Saturday, October 24, 2009

Free flights for baby and mother a bad precedence

A child was born recently on an AirAsia flight. To celebrate this, the airline offered the newborn and mother free flights for life. Does this not seem like it will lead to a load of cunning pregnant women to board planes when they are too far along with the hopes of scoring some free airline tickets? Perhaps I am overly cynical thinking that a mother would put the health of both herself and her unborn child at risk in the hopes of giving birth in the sky but, I think it would be hard to argue that at least some women out there did not read this news like a how-to guide.
All other airlines should produce a press release condoning these actions and reiterating their policy limits on how pregnant someone can be on their flights to preempt any of these attempts.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

How to end global warming the horrible way

Now I say all of this tongue and cheek. That is to say I do not necessarily think that this will work, nor do I suggest people follow my advice but try to see within the content the point that I am trying to make, which is, that by and large any problem in the world today is essentially the fault of the baby boomers. I am not forgiving the transgressions of people born prior to the baby boom nor am I saying those who are younger are all innocent and just hapless victims of the social and environmental ills we see but simply that as an over-sized group-I am referring to both their waists individually and their numbers en mass-of people who were among the first to wield an influence great enough to affect the whole globe that they are the ones who are most at fault.
It is our (assuming the average reader is similar in age to myself) parents generation who, benefiting from years of unprecedented growth-mostly because of a legal structure that ignored things like environmental degradation or human exploitation-learned to take joy in excess. Whereas our grandparents found social acceptance in being as frugal as possible-because of the depression or to help the war effort-our parents find acceptance in keeping up with the Jones. I am not speaking about my family nor about any individuals but rather about a demographic group. These baby boomers have managed to take all that their progenitor's squirreled away and spent it, along with their personal earnings and since that wasn't enough to satiate their hunger, they are now taxing the future as well. I laugh at middle aged people on right wing shows, like the programming on Fox News, who mention these issues when they speak about government bailouts while ignoring that it is their generation who is causing all of the problems.
Now my suggestion is simple. Withhold love to your individual parents regardless of whether or not you think they are to blame. Redirect all of your affection toward your grandparents because they were the models of frugality that perhaps the world needs. See how long it takes the leaders of your nation to enact government policies to help correct these problems when you are bartering with their child's love.