More protection of teens in last few years stifling their freedom (4T evidence):
http://www.cleveland.com/search/inde...l?nohio&coll=2

Another fraud, as in that insufferable blond bitch from Court TV Nancy Grace, has been exposed.

The fourth turning must be near.

In my day....

Cancun Hosts a More Sedate Spring Break

By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 15 minutes ago

CANCUN, Mexico - The sugar-white sand beaches are back after being swept away by Hurricane Wilma five months ago. But there are no stages for wet T-shirt contests, and MTV won't be hosting its spring break beach party.

Instead, the first wave of winter-weary college students who converged on Cancun found that construction workers nearly outnumbered revelers this week in Mexico's spring break capital of beer and bikinis.

With nearly half its hotels still closed, Cancun has plunged down the list of destinations for spring breakers from the United States. The Caribbean resort fell from No. 2 last year to No. 8 this year for travelers booking trips through CheapTickets.com. Miami was the top destination.

Tourism officials say they expect about 25,000 visitors in Cancun this season, compared to 40,000 last year. Many spring breakers have moved farther south to the Maya Riviera or to Acapulco, the Pacific playground of the 1950s that has been steadily rising in popularity because of its all-night discos.

"Obviously it's not going to be the same this year," said Cancun Tourism Director Jesus Rossano.

Many of those who did make the trip found themselves sitting against a backdrop of lumber piles and cement blocks or next to pools lined with brown palms that appeared to have just gotten a buzz cut. Instead of blasting music, the sound of hammers pierced the air.

"It's not near as nice as I expected," said MacKenzie Horras, 22, an elementary education student at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. "Some of the pools are dirty or don't have water."

But while some of the hotels were clearly out of business for some time to come, others were fully functioning beyond their damaged facades. The Oasis hotel, popular with spring breakers, showed few signs of being hit by a major hurricane.

All, however, agreed Mexico's party resort has slowed down a bit.

Stephanie Streit, who was sunbathing with Horras on the beach, said her friends who'd come the year before described a much wilder place.

"Out of control was the term I heard most used," said Streit, 22, a psychology major at the University of Northern Iowa. "But it's pretty tame."

"I heard boobs and beads," said her friend, Crystal Whitney, 21, referring to the wet T-shirt contests and beaded necklaces worn by revelers who flock to the all-you-can-drink discos. "But I haven't seen much of that."

The Mexican government hoped to use spring break as a way to show the world how the country's prime resort had bounced back.

President
Vicente Fox's government poured $19 million into rebuilding the beaches, hiring a Belgian company that dredged sand from the ocean floor and dumped tons of it over rocks and concrete exposed by the hurricane.

With winds reaching 150 mph, Wilma roared ashore Oct. 21, then stalled over Cancun for nearly 40 hours. It toppled trees, demolished homes and left much of the city of 700,000 under brown, foul-smelling flood waters.

Rebuilding began almost immediately and continues around the clock, especially in the hotel zone, a 15-mile spit of coast where glamorous resorts line the Caribbean on one side and posh shops and smaller lodges face a lagoon on the other.

Some of the most popular discotheques, like Dady'O and Coco Bongo, packed people in as in years past. But many bars — which once drew thousands with big-name rock bands and over-the-top contests aimed at giving people reasons to get naked in public — were closed.

Cheryl Scott, 45, said when she realized she was taking her 11-year-old son to Cancun during spring break, she feared it would be a disaster.

"You hear the 'woo-hoo' and the 'yee-hah' and you know where they're coming from," said Scott, who lives outside Fort Worth, Texas. "But it's not been an issue at all. It's safe, normal and he hasn't seen anything I wouldn't want him to see."

"I'm not an old fuddy duddy," she added. "But this is my speed: My son is making sand castles and I'm drinking strawberry daiquiris."

Many students also said Wilma did not ruin their vacations.

"Looking at the ocean all day is a lot better than staring at a cornfield," said 22-year-old University of Nebraska at Lincoln student Ben Hansen.

Howard Stern : "I Believe In Censoring Anyone Who Is My Enemy...I Believe In Censorship When It Benefits Me..."

The new Boomer motto?

(Anyone notice that the Boomer blogs, regardless of political orientation, are more likely to censor comments and banish posters than their Xer counterparts?)

Originally Posted by Linus

I believe that localism - political and economic - as well as regional and global entities will come to eclipse central govnments as the primary buffer against the threat of periodic systems disruption (the underside of globalization) in the coming decades. City states will have renewed primacy in a networked world, and nation-states diminished primacy. Tribalism will replace nationalism. America will still be called America, much as Rome was still called Rome after the Republic, but the authority of its national institutions, as well the vitality of its national culture, will be eclipsed by local (sectarian) and trans-national forces and institutions.

[/quote]


Absolutely true. I could easily see the New York Metropolitan area breaking off from the rest of New York state and eventually the US in the next 50 years. The increasingly southern U.S. oriented Federal government advocates policies that are increasingly unfriendly to New York's interests. Since New York's economy and culture are more tied to the world than the U.S, we could easily see this happen there first.

As recently as the 1970's the country was more or less uniformly middle class with only a few isolated pockets of obscene wealth or poverty. Today wealth is increasingly concentrated in certain metroplitan areas that are thriving while the rest suffer a slow decline due to the gutting of our industrial base. Often the declining areas are so far removed from the thriving ones that they have no idea they are suffering declining living standards becuase they don't have anything to compare it to. These divides will strenghten over the next few decades and eventually lead to dissolution of the U.S. as we know it today.

Originally Posted by Nomad 12-73

Originally Posted by Linus

I believe that localism - political and economic - as well as regional and global entities will come to eclipse central govnments as the primary buffer against the threat of periodic systems disruption (the underside of globalization) in the coming decades. City states will have renewed primacy in a networked world, and nation-states diminished primacy. Tribalism will replace nationalism. America will still be called America, much as Rome was still called Rome after the Republic, but the authority of its national institutions, as well the vitality of its national culture, will be eclipsed by local (sectarian) and trans-national forces and institutions.

Absolutely true. I could easily see the New York Metropolitan area breaking off from the rest of New York state and eventually the US in the next 50 years. The increasingly southern U.S. oriented Federal government advocates policies that are increasingly unfriendly to New York's interests. Since New York's economy and culture are more tied to the world than the U.S, we could easily see this happen there first.

As recently as the 1970's the country was more or less uniformly middle class with only a few isolated pockets of obscene wealth or poverty. Today wealth is increasingly concentrated in certain metroplitan areas that are thriving while the rest suffer a slow decline due to the gutting of our industrial base. Often the declining areas are so far removed from the thriving ones that they have no idea they are suffering declining living standards becuase they don't have anything to compare it to. These divides will strenghten over the next few decades and eventually lead to dissolution of the U.S. as we know it today.

Nomad/Linus - Some excellent thinking!

Here's a way it might come about --

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/...-security.html

The strikes of the future will be strategic, pinpointing the systems we rely on, and they will leave entire sections of the country without energy and communications for protracted periods. But the frustration and economic pain that result will have a curious side effect: They will spur development of an entirely new, decentralized security system, one that devolves power and responsibility to a mix of private companies, individuals, and local governments. This structure is already visible in the legions of private contractors in Iraq, as well as in New York's amazingly effective counterterrorist intelligence unit. But as we look out to 2016, the long-term implications are clearer.

Security will become a function of where you live and whom you work for, much as health care is allocated already. Wealthy individuals and multinational corporations will be the first to bail out of our collective system, opting instead to hire private military companies, such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, to protect their homes and facilities and establish a protective perimeter around daily life. Parallel transportation networks--evolving out of the time-share aircraft companies such as
Warren Buffett's NetJets--will cater to this group, leapfrogging its members from one secure, well-appointed lily pad to the next. Members of the middle class will follow, taking matters into their own hands by forming suburban collectives to share the costs of security--as they do now with education--and shore up delivery of critical services. These "armored suburbs" will deploy and maintain backup generators and communications links; they will be patrolled by civilian police auxiliaries that have received corporate training and boast their own state-of-the-art emergency-response systems. As for those without the means to build their own defense, they will have to make do with the remains of the national system. They will gravitate to America's cities, where they will be subject to ubiquitous surveillance and marginal or nonexistent services. For the poor, there will be no other refuge.

Until, that is, the next wave of adaptive innovation takes hold. For all of these changes may prove to be exactly the kind of creative destruction we need to move beyond the current, failed state of affairs. By 2016 and beyond, real long-term solutions will emerge. Cities, most acutely affected by the new disruptions, will move fastest to become self-reliant, drawing from a wellspring of new ideas the market will put forward. These will range from building-based solar systems from firms such as Energy Innovations to privatized disaster and counterterrorist responses. We will also see the emergence of packaged software that combines real-time information (the status of first-responder units and facilities) with interactive content (information from citizens) and rich sources of data (satellite maps). Corporate communications monopolies will crumble as cities build their own emergency wireless networks using simple products from companies such as Proxim.

Self-Reliance
By 2016, we may see the trials of the previous decade as progress in disguise. The grassroots security effort will do more than just insulate our gas lines and high schools. It will also spur positive social change: So-called green systems will quickly shed their tree-hugger status and be seen as vital components of our economic and personal security. Even those civilian police auxiliaries could turn out to be a good thing in the long run: Their proliferation--and the technology they'll adopt--will lead to major reductions in crime.

Some towns and cities will go even further. In an effort to bar the door against expanding criminal networks, certain communities will move to regulate, tax, and control everything from illegal immigration to illicit drugs, despite federal pressure to do otherwise. A newly vigilant and networked public will push for much greater levels of transparency in government and corporate operations, using the Internet to expose, publish, and patch potential security flaws. Over time, this new transparency, and the wider participation it entails, will lead to radical improvements in government and corporate efficiency.

On the national level, we'll see a withering of the security apparatus, but quite possibly a flowering in other areas. Energy independence and the obsolescence of conventional war with other countries will reduce tensions between the United States and the rest of the world. The end of oil will also force corrupt states, now propped up by energy income, to make the reforms they need to be accepted internationally, improving life for their people.

Perhaps the most important global shift will be the rise of grassroots action and cross-connected communities. Like the Internet, these new networks will develop slowly at first. After a period of exponential growth, however, they will quickly become all but ubiquitous--and astonishingly powerful, perhaps as powerful as the networks arrayed against us. And so we will all become security consultants, taking an active role in deciding how it is bought, structured, and applied. That's a great responsibility and, with luck, an enormous opportunity. Choose wisely

Originally Posted by Linus

Howard Stern : "I Believe In Censoring Anyone Who Is My Enemy...I Believe In Censorship When It Benefits Me..."

The new Boomer motto?

I thought the same thing when I saw that!

Originally Posted by Linus

(Anyone notice that the Boomer blogs, regardless of political orientation, are more likely to censor comments and banish posters than their Xer counterparts?)

Oh, I don't know. The only blog I've been banished from is run by an Xer (who, incidentally, is a former T4Ter). But overall your point is well taken.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Linus

Howard Stern : "I Believe In Censoring Anyone Who Is My Enemy...I Believe In Censorship When It Benefits Me..."

The new Boomer motto?

I thought the same thing when I saw that!

This is one of the major considerations leading me to move the Boom/X boundary forward to 1963 or 1964. It is becoming clear that, underneath it all, Prophets reject the Rule of Law. The Constitution, after all, was given to us by a bunch of Nomads, not Prophets.

It would seem that Nomads have an ingrained respect for Pandora's Box and know better than to open it. Thus they tend to agree to disagree with each other according to predetermined neutral terms (the Rule of Law). But somehow Prophets, in all their Hubris, foolishly believe they can prevail against the world, and they see the Rule of Law as an impediment to their freedom of action. So, through history, Prophets have played fast and loose with the Constitution. It has always been the Nomads who have afterwards restored some semblance of Constitutional order.

To support the Bush administration is to support the willful and deliberate destruction of the Constitutional order (Rule of Law). Those Republicans who do of course recognize that a President Hillary may soon follow, and certainly they would not support her identical disdain for all Constitutional limitation. So they are behaving consistent with Boomer Stern's stated terms above and, in their profound Hubris, have no use for the Rule of Law.

It is hard to believe that such people could be Nomads, and not Prophets, given the nature of the Nomad regeneracy of the late 1700s, and the tempering influence of Nomads in all subsequent 1Ts. If early '60s cohorts are exhibiting this sort of Hubris by loudly supporting the Bush Cabal, then this is just one more reason to suspect that the Boom/X boundary actually falls later, somewhere around 1963 or 1964. Such Hubris, as embodied in this profound contempt for the Rule of Law, seems unmistakably a Prophet trait, and decidedly not a Nomad trait.

Originally Posted by Mustang

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Linus

Howard Stern : "I Believe In Censoring Anyone Who Is My Enemy...I Believe In Censorship When It Benefits Me..."

The new Boomer motto?

I thought the same thing when I saw that!

This is one of the major considerations leading me to move the Boom/X boundary forward to 1963 or 1964. It is becoming clear that, underneath it all, Prophets reject the Rule of Law. The Constitution, after all, was given to us by a bunch of Nomads, not Prophets.

It would seem that Nomads have an ingrained respect for Pandora's Box and know better than to open it. Thus they tend to agree to disagree with each other according to predetermined neutral terms (the Rule of Law). But somehow Prophets, in all their Hubris, foolishly believe they can prevail against the world, and they see the Rule of Law as an impediment to their freedom of action. So, through history, Prophets have played fast and loose with the Constitution. It has always been the Nomads who have afterwards restored some semblance of Constitutional order.

To support the Bush administration is to support the willful and deliberate destruction of the Constitutional order (Rule of Law). Those Republicans who do of course recognize that a President Hillary may soon follow, and certainly they would not support her identical disdain for all Constitutional limitation. So they are behaving consistent with Boomer Stern's stated terms above and, in their profound Hubris, have no use for the Rule of Law.

It is hard to believe that such people could be Nomads, and not Prophets, given the nature of the Nomad regeneracy of the late 1700s, and the tempering influence of Nomads in all subsequent 1Ts. If early '60s cohorts are exhibiting this sort of Hubris by loudly supporting the Bush Cabal, then this is just one more reason to suspect that the Boom/X boundary actually falls later, somewhere around 1963 or 1964. Such Hubris, as embodied in this profound contempt for the Rule of Law, seems unmistakably a Prophet trait, and decidedly not a Nomad trait.

This is the most salient argument I have ever heard regarding extending the Boomer boundary.

Some of the people who I'd consider hubristically ideological from the 1961-63 group would be:

Ann Coulter - 1961
Sean Hannity - 1961
Paul Begala - 1961
Woody Harrelson - 1961
Ralph Reed - 1961
Naomi Wolf - 1962
Joe Scarborough - 1963

But then again:

Brian Kilmeade - 1964
Janeane Garofalo - 1964
Laura Ingraham - 1964
Hopeful Cynic - 1968

I still support S&H on the early 60's group. I am now just doubtful about 1961. However, that said, I must admit that your agrument above makes me take notice.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Mustang

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Linus

Howard Stern : "I Believe In Censoring Anyone Who Is My Enemy...I Believe In Censorship When It Benefits Me..."

The new Boomer motto?

I thought the same thing when I saw that!

This is one of the major considerations leading me to move the Boom/X boundary forward to 1963 or 1964. It is becoming clear that, underneath it all, Prophets reject the Rule of Law. The Constitution, after all, was given to us by a bunch of Nomads, not Prophets.

It would seem that Nomads have an ingrained respect for Pandora's Box and know better than to open it. Thus they tend to agree to disagree with each other according to predetermined neutral terms (the Rule of Law). But somehow Prophets, in all their Hubris, foolishly believe they can prevail against the world, and they see the Rule of Law as an impediment to their freedom of action. So, through history, Prophets have played fast and loose with the Constitution. It has always been the Nomads who have afterwards restored some semblance of Constitutional order.

To support the Bush administration is to support the willful and deliberate destruction of the Constitutional order (Rule of Law). Those Republicans who do of course recognize that a President Hillary may soon follow, and certainly they would not support her identical disdain for all Constitutional limitation. So they are behaving consistent with Boomer Stern's stated terms above and, in their profound Hubris, have no use for the Rule of Law.

It is hard to believe that such people could be Nomads, and not Prophets, given the nature of the Nomad regeneracy of the late 1700s, and the tempering influence of Nomads in all subsequent 1Ts. If early '60s cohorts are exhibiting this sort of Hubris by loudly supporting the Bush Cabal, then this is just one more reason to suspect that the Boom/X boundary actually falls later, somewhere around 1963 or 1964. Such Hubris, as embodied in this profound contempt for the Rule of Law, seems unmistakably a Prophet trait, and decidedly not a Nomad trait.

This is the most salient argument I have ever heard regarding extending the Boomer boundary.

Some of the people who I'd consider hubristically ideological from the 1961-63 group would be:

Ann Coulter - 1961
Sean Hannity - 1961
Paul Begala - 1961
Woody Harrelson - 1961
Ralph Reed - 1961
Naomi Wolf - 1962
Joe Scarborough - 1963

But then again:

Brian Kilmeade - 1964
Janeane Garofalo - 1964
Laura Ingraham - 1964
Hopeful Cynic - 1968

I still support S&H on the early 60's group. I am now just doubtful about 1961. However, that said, I must admit that your agrument above makes me take notice.

I know two persons in the 61'-64' group. One is a co-worker born in 61' and the other my wife's cousin born in 62'. I feel they are both Boomers because they are extreme partisans and characterize the other side as not just a fellow American with a differing opinion but pure evil. They look at me (I was born in 73') and seem baffled. I love to debate issues with people and often have strong opinions, but at the end of the day I can still be friends with someone that I totally disagree with because I fundementally respect their right to have an opinion different than mine. These two early 60's people have a hard time doing that and the 61' person often says that he wishes he could be more like me in that regard.

I would say that this group are cuspers because we do have some things in common like music, but the way they think are definately more toward the Boomer side. I would say that 58'-64' are Boomers with some X'er traits but 65'-74' are the core X'ers.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Some of the people who I'd consider hubristically ideological from the 1961-63 group would be:

Ann Coulter - 1961
Sean Hannity - 1961
Paul Begala - 1961
Woody Harrelson - 1961
Ralph Reed - 1961
Naomi Wolf - 1962
Joe Scarborough - 1963

Coulter, Hannity, and Begala are Boomers all the way. Harrelson is iffy. Reed and Wolf I can actually see as Xers. Scarborough I can see as a Boomer. Pretty inconclusive.

But then again:

Brian Kilmeade - 1964
Janeane Garofalo - 1964
Laura Ingraham - 1964
Hopeful Cynic - 1968

I am so far out of the loop these days that I do not even know who Kilmeade is. But I can clearly see Garofalo and Ingraham as Xers, despite any "hubristic ideology."

There are exceptions to every rule and it probably does not work to isolate individuals like this as representatives of the whole. What we really need is polling data which conveys the partisan intensity of each cohort year. I'd be willing to be that supreme Boomer partisan intensity is retained undiminished through 1961 and 1962. But it probably falls off sharply around 1963 or 1964. Where it falls off should mark the boundary.

Originally Posted by Mustang

There are exceptions to every rule and it probably does not work to isolate individuals like this as representatives of the whole. What we really need is polling data which conveys the partisan intensity of each cohort year. I'd be willing to be that supreme Boomer partisan intensity is retained undiminished through 1961 and 1962. But it probably falls off sharply around 1963 or 1964. Where it falls off should mark the boundary.

Interesting thought. What poll questions would gauge "partisan intensity"? I bet they've already been asked.

Originally Posted by Nomad 12-73

I know two persons in the 61'-64' group. One is a co-worker born in 61' and the other my wife's cousin born in 62'. I feel they are both Boomers because they are extreme partisans and characterize the other side as not just a fellow American with a differing opinion but pure evil. They look at me (I was born in 73') and seem baffled. I love to debate issues with people and often have strong opinions, but at the end of the day I can still be friends with someone that I totally disagree with because I fundementally respect their right to have an opinion different than mine. These two early 60's people have a hard time doing that and the 61' person often says that he wishes he could be more like me in that regard.

That is an interesting observation. I recall that I have been close friends at times with out-and-out communists, and some of my all time favorite professors/instructors have been out-and-out communists as well. The fact that their politics was anathema to me did not in any way inhibit friendship and respect, even if there were frequent and very heated political debates.

I took it for granted that anybody could be friends irrespective of political differences. But the behavior of Boomers today would seem to contradict that notion. Perhaps Boomers never could "assimilate" with people with beliefs different than their own.

For me, the differing politics never mattered so long as the individual was intellectually honest. But intellectual honesty itself would appear to be anathema to the typical Boomer. That's why there is no longer any political discourse in this country.

Originally Posted by Helter Skelter

Originally Posted by Mustang

There are exceptions to every rule and it probably does not work to isolate individuals like this as representatives of the whole. What we really need is polling data which conveys the partisan intensity of each cohort year. I'd be willing to be that supreme Boomer partisan intensity is retained undiminished through 1961 and 1962. But it probably falls off sharply around 1963 or 1964. Where it falls off should mark the boundary.

Interesting thought. What poll questions would gauge "partisan intensity"? I bet they've already been asked.

I bet Zogby could figure it out.

Originally Posted by Mustang

Originally Posted by Helter Skelter

Originally Posted by Mustang

There are exceptions to every rule and it probably does not work to isolate individuals like this as representatives of the whole. What we really need is polling data which conveys the partisan intensity of each cohort year. I'd be willing to be that supreme Boomer partisan intensity is retained undiminished through 1961 and 1962. But it probably falls off sharply around 1963 or 1964. Where it falls off should mark the boundary.

Interesting thought. What poll questions would gauge "partisan intensity"? I bet they've already been asked.

I bet Zogby could figure it out.

As I said, I'm sure Zogby already asks lots of questions like that; we'd just have to identify which ones.

An interesting observation regarding polling and partisan intensity: there was much ink spilled in debating the validity of the polling around the 2004 election. One reason that there were such disparate results was related to different poll methodologies for the different pollsters; in particular, Gallup "adjusted" their polls to represent a certain percentage of Rs and Ds, based on their long-held axiom that political party identification is very long-term stable, like religious identification.

In other words (until recently at least) it appeared from broad polling data that "once a Republican, always a Republican" was just as firm a conviction as e.g. "once a Catholic, always a Catholic", regardless of whether one actually follows the dogma or not.

However, recent statistical analyses seem to indicate that this axiom no longer holds, especially as the popularity of Bush and the GOP declines; the shift from "Republican" to "Independent" is much larger than expected. This may be related to the decline of "partisan intensity" you describe. If so, it's a good sign...

If I recall correctly, Susan Brombacher posted the Prophet/Nomad ratio for each Boom/X cusp cohort. The change was incremental. The Nomads of the earlier cohorts would correspond, I believe, to the "Busters."

Churchill: Mother England needs your "blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

Blair: the Global Community of Diverse Nations and Peoples and Foods and Craft Projects needs your "values and ideas."

Welcome to postmodernity, where vapid, hollow platitudes may be vapid, hollow platitudes!

Originally Posted by Linus

Blair: the Global Community of Diverse Nations and Peoples and Foods and Craft Projects needs your "values and ideas."

Welcome to postmodernity, where vapid, hollow platitudes may be vapid, hollow platitudes!

Love the "Foods and Craft Projects" bit -- I may steal it for a sig. Not sure what this has directly to do with the 3T/4T boundary -- we've been PoMo since at least the 2T -- but I have two questions:

1) Why does everything sound so much more meaningful and stirring when spoken with a British accent? Even Natalie Portman sounded more believable in "V for Vendetta" with her (barely there) British accent. Maybe I've just watched too many old war movies.

2) When Blair talks about "values and ideas", it's patently obvious to everyone that he's espousing a philosophy that is clearly Liberal and Progressive (in the more traditional senses of those words.) He is, after all, the head of the Liberal (okay, Labor, err, Labour) party.

Yet when Bush uses almost exactly the same words, everybody is so quick to praise his "conservative" credentials. I don't get it. Is it the accent thing again?

And now for something completely different, er, off-topic: when this thread gets to 400 pages, can we please please please have Craig lock it and start a new thread?

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

If I recall correctly, Susan Brombacher posted the Prophet/Nomad ratio for each Boom/X cusp cohort. The change was incremental. The Nomads of the earlier cohorts would correspond, I believe, to the "Busters."

Do you have a link? I'd like to see that.

It's probably somewhere on the Generational Boundaries thread in the paleo-forum. Susan was a key contributor to that thread.

Originally Posted by Neisha '67

It's probably somewhere on the Generational Boundaries thread in the paleo-forum. Susan was a key contributor to that thread.

Has anyone heard here from Susan? We were in touch up until about a year and a half ago, then... nothing. I wonder if she's OK?

The authors predicted that at the cusp, "eightyish Silent be deeply anguished." This article points to the anguish hitting many 80 year olds today. One thing about the article that is debatable is whether or not the challenges of our era will equal that of the Depression and War era. The author thinks that the challenges of that era are far greater than our era. Of course, it is likely that the challenges will become as great as society enters Crisis.

Also, this article, and other things I have been reading increasingly speaks of the obsolescence of the status quo in public affairs.

The dismay of our elders sums up U.S.

Published on: 03/30/06

An eerie sense of calm has settled over the nation's affairs — a dead calm.

It's not merely that the Bush administration has run aground on its own illusions. The real problem runs deeper, much deeper, and at its core, I think, lies the fact that out of fear and laziness we insist on trying to address new problems with old ideologies, rhetoric and mind-sets.

To put it bluntly, we don't know what to do, and so we do nothing.

Run through the list: We have no real idea how to address global warming, the draining of jobs overseas, the influx of illegal immigrants, our growing indebtedness to foreign lenders, our addiction to petroleum, the rise of Islamic terror . . .

Those are very big problems, and if you listen to the debate in Congress and on the airwaves, you can't help but be struck by the smallness of the ideas proposed to address them. We have become timid and overly protective of a status quo that cannot be preserved and in fact must be altered significantly.

The Republicans, for example, continue to mouth a cure-all ideology of tax cuts, deregulation and a worship of all things corporate, an approach too archaic and romanticized to have any relevance in the modern world, as their five years in power have proved.

The GOP's sole claim to bold action — the decision to invade Iraq in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001 — instead epitomizes the problem. The issue of Islamic terrorism is complex and difficult, and by reverting immediately to the brute force of another era, we made the problem worse.

Unfortunately, the Democrats don't offer an alternative. They mouth no ideology whatsoever, their imagination, ingenuity and courage apparently having petered out 30 years ago. They can't bring themselves to acknowledge that the modern litany of problems will require us to invent new roles for government, and to rework the relationships between citizens, corporations and country.

But we can't even talk about such things. Our public discourse — which ought to be the source of renewal and energy in a democracy — has been stripped of meaning, with rudeness now mistaken for eloquence and anger substituting for insight.

All that has led to a sense of helplessness atypical of the American character. In an accurate reflection of our national mood, only 29 percent in a recent Gallup Poll said they were satisfied with the country's direction, a number that can't be explained away solely by our predicament in Iraq. The Gallup numbers haven't consistently been above 50 percent since the spring of 2002, long before most Americans were even aware an invasion loomed.

But more compelling to me than numbers are the e-mails, probably dozens of them in total, that have trickled into my in-box over the past year or so from older Americans all around the country.

"I am 79 . . . I am 84 . . . I was born in 1931," they start out. "I fought with the Eighth Army in Korea . . . We lost our oldest son in Vietnam . . . My husband served in the Pacific . . . I taught school for 35 years," they continue, each recounting their personal contributions to this country and establishing their own perspective on its history.

Then comes the statement that breaks your heart. The words vary from author to author, but the sentiment does not:

"This is not the country I wanted to leave my grandchildren . . . Is this what we sacrificed so much for all those years? . . . I really don't understand how it has come to this. . . . We took for granted that in America it would always be better for the next generation, but I can't see that's the case anymore. . . . Where did we go wrong?"

These people are concerned not for themselves, but for what they may soon leave behind. And that concern for the future is all the more remarkable because it is so rare among those of us who are their children and grandchildren.

Unlike our elders, we refuse to tax ourselves to pay for our wars, our roads, our government. We elevate leaders who promise us tax cuts and free services and cheap oil and the strongest military in the world, and we shun any who dare to suggest that sacrifice might be necessary for such things.

Of course, as a nation we have faced worse. The generation that endured the Great Depression only to be hit with World War II had to confront challenges that make our own pale in significance.

But when people of that generation express sincere dismay about where we're headed today, it's gotta make you wonder.

Originally Posted by GuruOfReason

The authors predicted that at the cusp, "eightyish Silent be deeply anguished." This article points to the anguish hitting many 80 year olds today. One thing about the article that is debatable is whether or not the challenges of our era will equal that of the Depression and War era. The author thinks that the challenges of that era are far greater than our era. Of course, it is likely that the challenges will become as great as society enters Crisis.

Also, this article, and other things I have been reading increasingly speaks of the obsolescence of the status quo in public affairs.

[color=green]The dismay of our elders sums up U.S.

Except for the math (if you were born in 1930, you'd be turning 76 today, not 80), this describes my mother's anguish to a tee.

For about three months after 9/11, she felt queazy; she knew instinctively that Something Had Changed. It probably brought back memories of WWII.

Since 2002, she and my Boomer/Xer cusp sister have been searching for the Great Democratic Gray Champion to Save our Country.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Except for the math (if you were born in 1930, you'd be turning 76 today, not 80), this describes my mother's anguish to a tee.

For about three months after 9/11, she felt queazy; she knew instinctively that Something Had Changed. It probably brought back memories of WWII.

My grandmother died on January 10th, 2002, nearly four months after. She was 74.