Here's a short list of tracks from my iTunes collection you might want to give a listen to. It ranges from the pounding, insistent techno beats of DJ Tiesto to the lounge-y, snarky pop of Ladytron.

"Flight 643" DJ Tiesto

"Circling overland" Front 242

"I'm with the pilots" Ladytron

"Jet Age" Ladytron

...and of course:

"Rhapsody in Blue" George Gershwin

"Flight 643" is a current favorite. Insistent techno-trance that for me conjures up the image of looking out the window at 33,000 ft and seeing another jet zip past in a perpendicular or opposite direction, reminding you of just how fast you're really traveling.

The biggest issue here seems to be with regards to age-appropriate venues. A well-behaved child can actually be a joy to be around. The problem is that behavior is a highly variable, unstable thing below a certain age and most parents seem to be loathe to factor the likelihood that their 2-year-old is going to throw a tantrum in the middle of the cafe/bookstore/$ESTABLISHMENT.

"Fine dining" is not the place for babies or toddlers, nor is First or Business Class on a commercial airliner and I am all in favor of a "family class" at the back of the bus for those who insist that their 3-year MUST see London at this time of year.

My parents very specifically did not take us into certain restaurants or other venues until they were sure that the chance of spontaneous misbehavior were quite low.

Conversely, it seems to now be all the rage to drag your newborn into Spago or growl "child-hater!" at the businessperson in the plane seat in front of you who just asked you to keep your little darlings from kicking their seat.

For those who cry that this would kill their uber-hipster lifestyle and they might have to settle for Chuck E. Cheese over Il Fornaio, I say tough! That's the choice you made when you decided to reproduce. Either accept the responsibilities and sacrifices that entails, or don't have them.

I feel the expression "It takes a village" has been taken way too literally by many parents these days.

Who pays for the Swedish solution?

The Swedes!

To the tune of 50-70% income tax rates . That's the price of a cradle-to-grave protection. The Nordic Social Democracies have a lot going for them, but they also have a lot that's not so great.

I was talking to a recent transplant from Sweden this summer @ a friend's BBQ here in SF. I asked him why he would ever want to come here with the current regime in power, the paucity of social services and the current fear and loathing that's gripped out immigration system. "Jobs" he said. "Here I can work. I can raise my family AND have a job". Over in Sweden, according to him, you work for Nokia or Saab or Ikea or you pretty much don't work.

And it's not like you're guaranteed a job at any of those places.

They're often just as much fiefdoms or more than any large American corporation. At some European companies, you don't exactly just apply and hope for an interview. You have to be recommended or appointed to apply by someone already on the inside.

At Maersk, job hunts you!

As for the subject of the article, I think that the answer needs to be that work needs to be more family friendly, not that it needs to be more tolerant of re-entrant "opt back in" moms(or dads).

Unless you're a Balinese salt farmer, you can't expect to just take off from your job for 10 years and expect to be able to just slide back into that fast track position you left or to even be current in your former field. Not even the software you used to write your resume is the same anymore. It's an open question as to whether Word for XP will open files(read resumes) created with Word '95 or (cringe) Word for Windows 3.11 .

It's not fair to the others who made the choice to stay at work and take over from where you decided to leave off.

As a previous letter said, the real problem here isn't a lack of flexibility or understanding on the part of companies towards "opt-outers", but the continued American drive to have everything we want with none of the responsibilities or consequences visited back upon us.

It's no business whether she was making out with a boyfriend or girlfriend. While the school may have a policy against PDA amongst the student body, this seems to be a pretty clear-cut case of singling her out for AdditionalPunishment.

And at what risk/cost to the girl? If her mom had reacted to the news violently and taken it out on her daughter, the principal could be up on actual criminal charges rather than just facing a civil suit.

This guy should be severely disciplined if not fired. Unfortunately, the Teacher's Union will probably pull out the stops to make sure he can weasel his way out of the mess he's made for himself and the school.

Kudos to the mom for reacting the way she did and standing up for her daughter.

It's good to hear that Boeing think that the old gal still has some life in her, she's truly a class act. Some of my best memories of flying commercially come from reclining in a business-class seat on the upper deck of a 747.

I've been up front, I've been in the back, nothing beats a seat upstairs.

The ugly vs. non-ugly thing seems to come down to the nose.

Boeing planes tend to be curved, rounded, and mostly symmetrical.

Airbuses are asymmetrical and dented or pushed-in.

A pug might be cute, but it's certainly not beautiful.

The Christian Right are the worst elements of our culture...

These guys need to get a grip and realize that the Bush administration hasn't really cared about them since November 3rd of 2004.