a very long flight, my high-school aged children felt very uncomfortable in the presence of complainers criticizing a young mother and her baby, and of a woman who was heavy breathing because she was assigned a seat next to a very overweight man. One of my children offered to switch seats with her, and felt really uncomfortable that this poor gentleman had been made to feel that his very presence was an imposition on what my family considered a VERY rude woman.

Some people really do require more quiet than others. A nice pair of noise-canceling headphones works wonders. They're electronic, so you're not allowed to use them during takeoff, but otherwise they reduce noise to very comfortable levels. For people who really can't stand sharing their space with strangers, noise canceling headphones and an inexpensive blindfold can put you into a pleasant little cocoon, separating you from the unwashed masses you are so much above, while giving you the impervious sensation that you, better than all the rest, understand and are part of "polite society." Or whatever. If you really are so far above the rest of us, you might consider buying your own plane.

I'm the only one in my family who went to college, and it wasn't until long afterward that I discovered that all of my siblings resented that my father had paid for me to go when he didn't pay for anyone else. Except that he never gave me a penny. My high school teachers arranged for a scholarship that covered my tuition and fees, my summer jobs and part-time jobs at school paid for my dormitory costs, books, and other expenses, and I had two choices of outfits to wear to classes, choosing my favorite for Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, and the other one for Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I'd always wondered why my siblings seemed to shun me. I encouraged both of my sisters to go to college (my brother was already fighting in Vietnam before I started college), and would have worked my butt off to help them go, but they acted like I was from another planet.

I'm an artsy, impractical kind of person, so despite working hard, I've never earned much, and we've mostly gotten by on my academic-type husband's earnings. So although we saved up enough to cover orthodontia and in-state college costs (my daughter went to an expensive private college, but her scholarships and grants covered almost all of it, so we spent less on her than on our sons), we don't have anything left except for our own retirement needs, and the kids don't seem to mind, even though they have some wealthy friends whose parents set them up in life. We've helped each of them with special projects or needs that the others haven't had, but not once did any of them ever ask for money for something while pointing out that it was somehow our obligation. But then, when they were little and we gave something to one of them, if one of the others had demanded something equal, s/he'd have been sent to his/her room. Equal does not equate with fair. I never had the energy or inclination to weigh out the value of our every thoughtful act and gift, and wasn't willing to play that game, period.

Contrary to the ridiculous nature programs on TV, with dramatic music surrounding every kill, nature really does have a lot of cooperation and long stretches when even lions and tigers and bears are laying around. And as someone noted earlier, animals kill for food, and for honing and maintaining skills, not for sex, fun, or profit. In captivity weasels will kill every single mouse you drop in their cage. That's because they're small and have a very high metabolic rate--they cache food during times of excellent hunting because in times of limited hunting, they would starve even if they missed just a couple of days without food. But even a captive weasel with a sudden, inexplicably unnatural food supply doesn't have a distorted killer instinct the way it is in, say, a man who on one single day shoots 70 pheasants and an undisclosed number of Mallards, and on another day shoots his friend in the face and then expects the friend to apologize to him.

There is at least as much romanticism about the brutality of nature as there is about the mythical "peaceable kingdom." If you want to see nature in action, you'll find it as easily in a chickadee flock, which typically includes dozens of other species all moving about in a cooperative band, sharing resources and defending themselves by vigilance and knowing when they SHOULD "cut and run," knowing predators are always about, but the more time and resources they spend focused on engaging rather than eluding those predators, the less time and resources they have to spend on feeding, singing, raising young, and living their lives.

God in Genesis may have instructed man to have dominion over the earth, but he also very clearly commanded Noah to save every species.