Re: [68ATTENDEES] Returning to Prague (was: Re: Hilton Prague)

At 7:39 AM +0200 3/25/07, Fred Baker wrote:

>  I have to tell you that the discussion on this list has been 
> interesting to say the least, and the amount of grousing about 
> things that are true everywhere I go (and BTW which are better in 
> Prague than they are in many places we have IETF meetings) has been 
> disappointing to me personally. You, John, have tried hard to be 
> reasonable in the statement of your concerns, but even you have 
> been a little biased in the direction of complaining about things 
> that are better managed here than they are in a lot of places I 
> travel to. Good grief; in Santa Barbara, my home town, a 
> non-smoking section often shares the air space with a smoking 
> section. I have issues with smoke as well. I deal with that by 
> choosing where I spend my money.

It seems that my attempts to be clear, reasonable, and precise have 
failed.  As I see it, the purpose of  holding an IETF meeting is to 
meet, that is, be physically present in the same room and do the work 
of the IETF.  The sightseeing, weather, restaurants, and so forth are 
secondary considerations.  When the  meeting rooms are so smokey as 
to preclude or limit participation, I think that is a problem.  This 
is, to me, a very different problem than a lack of non-smoking 
restaurants.  In Paris and Prague I was able to find at least a few 
totally non-smoking restaurants.  At an OMA meeting in Barcelona I 
was not able to, and after trying several times finally gave up and 
ate my meals via room service.  If I have to not venture out of the 
hotel, if I have to send my clothes to the laundry because they are 
saturated with smoke and it makes me ill, and I have to pay that 
myself because my employer won't, I'll accept all that.  But if the 
meeting rooms won't let me participate, I object.  If you think this 
is whiny and unreasonable of me, if you think I am trying to impose 
my societal norms on the rest of the world, then I'm sorry but I 
think it is you who are unreasonable.

California, by the way, as I understand it has a state-wide law that 
prohibits smoking in most indoor workplaces, included restaurants and 
bars.  So I'm curious as to which establishments in Santa Barbara are 
smokey?
-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly-selected tag: ---------------
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.                --G.B. Shaw

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