Re: [Mtgvenue] comments on draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-04

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

Hiya,

On 30/01/17 16:47, Mary Barnes wrote:
> I'm for obvious reasons, focusing on this one particular point:
> 
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 10:10 PM, Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]
>> wrote:
> - 3.5, "health/religion related diets": I think this ought
> only be important and not mandatory. I fully understand why
> those affected would disagree but IMO promoting this to
> mandatory would be paying too much attention to reasonable
> people who are noisier than other reasonable people.
> 
> So, I am clearly one of the noisier people on this 

Yep:-) And as I said, reasonably so.

> and have been for almost
> 9 years now since we ended up at a venue where lunch arrangements precluded
> a not insignificant number of us (albeit a minority) not being able to eat
> lunch - the hotel didn't accommodate us and there were no nearby grocery
> stores.   Perhaps, we ought to change the word "health" to "medical". In
> the US, food allergies and diseases like celiac are considered invisible
> disabilities and are covered by the American Disabilities Act (you know the
> one that requires wheelchair access).   And, yes, the laws are not the same
> worldwide, but this is by way of an example that this isn't a trivial issue
> and while some of us are noisier, there are a lot of less noisy reasonable
> people that also find this to be a very important issue.
> 
> The dietary restrictions are not a choice for some of us.  As I've said
> umpteen times before, the alternative if the venue doesn't ensure we can
> get safe food is that we have to hope that we have been lucky enough to get
> the contraband we pack in our luggage through customs.
> 
> I realize it's hard to grok this issue if you are not directly impacted,
> but I would love for folks that don't think that people being able to find
> sufficient safe food during the week is mandatory to spend a week eating
> only the foods that they pack in their luggage.   I usually bring 2 lbs of
> pumpkin seeds and 8 oz of raisins strategically distributed amongst my
> suitcase, backpack and jacket in the hopes that I'm at least left with
> something if my luggage is searched.    And, I bring another pound  of nut
> based granola and some dried blueberries along with almond or coconut milk
> powder.  And, I have some spirulina, carrot and beet powders.   If you
> calculate the calories, I likely could survive on what I bring with me but
> that depends entirely on it not being confiscated.
> 
> And, yeah, you might think it an impossibility that we couldn't find safe
> food, but for some of us with medical conditions, cross contamination is a
> big problem.  For some of us the reaction is like a bad stomach flu with a
> very strict limitation as to how far you can be from a bathroom for days at
> a time.   How would you feel knowing that you had a choice of eating from
> your luggage or spending a week at an IETF meeting with a stomach bug never
> getting too far from the bathroom or even your hotel room?

So I've no problem with medical issues (as in your case)
being mandatory or treated at the same level as
accessibility or whatever is correct.

I don't however think the same applies to cases where the
dietary restriction is a choice. That's not because I
want to make anyone's life harder, it's just that I think
there's a slippery slope there of choices that people
could make.

And my mention of noise is down to my impression that
many of the times we discuss issues such as yours, that
gets conflated with cases that are down to personal
choices.

Cheers,
S.

> 
> Regards,
> Mary.
> 
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
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