OK, I don't want to sound like a shill for Tara Parker-Pope, but I've come across another posting that set off a round of reader reaction. She writes about a psychological interpretation of people's crude behavior on airplanes -- about whether it means folks are retaliating against the cattle-car pressures of airline travel today.

Well, people started writing in with stories about what they've found in the seat-pocket in front of them -- it ranged from clipped toenails to used diapers and air-sickness bags. The discussion evolved into treatises on airline cleaning inadequacies, unhelpful air attendants, and the advantages of having babies and small children travel in a sealed, sound-proof compartment on planes.

Phew. Airline travel always touches a nerve, with everyone eager to tell their own horror story. I had found some curious things left by prior passengers in the seat-pocket in front of me, but nothing so horrible that its burned the memory into my brain. Probably a squashed, half-eaten sandwich was the worst thing.

It does raise the question, though, of where the chicken and egg is in this decline of civility. Have people started behaving more badly because air travel has become more irksome, or has air travel become more irksome because so many people have started behaving badly?

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