Consider this another reminder to subscribe to Harper’s Weekly Review as soon as Webly possible (or you can just read them all at the archives). They have real sweet kickers. e.g.
“Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the destruction of parts of an ancient Muslim cemetery, where some of Saladin’s warriors are buried, to make way for a new Frank Gehry-designed $250 million Museum of Tolerance.”
Happy Saturday, America! Try to spend it doing something cheap. Like applying for jobs.
Love,
the New York Times
P.S. Dean also suggests moving to Brazil.
Every other day I read something about how my generation is the most self-centered and superficial, like, ever. The youngs are easy scapegoats for our cultural problems (or “quirks” if you’re PC like that). They always have been, and I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say they probably always will be. So how is it every generation seems to forget that as soon as they turn 30?
I’ve been kind of ruminating for the past week on this Radar piece by Robert Lanham (author of the Hipster Handbook) waiting for some self-hating epiphany. But.. nope!
Lanham’s thesis is basically that Generation X had it really hard and everyone was really mean to them, and that Generation Y (by his definition, anyone born between 1982 and 2002) comparatively gets away with cultural murder.
Sure, Generation X survived AIDS, Reagan, the Cold War, Tipper Gore, and A Flock of Seagulls, but those adversities, suggest Strauss and Howe, pale in comparison to what Millennials face today. Consider the stress of having to juggle a 30-hour work week while simultaneously maintaining Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr accounts. It’s enough to make your head spin! And maybe the Millennials never faced Hitler’s forces on the beaches of Normandy, but had they been around in 1944 (and had the technology existed), you can bet they would have blogged about it.
Yeah, so would the Gen-Xers, considering they were the ones who started blogging in the first place. There seems to be a dark, plaid-flannel cloud of bitterness over Lanham’s half-assed arguments. Yes, TIME published a nasty article about Generation X in the 90s that probably hurt a lot of teenaged feelings. But they pulled the same thing fifteen years later with “Twixters,” the January 2005 cover story about twentysomethings balking at traditional rites of passage. It’s not Generation Y, Generation X or even just Americans — it’s a huge cultural shift in developed nations from Japan to Italy.
Gen-X heralded that shift; Gen-Y is only picking up where they left off. And no, Lanham, it ain’t always pretty. Our public image, thanks to the availability of candid photos online, is way douchier than Gen-X’s ever was (see above), plus we’re all unemployed and debt-ridden from college. It’s only fitting that we’d waste all our time on the Web sites that Gen-Xers created for us. I guess my question is, what do you expect from a generation of kids who learned what a blowjob was from Bill Clinton’s televised impeachment hearings and who only have hazy memories pre-GWB (who you jerks elected by the way, thx)?
The Harper’s Weekly Review newsletter always brightens my mid-week. This is just a taste of why, from the May 20th edition:
A 19-year-old college freshman was elected mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma. “Right now I’m between girlfriends,” said John Tyler Hammons, who is president of both the Young Republicans and the Young Democrats at his university. “I’m looking to fill that position.” … The Vatican’s chief astronomer said that it’s not a contradiction of faith to believe in aliens and that we may have intelligent, God-created “extraterrestrial brothers.” … U.S. Air Force pilots were testing the Advanced Mission Extender Device, the result of a $5 million program to replace unhygienic “piddle packs” with a system that converts urine into a gel. Los Angeles was considering whether to turn its raw sewage into drinking water.
All right, move along, back to work.
I’m blogging daily for those crazy kids at CollegeOTR. Fair warning: tomorrow I’m writing about Brooke Hogan. Sorry, guys, but I want the page views!!
I archived the radio documentaries I worked on at Columbia in this handy hip muxtape format in hopes of landing a job at KQED. Please only leave very positive comments about my comedic timing and ability to write short declarative sentences on the off chance that they see this blog post.
Roommates.com felt the lengthening arm of the law this week when the 9th circuit pinched them for discrimination in a suit brought by (who else?) the San Fernando Valley. The site provides a matching service in which potential roomies have the option of requesting matches with particular genitals and proclivities (more or less).
I feel like this is akin to telling a potential employer your age and then slapping them with a discrimination suit since they aren’t allowed to ask. Roommates.com provides no actual housing service, just a social matching one, not to mention that you can decline to complete any of the “discriminatory” fields.
OkCupid, you guys are totally next. Get rid of those damn drop-down menus, though, and everything will probably be fine.
I’m officially twitting, so get on it if you swing that way.
I’m hoping this will be easier to stick with than, uh, this has been, given the limited word count.
We’ll see!
+ LA hospitals dumping discharged patients on Skid Row: Some are homeless — and some aren’t! And they wonder why everyone knows Los Angelinos are idiots.
+ Sixapart launches Vox: Better switch over those LJ accounts, kiddies.
+ Gay marriage in NJ: Maybe Jersey isn’t worthless after all. Who knew?
+ Free papers flood subway: But the New York Press sure is! (Just kidding maybe!)