Excuse me, would you like a seat?

During both my pregnancies (and god and some pretty effective contraception, there won't be any more), I caught public transport pretty almost daily.
I can count, on one hand, how many times I was offered a seat on a bus or a train.
Admittedly, I am of the festively plump persuasion, so I can understand people's hesitancy in leaping to their feet lest I just be retaining chips, rather than a foetus.
But when I was eight months along and had 10kg of baby and amniotic fluid and guts and black stuff sticking out the front of me, it was kind of hard to miss.
And I'm not complaining (well, maybe a little bit). Pregnancy isn't an illness and I was still pretty fit and well, so perfectly able to stand for 20 minutes or so.
But it got me to thinking about people offering anyone seats, or opening doors or showing any other common courtesy.
People of my father-in-law's ilk use this as the reductionist argument against those crazy feminists who "won't let blokes hold the door open for them". The thing is BLOKES DON'T OPEN DOORS for anyone. Actually, NO ONE OPENS DOORS FOR ANYONE ANYMORE.
Besides which, since when are good manners sexist?
I was taught to think of people in a more difficult situation than you, and to do what was practical in order make their lot a little easier. Get up for the old lady on the bus, help the guy with the crutches off the train, whatever.
I can report though that the pursuit of shitty manners is an equal opportunity concern. I will always remember the day when I was on the bus about eight months pregnant, and two fat bitches (see the festively plump comment from before, so I can say that), watched, from the reserved-for-less-mobile-passengers seats (being fat doesn't qualify you, molls), as I helped a woman with her small child off the bus with her pram and they didn't lift a goddamed obese digit to help.

Good manners don't demean the "fairer" sex, they show respect for your fellow humans. And as far as I can see that isn't a gender politics issue.

Whine 'flu

My daughter had a fever yesterday, so naturally, I thought she probably had swine flu and imagined her little body hooked up to tubes and an oxygen mask in the ICU.
And here I am, edumacated media-aware journalist as victim of MEDIA HYSTERIA (which by the way is a misogynistic word because its origins are from the use to describe women's "unusual" behaviour).
I've probably got too much time on my hands (like my neighbour who patrols the street like a war-time volunteer should someone mistakenly pull into his driveway, or accidentally brush leaves into his immaculately concreted yard). I consume a lot of media. Radio on ABC all day, practically attached to my phone and the computer with a USB, TV in the evening, so it's very hard to protect yourself from overexposure to the same message. As well as the 24-hour news cycle which demands a fresh story for each update.
It also makes me think about how you control a message from a PR perspective as well where you have media champing at the bit for new information, and you want to give it to them without creating panic.
And from a consumer perspective how do you protect yourself from overreaction?
The democratisation of information is a truly wonderful thing, but it places quite the burden on responsible people to invest a lot of time and energy into getting balance and perspective from their information.
It's actually a pretty cogent argument for "real" journalism, that you need to be able to trust the source and information.
*gets off soapbox*

My daily Twittascope

Today, you will spend a lot of time reflecting... on yourself. The morning may begin with some strenuous physical activity you feel the need to share with everyone, followed by the inevitable gripe about work.
Later in the day, you may find yourself in the middle of a flurry of activity on the internet where you spend a lot of time talking about what you're doing (not much), which others find endlessly fascinating.
Watch out towards the end of the day, you might go out with the gfs and who knows, you could meet the man of your dreams... which you will document in minute detail on the interwebs. Or perhaps you'll just sit at home and watch a chick-flick (and Tweet all the way through) because you're sad.