Life Since the Baby Boom

During the pandemic, incidents of “air rage” skyrocketed. People refused to put on masks, and things sometimes got violent. Maybe you’ve seen some of this?

While no “problem passenger” profile emerged, there were some interesting statistics. Background characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, or even class of travel (first class, business, economy) did not predict unruly passenger incidents, yet groups of passengers traveling together such as sports teams, groups of workers, or party participants were identified as potentially problematic.

I don’t have an overarching social commentary to offer here. Air travel sucks nowadays. I think it’s declined in exact proportion to the way the Internet has, as well as journalism, movies, books, politics, and almost everything else. Cory Doctorow calls it enshittification.

However, anyone can sit at their keyboard and bloviate about what they see on the Web (as modern “journalists” do almost exclusively). What I like to do in all my writing is to talk about how things really were and are, and how they’re usually not at all like what you read. To do that requires actually experiencing things.

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