Originally Posted by The Wonk

Don't know if this is a sign of 4T but it is a sign of the new jittery zeitgist.

Each summer in the DC area (and probably other urban areas), if air pollution is particularly bad (typically on a very hot, humid day), EPA will issue a "red alert" discouraging people from going outside and our Metrobus will take riders for free.

Well, summer is fast approaching, and our Homeland Security guys and law enforcement personnel are worried about the reaction of a jittery public on the next "red alert" day. Will we have panic in the streets the next time it hits 95 degrees? :o

Of course, the way this Spring weather has been, I'll be surprised if we ever hit 80 degrees!

Very interesting. Will the public be more concerned about security or the environment? A 4T indicator to be sure.

In NE Ohio they call them "ozone alert" days, but we don't get free bus service.

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

One of the signs of a 3T-4T transition is supposed to be a cleaning up of the culture. Does what this article describes qualify?

Yup. As does the marked decrease in the number of R-rated films over the same period. Even with those, the R rating is usually earned by violence and utterances of profanity (especially the F-word), rather than by depictions of sexual activity.

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

One of the signs of a 3T-4T transition is supposed to be a cleaning up of the culture. Does what this article describes qualify?

Yup. As does the marked decrease in the number of R-rated films over the same period. Even with those, the R rating is usually earned by violence and utterances of profanity (especially the F-word), rather than by depictions of sexual activity.

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

One of the signs of a 3T-4T transition is supposed to be a cleaning up of the culture. Does what this article describes qualify?

Yup. As does the marked decrease in the number of R-rated films over the same period. Even with those, the R rating is usually earned by violence and utterances of profanity (especially the F-word), rather than by depictions of sexual activity.

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

One of the signs of a 3T-4T transition is supposed to be a cleaning up of the culture. Does what this article describes qualify?

Yup. As does the marked decrease in the number of R-rated films over the same period. Even with those, the R rating is usually earned by violence and utterances of profanity (especially the F-word), rather than by depictions of sexual activity.

http://www.thesunlink.com/redesign/2...s/153924.shtml

This is a clue that the United States might be in 3T.

So, let me see. Boomers are still mostly established in Midlife, Xers seem to have left Rising Adulthood and are entering Midlife, while Millies are entering Young Adulthood.

BOOMER TOYS
Rebels with Disposable Income

Boomers buying the toys that they always wanted

Greg Schneider
The Washington Post

May 21, 2003
Stop, hey, what's that sound?

It's Dad's cartilage creaking as he gets off his Harley.

The young motorcycle tough of American mythology has matured: Less Easy Rider and more easy-fit Dockers, the median customer for Harley-Davidson Motor Co. is now a 46-year-old man.

He finally has the disposable income to feed his inner Steppenwolf, and he's not stopping at just motorcycles. As the Summer of Love evolves into the Autumn of Viagra, baby-boomer males are buying all the cool toys they couldn't afford as kids: electric guitars, model trains and other talismans of their eternal youth.

It's good for commerce, and it has created some entirely new markets. But for some companies, it also raises questions about how to sustain business into the future. After all, the boomers only think they're going to live forever.

"That could be a problem, as far as those guys going away," said Andy Edelman, vice president for marketing at MTH Electric Trains. "A lot of our business is baby-boom men basically rekindling their memories."

These days, Harley dealerships feel a little like Pottery Barns with leather. At East Coast Harley near the Quantico (Va.) Marine Corps base, bikes sit in a line near racks of Harley boots (starting around $100), Harley Motorclothes and Harley cat toys. It's a lifestyle as much as a product.

Bill Richardson, 47, regional sales manager for a pharmaceutical company, just bought his seventh Harley at East Coast, and this one is the big enchilada: a Road King, $25,000 worth of chrome and rumbly power.

"It kind of looks like a late-'60s police motorcycle," Richardson said. "I've just always liked that style."

Richardson used to buy any junk motorcycle he could afford but quit riding while his kids were growing up. A few years ago, he realized that "my financial situation had improved to where I could finally get what I wanted, which was a brand-new Harley," so he did. Now Richardson worries that he represents a dead end for the Harley mystique.

"When I first started into buying Harleys, it was an eclectic group -- you had people with money, but you still had some of the original biker guys left over," he said. "As it progressed, the bikes got more expensive, and you kind of lost some of the biker guys who couldn't afford $20,000 for a bike. I think Harley needs to pay more attention to developing a younger customer base, or else they're going to die off with us older guys."

In a 1998 rider survey, the median customer industry-wide was 38, up from 32 in 1990. Still, the influx of older riders has been a huge boon for sales. A decade ago, fewer than 300,000 Americans bought motorcycles. Last year, 937,000 did, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.

Harley's 46-year-old median customer is the industry's oldest, but the company is fighting back. In 1998 it bought Buell Motorcycle Co., which makes sports-model cycles aimed at a younger crowd, and last year debuted its own line of "V-Rod" bikes for the sport customer. And it created the Rider's Edge program: For about $250, students learn how to not only handle a motorcycle but also outfit themselves in proper Harley gear. Company officials say a little more than a third of the 15,000 participants have later bought motorcycles.

"We've found it to be an effective way to get younger people and women into the dealerships," company spokesman Joe Hice said. "We've actually grown the number of women riders. Before it was about 2 percent, and today it's over 9 percent."

While Harley has been selling more bikes each year since at least 1997, its market share has slipped. With 22 percent of U.S. sales in 2001, Harley was second in popularity to Honda, which had 28 percent, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council. Honda and other imports have kept the pressure by appealing to younger riders and by introducing big, loud touring bikes to woo baby boomers.

Harley-Davidson must satisfy boomers and fresher generations alike without losing its single most valuable asset: its rebel image. There aren't many businesses whose customers tattoo the logo onto their body parts.

Gene Miller, 51, an airline pilot from Manassas, Va., admits that part of the attraction of sinking $40,000 into a Harley Fat Boy is knowing that his late father was horrified by bikers.

"You can be a professional in your daily life, and on your weekends you can turn into this renegade outlaw-type thing," he said. "When I go to work I've got to look professional, act professional. It's kind of nice to look like a dirtbag sometimes. You don't shave, you wear ragged pants -- I hate to quote my father, but the hooligan look."

???

When it comes to his own college-age children, Miller has a different perspective. He won't let them ride.

A perpetual state of youthful rebellion is among the baby boomers' distinguishing traits, said Ann Fishman, a New Orleans-based marketing consultant and adjunct professor at New York University.

"This is a generation that is not going to have a lifespan, they're going to have a youth span," Fishman said.

Boomers would rather spend than save, she said, and they have a sense of entitlement brought on by the extreme doting of their post-World War II parents (that's right, blame the parents). The market for fancy model trains is a nearly perfect embodiment of the boomer ethos, Fishman said.

"Expensive train sets combine a couple of characteristics: The boomers love to spend, they feel entitled to the best, and they're nostalgic for their youth."

At MTH Electric Trains in Columbia, Md., the average buyer is a 55-year-old male with college education and income greater than $50,000, said marketing chief Edelman.

MTH makes O-gauge trains, in which a quarter-inch equals a real-world foot. That's larger than the HO-gauge size that many baby boomers grew up with and that still dominates the retail world. Finely detailed O-gauge engines can sell for as much as $1,300 apiece.

Started in 1980 as a subcontractor to industry giant Lionel Trains, MTH ventured out on its own in the early 1990s. It has grown from $1 million in sales in 1992 to $60 million in 2001, and it now splits the O-gauge marketplace evenly with Lionel.

That high-end market barely existed until the boomers came along, Edelman said.

"They grew up expecting more out of products and life, and experienced nothing but improvements in everything around them as they grew older," he said. If you can feed those expectations with a greatly improved version of a cherished childhood toy, that's what you call a promising business model.

Both MTH and Lionel are investing heavily in technology, hoping that programmable controls and sophisticated special effects will woo the GameCube generation.

Other makers of expensive playthings are taking a different approach.

Those one-man, stand-up Jet Skis that used to terrorize beachgoers, with ab-ripped guys in shell necklaces vaulting over waves on their water hogs, now represent about 1 percent of the personal watercraft market. New models have wider seats and room for three or even four people, with storage space for coolers and spray shields to keep legs dry.

"The people buying them are 40 years old, married, with two kids," said Kirsten Rowe, executive director of the Personal Watercraft Industry Association. They're willing to pay an average of nearly $9,000 for their toy, but they don't want to overexert themselves.

The old models "were tiring," Rowe said. "Physically, you have to be pretty strong and pretty in shape to actually operate one."

That's a key insight, Fishman said: "It's got to be an easier-to-operate piece of equipment without looking like it's made for an aging person. ... The boomers want a youthful lifestyle forever."

The Holy Grail, then, would be a product that isn't physically demanding, symbolizes perpetual youth and can be made to seem "special" through outrageously expensive detailing. It should also be tied to a lifestyle that attracts the boomers' children, who will buy cheaper versions of it and carry the market far into the future. Think of something that appeals to both Joe Walsh and the kid on the corner in baggy pants -- something legal, that is.

Think of the guitar.

Carl Werkmeister had shoulder-length hair and played in a rock band. Then he married, got a job and cut his hair. He didn't play for more than a decade. About 10 years ago, Werkmeister hauled his old acoustic down from the attic to teach his son how to play.

And it hit him like a Jimmy Page solo: He wanted a new guitar. A really, really hot guitar. "It was like, hey, you know, I've got the money. I don't have to justify this to anybody. I always wanted one so I'm going to have one. So I went out and bought it."

Then he bought another, and another -- about a dozen, in all -- culminating recently with the purchase of a rare Paul Reed Smith Dragon model, its fret board a mosaic of thousands of tiny stones and mother-of-pearl shaped like a sprawling dragon. Suggested retail price: $20,000.

"Guitars are better than other women," Werkmeister keeps reminding his wife.

Now 53, he's a telecommunications administrator for a Baltimore credit union and admits that "you'd never take me for somebody that plays in a band." But he has a basement any teen headbanger would envy -- filled with amplifiers, guitars and drum set -- where he and his over-40 buddies get together and jam.

Until the early 1960s, said Brian Majeski, editor of the industry publication The Music Trades, guitars were "arcana," popular in regional clusters -- such as with folk or country-and-western musicians -- but otherwise not widely played.

But baby boomers all wanted to be the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, and they needed the props: a Gibson Les Paul like George Harrison's, a Fender Telecaster like Keith Richards'.

As guitars became mass-produced in the 1970s and 1980s, though, their quality suffered. In the late 1980s, independent designer Paul Reed Smith discovered that extremely high-quality electric guitars, built with exotic woods and old-fashioned attention to detail, could be sold for top dollar. And boomers had just hit their top earning potential.

"When we started, nobody paid over $1,000 for an electric guitar," said Smith. Now his PRS designs feed a thriving collectors' market. High-end acoustic guitars from Martin also are in demand. Fender, which drifted down-market during the 1980s, is back with painstakingly re-created Telecasters and Stratocasters. You can even order one factory-aged, scuffed and worn to look like it's been around since your days as a Jimi Hendrix sideman.

Last year, 73,000 of the 1.9 million guitars sold in the United States were priced over $1,000, Majeski said -- a small percentage, "but it's an important dollar component of the market." Those high-end guitar sales amounted to roughly $102 million last year -- virtually all spent by baby boomers.

The privately held Fender has enjoyed "double-digit growth" for the past few years, spokesman Morgan Ringwald said. Fender offers $17,000-plus custom models that appeal to either professional musicians or wealthy dabblers "who may only know three chords but still want to feel like a rock-and-roller at 56 years old," Ringwald said.

"My father's generation probably would have bought a sailboat or something along that line," said Brian Scherzer, 50, a Denver-area psychologist who owns two PRS guitars and maintains an Internet forum for PRS enthusiasts. "I think our generation was so caught up in music, ranging from Elvis and the Beatles to the other early rock bands, and I think we're still very firmly entrenched in loving music -- loving what had been and trying to re-create it."

Though the re-creating can go only so far. Scherzer said he wouldn't want to revisit the hard living of his professional musician days. And Werkmeister said he intends to steer clear of his generation's other icon.

"I had Harleys back in the '70s," he said, but "I had a couple of close calls and decided I wanted more protection around me than a motorcycle offered."

Inevitable pause.

"But I have thought about it. It never completely goes away, because it is just an unbelievable feeling to be riding a motorcycle with the wind in your hair. It's just really, really a great feeling."

I'm not the first poster here to notice the rise of the D word. When Greespan starts to use it--last week he called it "disinflation"--something stinks in the pantry. And a quick re-read of Chapter 10 of T4T is enough to give me the goose bumps. S&H's 2005 prediction doesn't seem too far off.

The next 18 months ought to be very interesting. What's that Chinese proverb about living in interesting times?

I also take notice of the rise in "Caligula posts" (think "orgies") in other threads. These are tame, Christian orgies, of course--emoticons and Kleenex--just so much fiddling around (think Nero) while the Viagra takes hold.

McEntire managed to get both the Chicks and Las Vegas in her opening monologue.

"Everybody here loves to gamble,'' she said during an opening monologue. "They're backstage right now checking the latest odds on the Dixie Chicks playing the Bush family reunion.'' :lol:

Originally Posted by madscientist

The young motorcycle tough of American mythology has matured: Less Easy Rider and more easy-fit Dockers, the median customer for Harley-Davidson Motor Co. is now a 46-year-old man.

This is not really a new trend. I bought my bike in 1997, and heard about this trend getting insurance. Actuarial tables for motorcycle insurance are based on raw numbers of accidents (per motorcycle type, displacement, and age and gender of rider) rather than on dollars per accident since bike wrecks tend to damage mainly just the bike and rider. Apparently, 1997 -- in Oregon, at least -- was the first year that the tables showed a higher incidence of accidents for middle-age men than for late teens/early twenties types (historically the highest-risk drivers). I actually paid less at age 20 to insure my bike than a 45-year-old would have. The agent's comment to me was that the preceding years had seen a sharp increase in the number of 'easy rider' types who went out, bought an expensive, powerful bike, and promptly crashed and killed themselves.
Somehow, this came as no surprise to me...

Middle-aged men (I myself am one) have a tendency to think of themselves as having the physical skills they may have had when they were twentysomethings. Then they do something like get a hot motorcycle and crash it. I decided yesterday to get a bike again (the kind one peddles ) and had to sternly remind myself that I hadn't ridden one as a regular activity for about 30 years, and that I had better start off real slow and not assume that just because I used to go for 20 mile rides when I was 21 that I could do that right away at 53. sigh.....

Last fall, I got on a bike for the first time since 1990 and promptly fell off. :oops:

Then I got back on and rode for about seven miles without any problem after that. It wasn't really a matter of not being in shape, just re-learning how to balance the thing and remembering how high the seat needed to be.

Originally Posted by Kiff '61

Last fall, I got on a bike for the first time since 1990 and promptly fell off. :oops:

Then I got back on and rode for about seven miles without any problem after that. It wasn't really a matter of not being in shape, just re-learning how to balance the thing and remembering how high the seat needed to be.

Was it a motorcycle bike or a bicycle bike?

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Originally Posted by Kiff '61

Last fall, I got on a bike for the first time since 1990 and promptly fell off. :oops:

Then I got back on and rode for about seven miles without any problem after that. It wasn't really a matter of not being in shape, just re-learning how to balance the thing and remembering how high the seat needed to be.

Was it a motorcycle bike or a bicycle bike?

Bicycle bike. :oops:

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Originally Posted by Kiff '61

It wasn't really a matter of not being in shape, just re-learning how to balance the thing and remembering how high the seat needed to be.

Was it a motorcycle bike or a bicycle bike?

Since when can you adjust the seat height on a motorcycle?

And you really don't balance a motorcycle. The angular momentum of the wheels pretty much does that for you (if all goes well...). The balancing you actually do on one consists mainly of shifting from side to side to stay seated during turns and (possible) helping the turn along if you are on a small bike.

Fun fact: when riding a motorcycle faster than about a walking speed, if you want to make a left turn, you push forward on the left handlebar (shifting the front wheel slightly to the right). Conservation of angular momentum for the front wheel makes the whole bike lean to the left, which makes you go in that direction.

It only seems counterintuitive until you do it...

We are in a fourth turning. I had my doubts as the dust seemed to settle after the war in Iraq, but the economy is the worst it's been since the 1970s and it shocks me how many people I know personally have lost their jobs and can't find work. It's happening everywhere and if you have a job at all, consider yourself extremely lucky: you may not have it much longer.

I hate to sound pessimistic, but I think we in the early stages of a depression and it's going to be with us for quite some time. It may be worse than the 1930s. The other night, a local DJ on one of the radio stations I listen to was telling listeners she knows times are tough right now, and "a lot of you are really suffering, but please don't lose hope." No one would say this if the economy was good. I felt as if she was speaking to me personally, but realized she was speaking to thousands of listeners.
Jobs are being exported to other countries while people in this country can't even find jobs at Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, CEOs of big corporations keep getting richer and keep getting bigger tax breaks. We should have learned our lesson back in the 1980s: trickle-down economics does not work!
The states have no money to help people whose unemployment benefits have run out, and there is a mood of desperation and panic in the air. I see it everywhere. My mortgage company alone says that 26% of its homeowners are one paycheck away from losing their homes. Many more are probably two paychecks from that.
I smell either a long term depression that will be relieved only by the likes of someone (a GC?) such as Roosevelt and his New Deal, or an uprising of the poor (and the many newly poor) similar to the French Revolution.
I wouldn't be surprised to see bread lines soon.

So while the war in Iraq or 911 may have been the trigger, what this Crisis is really about is not terrorism, but the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor.
And of course, the weakening infrastructure in this country will leave us even more vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks.
Something's got to give. Things can't get much worse than they are now.
I am not even sure I want to live in America anymore.

Something else I scavenged off the political forum at realiiity.com. Make of this what you will.

Standard Fair Use disclaimers apply.

Patriotism apparently stops at the polls
By Bob Hill, columnist Louisville Courier-Journal

So what does it say when the polls showed that about 70 percent of Kentuckians supported the war against Iraq ? ostensibly to bring democracy to a bloody and bullied nation ? yet less than 20 percent bothered to support democracy via the ballot box at home?

What does it say when jingoism runs wild in this country, when people with legitimate worries about the war are criticized for being unpatriotic, when we're more than willing to spend $100 billion and send hundreds of thousands of men and women into harm's way to give Iraqis the right to vote ? but only 18 percent of the red-blooded Americans back home vote?

How many of you with "Support Our Troops" signs in the yard couldn't find time to support our election process on Tuesday? How many of you who complained about the anti-war protesters couldn't find time to make a statement of your own? How many of you swell with pride when you see the p resident of the United States espousing American values, but don't honestly value the American vote?



ISN'T IT easier just to pound a sign in the yard and call yourself a patriot? Isn't it easier to complain about others willing to exercise their freedom of speech ? a freedom won and protected for us by the military of previous wars? Isn't it easier to just stay home while sending out the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines to make a statement for you? Isn't it easier to just salute the flag rather than honor it?

Do you believe that if and when the Iraqis have free elections ? and that may be a week or two in coming ? only 18 percent will go to the polls? Is that what the loss of American lives was all about?

Would you be angry if so few Iraqis voted, think them ungrateful? What if an 18-percent Iraqi vote put another butcher into office ? would the war have been worth it?



CHECK THE numbers. Tuesday's election was the first time since 1991 in which Kentucky staged contested races for governor, and only 18 percent of the registered Democrats and 17 percent of registered Republicans bothered to vote. What would happen if we gave a war and only 18 percent of the soldiers bothered to show up? Whom ? and what ? would they be fighting for? And why?

Much of the problem, of course, is in our election process. The disconnect begins there, with millions of dollars spent on political consultants, wall-to-wall sound bites and feel-good drivel that drives even the most conscientious of citizens up a wall ? and away from the polls.

We just saw and heard all this last November, endured it this spring and now, we get to look forward to it raining down upon the same populace this fall. It's a self-defeating system that nobody really wants to change, largely being kept afloat by special interest money that politicians ? at least those with a conscience ? claim they hate to raise.

The ultimate irony in that is that defenders of the current election finance system insist that limiting its reach would be like limiting the right to vote. As if more than 18 percent of the voters would care.

To take this full circle, if enough voters would elect the right people, the system could be changed. Don't hold your breath. Just get out there and pound another "Support Our Troops" sign in the yard. You won't even have to vote on what they're fighting for. Why worry about that?



Bob Hill's column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays on the Kentucky page, and Saturdays in Scene. You can reach him at (502) 582-4646 or e-mail him at bhill@courier-journal.com

Originally Posted by Heliotrope

the economy is the worst it's been since the 1970s

The economy was objectively worse by most standard measures in the early 1980's. Unemployment rates were higher then, for example. The economy now is very similar to the early 1990's.

For example, in North Carolina, the unemployment rate hit 10% in Feb. 1983. It is currently 6% in N.C. It's historic low in N.C. was 3% in June 1999.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics

Originally Posted by Heliotrope

Things can't get much worse than they are now.

Yes, they surely can, and have in the past. Perhaps the 1990's spoiled your perceptions of how bad things can be.

Originally Posted by Heliotrope

I am not even sure I want to live in America anymore.

Good luck finding a place outside America with a better economy.

Originally Posted by Evan Anderson

Originally Posted by Heliotrope

the economy is the worst it's been since the 1970s

The economy was objectively worse by most standard measures in the early 1980's. Unemployment rates were higher then, for example. The economy now is very similar to the early 1990's.

Originally Posted by David M. Kennedy

Yet most Americans in 1930 saw these developments less clearly than did later analysts and evaluated what they could see against the backdrop of their most recent experience with an economic recession in 1921. Then GNP had plummeted almost 24 percent in a single year, twice the decline of 1930. Unemployment was somewhat larger in absolute terms in 1921 than in 1930 (4.9 million versus 4.3 milion) and significantly larger in percentage terms (11.9 percent versus 8.9 percent). Americans in 1930 could justly feel that they were not - yet - passing through as severe a crisis as the one they had endured less than a decade earlier.

Then the other shoe dropped. That's from page 59 of a tome called Freedom From Fear , all about the last Fourth Turning.

We are in an economic trough, no longer in actual decline. Yes, the economy sucks but it won't get worse than it is right now, at least not with the current downturn. Unemployment has been near 6% for quite some time now, and it is very rare (if it has ever even happenend) for unemployment to rise sharply, flatten out, and then rise sharply again. Almost every time, it rises sharply, flattens, and then goes down. One thing that matters a lot is how long the past expansion was (and how low the unemployment rate bottomed out at). The reason the 1982 unemployment was so bad was because the 1981 expansion was too short for the unemployment rate to drop much, because when unemployment goes up, it does so quickly, but when it falls, it does so gradually.

Originally Posted by alan

Middle-aged men (I myself am one) have a tendency to think of themselves as having the physical skills they may have had when they were twentysomethings. Then they do something like get a hot motorcycle and crash it. I decided yesterday to get a bike again (the kind one peddles ) and had to sternly remind myself that I hadn't ridden one as a regular activity for about 30 years, and that I had better start off real slow and not assume that just because I used to go for 20 mile rides when I was 21 that I could do that right away at 53. sigh.....

Myself, I feel that I have probably 50% greater brute strength than I had as a 20 year old. What I am aware of is a marked slowdown of my reaction time in nearly all situations. It would be much easier for me to trip down a flight of stairs and break my neck before I could react than 20 years ago. I imagine the same would follow for wrapping a motorcycle around a douglas fir.

It's funny....the last few months I've thought about possibly buying a motorcycle once I get my cushy government career back on track. True to form, I'd have a strong preference for BMW ;-). But with all the talk about middle aged men and bikes, perhaps easy riding isn't worth the risks I might take. Maybe I'll buy a boat instead!

Hi Everyone! I miss you I truely do. But, I don't miss the chains. I am sure you know what I mean.
I think about you everyday. Like for example when I went to the Matrix and they had a posted warning that people need an I.D. to go to the Matrix without a parent. BE PREPARED TO SHOW YOUR I.D. !
I pointed it out to my husband, but, he just smiled polietly when I said, "That's very 4T". I know you would understand though.

Everyday I read something I would like to share and get your feedback from. But, THIS was too perfect, TOO DEAD ON! I had to share:
Have a good read and a good laugh :lol: :

The Woolly-Thinker's Guide to Rhetoric


Be Courageous

Tell us how brave you are. Talk about how marginal, revolutionary, lonely, out there, edgy, pioneering, strange your ideas are compared to all the old safe boring tame ones everyone else has. Stand up straight, square your shoulders, squint a little as if facing a strong wind. Stifle a sigh now and then. If you can (this is difficult), make a muscle in your jaw twitch.



Be dismissive

Go on, don't hesitate. Brush people off, especially if they know about something you don't know about. If they later turn out to be Nobel economists or widely-read philosophers, just pretend you've forgotten the whole episode. "When? Where was that? I don't remember that at all, you must have me confused with someone else."



Cheers and catcalls

Use hoorah and boo words.

Hoorah: heart, feeling, spiritual, holistic, instinct.
Boo: intellect, cold, analytical.



Claiming is Succeeding

Blur the distinction between claiming to make your case, and actually making it. If anyone notices this, act surprised and wounded. Notice someone you need to talk to across the room.



Clumsy sarcasm

Say things like 'Of course I could be just as wrong as you.' Or 'Well naturally I'm not as subtle as you are, I don't know how to pick words apart until there's nothing left.' Or 'Certainly, you're right and the rest of the world is wrong.' Or 'Where did you read that, TV Guide/The Sun?'



Define words in your own special way

Define truth, for example, as hegemonic discourse, or monoculturalism, or Eurocentrism. Define education as privilege. Define science as an arbitrary game, or a story, or a power-play.



Develop sudden hearing loss

When your opponent makes a good point, a crushing argument, an incontrovertible case, simply fail to hear, and keep talking as if no one had spoken at all. Talk a bit louder. Lean toward your opponent with an intent, listening expression on your face, then continue to ignore what anyone else says.



Do a Procrustes

Make the evidence fit the case you're trying to make. Force it. If it doesn't fit, don't give up, don't be shy, just keep pushing and hammering and chopping until it does. No one will notice.



Embrace contradiction

Be ostentatiously anti-elitist, and sprinkle your writings equally ostentatiously with references to Foucault, Irigaray, Derrida, Kristeva and such salt-of-the-earth types along with words like 'problematize', 'phallogocentric', 'hegemonic discourse', and similar folksy slang.



Emotional Blackmail

If someone expresses skepticism about religion, demand how anyone can cast doubt on something that consoles people. This tactic can of course be used for any otherwise untenable system of belief.



Evasive Tactics

1. Wrap yourself in a flag.

The martyrdom flag. The victim flag. The spiritual flag.

2. Change the subject.



Fly under the radar

1. Use subtle pejoratives, so subtle that they're almost invisible but prejudice the discussion anyway.

2. Use words that are pejorative to one group and the opposite to the other. 'Science' and 'scientist' are good for this.



Go Ahead, Contradict Yourself

Don't be afraid to make two mutually incompatible statements in one sentence. For instance, if you are a bishop, declare that the Church is not afraid of critical examination, but at the same time guards the 'truths' of its faith very jealously. If anyone asks how you can do both of those, exactly, just look vague and perhaps hum a little sacred music.



Histrionics

Use emotion. If you don't feel any, work it up. Let your voice quiver and tremble. Sound indignant, outraged, self-righteous, passionate, 'courageous', 'defiant'.



Imply

Imply things. Be careful not to be explicit, because then it would be obvious that you are not telling the truth.



Mention the Armchair

Call your opponent an 'armchair' something. Armchair psychologist, armchair shrink, armchair historian. Whatever. Indicates that the other party is sheltered, lazy, housebound, nerdy, reclusive, uninformed, unhealthy, and out of touch, whereas you are out there with your sleeves rolled up, down in the muck with the other therapists and archaeologists and coal miners. When there is digging to be done you get out there and dig, you don't just sit in the comfy chair and ponder.



Moral One-upmanship

If people disagree with you, accuse them of Eurocentrism or elitism or intolerance or narrowness or conventional thinking or scientism or homophobia.



Pat yourself on the back

Say things like "This is a trivial issue, there are much more important battles to fight," and then go right on arguing. That way you give yourself credit for having a sense of proportion but still get to go on trying to win the argument.



Pave With Good Intentions

Make it clear that you mean very well, that all the benevolence and right feeling and compassion and tolerance are on your side, and all the other thing on your opponent's.



Play the theory card

Talk about 'theory' a lot. Use the word 'theory' in every sentence. Say 'theory' with a special tone of hushed reverence. Ask people if they're well up on 'theory'. Everyone will be very impressed and very intimidated.



Pretend to be amused

Say things like, 'Not at all, I'm not angry/cross/offended, I'm amused.' Pretend to find the other person hilariously ineffectual and cute. Disguise the tremor in your voice and the bulging veins on your forehead.



Repetition

If your ideas are weak, if you have neither logic nor evidence to back them up, simply keep asserting them over and over and over again. This will convince everyone that they must be true. If they were not true, surely we wouldn't keep hearing about them all the time?



Say the methodology was flawed

When your opponent presents evidence (and it always happens, so be ready) that would undermine or completely contradict your argument, simply say everyone knows the methodology of that particular study was deeply flawed. Never mind if you know nothing about it, that this is the first you've heard of the study, just say they went about it in quite, quite the wrong way. If there's another study with a different methodology that also proves you wrong, no matter, just say it again.



Translate

If your opponent talks of evidence, you talk of proof. If your opponent mentions probability, you turn that into certainty.

If your opponent disagrees with your facts, say your opponent is offended. If your opponent claims to know something about the topic under discussion, call your opponent an elitist.



Translate Even More When the Subject is Religion

If someone expresses doubts about the truth claims of religion, translate that into a statement that science can solve all of humanity's problems, and mock the statement. When your opponent disavows that statement, ignore the disavowal and continue the mockery. Eventually your opponent will get bored and leave the field.



Use 'Obscure' as a First Name

Always refer to people who disagree with you (unless they are so undeniably famous it simply won't work) as 'obscure' while referring to people who agree with you as 'notable' (which sounds so much more dignified than 'famous'). E.g. if you have call to mention the Sokal hoax, be sure to say 'an obscure physicist named Alan Sokal', as if obscurity were not the natural state of nearly all physicists and indeed academics generally.



Use obscurity

Generate such a tangled clot of verbiage that opponents cannot be sure you haven't said something profound.

Originally Posted by madscientist

http://www.thesunlink.com/redesign/2003-05-21/business/153924.shtml

This is a clue that the United States might be in 3T.

So, let me see. Boomers are still mostly established in Midlife, Xers seem to have left Rising Adulthood and are entering Midlife, while Millies are entering Young Adulthood.

BOOMER TOYS
Rebels with Disposable Income

Boomers buying the toys that they always wanted

Greg Schneider
The Washington Post

May 21, 2003
Stop, hey, what's that sound?

It's Dad's cartilage creaking as he gets off his Harley.

The young motorcycle tough of American mythology has matured: Less Easy Rider and more easy-fit Dockers, the median customer for Harley-Davidson Motor Co. is now a 46-year-old man.

He finally has the disposable income to feed his inner Steppenwolf, and he's not stopping at just motorcycles. As the Summer of Love evolves into the Autumn of Viagra, baby-boomer males are buying all the cool toys they couldn't afford as kids: electric guitars, model trains and other talismans of their eternal youth.

"

:lol: OMG, they wrote this article after observing my husband!

Originally Posted by Max

Hi Everyone! I miss you I truely do. But, I don't miss the chains. I am sure you know what I mean.
I think about you everyday. Like for example when I went to the Matrix and they had a posted warning that people need an I.D. to go to the Matrix without a parent. BE PREPARED TO SHOW YOUR I.D. !
I pointed it out to my husband, but, he just smiled polietly when I said, "That's very 4T". I know you would understand though.

That sounds like my area in 1999 after Columbine - and I thought that carding hype (which strongly affected me for about two years and then no more as I turned 17; even though it got worse then I was safe on the other side!) Columbine comparisons seem VERY 3T to me (as 1999 was definitely a 3T year - even Stonewall and Mike Alexander begin the 4T no earlier than 2000); take that as you will (people just under 17 would naturally pay more attention to those signs)

Everyday I read something I would like to share and get your feedback from. But, THIS was too perfect, TOO DEAD ON! I had to share:
Have a good read and a good laugh :lol: :

The Woolly-Thinker's Guide to Rhetoric


Be Courageous

Tell us how brave you are. Talk about how marginal, revolutionary, lonely, out there, edgy, pioneering, strange your ideas are compared to all the old safe boring tame ones everyone else has. Stand up straight, square your shoulders, squint a little as if facing a strong wind. Stifle a sigh now and then. If you can (this is difficult), make a muscle in your jaw twitch.



Be dismissive

Go on, don't hesitate. Brush people off, especially if they know about something you don't know about. If they later turn out to be Nobel economists or widely-read philosophers, just pretend you've forgotten the whole episode. "When? Where was that? I don't remember that at all, you must have me confused with someone else."

Sounds great! I'll try that when I return to school in the fall :-)

Cheers and catcalls

Use hoorah and boo words.

Hoorah: heart, feeling, spiritual, holistic, instinct.
Boo: intellect, cold, analytical.



Claiming is Succeeding

Blur the distinction between claiming to make your case, and actually making it. If anyone notices this, act surprised and wounded. Notice someone you need to talk to across the room.



Clumsy sarcasm

Say things like 'Of course I could be just as wrong as you.' Or 'Well naturally I'm not as subtle as you are, I don't know how to pick words apart until there's nothing left.' Or 'Certainly, you're right and the rest of the world is wrong.' Or 'Where did you read that, TV Guide/The Sun?'



Define words in your own special way

Define truth, for example, as hegemonic discourse, or monoculturalism, or Eurocentrism. Define education as privilege. Define science as an arbitrary game, or a story, or a power-play.



Develop sudden hearing loss

When your opponent makes a good point, a crushing argument, an incontrovertible case, simply fail to hear, and keep talking as if no one had spoken at all. Talk a bit louder. Lean toward your opponent with an intent, listening expression on your face, then continue to ignore what anyone else says.



Do a Procrustes

Make the evidence fit the case you're trying to make. Force it. If it doesn't fit, don't give up, don't be shy, just keep pushing and hammering and chopping until it does. No one will notice.



Embrace contradiction

Be ostentatiously anti-elitist, and sprinkle your writings equally ostentatiously with references to Foucault, Irigaray, Derrida, Kristeva and such salt-of-the-earth types along with words like 'problematize', 'phallogocentric', 'hegemonic discourse', and similar folksy slang.



Emotional Blackmail

If someone expresses skepticism about religion, demand how anyone can cast doubt on something that consoles people. This tactic can of course be used for any otherwise untenable system of belief.



Evasive Tactics

1. Wrap yourself in a flag.

The martyrdom flag. The victim flag. The spiritual flag.

2. Change the subject.



Fly under the radar

1. Use subtle pejoratives, so subtle that they're almost invisible but prejudice the discussion anyway.

2. Use words that are pejorative to one group and the opposite to the other. 'Science' and 'scientist' are good for this.



Go Ahead, Contradict Yourself

Don't be afraid to make two mutually incompatible statements in one sentence. For instance, if you are a bishop, declare that the Church is not afraid of critical examination, but at the same time guards the 'truths' of its faith very jealously. If anyone asks how you can do both of those, exactly, just look vague and perhaps hum a little sacred music.



Histrionics

Use emotion. If you don't feel any, work it up. Let your voice quiver and tremble. Sound indignant, outraged, self-righteous, passionate, 'courageous', 'defiant'.



Imply

Imply things. Be careful not to be explicit, because then it would be obvious that you are not telling the truth.



Mention the Armchair

Call your opponent an 'armchair' something. Armchair psychologist, armchair shrink, armchair historian. Whatever. Indicates that the other party is sheltered, lazy, housebound, nerdy, reclusive, uninformed, unhealthy, and out of touch, whereas you are out there with your sleeves rolled up, down in the muck with the other therapists and archaeologists and coal miners. When there is digging to be done you get out there and dig, you don't just sit in the comfy chair and ponder.



Moral One-upmanship

If people disagree with you, accuse them of Eurocentrism or elitism or intolerance or narrowness or conventional thinking or scientism or homophobia.



Pat yourself on the back

Say things like "This is a trivial issue, there are much more important battles to fight," and then go right on arguing. That way you give yourself credit for having a sense of proportion but still get to go on trying to win the argument.



Pave With Good Intentions

Make it clear that you mean very well, that all the benevolence and right feeling and compassion and tolerance are on your side, and all the other thing on your opponent's.



Play the theory card

Talk about 'theory' a lot. Use the word 'theory' in every sentence. Say 'theory' with a special tone of hushed reverence. Ask people if they're well up on 'theory'. Everyone will be very impressed and very intimidated.



Pretend to be amused

Say things like, 'Not at all, I'm not angry/cross/offended, I'm amused.' Pretend to find the other person hilariously ineffectual and cute. Disguise the tremor in your voice and the bulging veins on your forehead.



Repetition

If your ideas are weak, if you have neither logic nor evidence to back them up, simply keep asserting them over and over and over again. This will convince everyone that they must be true. If they were not true, surely we wouldn't keep hearing about them all the time?



Say the methodology was flawed

When your opponent presents evidence (and it always happens, so be ready) that would undermine or completely contradict your argument, simply say everyone knows the methodology of that particular study was deeply flawed. Never mind if you know nothing about it, that this is the first you've heard of the study, just say they went about it in quite, quite the wrong way. If there's another study with a different methodology that also proves you wrong, no matter, just say it again.



Translate

If your opponent talks of evidence, you talk of proof. If your opponent mentions probability, you turn that into certainty.

If your opponent disagrees with your facts, say your opponent is offended. If your opponent claims to know something about the topic under discussion, call your opponent an elitist.



Translate Even More When the Subject is Religion

If someone expresses doubts about the truth claims of religion, translate that into a statement that science can solve all of humanity's problems, and mock the statement. When your opponent disavows that statement, ignore the disavowal and continue the mockery. Eventually your opponent will get bored and leave the field.



Use 'Obscure' as a First Name

Always refer to people who disagree with you (unless they are so undeniably famous it simply won't work) as 'obscure' while referring to people who agree with you as 'notable' (which sounds so much more dignified than 'famous'). E.g. if you have call to mention the Sokal hoax, be sure to say 'an obscure physicist named Alan Sokal', as if obscurity were not the natural state of nearly all physicists and indeed academics generally.



Use obscurity

Generate such a tangled clot of verbiage that opponents cannot be sure you haven't said something profound.

sounds great :-)

Originally Posted by Max

Originally Posted by madscientist

http://www.thesunlink.com/redesign/2003-05-21/business/153924.shtml

This is a clue that the United States might be in 3T.

So, let me see. Boomers are still mostly established in Midlife, Xers seem to have left Rising Adulthood and are entering Midlife, while Millies are entering Young Adulthood.

BOOMER TOYS
Rebels with Disposable Income

Boomers buying the toys that they always wanted

Greg Schneider
The Washington Post

May 21, 2003
Stop, hey, what's that sound?

It's Dad's cartilage creaking as he gets off his Harley.

The young motorcycle tough of American mythology has matured: Less Easy Rider and more easy-fit Dockers, the median customer for Harley-Davidson Motor Co. is now a 46-year-old man.

He finally has the disposable income to feed his inner Steppenwolf, and he's not stopping at just motorcycles. As the Summer of Love evolves into the Autumn of Viagra, baby-boomer males are buying all the cool toys they couldn't afford as kids: electric guitars, model trains and other talismans of their eternal youth.

"

:lol: OMG, they wrote this article after observing my husband!

So your husband is a Boomer then? What cohort?

He was born in 1958. Solidly calls himself a Boomer. I see a lot of Jones in him. I'm 1968. So truely we are at the start and end of Jones, but, he likes his affiliation with Boom, God knows why. If I were Boom and there were
an aternative like Jones, I'd snap it up in a red hot second.
But, there you go......that's the X'r in me and the Boom in him.