Richard Pryor, who helped transform comedy with biting commentary on race and often profane reflections on his own shortcomings, died on Saturday at age 65 after a long illness, his wife and associates said.
Pryor died of heart failure on Saturday morning after efforts to resuscitate him failed and after he was taken to a hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, his wife, Jennifer Pryor, told CNN. Pryor had been suffering from multiple sclerosis, a degenerative nervous system disease, for almost 20 years.
Pryor, who marked his 65th birthday on December 1, had survived two heart attacks, triple bypass surgery and several run-ins with the law.
#2
he was totally honest about that..."dipped his Chocolate chip cookies in whole milk, found there wasn't enough and added 2% lowfat and BANG!!!!"
gotta appreciate the fact he could joke even about almost dying at his own mistakes,
loved the guy and appreciated the lack of "excuses" - saying it was all his own bad decisions...is there anything more to ask of someone?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2005 23:09 Comments ||
Top||
#3
RIP Richard.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2005 23:10 Comments ||
Top||
A Nigerian plane crashed during a storm at Port Harcourt airport on Saturday, killing 103 people including dozens of schoolchildren on their way home for the Christmas break, officials said. The plane, a DC9 operated by Nigerian airline Sosoliso on its way from the capital Abuja to the oil city in the southern Niger Delta, crash-landed, broke into pieces and burst into flames, witnesses said. Seven of the 110 people on board survived the crash.
Civil aviation officials said the Sosoliso flight missed the airport runway, though two eyewitnesses said they saw it land on the tarmac. It was not clear exactly what had happened and police stopped reporters from getting close to the wreckage.
President Olusegun Obasanjo said just after the Bellview crash in October that Nigeria would "plug loopholes" in its aviation sector and strengthen compliance with maintenance standards. Investigators from the aviation ministry were on their way to the Port Harcourt crash site on Saturday evening, officials said, adding the airport was closed to all flights.
Experts say most of the country's commercial fleet is over 20 years old and second hand, while runways are often closed because of poor maintenance. It is not uncommon for planes to take off and land in torrential rain.
Zimbabwe security authorities today seized the passport one of the country's leading newspaper publishers, apparently under a new law allowing the government to block travel by its critics, the publisher said. Trevor Ncube, who owns Zimbabwe's largest private newspaper group and also publishes South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper, said his passport had been taken after he arrived at the airport by a man who identified himself as an officer from Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation.
President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF in August used its parliamentary majority to push through a set of constitutional changes that critics say further entrenches his rule - among them a new provision allowing the government to impose travel bans on "traitors".
Mr Ncube, who is based in South Africa, said he was stopped upon arriving in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo with his family on a trip to attend a wedding. Mr Ncube said he was later told by other sources in Bulawayo that his passport had been seized because his name appeared on a list of up to 64 Zimbabwean citizens who had been identified as government critics.
Zimbabwe officials have denied media reports they were drawing up a list of those to be subject to the travel ban, and there had been no prior reports of the law being invoked.
Mr Ncube, who has been critical of both Mr Mugabe's government and the Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said he was allowed to accompany his family home after his passport was taken. He said he was referred to a senior immigration official in Bulawayo, but he had been unable to reach him. Officials were not immediately available for comment.
China on Saturday broke its silence on violent protests in the south, acknowledging demonstrators were killed when police opened fire but giving a far lower death toll than the dozens claimed by residents. The official Xinhua news agency said police fired into a mob of explosives-lobbing protesters on Tuesday after being blockaded near Shanwei city, Guangdong province.
Hundreds of armed villagers had earlier attacked them in a "serious violation of the law," Xinhua said quoting a Shanwei government report. "It became dark when the chaotic mob began to throw explosives at the police. Police were forced to open fire in alarm," the report said. "In the chaos, three villagers died, eight were injured with three of them fatally injured."
One villager has said on condition of anonymity that 30 people were killed and the New York Times quoted residents as saying that "as many as 20" died. If dozens have indeed died, it could be the deadliest use of force by Chinese authorities since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, albeit not the only incident on record.
The Xinhua report named three "instigators" and said they had organized an attack by more than 170 villagers armed with "knives, steel spears, sticks, dynamite powder, bottles filled with petroleum, and fishing detonators." Police were forced to fire tear gas at the protesters and arrested two before being blockaded, when they opened fire in panic.
The report said government departments were investigating the deaths and a special work group was looking into the incident. It said the "instigators" had been organizing armed protests since June, using local anger over the new power plant as an "excuse."
Residents have said the shootings happened during a clash between hundreds of members of the paramilitary People's Armed Police (PAP) and more than 1,000 villagers. They said the clash stemmed from a long-running dispute over compensation they want from the government for taking their land to build a coal-fired power plant. The project, sponsored by a company run by the provincial government, would also prevent villagers from using a nearby lake to earn income from fishing.
Tensions remained high on Saturday in the village of Dongzhou, near Shanwei, where hundreds of police remain stationed. Villagers were pleading for the return of their loved ones' bodies for burial but so far in vain, according to witnesses.
The incident gives renewed negative publicity to the PAP, a force of about one million that is recruited partly from among demobilized soldiers. Usually seen as a less lethal alternative to the regular armed forces when putting down domestic unrest, it has had its resources expanded dramatically in recent years. According to observers, this reflects the central authorities' desperation to avoid a repeat of the 1989 tragedy when soldiers trained for war were sent to battle unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing.
In December 2000, members of the PAP reportedly gunned down several Chinese Muslims amid heightened tension in a rural community of Shandong province in east China.
#1
Yeah, funny that the Western newspapers didn't report that the crowd was throwing explosives. That's how they go fishing, in that part of the country. The Armed Police would have probably just busted some heads otherwise. The use of lethal force justifies responding with lethal force.
#2
can we really believe the Chicoms at all, ever?
Posted by: bk ||
12/11/2005 11:04 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Interesting quote from yesterday's NYT article that I had not seen:
"From about 7 p.m. the police started firing tear gas into the crowd, but this failed to scare people," said a resident who gave his name only as Li and claimed to have been at the scene, where, he said, a relative had been killed. "Later, we heard more than 10 explosions, and thought they were just detonators, so nobody was scared.
"At about 8 p.m. they started using guns, shooting bullets into the ground, but not really targeting anybody. Finally, at about 10 p.m. they started killing people."
The use of live ammunition to put down a protest is almost unheard of in China, where the authorities have come to rely on the rapid deployment of huge security forces, tear gas, water cannons and other nonlethal measures. But Chinese authorities have become increasingly nervous in recent months over the proliferation of demonstrations across the countryside.
By the government's own tally, there were 74,000 riots or other significant public disturbances in 2004 alone, a big jump from previous years.
I know ZF thinks it's under control, but I'm not so sure about the trend. This must have been some riot to outlast tear gas. As one commenter at Belmont Club observed, that must be a pretty good bunch of agitatorshooligans insurgents to keep that many people rioting that long in the face of that much deterrence.
Yesterday we noted that a Reuters dispatch, titled "Iran's President Questions Holocaust," included this sentence: "Historians say six million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust." A later version of the dispatch, however, deleted the words "Historians say" and presented the Holocaust as fact: "The Nazis killed some 6 million Jews during their 1933-1945 rule."
But today, Reuters has a new formulation:
Historians say six million Jews were killed in the Nazi Holocaust. Regarding this widely-accepted view, Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA . . . "Well, we used to be sure, but there's been a lot of talk going around the office that it could have been as little as a dozen or two, and maybe due to food poisoning or they were hit by a bus or something."
#1
My guess is these reporters do not get out much. Prolly never made it to the death camps. In DC, we have the Holocaust Memorial, which is pretty convincing. Photos, films. I 'spose they could be faked by .... Nah, there's not enough computers. There's a whole corridor filled with shoes.......
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/11/2005 9:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance" - G K Chesterton
#3
I would bet the rooters reporters are muzzies. There sure are a lot of them as bylines. And I'd bet rooters is PC enough to have them on editorial desks by now as well.
#4
And while I am at it, another quote from that same annoying, in some ways bigoted but in other ways wise man:
"There is something to be said for every error; but, whatever may be said for it, the most important thing to be said about it is that it is erroneous."
and
"Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions"
Can't wait for Rooters coverage of the flat earth society. We can anticipate Rooters refering to the Copernican-Galilean system of the solar system as just the "widely-accepted view".
#7
"this most widely-accepted view"
How folks can reshape history to their liking is maddening. A few years ago I walked through Dachau. A very sombering day, the ovens, the cells, the gas chamber, the watch towers and barbed wire. How anyone can say this never happened, needs to see this first hand.
Posted by: Jan ||
12/11/2005 12:23 Comments ||
Top||
#8
2b, Chesterton was indeed writing in the context of religious and cultural beliefs. And he thought that the "tolerance" that was being preached by the upper-crust post-Anglican class was indeed not based on convictions about the equal worth of all humans, or a commitment to freedom of speech and belief, but rather on a spiritual and moral emptiness in that class after WWI.
As in the quote often attributed to him, namely that those who do not believe in God (have specific beliefs) end up believing anything that comes along.
Sure sounds like the liberal ruling class in Britain today, and those they've influenced over 2 generations. Here, too.
Look at the "impartiality" of the MSM. How often does it reflect a REAL concern for the poor and the oppressed in Sudan, in Nigeria, in Zimbabwe? How often are the attacks on Christians by Muslims in Africa reported and commented on by our "impartial" and "tolerant" news media and public intellectuals (soi disant)? They don't know much about the topic - because they are indifferent to it. And their so-called impartiality leads them to find moral equivalences where they do not exist.
Ultimately "tolerance" as a virtue is nothing more than indifference, the suggestion that neither people nor principles matter, just the treatment of things in a superficial way that appears to value people and cultures but in fact couldn't care less about their actual identities, value or suffering.
The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves is directed at concrete, specific humans - people with actual identities, habits that may annoy or frighten us, interests that conflict with our own. It's a hard thing to do, loving and valuing actual flawed humans.
Whereas "tolerance" is so easy that the members of the EU parliament accomplish it in the few minutes between signing in for the day to qualify for expenses and salary and leaving to carry on their self-satisfied lives in comfort and with a total lack of accountability for the results of their actions.
#9
Jan: for those who have never been there, an objective take on the appearance of Dachau today, is that it is comparable in some ways to the grounds of a suburban high school. As shocking as it sounds, the normalcy of the place amplifies its abnormality.
When arriving in town, it would be otherwise easy to miss the camp unless you were looking for it. It is not far away from the center of Dachau, not hidden in some back woods area, and yet no great outward sign makes it stand out.
The surface area of the camp is also deceptive. It seems far smaller than could hold its estimated peak of 60,000 prisoners. Even its design for 8,000-10,000 prisoners seems excessive for the space available. But that speaks only to the inhumanity of those that put them there.
#10
"Look at the "impartiality" of the MSM. How often does it reflect a REAL concern for the poor and the oppressed in Sudan, in Nigeria, in Zimbabwe?"
About as often as it reflected a "real" concern about Saddam's mass graves in Iraq, or the Taliban's brutal oppression of women in Afghanistan.
That is, a concern that was only "real" until-- God forbid-- a Republican president actually took steps to do something about the injustice.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/11/2005 13:03 Comments ||
Top||
#11
lopt - I agree with everything that you wrote. I think the meaning behind the quotes, which have expressed is right on.
However, it's the semantics that I disagree with. I still do not think Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions.
I have convictions in my faith, yet I am tolerant of those who do not share it. I don't believe that my tolerance is due to indifference, but due to the understanding that I can not shape the convictions of others.
I often sit at the table with those whose views are nothing like my own. Views that I believe are ruining the gift of peace and prosperity granted by our forefathers. Yet it is tolerance that allows me to sit with them, in peace and share our humanity. Is that not the very gift of the forefathers? Throwing food at them and stomping out of the room everytime I feel like it would not solve any of the worlds problems - but aggrivate them.
Perhaps we just need to better define tolerance. Tolerance meaning that I submit to their view or their demands? Or Tolerance meaning that I put aside my desire to bring them to my own way of thinking.
#12
Okay, we're just into semantics here, but let me defend Chesterton's phrasing a little further.
To tolerate is better than to attack, but it is not a virtue by any means IMO. It implies a certain unspoken condescension - we tolerate things we don't find important enough to either embrace or to resist or even to enter into active dialogue with.
Toleration is passive, those other responses imply action and engagement, which in turn implies some degree of respect or at least recognition of the other person as warranting an response.
#13
It implies a certain unspoken condescension - we tolerate things we don't find important enough to either embrace or to resist or even to enter into active dialogue with
The truth of that made me laugh.
Toleration is passive, those other responses imply action and engagement, which in turn implies some degree of respect or at least recognition of the other person as warranting an response.
Hmmm.. I'm not sure that toleration is passive. It certainly requires great effort on my part when my family gets together
:-)
#15
Hey everyone knows that Hitler and the Nazi's were created by the Imperialist Americans and their Zionist allies as an excuse to invade conquer and occupy Europe. It was all part of the plan.
#16
Well, seems like Al-Reuters is reading the Al-Jazeera transcripts to the T. "This widely accepted view ..." as if that alone certifies its truth and without acceptance, somehow it just didn't happen.
Reuters runs with the same demented, Holocaust-denying crowd as does this pot-smoking, pole-smoking, male-anus rimming pro-Saddamite, Sodomite asshat:
Posted by: Floating Stone ||
12/11/2005 14:52 Comments ||
Top||
#17
Hey everyone knows that Hitler and the Nazi's were created by the Imperialist Americans
A widely held belief in anti-semitic circles is that American Jews actually did fund Hitler to eliminate European Jews. All designed to demonize Jews, with token anti-Americanism thrown in. Sometimes, what you believe to be a joke, is assumed for truth in the twisted mind. Be weary.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/11/2005 18:53 Comments ||
Top||
#18
I'm fairly sure that in today's PC world that we would not fight WWII were the facts the same today.
Genocide in Sudan. Canonization of Sadam. Nuclear Iran. Riots in France. Theo Van Gogh.
Question for the Democratic leadership: What is the threashhold for fighting a war?
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - To hear Democrats tell it, an anxious and isolated public craves a sense of national community and would galvanize behind a leader who asks people to sacrifice for the greater good. John Edwards says he's that leader.
Wait a minute, so does Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Ditto for Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.
Edwards, Vilsack and Warner, all likely presidential candidates in 2008, are toying with the same lofty community-and-purpose message. And that says as much about the sour mood of the country as it does about the state of the Democratic Party.
"There is a hunger in America, a hunger for a sense of national community, a hunger for something big and important and inspirational that they all can be involved in," Edwards, the party's 2004 vice presidential nominee, told delegates at a weekend convention of Florida Democrats.
"Americans don't want to believe that they are out there on an island all alone," the former North Carolina senator said.This is not a new theme. As first lady, Sen.Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York wrote, "It Takes a Village," a book arguing that a community is an important part of a child's development. Her husband,President Clinton, tried to create a sense of national purpose when he asked Americans to help "build a bridge to the 21st century."
The difference now is that six of every 10 people tell pollsters that the country is headed on the wrong track. Democrats believe they can put Republicans on the defensive by articulating the public's sense of malaise and offering hope to erase it.
more at link
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/11/2005 14:41 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Americans don't want to believe that they are out there on an island all alone," the former North Carolina senator said.
I didn't, either; so after 31 years as a Democrat, watching the leadership of my Party get down on all fours and bark at the moon en masse while eating their own feces, I simply registered Republican.
Problem solved.
Damn stupid dimwitted bozos...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/11/2005 16:36 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: Matt ||
12/11/2005 20:03 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Actually, we ARE ALREADY SACRIFICING for the greater good: it's called democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, TRUE women's liberation, and freeing the planet from dictatorships so that the parents of future childen will be around to raise them.
Remember, when a politician calls for sacrifice "for the greater good", HE believes he WILL define what that "greater good" is to "properly channel" the people's efforts.
#7
Article: To hear Democrats tell it, an anxious and isolated public craves a sense of national community and would galvanize behind a leader who asks people to sacrifice for the greater good.
Oh, boy. Democratic politicians are now going to supply us with "a sense of national community". Somehow, I doubt these guys are going to hang out with us hoi polloi at giant mixers trying to get us to get along a little better. I think they've just found a catchy new name for socialism and higher taxes to fund their pet projects.
Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement:
"As a Veteran of World War II, I know what itâs like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the Presidentâs plays no part in it. But it's OK for your party to try to lose the war...
"The Republican Partyâs latest ad is a shameful and disgusting attempt to distract the American people from the problems in Iraq. It may improve the Presidentâs political fortunes, but the American people and our troops will pay the price. I hope that President Bush realizes how shameful it is to play politics when what we really need is leadership, and that he will direct his Party to take down this ad immediately."
#2
Bush's "attack ad" that did nothing more than repeat what the Dums had said on the record was not front page Aljizz. The Dums statements however were front page Aljizz. By the way incase anyone dont know Aljizz is a known AQ and Radical Islamic propoganda mouth piece, so when they use US politicians quotes in thier stories it aint to boost the US effort but it goes along way to boost the terrorist effort.
#4
as a veteran, Senator, you should be ashamed at the lack of effort you've put forth to direct your party to victory for America first, party second. *spit*
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2005 14:47 Comments ||
Top||
#5
This is absolutely hilarious. Replay their own words, and the Democrats see it as some kind of smear campaign.
#7
Well, I've got to admit that if someone alleged *I* said those sorts of things I'd feel smeared ...
1. Don't recall Senator Inouye telling his fellow Democrats 'stop'.
2. There's a (D) after his name. Last I checked it didn't stand for 'Democrat (when it's convenient)'. Telling Republicans to pull an ad and ignoring that members of your own party made the statements in that ad is hypocritical.
#9
didn't Inouye and John Glenn use up all their patriotic good will in defending Clinton/Gore over ChiCom campaign contributions? STFU Senator
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2005 15:26 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Inouye is yet proving again that old war hero's don't make good politicians. As soon as the vote in Iraq turns out to be grand Inouye will be grandstanding his contributions!
Dito Frank-STFU Senator!
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/11/2005 15:33 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Pappy, it seems I needed to include the [tongue in cheek] and [/tongue in cheek] tags. *I* would feel smeared because I would never say such things in the first place. *They* have no such grounds for complaint.
#12
(a) He was a 'hero' 60 years ago. That doesn't make him one today.
(b) He is too damn old to be a Senator.
(c) The words are right out of their own mouths. No "attack ad" here. Just direct quotes not removed from context.
(d)I'll vote for a warm bucket of spit before I ever vote for any Democrat again. It's the party of the totally untrustworthy.
(e)Senator Daniel Inouye you can FOAD.
#13
The Dems trot out these old war horses who proceed to pawn their past glories for cheap political currency, and defeatest propaganda at that!
These "men" should be ashamed of themselves - As a genuine patriot said. "...may posterity forget that they were our countrymen."
#14
With the Dems, its the old transfer function from advertizing. I was a big shot for some reason, so believe me, and do not pay attention to the facts.
I was a famous cowboy in the movies, so eat this brand of cereal.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/11/2005 17:06 Comments ||
Top||
#15
"I know that politics and an attack machine like the Presidentâs plays no part in it." You can't say that with a straight face. I think it's time Hawaii let Dan ride off into the sunset. No quotes out of context just theri own unedited words.
Former Minnesota Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89. McCarthy died in his sleep at the retirement home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.
Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race. The former college professor, who ran for president five times, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.
"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor," his son said.
When Eugene McCarthy ran for president in 1992, he explained his decision to leave the seclusion of his home in rural Woodville, Virginia, for the campaign trail by quoting Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian: "They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view."
McCarthy got less than 1 percent of the vote in 1992 in New Hampshire, the state where he helped change history 24 years earlier.
Helped by his legion of idealistic young volunteers known as "clean-for-Gene kids," McCarthy got 42 percent of the vote in the state's 1968 Democratic primary. That showing embarrassed Johnson into withdrawing from the race and throwing his support to his vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey. Senator Robert Kennedy of New York also decided to seek the nomination, but was assassinated in June 1968. McCarthy and his followers went to the party convention in Chicago, where fellow Minnesotan Humphrey won the nomination amid bitter strife both on the convention floor and in the streets.
Humphrey went on to narrowly lose the general election to Richard Nixon. The racial, social and political tensions within the Democratic Party in 1968 have continued to affect presidential politics ever since.
"It was a tragic year for the Democratic Party and for responsible politics, in a way," McCarthy said in a 1988 interview. "There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway _ the growing women's movement, the growing demands for greater racial equality, an inability to incorporate all the demands of a new generation. But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions ... each refusing accommodation with another, each wanting control at the expense of all the others," reports AP.
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/11/2005 15:02 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Good Riddance!
No. Your words are that of an imbecile.
One needs an intelligent, principled opposition. I disagreed with Senator McCarthy's politics, but he was a gentleman and he served his country in war and in peace.
One needs an intelligent, principled opposition. I disagreed with Senator McCarthy's politics, but he was a gentleman and he served his country in war and in peace."
Ah, NO! Good Riddance is quite on target.
You, calling me an imbecile is amusing to no end.
With very few exceptions -and McCarthy isn't one of them- there has been scant intelligent and principled opposition from the donk side of the aisle for several decades. More like obstruction and treason.
Sen. Kerry served his country in peace and war as well... PUKE!
#8
For 8th grade Pol-Sci class went to his Madison Wi rally - huge 50k+ people in the arena.
Went to Nixons too. (Still have all those click with dick clickers... also somewhere a "Students for Stassen for Peace button....)
#10
Count me in, too... Clean Gene was a example we can only wish in our most sedated dreams that Dean... and Kerry and all the rest could emulate and live up to. Ahhhh, crap, I'm only 50... waaayyy to young to be an old fart and looking back to how wonderful things were back then!!! Any other Rantburgundians also having this feeling?
Meet Sultana Begum, great grand daughter-in-law of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor of India. Clad in a faded shalwar-kurta, her hair tied in a bun, she counts out the money a customer just paid for a cup of tea at her stall. Barely a stone's throw away, her rundown house in a dingy slum at Foreshore Road in Howrah reeks of poverty.
Posted by: john ||
12/11/2005 08:12 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Shocking how the direct descendents of one of the mightiest islamic empires live
Posted by: john ||
12/11/2005 9:11 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Direct descendents of Genghis Khan as well..
Posted by: john ||
12/11/2005 9:19 Comments ||
Top||
#3
wow, I'm still looking for an English translation of his poems.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/11/2005 20:06 Comments ||
Top||
With my apologies to all the fine Boomers here.
They partied and protested, then grew up to dominate America with their chutzpah and sheer numbers and their fantasy that sedition is a Constitutional right and a civic duty.
Yet now, as the oldest of the baby boomers prepare to turn 60, there are glimmers of doubt within this "have it all" generation about how they will be judged by those who come next. But I'm sure they're self-actualized enough to shake it off.
The ferment of the '60s and '70s â when boomers changed the world, or thought they did â faded long ago. Nostalgic pride in the achievements of that era now mixes with skepticism: Have the boomers collectively betrayed their youthful idealism? Have they been self-centered to the point of shortchanging their children? Gee, ya think? Possibly?
Anthony DeCurtis, one of the boomers' pre-eminent rock 'n' roll journalists, hears the occasional barb from his creative writing students at the University of Pennsylvania and it gives him pause. You mean GenX doesn't worship us like the gods we are!?
"There's a fear that there's going to be nothing left â that they're going to be picking up the pieces for this six-decade party we had, cleaning up the mess," said DeCurtis, 54. "There's some truth to that, I guess." Oops! Oh well!
The boomers â 78 million of them born from 1946 to 1964 â are wealthier and more numerous than any generation before or since. They have controlled political power long enough to stack the financial deck in their favor.
"It's economic and policy imperialism," said University of Oklahoma historian Steve Gillon, 48, author of "Boomer Nation."
"The boomers have set up institutions that will continue to benefit them, at the expense of other groups, as they grow old and live longer than any other generation," Gillon said. "It's spend what you want, cut your own taxes â the ultimate baby boom philosophy of 'We want to have it all.' We're not a generation that's had to deal with the reality of sacrifice." More precisely, a large segment of the generation had the luxury of opting out, and still fail to be grateful for that luxury, or regret indulging where others sacrificed.
Among the boomers turning 60 next year â along with George W. Bush and Bill Clinton â is Ron Kovic, who became an anti-war activist after being paralyzed by a combat wound in Vietnam in 1968. His autobiographical book "Born on the Fourth of July" became a hit film.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Kovic sees no reason for guilt or embarrassment as boomers take stock. "We have every reason to be proud," he said. "We were brash and bold and beautiful." Oh, barf.
Now, Kovic says, his generation will revolutionize a different kind of '60s.
"Often when people get older, they say to the younger generation, 'Well, it's your turn now,'" he said. "I feel very differently. Rather than just passing the torch, and saying we did our best, this generation â which dreamed such big, impossible dreams â refuses to step aside. It sees itself as part of change that it still passionately believes will occur." Yeah, wait till your kids stick your self-righteous rear end in a home.
Reluctance to step aside could be a formidable phenomenon in coming years as many boomers seek self-fulfillment and civic engagement deep into old age. Listen to Dr. Terry Grossman, author of "The Baby Boomers' Guide to Living Forever" and operator of a Denver anti-aging clinic.
"As an official member of the boomer generation, I do not believe it was intended for us to die," said Grossman, 58. "We were special right from the get-go â dying wasn't part of our script." Let them eat cake!
Grossman believes medical advances that will extend lifespans by several decades are perhaps 20 years away. Boomers, he said, are turning to fitness gurus, special diets and vitamin megadoses in hopes of staving off aging long enough to benefit.
A particularly assertive breed of boomers dominates in Washington, D.C., according to Michael Franc, who works there for the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"Boomers always struck me as very self-centered and self-important, because there are so many of us," said Franc, 48. "We're always in the middle of the next fun moment at some everlasting party, and we're not able to defer the gratification to tackle the long-term problems." Our kids could program our VCRs and TRS-80s, and by golly, they'll fix everything else too!
Other boomers feel similar doubts about their generation's track record â and they want their new cause to be a shot at redemption. Boomer-led initiatives such as Civic Ventures are encouraging people over 50 to consider socially productive jobs and volunteer work rather than easing into traditional "golden years" retirement. Let me guess. Code Pink? International Solidarity Movement? The Catholic Worker? Please, buy a yacht and go away.
"We've been killing ourselves working for hours on end for decades, caught up in the work-and-spend dynamic," said Marc Freedman, 47, Civic Ventures' founder.
"But there's a chance for the boomers to reclaim their earlier legacy, and not be a drain on society," he said. "They could have a second coming in terms of social idealism, and find ways to contribute that mean something beyond themselves." Doesn't sound like he means babysitting the grandkids.
In some realms, boomers already take pride in what they have bequeathed. Boomer women, for example, broke into many male-dominated fields on a broad scale and expanded options for those who follow.
Susan Lapinski, editor of Working Mother magazine, cited her own two daughters, both in their 20s.
"My heart lifts when I think about them," she said. "They see meaningful work as one of the ingredients of a happy life. They just assume their partner will be there to assist them." Oy. They can resign themselves to some manicured, dickless pseudo-men, then. Lapinski, 47, credits the boomers with starting the process of equalizing marriage, convincing fathers to help more with household affairs and child-raising.
"Even if it's imperfect, it's a leap forward from the previous generation where dad went behind his newspaper after dinner and mom did all the bedtime rituals," she said. Yup, they equalized marriage all right. My father cheated on my mother, bankrupted her, divorced her, moved in next door with the same chick who sent death threats to Mom -- and still wonders why we can't all be one big happy family. It's his right to self-fulfillment, you see!
Some boomer parents may have taken matters too far â obsessing over their children's education, activities and college prospects.
"Did some of us try to create trophy kids? In some families, you'd have to say yes," Lapinski said. "In other families, though, there was a nice new emphasis on getting to know your kids, finding fun ways to spend time with them." Oh yes, it was really fun when I started spiking my purple hair and staying out all night with my drug addict friends.
Of course, not all boomers welcomed the women's movement, just as the generation remains divided over abortion and gay rights.
"What the boomers did is expand the range of individual choices of how people live," said Gillon, the historian from Oklahoma. "The division today between conservatives and liberals is really a debate over the boomers' legacy."
Lisa Crooms, a Howard University Law School professor, is 43 and technically a boomer, though she doesn't feel like one. She was barely a toddler when the 1963 March on Washington inspired older black boomers.
"The group before me and the group after me clash in certain ways," she said. "A lot of the people older than me take themselves much too seriously, a lot of the people younger than me have a sense of irreverence."
Of boomers, she said, "Their control-freak aspect is too high. They're going to orchestrate how the legend is written, make the history books and say no one will need to revise them afterward."
Nothing illustrates that boomer headlock on modern life quite like rock 'n' roll.
Boomers didn't invent the genre, but they were the fans who made it so durable. Even as music remains youth-oriented, today's young people couldn't escape the 60-something Rolling Stones if they wanted to; Mick Jagger and the boys are even playing the Super Bowl. Long-gone idols such as Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison remain popular both with boomers and their kids. Hendrix and Morrisson? I'd be rather more awed if they'd had the will to crush the commie butchers in Vietnam and welcome home men better than themselves with ticker-tape parades.
And wasn't that 40-something Madonna on top of the Billboard charts with her new album?
Franc, the Heritage Foundation official, has tried to broaden his tastes, sampling new music recommended by a colleague in his 20s. "My kids don't like that I listen to their stuff," he said. "Their comfort level is higher when I frown at their music."
DeCurtis, author of many memorable Rolling Stone profiles of rock stars, enjoys good camaraderie with his students at Penn and tries to stay to open to young people's music â but he's quick to defend the old favorites.
"The Stones are tremendous," he said. "Someone tells me the Rolling Stones suck, they can't play, I tell them, 'Go see the show.'" Perhaps he should consider, when some young punk tells him the Stones suck, they're trying to convey something deeper about the suckiness of the era in general.
But no matter how many classic rockers they see, DeCurtis and other boomers to have to admit that both the performers and the times have changed. The explosion of energy that began in the '60s is just a memory.
"Even as a kid, there really was a sense that things were getting better and we were part of it," DeCurtis said. "There was something about being out there protesting the war and thinking you were going to stop the government that made you grow up." And thanks to this attitude, GenXers (a) have the sense that feel-good leftie twaddle made things much worse, (b) understand that there are things worse than "The Government," and (c) realize that, while these hippies are spending their fifth decade smoking dope at anti-war rallies, it falls to us to get off our duffs before it all caves in.
Howard Mechanic, a former Vietnam War activist who lived as a fugitive for 28 years, fondly remembers the adrenaline rush of full-bore protest. Must be like the adrenaline rush of a third full-bore deployment.
"Now the urgency isn't there," said Mechanic, 57, of Prescott, Ariz. "A lot of people in college, they haven't had to change to be where they are. ... We had to change our lives to do what we wanted to do." So, so brave.
Some boomers, like Calvin Street â a 55-year-old Naval veteran who runs an inner-city youth program in Baltimore â wonder what happened to that can-do attitude and optimism.
"When did the war on poverty end?" he asked. "Maybe things just fizzled out, and we got to the point where we said, 'Well, we didn't change as much as we could, but it's OK,' and we walked away." Yeah, it's okay. Only half the world is itching to nuke us into oblivion.
Let me just say, thank you to all you decent boomers who somehow survived the age with your judgment intact.
Posted by: ST ||
12/11/2005 03:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I've had my doubts about the boomers for a long time. We have a lot of cultural s&%t to mop up in the next few decades. X'ers uber alles!
#2
Gee, I was born in 1949 and find nothing to identify with in the above-described bunch of boomers. I did like rock and roll.
"Doubts about their legacy" How self-absorbed!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/11/2005 9:49 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I'm with Bobby, if a year younger. I also think it is early to write the story on boomers. Before this is over, they will countenance the substantial dismantling of Social Secuity/Medicare and many of the most long lived will die in reduced circumstances, if not out right poverty.
Sickening. Absolutely revolting people they quote in the article, the crème del a crème of the most obnoxious, self-important pricks I'll ever have the displeasure of reading about; I couldn't read the whole thing, it's that bad to me.
I only wish I could move my birthday 43 days so I am not technically one of them. 'Scuse me while I throw up now...
#5
If they want to work on their legacy, they could start by feeding the poor. I don't mean "buy the poor some food," I mean "report to the slaughterhouse and let them render your flesh into hamburger." I HATE the boomers. I sometimes wonder if the fact that their parents spawned them doesn't entirely negate that whole "WWII/saving the world from tyranny" thing. I think you're coming out about even here, Grampa.
Understand that I am not canvassing every individual born in that time frame. We know who they are.
#6
Same here, Bobby. I don't relate with anything these people say. I entered college later than most people I graduted High School with as well as a lot of others from that time. The naivete and of our fellow underclassmen and in some cases the outright hatred of us who served in the military was something we just couldn't understand. These were the "If we just sit down and talk to our enemies we can all get along" bunch and they haven't changed today. They are still under the delusion we can talk to the Islamofascists and they will understand and we can all hug and sing Kumbaya. They absolutey do not believe the Islamofascists mean what they say and it is all our fault anyway and if we just apologise to them the world will go back to the '50s. These are the same people who look down their noses at people who at people who don't think being a flaming liberal is a GREAT THING and being a Conservative is the bottom rung of the intellectual ladder. Their attitude of Moral Superiority makes me barf.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/11/2005 11:19 Comments ||
Top||
#7
but, your beautiful Neo Cons are boomers
Posted by: bk ||
12/11/2005 11:24 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Yes, and some of us started out as liberals. In fact, that's the origin of the neo-con movement - the idea that national defense, promotion of democracy and concern for the structural problems in society could go hand in hand.
The paleocons hated us, with a passion - especially the WASP set, but also the northeastern Catholic elite, the NRO crowd.
The liberals hated us even more, but figured they could write us off.
We're still here, we're boomers and we're not going away - for a while yet, anyway. We're not going to retire early and bleed our kids' generation either - a lot of us are working our asses off to sustain the economy, promote national defense and ensure we pay our way into old age.
I won't be inheriting a dime from anyone, have buried both my parents and am supporting an uninsured 29 yr old's longterm medical expenses, not to mention paying for past indiscretions that person committed. I repaid my student loans, worked my way through my undergrad and grad degrees one at a time, stayed in my first and only marriage 31 years now and can't stand the attitudes quoted in that article.
OTOH I'm not too thrilled at being lumped in with them, either. And being a baby boomer wasn't all peaches and cream for those of us not born with a suburban silver spoon in our mouths: we competed with each other for scholarships, jobs, mates, promotions ...
But yeah, many of us were shit-poor parents, overindulged as kids by parents in reaction to the depression years and WWII, self-aborbed, coddled and obnoxious. I don't blame the kids of those boomers for being mad as hell.
#9
Legacy? Uh, pay for your own retirement benefits and pills instead of making your grandkids do it? Stop voting for socialism? Finally grow up?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/11/2005 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
#10
(Disclaimer: I'm a boomer) I look at how the WWII generation sacrificed and saved civilization. I look at the men and women of Gen X & Y fighting for their country and to defeat tyranny in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then I look at some of the self-absorbed assholes in my generation. It doesn't exactly inspire pride.
#12
boomer here too (1959) - my Legacy? My three children, who are three of the finest people you could ever meet (despite my influence, heh). Unlike some, I know it's not all about meeeee. I'm gonna leave the world a better place with them here
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2005 12:29 Comments ||
Top||
#13
There is an advertisement currentlyy running on TV for Boomers that makes me just want to barf.
They have all of these aging, but hip boomers, with 1960esque clips, in a party atmosphere, as if protesting, and rock and roll in the background. Then the announcer comes on and says something like, a generation as special as yours, needs a financial advisor who can meet you special socially conscious-like needs.
Bleah. Could there be a shorter and more concise indictment of the boomer generation?
You can just invision some young punk 20ish advertiser, pandering to the youthful delusions that of his target audience. Yeah, you fought the man - now well allow the delusion continue to fight it, rather than acknowledging that you grew up to become everything you claimed to be against. Rock on, brother.
I think Boomer Generation is an apt title. Their unwillingness to move past the faux-rage of adolescence to deal with world crisis in a meaningful way has created the AQ and the real "Boomer Generation".
#15
No, the passion comes through as it is. And that's okay -
BUT, but, but ...
could you PLEASE distinguish those destructive, self-absorbed attitudes and the people who hold them from others of us who happen to have been born at the same time -- and who have had to put up with them longer than you have?????
#16
Where the hell's my bat?????????? I'd like to bash idiots like this AP "journalist" who lump everybody from my generation into one stupid, undifferentiated mob called "Boomers."
I was born in '49, grew up dirt-poor. Enlisted in the Army and did my three years, then worked full-time to support a family while going to college full-time. Like what Bobby said: there is absolutely NOTHING in any of the views expressed by the dingalings interviewed for this article that I can identify with, AT ALL, and people like those were NOT like most of the people I knew in my generation.
To paint us all as one amorphous blob of zoned-out, tofu-nibbling, granola-munching, whale-saving, commie pinko peace pimp free-love tie-died stoners is utter bullshit.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/11/2005 13:41 Comments ||
Top||
#18
Ahhhh...key-rist! I was born in 1954, hit college in 1972, worked with Vietnamese refugee resettlement in 1975, joined the Air Force in 1976... The rock music was cool, the civil rights for women and minorities were cool--- and about damn damn time--- but why do I feel like I have spent thirty years of my life cleaning up after these drug-addled, self-centered, indulgent assholes? It's been kind of like following along with a mop and broom after an elephant stampede has smashed, flattened, and crapped over everything in sight.
But I am sure they had a wild time, god knows they've been telling everyone who will listen how wonderful they are for changing everything. It's just some of those changes weren't at all in a good way.
#19
Of boomers, she said, "Their control-freak aspect is too high. They're going to orchestrate how the legend is written, make the history books and say no one will need to revise them afterward."
As a GenX'er, it sounds to me like Proff. Crooms sort of hit the nail on the head. The Nany State IS the Boomer legacy.
Dave: To paint us all as one amorphous blob of zoned-out, tofu-nibbling, granola-munching, whale-saving, commie pinko peace pimp free-love tie-died stoners is utter bullshit.
I don't think these people were ever the majority - they just got all of the attention.
#22
Good, It's settled. There's no real baby boomers at the 'burg. But I've got to admit, it's pretty awesome what they did before they were 30. Civil rights, no credit to Marty King or A. Phillip Randolph or any of those guys, envirowackism, no credit to Rachel Carson or Gaylord Nelson, the sexual revolution, no credit to Carl Djerassi or Crick and Watson.
Sorry folks, the boomers only did what any other generation of teens would do if they got the chance. The difference? There was no adult supervision around to say NO. Where were all the supposed grown-ups of the Greatest Generation? In addition to the above, they were throwing God out of the schools, and putting unions in them, making divorce no-fault, bankrupting the country with a "war on poverty" and the new welfare state, while starting real wars they decided not to fight or finish honorably either. It seems to me the "Greatest" generation left one hell of a mess for the boomers to clean up. At least some of them finally realized how badly they had screwed things up and joined with the boomers to elect Ronald Reagan president.
The boomers can't really be held responsible for much except pop music until 1990. Since then, things haven't gone too badly. At least the Boomers have elected people who can be reelected and finish their terms. Now the boomers will have to clean up the remaining mess from the New Deal/Great Society, Social Security and Medicare, public education, broken families and envirowackoism and sticking with it to see the war on terrorism through to a finish so the next "Greatest Generation" may bask in its post-war reflected glory while it lets the country go to hell.
#23
Don't forget Peyton Place and wife swapping, which hit TV before I was a teen. And Dr's Little Helpers - the ideal of a generation of housewives and their doctors dealing with malaise pre-feminism via barbituates. It only happened among the upper class and especially upper middle class, but it set a social tone for their kids.
#24
sorry, but the music still rocks - Led Zep and Stones and......
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/11/2005 16:26 Comments ||
Top||
#25
Im a young buck and petty much most people I know in my age group literally have some hate for the I dont call them baby boomers I disagree with that becuase thier was alot of good people in that group I call them the "peace love and happiness movement".
They were propogandized by the Soviet propoganda so deep they dont even know when they are trupiting the propoganda.
some examples:
all evil greed, corruption, jealously is explained as the evil dollars fault when in actuality it is "human Nature" been going on since long before money was ever even thought of, but to them its all the dollars fault. Soviet propoganda becuase if you could just get rid of money and make everyone equal these human natures would disapear is pure fallacy and proven so in Soviet Russia her self and anywere else it was tried.
All coorporations are evil everything is just a big conspiracy of the man to keep everyone down. Rich people are evil and poor people are somehow angelic victims, middle class well they are just wanna bee evil rich.
The US gov is inherently evil and imperalist.
The US is not really the good guys WW1 was really about evil coorporations, WW2 was really about Roosevelt forcing Japan to attack, our forefathers genocided the Indians, the Forefathers owned Slaves, blah blah blah
from the belief in these truths came a guilt that once they began to get real power made punishment of my generation the norm example: (I agree slavery was wrong and seperate but equal was a oxymoron your either equal or not period) but guilt of the peace love and happiness people forced my generation onto busses every morning and afternoon across town past multiple schools all in the name of meeting some BS diversity quota, saw reverse racism make white males second class citizens to everyone else (and that else has come to be everyone short white males the root of the white devil I guess I dont know the reasoning but to see companies and gov especially see more benifit in one person not because they are more qualified but a double minority status is freekin retarted) Quotas have seen minorities get promotions and colledge support when other more qualified didnt simple becuase they were the wrong color.
The self hate and guilt that the gov which only existed originally at least to protect the US citizens from foriegners, negotiate with foreigners in the name of the people for the good of those people not the foreigners, to protect US interest over sea's like the Barbary wars it was about protection of US shipping in the Med. The idea that the US cant go to war to secure our economic future here at home makes no sence at all like saying we dont deserve our way of life even though we have it becuase generations before us faught and worked hard for it, only pure self hating guilt can justify such retarded thinking.
The whole idea that the weakest omong us must be taken care of by the strongest. Of course history and human nature says that if you dont force people to make the sacrifises needed to survive by allowing them to suffer they never will. And another human nature is that if you see one person do something and seems good idea to you you copy that. Welfare didnt help anyone out of the ghetto it just garanteed their survival multiplication and growth of those sucking on those who are working hard to survive and making it harder for those who are trying to come up becuase they are forced to carry these slugs that choose not to suffer and work. Of course the failure of this plan is not admitted but just claimed as evidence of the racism even though huge numbers of non-minorities has also jumped on this tity but then its just rolls to class warfare evil rich. I think someone with common sence of human nature once said "give a man a fish feed him for a day show a man how to fish feed him for a lifetime".
Common sence is a bad word in the LLL's mentality. Everyithing bad or weak has an excuse. Kill someone well they were abused as a child, ehh who cares kill emm so the next guys knows better. Everybody has a excuse no one takes responsibility for themselves and thier actions resulting in more irresponsibility and more bad actions.
Their goals of self indulgence and living for the moment has through hollywood and other have decimated the traditional family, literally crumbled the education system, raised crime and drug use to all time highs after all life is about enjoying the moment right. They say Iraq is out of control with no security I dare them to get in thier car and drive to thier cities housing project around 3at night and tell me the cops are in control more like barely containment.
The govs job is to protect everyone from every little thing has regulated our lives to the point were my friend spent 11k on permits for a 50k trailer WTF.
Everything the peice love and happiness movement has done has been proven as a failure all thier ideas. However as long as they control the Education systems, Hollywood and the Media thier ideas will still be pushed a protion of every generation including mine will be polluted and propogandized. I dont think thier is much that could be done about Hollywood and the Media they are coorporations and more gov is never good and could very well if implemented be turned the other way it will work itself out in time I believe however education needs some changes big time I think nationalism should be taught in shcools mandatory. A nationalist class would basicly be US history concentrating on the good points not the bad. The US from the start has totally revolutionized the world for the better with freedom and liberties this should be taught along with all the wars that it took to not only garantee our own survival but spread those beliefs, like how after WW2 we didnt claim the whole world for ourselves or even make them proxies like the Soviets did we setup those nations with free democratic govs. All of this should be taught from a US point of view NO objective both sides crapola, this one aspect is the most dangerous to our nation I fully believe in time the domestic issues will work themselves out but Iraq has demonstrated how our foreign policy and literaly our survival has been threatened by the peace love and happiness movement thier self hate cripples our ability to defend ourselves from real bad guys in the world and unlike domestic issues when you loose on the foreign policy you may not get to work it out you have new masters.
#26
c-low..wow, good post. I think you pretty much summarized the legacy of the "peace love and happiness movement, PLHM. Bravo!
My only complaint would be for you not to be so hard on the "Greatest Generation". Though your complaints are valid - I'm a bit tired of the blame mommy and daddy syndrome. They're just like any generation, yours, mine, theirs, who-evers. Despite good efforts, they f**& things up. You will too. Best to acknowledge the good and move on. I think the problem was that the media megaphone was so loud that made it impossible for them to pass any wisdom on to their kids.
The PLHM grew up and became what they hated: Hypocrites who find self-righteousness in blaming others as unpure.
#27
A huge subset of generation X,Y...is not much better. Have a look at the TV or take a course in any university. There's a huge population growing up believing that problems can be solved with resources created out of thin air. Got a problem? Just throw more money at it. It grows on trees after all. Social unrest in some 3rd world dump? It's Nike's fault because they're not paying their workers a fair wage.
Allow me to introduce you to The Yes Men. The gen-X version of the boomer types the article talks about, but FAR more sophisticated.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/11/2005 17:59 Comments ||
Top||
#28
I was born 9/46 - one of the "early" "boomers". Things didn't really start going downhill until the mid-1950's. It started in the cities and moved very slowly into the countryside. The "peace, love, and happiness" bullshit was a rebellion against religion and God, part in response to changes wrought by the Great Depression and WWII. I see it in my kids - the need for THINGS, instead of anything intangible. It's as if they can't believe in it if it's not hard plastic or shaped metal.
As for the music, some of it's good, and some of it's filth, just as it's been in generation after generation. The same is true of literature, although it appears good literature is harder and harder to find. The Gen-Xers, on the other hand, seem to be retreating into a "virtual world", where you can undo mistakes with the touch of a finger.
The biggest condemnation I can level on my fellow "boomers" is that those that "everybody" talks about were the ones that never grew up, never accepted responsibility for their actions, and never had to accept the burdens the rest of us shouldered. They're still acting like spoiled children. No wonder so many of THEIR children dispise them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/11/2005 18:29 Comments ||
Top||
#29
Being at the tail end of the Boomers I grew up watching the older kids just screw things up. The drugs, protests, hippies, etc⦠I could remember in High School my class mates commenting on having to constantly cleaning up after our older brothers and sister. Our parents were a wreck, drugs, divorce, anti establishment, and on and on. We knew this would be ours to fix. Regan gave us a breath of hope, but Clinton and the rest of the âI can justify anything if it makes me feel goodâ crowd will continue to create the messes we the next generation will have to fix. As the Boomers settle into running our colleges, media, and politics, we will eventually have to fix it all over again.
My only breath of hope is the generation of the young men and women I see every day in the junior ranks of our military and in my children. They may love Nintendo more that hiking and have no idea what a Schwinn is, but they know the score and understand better the future than we do. They are paying for it in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and all over the world. After the war is pushed into containment that will never end, they will be the ones to pay for it. They will do it just like they are doing today. They quietly fight the war with no fanfare and will have to put the Boomer generation follies right. They will, of course, do it right because they have no choice.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/11/2005 19:30 Comments ||
Top||
#30
Born in 48, I believe that those who are normally classed as "boomers" are the cowards who hid behind 2S deferments while better men went to war, who founded the "Peace Movement" to demonize the military so they could feel self-righteous and superior in their cowardice, and who caused America to lose, for the first and only time, a war. I don't count myself, my wife, or my friends as "boomers" Some good things came out of the 60s, civil rights, women's rights, electronics, and men on the moon. But along with that came the "Great Society", the abdication of personal responsibility that has seriously damaged the American family, abortion, and a plague of ACLU lawyers out to destroy American culture and the American way of life. Only time will tell what history will say about the "boomers", but the only legacy we leave is our children, and to borrow a phrase: the kids are all right.
#31
My dad (b.1930, fought in tail end of WWII), never fails to give me grief about how my generation (late boomer, 1955) screwed the country up. I never argue with him about this because he's right.
That said, I give him grief about having wanted to impeach Nixon because it was his generation doing that which threw away the hard-earned victory my generation won in Vietnam. Dad's lib tendencies finally flickered out in the 70's with Carter. We both remember me as a high school kid cheering like crazy at Christmas 1972 about the fact that America had finally gotten the courage to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong the way we should have in 1965. He didn't see the bombing as a good idea then; now he does. Poor judgment, then, isn't a sin limited solely to boomers.
Yes, all those of you who are ticked off at the boomers have some pretty serious evidence on your side. Just remember that not all of us in that age category were in favor of that PLHM garbage and some of us have been fighting against it all our adult lives.
I guarantee you this: no one was happier than this conservative boomer when Reagan was elected in 1980. At the time I truly believed that another term of Carter would have doomed us as a nation and I made it a point to be back in the US from overseas to vote against that boneheaded peanut farmer. Every passing year since then has made me more grateful to Reagan and more contemptuous of Carter. I think 1980 was the year that a lot of the boomers realized that it was time that the adults got back in charge of the country. It didn't make up for the idiocy of the 60's and 70's but at least it started us back on the path to sanity.
Posted by: mac ||
12/11/2005 21:50 Comments ||
Top||
#32
Ah hm...
(b)1956 - enjoyed the early years....
It was pretty good living until Carter screwed it up with a rose garden and 27% interest and 100% inflation over his term...
As to fun and youth culture and parties - I plead guilty and would not have exchanged that time for the world.....
But, everybody needs to move on... These folks you are upset with didn't...
Most did.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Nigerian plane crashed during a storm at Port Harcourt airport on Saturday, killing 103 people including dozens of schoolchildren on their way home for the Christmas break, officials said. The plane, a DC9 operated by Nigerian airline Sosoliso on its way from the capital Abuja to the oil city in the southern Niger Delta, crash-landed, broke into pieces and burst into flames, witnesses said. Seven of the 110 people on board survived the crash.
Zimbabwe security authorities today seized the passport one of the country's leading newspaper publishers, apparently under a new law allowing the government to block travel by its critics, the publisher said. Trevor Ncube, who owns Zimbabwe's largest private newspaper group and also publishes South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper, said his passport had been taken after he arrived at the airport by a man who identified himself as an officer from Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation.
China on Saturday broke its silence on violent protests in the south, acknowledging demonstrators were killed when police opened fire but giving a far lower death toll than the dozens claimed by residents. The official Xinhua news agency said police fired into a mob of explosives-lobbing protesters on Tuesday after being blockaded near Shanwei city, Guangdong province.
