Not to denigrate Mr. Smith's observational skills, but the fluffy pillows are hardly limited to adolescent girls. Twice this spring, I was seated next to hunky college athletes -- a Yale jersey leaving EWR, another Carleton leaving MSP -- snuggling into their middle (!) seats with fluffy pillows.

And then there's the mythical Mr. Pillows, a high-revenue United passenger traveling to/from South America who demands (and gets) a crateload of pillows and blankets, plus a gallon of special (whole? unpasteurized?) milk aboard every flight. He creates a nest from the pillows and sips the milk throughout.

Wow, JuliaZ, I never thought I'd be cheering FOR the person who brought the seat-kicking-child onto the airplane! Way to go! I love that your daughter got to be the one to get back at the jerk, too.

And THAT is why so many people are bugged by people who recline. Like other posters have said, I'm very uncomfortable with the seat in a fully upright position. Somehow my head is shoved forward, and there's no lumbar support. So I'll recline a little bit just as soon as I can.

But I don't recline all the way back. And what I really hate are the jerks - often tall men with large upper bodies - who recline all the way back, put their hands behind their heads, and then proceed to LEAN back against their seats as hard as they can, forcing the seat back to bounce into my lap. Do they really think they can make the seat recline further, or are they trying to break something, or are they just jerks?

Speaking of jerks, I can't believe someone would complain that a baby SHOULD be in a parent's lap. No child should be in a lap - everyone on a plane should have a ticket and a seat. That lap-baby thing certainly ranks in the top ten of the stupid things airlines do. Do people really care so little about their children's safety that they'll risk the kid's life to save a few hundred bucks?

And I'll avoid getting started, for now, on how much it sucks that someone can carry a 2-year-old baby in their lap, but I can't buy a seat for my dog.

We once flew cross-country, my daughter and I, and had a hellish flight (usually it's a little better than hellish). :-) She was 1.5 years old and still quite small, so I had purchased a seat for her, and as required by FAA regulations, installed her car seat in the seat I'd purchased next to the window. We pre-boarded so that it would be easier for me to install the carseat without disturbing anyone.

Eventually, the plane was full. As soon as we took off and reached cruising altitude, the man in front of my daughter slammed his seat back. In addition to the recline, he was big and heavy, and the seat back was literally crushing my daughter's knees. I asked him nicely if he could not recline his seat since he was hurting my daughter. "NO. She should be on your LAP" was his response.

I explained to him that I PAID over $200 for her seat and she had a right to use it. "I don't care". I called the flight attendant and explained the situation. She asked him to raise his seat and he again refused. She offered to change his seat with someone else, and he perversely refused that too. The flight attendant told my daughter that she would get some help, and left to get reinforcements.

She came back with the lead attendant who told the man to raise his seat or he would be removed from it and from the plane at the closest airport. He then raised his seat about 2" and said "That's all I'm going to do." The attendant said "All the way, sir" and it was raised maybe another inch, NOT all the way.

I let my daughter kick his seat more than a few times, something I would ordinarily NEVER allow. I explained loudly that I knew she needed to stretch her legs and that I was sorry that the mean man in front of us didn't care if he hurt her. And I left her sneakers on, too. WHAT A JERK.

It's not always the people traveling with children who make things unpleasant for everyone around them, and sometimes the grown-ups are not as well-behaved as the children. I would be thrilled if it were impossible to recline an economy seat after our experience on that flight.

U.S. Embassy Jakarta

U.S. Consulate General Surabaya

Warden Message

April 17, 2007

Indonesia has suffered a series of serious aviation incidents and accidents in recent months that raise questions about the safety practices of Indonesian air carriers and their oversight by the Indonesian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). On April 16, 2007, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it had revised Indonesia’s safety oversight category from Category 1 to Category 2 due to serious concerns about DGCA’s safety oversight and operational control systems. Category 2 indicates that the FAA has assessed the Government of Indonesia’s Civil Aviation Authority as not being in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aviation safety standards for the oversight of Indonesia’s air carrier operations.

Okay, Patrick. Give us something worthwhile to chew on. Your thoughts?

Patrick,

I'm very excited about the prospect of airline jargon. Please include some of the more frequently heard expressions in radio transmissions. I'm a channel 9 junkie, thanks wholly to your column, and I think I have a pretty good feel for what all the terms mean -- however having an expert clarify those terms would be great.

And, as a final request, please list the airliner lingo alphabet ("alpha, beta, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot..").

Thanks,

I have a certain amount of respect for Patrick because of the common sense and balance he has shown in the past, but I am sorely disappointed that his fatigue in composing his latest missive has precluded the exercising of any kind of reasoned analytical approach to cerebral games in his latest article.

Comparing Sudoku to Crossword Puzzles is like comparing bicycles and canoes. A more accurate comparison would have been to compare Sudoku to those logic puzzles that ask you to deduce which house Mrs. Smith lives in if she has a green car, yellow dress, and sews doilies for her hobby and which color of truck Mr. Shapiro drives if his house is brown, Ms. Sanjay takes the bus to work, prefers oranges over strawberries... well... you get the idea.

Sudoku is a simple form of puzzle designed to exercise a person's logical thinking skillset while a crossword is a simple form of puzzle to exercise a person's memory skillset. Those of us who want to improve, and maintain our thinking ability, as well as avoiding the onset of Alzheimer's Disease, will use and enjoy both. For what it's worth, Sudoku can be played with more than just numbers. In fact, you can use 9 of anything to populate the appropriate 9 squares in each of the nine squares.

But comparing Sudoku to Crossword puzzles as if they were just the same sort of game is just wrong. It would be a lot like comparing a Nepalese Yak herder to... a pilot ?

- ejb -