escalator enchantment

I am fond of airports.
They are full of entertaining people.

I was sitting near baggage claims yesterday, between an octogenarian having issues with his razor phone and a young family with a curious four year old and a barely walking two year old.
The four year old distracted me from my book, calling out, "Mommy, canidoitagain? Mommy, canidoitagain?"

I started watching the little boy who, on receiving permission from his mother, pulled his father towards the down escalator. He jumped excitedly onto the first step. A couple minutes later, the father and son appeared on the up escalator.
"Mommy, canidoitagain? canidoitagain?" The boy jumped up and down, like a puppy waiting for a treat.
This time the mom carried the two year old and took the escalator ride with her boy.
As soon as he stepped off the up escalator, he looked at his mom. "Canwedoitagain?"
And they did.

all of my life in a rectangle

This is the most interesting thing I have read in the news since Spitzer's sex scandal.

Nokia and other phone companies are attempting to design phones for those in the world who do not have them yet: the poor and rural. A human behavior researcher for Nokia conducts research by asking passers-by to sketch a design of what they would want in a phone. These are some of the ideas he's seen:
"One Liberian refugee wanted to outfit a phone with a land-mine detector so that he could more safely return to his home village. In the Dharavi slum of Mumbai, people sketched phones that could forecast the weather since they had no access to TV or radio. Muslims wanted G.P.S. devices to orient their prayers toward Mecca. Someone else drew a phone shaped like a water bottle, explaining that it could store precious drinking water and also float on the monsoon waters. In Jacarèzinho, a bustling favela in Rio, one designer drew a phone with an air-quality monitor. Several women sketched phones that would monitor cheating boyfriends and husbands. Another designed a “peace button” that would halt gunfire in the neighborhood with a single touch."

I want a phone with an albuterol inhaler, and a downloadable book that reads like paper.

rice

1. When I eat asian food with Americans, an equal amount of rice and stir-fry is consumed.
When I ate asian food in the Philippines, I would be dished up with mostly rice while the stir-fry fought for space on my plate.

2. The people who depend on rice as an stomach-filler use it because it is inexpensive.

So what happens when a food staple, made so by its availability and cheapness, becomes "expensive?"