Quadsville

My QCT column from yesterday. -mlc

If only online comment sections could be run like debate tournaments. I do my best to moderate the discussion on qctimes.com and quadsville.com. But what I think our online community needs more is a good debate coach.

After removing some nastier-than-usual exchanges this week, I Googled “debate etiquette” on a lark. I came up with the guidelines for literary debate on Masterpiece Theatre’s American Collection educator’s Web site. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I read the protocol and strategies sections. Here’s a sampling:

-- Questions or challenges should not be personal or insulting.

-- Don’t get mad — get even through use of logic.

-- Use formal language. Slang, name-calling or cursing makes you appear unintelligent and ill-prepared.

-- Choose your experts and sources wisely. One young woman who has had an abortion is not an expert on the subject.

-- Take time to read or quote the literature exactly.

-- Don’t sound patronizing or condescending. It doesn’t come across well.

Call me old-fashioned, but I just love the civility and the logic of it all.

The section on logical fallacies should be required reading for anyone wielding a keyboard. The post hoc, false authority and red herring arguments that permeate our online discussions are too numerous to quantify.

Perhaps it’s time to raise the bar for commenting privileges. Maybe that link in the confirmation e-mail users receive when they sign up for Quadsville should take them to an online crash course in debate tactics and etiquette. Successful completion of the course would activate the user’s account.

Oh, I can dream, can’t I? And I can hope our online exchanges will someday be held to the same standards as the contentions and rebuttals of smartly-dressed 16-year-olds.

My column for Sunday's Quad-City Times:

Wheezy: The President should be a leader for the country, not just for his party, and he made a step in that direction the other night, chastising both Dems and Republicans for their perpetual bickering.
Just a Voice: To scold both parties for not working together and then scolding the Dems for not pushing a particular agenda through because they have the majority and didn’t need the Reps, makes absolutely no sense. If a group doesn’t need the other group, there is no need to work together, which is exactly what happened. When he was scolding both parties as a whole, he was only providing lip service.

On Friday night, we walked from our house to the District and waited about 15 minutes for the clockwise bus. That was a cold experience. It was windy and sleeting. And since we had no schedules at that point, we had no idea when to expect a bus. We were very cozy once on board. It took a little over 15 minutes to make it to our stop in the Village, which is perfectly located by Lagomarcino's. We walked up the block and had dinner at The Bierstube and then saw "Fool For Love" at the Village Theatre. Then we caught the clockwise bus back to the District and walked home. That bus was 10 minutes late, due to a train in downtown Moline (potential problem for the Loop). One lady, who presumably had to wait longer than anticipated at her stop, said "See you next summer" as she exited the bus.

It would have been a quicker trip for us to catch the counter-clockwise bus on the way home, but since we weren't on a schedule, it was fun to see where all the stops were located in Bettendorf and Moline.

On Saturday night, we had one shot to catch a Loop bus and be at the Capitol Theatre on time to see Burlesque Le'Moustache (and not be there ridiculously early). The 7:26 bus was just about on the dot. We got off at the 3rd & Harrison stop, but noticed 3rd and Ripley - right by the theatre - would be a better stop location. The driver even said he'd had problems with male patrons of Shenanigans coming out and pounding on the windows when he stopped at the light at Harrison. Drop off on the east side of Harrison might be convenient for those going drinking, but with the next stop at the Adler Theatre, I think it makes more sense to have a Capitol Theatre stop instead of 3rd & Harrison.

Our bus home was also on time.

And now for my recommendations for making the Loop experience better:

The buses need to say "Clockwise" or "Counter-clockwise" on their outer digital displays. THIS IS CRUCIAL.

Heat lamps at the stops would be greatly appreciated. A bar in the District close to the Loop stop has one out for the smokers that we stood under while waiting. Made the experience much more pleasant.

Change the 3rd & Harrison stop to Ripley & Harrison.

Add the Loop buses to Metrolink's GPS system that allows you to text the code for your stop and find out when the next bus will arrive.

I think that's all, but I'll add others if I think of them. Did you ride the Loop? Do you have any suggestions?

It was pretty good exercise, too. Our original plan for yesterday evening was to go to the YMCA, as we rededicate ourselves to exercising regularly. But Gwen lobbied for sledding, and with the warm weather melting the snow quickly, we figured tromping around in the white stuff would be a decent workout replacement.

It was. You think those hills are steep when you're flying down them, but wait till you're trying to get back to the top. "Did I just drop off a cliff?" comes to mind when you look up at those intimidating slopes. I decided to run up most times. I don't think there was a time where I wasn't breathing hard, either from the rush of flying down the hill or the effort of getting back up. Miraculously, I'm not sore today.

That's the message the company is sending to China after it discovered one of the objectives of an attack on its servers originating in China was to try to access the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.

Google has now decided it will no longer censor search results on Google.cn. The censored search results had been controversial to begin with, but were a condition of operating in the country, which Google has done since 2006. It seems Google's philosophy was that it would get its foot in the door and as China's population continued to rise out of poverty, it would continue to push for less censorship and more freedom of expression.

Well, push has come to shove, and I am glad to see at least one company stand up to China on a human rights issue. It speaks volumes about where true power lies in the 21st century that Google is the one to threaten to pull its business out of China if it doesn't agree to allow freedom of speech, when hundreds of other companies and COUNTRIES have not even seriously considered sanctions to pressure China to amend human rights abuses.

Some people find Google's power to be a little scary and Big Brotherish in and of itself (anyone been following the crocs in 'Pearls Before Swine?'). But I'm rooting for Google on this.

What do you think?

But I cannot relate to the stories -- too many of them -- I have read recently about babies shaken and beaten to death or within an inch of their lives, simply because they wouldn't stop crying.

Teething, colic, gas -- any number of things can cause a baby to turn itself into a human siren. It's maddening, I know. But it's not personal. One thing babies do not cry for is spite. 

When my little girl went through a colicky phase, I asked the other women in my family how they dealt with the constant crying. One said she used to turn on the vacuum. Something about the intense white noise made her babies stop crying and fall asleep. Maybe it was sensory overload, I don't know. But I tried it, and most of the time it worked. (Unfortunately, I didn't have a vacuum then that had an air only setting and the brushes wore a patch in my carpet where I stood the vacuum while it ran.)

Sometimes, I would just have to put my little pumpkin head in her car seat and go for a drive. After a mile or so, she'd be out. And then I'd have to ever-so-carefully lift her carrier out of the backseat and tip-toe back up to our apartment without waking her.

If running the vacuum or going for a drive were not options -- like 2 a.m. on a 12-degree night -- I'd have to just put her down in her crib, shut the door and let her cry. I'd turn on some music or turn the TV up loud or just try to go back to sleep. Another thing babies rarely do is cry themselves to death. It may be painful to listen to, but if you're at the point where you think you might harm a baby, the best thing to do is put it down in a safe place and step away.

OK, parents of Quadsville, maybe we can help prevent some future tragedies by sharing more of our strategies for dealing with crying little ones. What got your kids to stop fussing? How did you help yourself stay calm?