Some news links that almost warrant their own posts. If you need a theme here, how about meddling?
If you want to keep believing that it's not her parents, no way, Marla Olmstead has been a genius painter since she was four, the documentary, My Kid Could Paint That, which just debuted at Sundance. [nyt]
If your visits home are anything like Dahlia Lithwick's, you spent most of the time trying to ignore or undo your relatives' conflicting cures for the kids' cold. Then you came home and tried to turn your ordeal into a wiki so your great aunts wouldn't realize you were complaining about them in print. [slate]
With no mention of the luggage & car seat fiasco, the actual reasons for the plane delay, or the unsolicited parenting sermon by the ticketing agent, the AP's version of that AirTran-Boots-Toddler incident isn't even the half of it. Still, you gotta give AirTran credit where it's due: their craven corporate ass-covering while in the media glare is Major Airline Material. And it only cost them $1,200, too! [worcester telegram, thnx tulip & anastasiav in the comments]
Ok, now we have a different view of the story. Last night, although sympathetic to the parents' situation, I was in the airline's corner. But now... I wouldn't fly Air Tran either. I think dad and mom handled it far better than I would have. I would almost certainly be wearing an orange jumpsuit by this time.
Yikes, thanks to the link from my "hometown" paper. if you go to consumerist.com there are a few threads raging on and in most cases the parents are taking a beating. IMHO unjusttly especialy after reading the linked piece.
[no kidding. the bench for Team AirTran is getting mighty crowded.