Every once in a while, clicking on links takes me to some very odd articles. Like this one from Vogue. The story is a profile on Melinda Gates. Much of the article is focused on her ambitious goals to solve world hunger and disease. And then the article degenerates into this nonsense:

Bill and Melinda Gates live with their three children (two daughters, aged twelve and six, and a nine-year-old son) in an enormous mansion on the shores of Lake Washington that Gates began building long before he was even married. They are both deeply protective of their children”™s privacy but do as much as possible, given the need for a certain amount of security, to ensure that they grow up normally. “It is essential to them that those kids have as regular a childhood as possible,”? says Melinda”™s brother Raymond French. “They go to parks, have playdates and sleep-overs. Melinda is fierce about this. There will be no bubble for them; these children will not turn out to be Paris Hilton.”?

Okay, I buy how essential it is for the richest people on the planet to create a regular childhood for their kids. But then the kicker:

Still, being a Microsoft child does carry unusual burdens. “There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household,”? Gates tells me. “But iPods and iPhones are two things we don”™t get for our kids.”? Harsh, perhaps, but understandable. After all, it”™s hard to walk around tethered to merchandise made by your father”™s most famous competitor. Still, Gates acknowledges the inevitable lure of forbidden fruit. “Every now and then I look at my friends and say, ”˜Ooh, I wouldn”™t mind having that iPhone.”™”?