Alright, it's maybe not the worst situation in the world, but we just got back from two weeks in Hawaii on holiday and I experienced a distressing situation on the five hour flight back from the Big Island to San Francisco (where we overnighted): an abusive parent and her child in my row of the plane.

As is common with airlines, we booked months in advance but couldn't get our five seats together, so we had three seats in one row, one seat immediately ahead of it, and one seat two rows ahead of that. Not so good when we're traveling with the kids, needless to say, but since K-'s now two, we have to buy her a seat too.

We decided that we'd arrange it so that Linda and all three kids were squished into the three-seat row (with the baby on her lap to hopefully sleep) and I'd be in the row immediately ahead.

But when we were all trying to settle into our seats, I was joined by a heavyset native Hawaiian woman and her five year old (I'm guessing) daughter. Her daughter promptly stood on the chair to look over and meet our kids and the Mom...

I realize that we're an outlier in the entire TV and media discussion because we don't watch any TV at all. That's right. When they're deathly sick we might okay a video once in a blue moon, but I estimate that our three children, ages 2, 6, 9, watch less than twenty hours of TV/movies annually, and zero video or computer games.

Usually when I tell people that they gasp and act uncomfortable, immediately trotting out rather daft rationalizations for why the hour or two of daily TV their own children watch is educational, important, valuable or otherwise important. I mean, we wouldn't want our six year old to miss an episode of American Idol, would we?

Frankly, being a no media family works really well for us. Our kids are active, sporty, creative and artistic, and always seem to find things to fill the time, whether it's bicycling, skateboarding, playing on the swings, drawing, reading books, or finding neighborhood kids to play with. It works for us. This doesn't mean, however, that I think it can work for all families.

With that said, it was darn interesting to read the latest statistics from the recent Kaiser Family Foundation's research entitled The Media Family. According to that study (as reported by David Kiley in BusinessWeek)...

i realli do not like the way i am being treated in my team .... i am a guy who do all the disgusting suppoer taskssss... i am not blaming for the heavy workloads.... how to say .... i am a 'helpful' person in my team .... if 'THEY' do not hv time to finish any easy stuff..... then they will ask me to do for sure.... 'THEY' will discuss, talk and work together ..... but i am alone and work at the corner of the office.... i feel like i am not being trusted.... my ability is being doubted....... the feeling is not good.... hahah... it is not the real case... coz 'THEY' , my superviser, Loren, and teamate carmen, are better friends..... so... sign .... realli not know how to sayyyy .... just weird feelingggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg...........