Black Monday: Judgment Day 5769

My mind is reeling as I type these words, words that I record with great apprehension for what the future may hold. We are nearing the close of a momentous Monday. The date is September 29th, 2008. It is the first night of Rosh Hashanah,¹ the Jewish New Year that doubles as the Jewish Day of Judgment.² And let me tell you, buddy, it couldn’t have come at a worse time...

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This day will go down in the history books as “Black Monday,” or something to that effect, and why not? The U.S. stock market fell more than 7% today, with the Dow finishing some 778 points down. They are calling it the largest single-day loss in the market’s history, and the TV pundits all seem to agree that the stock-market's free-fall is directly attributable to the failure of Congress to pass a bailout measure of unprecedented size and scope. The market had been falling throughout the day, as rumors of the bill’s likely defeat made their way to Wall Street. When the final word came, at approximately 3:00 PM ET, the market took a final plunge before closing to record losses.

Suze Orman is pissed. CNN has her answering viewer questions during both Larry King Live and AC 360, presumably to calm viewers who believe the day of the apocalypse is upon us. But Suze is not as reassuring as usual. She sounds alarmist and angry, and she insists that congress has made a huge mistake. And you know what? I agree with her. This market crisis has been anticipated for over a year now: I have read dozens of articles and op-eds on the sub-prime mortgage mess that specifically worried that credit might dry up. The $700 billion dollar federal buy-in was a last-ditch effort to inject what economists refer to as “liquidity."

The bailout plan was put forth by the Bush administration, and was vigorously supported by both Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Board of Reserve. Both parties’ presidential candidates were outspoken in support of the bill’s passage, although as senators they were forced to watch from the sidelines while the bill sank.

Actually, John McCain did try to jump head-first into the house negotiations last Wednesday, temporarily “suspending” his presidential campaign less than 40 days before the election in order to address the issue. The congressional negotiations were promptly buried under a hail of media coverage, yet it might be suggested that it was precisely this sudden surge of media coverage that galvanized millions of voters to contact their congresspersons in vigorous opposition to the bill’s passage!

When pundits opine that the problem boils down to a failure of leadership, what they mean is this: The people who failed to lead were the hundred or so congressmen who caved to the pressure from their constituents and voted against the bill in spite of pressure from the president, the secretary, the chairman, the speaker, the minority leader, and both presidential candidates. A segment of the Republican caucus had maintained opposition all along on the basis of free-market principles, but many others were simply fearful of defeat in the approaching congressional elections. The tail can sometimes wag the dog. But is it ever truly smarter?

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There is a funny problem underlying today’s turmoil. Legislators had made today a deadline for action for a specific, albeit unpublicized, reason: There will be no meetings in congress tomorrow because too many Jewish members will be away for High Holiday Services. Barney Frank says that he won’t be able to work on this tomorrow because of Rosh Hashanah, although he goes on to invite his colleagues to continue working on the bill. Anderson Cooper is flustered and confused. I can’t wait to see what Jon Stewart will have to say. Or will he even be on tonight? He may well be taking the holiday off…

In fact, Pelosi acknowledged the Jewish members of her caucus during her speech from the floor of the house earlier today.³ You also have to wonder what will happen tomorrow morning. When the gentile investment bankers in New York City show up for work, many of their Jewish co-workers will be absent. Let’s just say that there’s more than a kernel of truth to stereotypes about the number of Jews in finance. So what effect will their absences have on day-after functioning of the market?

There has been little commentary on the role of the Jewish holiday in today’s events. However, Pelosi’s speech generated quite a bit of controversy after Republican Minority Leader John Boehner suggested that its “partisan rhetoric” had prevented as many as 12 Republicans from voting for the bill. Barney Frank points out later that by some feat of “numerology,” 12 is exactly the number of additional Republican votes that was needed to pass the bailout package.

The House Democratic leadership held a press conference at 3:00 PM to announce the bill’s defeat. After a few brief comments from Speaker Pelosi and Frank, who is the Chairman of the House Finance Committee, the first question is addressed to Speaker Pelosi. A reporter asks her about Boehner’s accusation that her speech had sunk the vote. Frank answers for her, ridiculing the notion that Republican lawmakers decided to “punish the country” because their “feelings were hurt.” The line ends up in every network’s coverage of the night’s lead story, along with quotes from the Speaker’s speech and the Minority Leader’s response.

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Notes: 1) The year is 5769 on the Jewish calendar, meaning that there have now been five thousand seven hundred and sixty-ninth years since the moment of creation, according to Jewish tradition. 2) Yom Kippur, which follows in a week and a half, is properly regarded as the Day of Atonement, when we attempt the have any bad verdict overturned on appeal, so to speak. 3) I caught a re-run on C-Span, which marked the time of the speech as 12:20 PM ET.

Taking Sides

From my Harvard classmate Josh Patashnik over at The New Republic:

The fervor this campaign has unleased is a grim reminder of how far removed this textbook conception of the political process often is from reality. Politics can easily end up being tribal, not rational; there's a natural urge to pick a side and defend it, regardless of the ideological stakes involved. The longer the fight goes on and the closer the race appears, the deeper the divide becomes--it takes on a life of its own and before you know it you have irate activists traveling thousands of miles to Washington in passionate opposition to the fair and legitimate nomination of a candidate whose views they agree with. In short, the problem is not that demography determined the outcome of the Democratic race--it's that people (journalists included!) became so emotionally invested in such a superficial contest.

News Flash: Clinton Overwhelming Choice Among Poorly Educated and Uninformed

The Gallup website has posted a number of articles on the stark differences in support by education level being received by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary race. This recent article summarizes the general trend:

In the overall sample of 7,999 non-Hispanic white Democratic voters Gallup interviewed between April 1 and April 26, Clinton beats Obama by a 49% to 42% margin. As seen above, Clinton gains this winning margin in part because of her very high percentage of support among those with lower education levels. Obama's support among the well-educated is not strong enough to counteract Clinton's strength among the less well-educated.

Now go ahead and accuse me of "elitism" if you like, but why hasn't it occurred to people that college-educated people are far more likely to actually know something about the respective candidates and to have some idea of what their policies are, as well as their implications? Doesn't the disproportionate support that Obama receives from educated Whites across all age brackets indicate that they may understand something about the two candidates that the less-informed, more apathetic uneducated voters have simply missed? In particular, I have noted that Obama repeatedly appeals to subtleties and nuances in word and policy when explaining his plans or his apparently all-important gaffes. The MSM, which is made up primarily of people who have college degrees but try as hard as possible to forget everything they have learned, has tended to completely miss these subtleties and nuances, but this is an enormous problem, because political office is all about carefully weighing decisions and making fine distinctions. It seems to me that the people who know how to do this are supporting Obama in a freakishly disproportionate manner. One further note: What percentage of college-educated whites would support Obama if we removed the effect of the feminists? I think it's fair to assume that the majority of ardent feminists in the U.S. are white and college-educated, and they vote overwhelmingly for Clinton. Take out these women, and the number of college-educated whites voting for Hillary probably shrinks to a tiny, insignificant percentage.

From a recent Gallup report:

"...from the moment he appeared on the national scene as a serious Democratic contender, Obama's appeal has been strongly skewed toward those with high levels of education, while Clinton has been the dominant favorite of those with less education."

Feminism and the 2008 Democratic Primary

Michelle Goldberg of The Guardian brilliantly skewers the argument that equates feminism with a vote for Hillary Clinton, and the false feminists who make this claim. She also makes this point, which I recently made to an associate who would not acknowledge its accuracy:

If the roles were reversed, if Obama were behind by every metric, Clinton would have been coroneted by now, and the cry for her opponent to get out and quit being a spoiler would be deafening.

See the post for some really ridiculous rhetoric by radical feminists attack female supporters of Obama (who, it should be noted, have been in the minority in nearly every state outside of Illinois).

Tales of Rhetorical Hypocrisy, Part 1: Bush and Diplomacy

From the International Herald Tribune, Adam Nagourney writes:

Without using Obama's name, President George W. Bush, at a White House news conference on Thursday, assailed his willingness to meet Cuba's new leader, Raúl Castro, without preconditions, saying that to do so would grant "great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity."

What, you mean people like Pervez Musharraf, Vladimir Putin, the Saudi Royalty, and the Communist Party leaders of the People's Republic of China? Yeah, Presidents should never meet with those dudes without preconditions. Who would even think of doing such things?

Hypocrite Conservatives Can't Adhere to Their Self-Proclaimed Principles

The Democratic House passed a new bill yesterday providing incentives to encourage the production of green energy technologies. Everyone in Washington seems to support the idea of encouraging the development of technologies. So why has President Bush threatened to veto the legislation? Well, to offset the increase in spending of approximately $17 billion, the bill cuts subsidies to oil and natural gas companies. Republicans in the house have been calling this "a tax on oil production." This is a shameless tactic that the Republicans have been using in spades: equating anything that increases the tax burden on any entity with a tax increase. It is false by definition. You see, all American-owned corporations are required to pay taxes. But if your industry just happens to be one that formerly employed the current president, turns out he's willing to give you a huge tax break, simply because you are already making such ridiculously large piles of money at the expense of the American consumer. Isn't that swell? It's not a tax increase - it merely requires that the fossil fuel empires who are currently trying to destroy our planet pay the same taxes as every other corporation or business. So where's the hypochrisy? In the NYT article, Republicans are quoted as saying that the bill would definitely pass (I guess they means it wouldn't be vetoed, since it has already passed) if only those restrictive "taxes" on oil companies were there. Why can't the Dems just pass legislation with the incentives for green energy, no strings attached? Apparently, the Democrats are adhering to a policy known as fiscal conservatism (that's right, conservatism), which requires the government to only spend as much money as it earns. Republicans have suddenly begun denouncing reckless spending, a phenomenon that manifested itself suddenly on a Tuesday night in November of 2006. I guess they felt that after six years of running up massive deficits, it was time for them to tighten their belt - if only the Dems would listen to them! The takeaway here is: House Republicans are full of sh*t.

Economists Thaler and Woodward Deride Clinton's Mortgage Fix Plan

Senator Hillary Clinton presents herself as a policy expert and declares her readiness to govern from "day one." But her recent prescriptions for the housing market should cause doubts for thoughtful observers.

University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Susan Woodward, a former chief economist at both the SEC and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, took a shot at Hillary Clinton's plan to freeze adjustable home mortgage rates yesterday. Highlights:

What would happen if scheduled rate increases were halted? Although it might make some borrowers happy, such a freeze could potentially poison the mortgage market and quickly exacerbate the slump in housing prices. If lenders and investors do not receive the interest payments they expected, they will be wary going forward. Should they avoid providing funds for adjustable rate mortgages, since the government would have just proven that the terms can be changed if difficulty arises? Should they avoid all mortgages, since the government now seems to prioritize short-term concerns for borrowers? Maybe they should avoid lending in the United States altogether? Such a policy would clearly send a dangerous message far beyond our borders. Two trillion dollars of U.S. national debt is held by foreign governments. Interest rates on this debt are low in part because foreigners trust the U.S. to pay back its loans as promised. The rates would surely be higher if its holders thought the U.S. could renege on its promises to pay. But this is precisely the expectation America would encourage by unilaterally changing the terms on $2 trillion in mortgages held by investors around the world... Senator Clinton's policy amounts to a command-and-control approach to economic policy in which the government announces prices and tells suppliers what to produce. Undertaking such an intervention can only raise interest rates on mortgages (and maybe other interest rates as well) as markets attempt to incorporate risk premiums to cope with possible future interventions. Promising the American people that you can fix things by just lowering their interest rates is dishonest, a fairy tale that won't come true.

Fairytale. Heh. Now where have I heard that line before...?

The Significance of Senatorial Endorsements

Brian Beutler makes some keen observations about the meaning behind the endorsements by senators of Clinton and Obama. I particularly like this observation about Ted Kennedy's endorsement:

Kennedy chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions atop both Clinton and Obama. He is, at the same time, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, which is the very committee that has supposedly served as Clinton's home school for acquiring her widely praised military expertise. He is, in other words, not just the nation's most trusted and revered Democrat, but also, coincidentally, the one who's had the greatest opportunity to see the young candidates at work. And he came away supporting Obama.

Clintons Vs. Obama: The Reagan Comments

Bill and Hillary Clinton's distortions of the comments of Senator Obama regarding 1) the legacy of Ronald Reagan, and 2) the Republican party being "the party of ideas" over the last 10-15 years were the subject of the most bitter and vituperative confrontation between Barack and Hillary during Monday night's CNN debate (if you haven't seen any coverage of this slugfest, you've been living under a rock). Jake Tapper does an excellent job of presenting what each side actually said and evaluating whether the Clintons were accurately representing Obama's comments (they were not). If you would like to decide for yourself, a video of the full interview that sparked the controversy can be found here.

Robert L. Johnson's Enlightening Clarification

I have said that I would put all the competitive rancor vis a viz Obama v. Clinton behind me, and after their conciliatory statements of the past few days regarding the race flare up, I am even more strongly committed to playing nice, as Obama would like me to do. However, I still feel that it is incumbent upon us to point out the complete BS spewing forth from the mouth of one Robert L. Johnson. Let's put aside the fact that it seems a bit unusual for the feminist-oriented "Let's Make History" Hillary crowd to be embracing the founder of BET, an network that has probably done more than any of its competitors to denigrate and objectify women. What is dead wrong with this situation is that in Johnson's "apology", he claims that when he said "when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book," (see the video here) what he was referring to was Obama's time spent community organizing. In the brilliant words of Noam Scheiber on TNR's The Plank, "Riiiiight." I've been trying to get my head around what, exactly, Johnson was trying to say, granting that he is telling the complete truth about what he meant. I had intended to merely insert his explanation into the quotation above, but when I looked at and re-transcribed Johnson's comments, it immediately became apparent that the whole rambling monologue was completely incoherent. Therefore, I have made a slight editorial change (enclosed in brackets) to his statement, so as to generate a grammatically correct sentence. My edited transcription of his remarks appear below as the first quote. The second quote is my attempt to insert his explanation of what he meant into his statement (said insertion is also enclosed in brackets). However, I invite one and all to come up with their own insertions, mad-libs style, in these key points. So: According to Robert Johnson, when he said:

As an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues, [are racist,] [or: are denigragting Dr. King's role in the civil rights movement,] [or: your mad-lib here,] - when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book.

What he meant to say was:

As an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues, [are racist,] - when Barack Obama was [community organizing] in the neighborhood.

Doesn't it all make sense now? But the real problem is not that Bob Johnson is a liar (or dissembler, or what have you). The real problem is not that such an incredibly inarticulate and sleazy individual became the world's first black billionaire. No, the real problem is Hillary Clinton's reaction to Johnson's comments. Michael Crowley points out the contradictions inherent in the statements about Johnson's comments that Hillary made during last night's debate. Key takeaway:

[A]fter a Hillary gave an answer downplaying the relevance of surrogate comments ("what somebody [people] never heard of said"), Russert followed up on Johnson: "Were his comments out of bounds"? This time, Hillary offered an entirely different spin: "Yes they were. And he has said that." So, to recap, Hillary's positions were: 1) Bob Johnson denies that he did anything wrong and I accept that. 2) Bob Johnson admits that he did something wrong and I agree.

By the way, I have read most of Obama's Dreams from my Father (I'm in the midst of reading it now, but I'm way past the youthful indiscretions section), and I suspect that Johnson has not. If he had, he would know that the "neighborhood" was a prestigious prep school in Hawaii and then Occidental College, which is located north of L.A., near Pasadena (and about as far as one can get from South Central and Compton while still living near L.A.). Obama went to "Oxy" for two years before transferring to Columbia University in New York City. He did indeed live in or near the "neighborhood" of Harlem while at Columbia, but by that point he had completely sworn off drugs and alcohol, and basically went through something like a period of purification, accompanied by a withdrawal from society. When Obama was a community organizer in Chicago, his efforts were centered almost entirely on improving the lot of the most impoverished African-Americans on Chicago's notorious south side. His focus was always on getting real results on small issues that mattered to the people he was trying to help. For example, he led an effort to successfully lobby the Chicago Housing Authority to secure loose asbestos in an isolated housing project. Another effort resulted in the establishment of a new employment center on the far south side. In the process, he brought together a diverse cadre of community activists to work together for change, and he touched the lives of dozens of individuals with whom he had close personal relationships. If this is the experience that Johnson meant to refer to when he was trying to denigrate Obama, I can't even fathom what his point would have been. Then again, perhaps expecting a coherent and rational argument from this guy is more than just a little bit naive...

Obama takes the higher ground

Apropos of my last post...

Toning down the rhetoric, gaining a little perspective.

Those of you who know me very well, or who run into me on Friday nights at the CJL, will be aware that I have been almost bitterly partisan on behalf of Barack Obama in recent weeks. Recently, there has been an explosion of coverage surrounding Hillary Clinton's single careless (although not really objectionable) remark, coupled with a few foolish statements by her supporters and some others that were taken out of context. This whole charade has upset me in many ways, but it has also led me to a few important realizations. When I first tentatively announced to some friends and family that I was backing Obama, at some point during the spring or summer of 2007, I think, I was careful to point out that my support was tentative, and subject to change on the basis of new developments and learning more about the candidates' opinions. However, a funny thing happens to a person once he or she picks a side: It becomes increasingly difficult to separate one's own identity from one's team, and to interpret new information in a sober and rational light. In the wake of Obama's watershed victory in Iowa, the media supposedly went wild over the possible reality of an Obama presidency, and in the wake of that media frenzy has come a good deal of criticism over the mad rush to jump the Obama bandwagon. After some angry and confused phone conversations last night, I read an article by Leon Wieseltier in the latest print edition of The New Republic which was finally able to persuade me to take a step back and gain some perspective. All I'm saying is, I need to keep my head clear. So does everybody else. Some are wise to ask what Obama truly stands for - and indeed, to ask what Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Huckabee, Romney et al. stand for. What will they do in office? I often get upset when intelligent individuals echo Hillary Clinton's talking point that "we don't know what Obama stands for" or "he's all hope, no action." This is simply untrue. There is a little-known url that you might want to check out if you want to be an informed voter and would like to know what precisely Obama proposes to do if he is elected president. This may be hard to remember, so why don't you grab a notepad, or better yet, just click the link. Ready? The website is called Barack Obama Dot Com. I know, it's hard to remember. Life is tough, isn't it? On Obama's official campaign website, one can find all of the details of "what he stands for." I realize that he doesn't always discuss the nitty-gritty details in his speeches, and perhaps there is reason to criticize him for this. At the very least, one can't expect all of the masses to actually browse through complex policy details. But I have a hard time respecting your intelligence and intellectual honesty if you can make a statement about Obama's lack of "substance" if you aren't willing to do your homework! But that being said, everyone should do their homework, and sober, reasoned debate is always warranted on substantive issues. So I will be making an effort to tone down my rhetoric and keep more of an open mind. I mean, I'll try. And I strongly encourage the Hillary partisans to do the same (only more so. Ba-zing! Ok, ok, starting...now!).

Breaking News: ADD Generation to go all-political

I have decided that in the interest of separating my continual ranting about politics from any other little things I might like to share, I will now be posting all material of a non-political nature on the newly-created Pithy Title Coming Soon. Check it out if you have any interest in my personal life. I hope to mostly post about movies that I like and little things that happen to me, plus a dollop of social psychological observations of human behavior - consider it training wheels for my future career. Ok, enough dilly-dallying. Back to the politics!

Big-Name Democrats Endorsing Obama

All of the attention today will go to John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama, but I found this quote from the NY Times article on the endorsement to be more interesting:

“Of all the candidates running, the easiest to rally around is Barack Obama,” [former Senate majority leader] Daschle said in an interview. “Because of his newness on the scene, he has not created the political opposition and enemies that come with extensive service in politics. He is a clean slate.”

The Conversion of an Independent

Note: This post first appeared as a comment to an article on The New Republic's website on Thursday, Jan 3; it was revised and re-posted as a note on my Facebook account at 5:57pm on that same day. Only minor modifications have been made before posting it here. When I first registered to vote in Massachusetts, waaay back in 2003, I checked the box marked “independent” when I was asked about my political affiliation. For the next 4 years I continued to stubbornly insist that I was an independent whenever asked, despite my support for a range of left-of-center views on many issues and my vote for John Kerry in 2004 (I'm convinced that he couldn't have won Massachusetts without my support). Yet I stand before you today as a registered Democrat, and there is exactly one reason why I took this step: I now live in New Jersey, and I want to vote for Barack Obama on Super Tuesday. I retain the right to renounce my party affiliation immediately after February 5th, 2008, and perhaps I will if the Democratic base makes the wrong decision, as both bases are accustomed to doing year after year. The truth is, most Americans agree on a wide range of significant and important issues. As Barack Obama once said, back when lots of Democrats believed in him, "We worship an ‘awesome God’ in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of use pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.” The preferences of the Moderate Majority are continually subverted by the interest groups, extremists, and partisan hacks on the left and on the right. Most other democratic countries avoid this problem by allowing a true multi-party system to operate via parliamentary politics. They also offer a tantalizing advantage over American "democracy": the votes of "all men (and women) are created equal.” If we had such a system in America, perhaps John McCain would have been elected president in 2000, and I think most of us can agree that America would have been much better off for it. In fact, in the (fairly unlikely) case that I find myself choosing between John McCain and a democrat like John Edwards (or Bill Richardson…heh…) on election day, McCain will be getting a serious look from this “registered democrat.” I admit that I may be setting myself up for a huge fall. If Obama loses the nomination, I’m sure I’ll deal. But if he does get elected, and it turns out that I’m wrong about him - if it turns out that he does not have the sincerity, the integrity, the intelligence, and the desire to do the right thing that he so plainly projects - then I may give up the tattered remnants of belief in the American democratic process that I still retain. Nevertheless, I would rather “hope” that Barack Obama is the savior of American politics that I believe him to be than give up all hope for this country whatsoever. So don’t deride this independent revolution. Obama motivates unlikely people to get involved. He gives hope to many of those who have lost faith in American democracy and our electoral system. That, at least, has been the case for me.

Announcing the launch of ADD Generation!

Greetings friends! I have now joined the ranks of "real" bloggers, for whatever that's worth (not much these days). I will be re-posting much of my recent political yacking on this site over the next few days. Thereafter, I will primarily post here, although I will occasionally post my own blogs into my Facebook profile, so you all don't forget about me. This blog is intended, for the time being, to cover all of the things that I enjoy talking about: Politics, music, movies, a little bit of psychology here and there, bits and pieces of my everyday life, etc. etc. If this gets out of hand, I may create several blogs (this site seems to be very flexible on that note) and focus the content of each. But for the time being, thanks for stopping by, and if you have a minute, check out my inaugural post (below), which has served as the inspiration for the name of my blog. Comments are completely free and open - let me hear your thoughts!

This is the ADD Generation

Hello, and welcome to my first posting as a "real" blogger (assuming that my Myspace blog doesn't count - though many if not all of those posts will soon be imported). I have used the term "ADD Generation" to refer to "my" generation to for some time, and since it's been on my mind, I decided to make it the name of my blog. But the very act of naming a generation (as was done, for example, with the Beat Generation) raises some fun and interesting questions: what is a generation? How is one defined? How big or small must a generation be? Is there any meaning to the concept at all? It is these questions that I would like to address in my inaugural post. To begin with, I define a generation as a cohort of individuals born within a given time frame. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau defines someone as a Baby Boomer if they were born in the years 1946-1964, although this definition is certainly subject to dispute. In fact, as I will repeat again and again, the question of birth years must pervade any discussion of the meaning of a generation. How many birth years should be included in a generation? How do we go about choosing these years? Must all generations be of equal length, or can they be subject to variation? Now, I do not propose to answer these questions. I merely wish to use them as a springboard for a discussion of some of my ideas on the subject, and hopefully others will participate in this discussion as well (I have set my blog to allow anyone to comment, and you can do so anonymously - that said, if I know you personally, I really would appreciate it if you would leave your name with your comment). As I see it, the concept of a generation is associated with a few (possibly) distinct phenomena: 1) pop culture 2) U.S. politics (I'm restricting this discussion to generations in the U.S. only) 3) major world events Further, the relevance and timing of these phenomena are dependent on the age of a cohort when it is exposed to them. A highly salient example concerns computers and the internet. When the baby boomers were growing up, computers were enormous things that were only owned by the government, and maybe some scientists and high-tech corporations. When my mother was in college, in the early 70s, she had to create computer programs using carefully arranged punch-cards (just like Apu, in the Simpsons episode where he becomes a U.S. citizen). Further, she had to sign up for access time, and as an undergrad, the only hours available to her were in the middle of the night. PCs came out in the 80s, and the first one to arrive in my house came sometime in the early 90s. My birth year being 1984, that means that I was at most 8 or 9 years old when we got a PC, and access to the internet soon followed. Of course, there has been a great deal of rapid development since then. Facebook came out when I was a freshman in college (quick note: I had it earlier than most, because it was originally launched exclusively at my school), YouTube when I was a sophomore, and by the time I was a senior, everybody was talking about "Web 2.0." Computers have played an important role in the lives of most Americans, but I grew up in a world of computers, and they have therefore been an essential element influencing my perception of the world. And the next generation, well, they're growing up now, putting their lives on YouTube for all to see with nary a qualm. Part of the idea that I am struggling with is how generational cut-offs come to be agreed upon, if indeed they ever do. I might say that my generation consists of the people born between 1980 and 1989 or so. Why? Because at this moment, that would include almost all of my close friends. All of these people lived through the elder Bush's presidency, though they barely remember it, and through the Clinton and second Bush presidencies, which have both made a considerable impact on them. They were 12-21 years old when 9/11 occurred, 14-23 when the Iraq War began, and all of them can vote in the historic 2008 elections - for some, this will be their first time casting a ballot. This is the generation that I call the ADD Generation - the generation that is addicted to video games, cable TV, The Daily Show, The Simpson, Family Guy and Adderall. We use our cell phones to check the time, and we entertain ourselves constantly with our Ipods, Blackberries, and now the Iphone. We spend hours online every day, on Facebook, Myspace, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. etc. We've known the internet for (practically) all of our lives. and we are so over-stimulated that we can't pay attention to anything for longer than five minutes. This is the ADD Generation. I will now the outlines of a theory on how generational identity emerges and develops. I refer to my generation, as well as the generation of my parents (always an important influence on any generation, I would argue), that of the Baby Boomers. Their parental generation was "The Greatest Generation" - the one that fought in World War II. An interesting topic to take up is what happens to the generations in between the parents and the children, and how the parental streams of influence oscillate over time - but that is for another time. The remainder of this discussion focuses on the development of a generation, in the most generic sense. Read on, if you're still interested... For the purposes of this discussion, I am breaking the periods of a person's life into broad phases. These age ranges are admittedly arbitrary. Early childhood (ages 0-5 or so): no one really remembers this stage of their lives (and what they do remember tends to be highly personal and idiosyncratic), so most events that occur during this time are out of the generational picture. However, that does not stop them from coloring our lives - they are the givens of our world as we begin to construct it. I don't remember the falling of the Berlin Wall, but the cold war has always been a thing of the past for me. Late childhood (6-11): This is when we begin to form our perceptions of the world, and consequently when "the generation" begins. At this stage, it is mostly the TV shows we watched (at least for the past few generations) that influence perception, with a small effect of major political and world events. I used to watch Full House re-runs, lots of the Simpsons, Home Improvement...years later, when a member of your generation refers to one of these shows (ok, perhaps excluding the Simpsons), you know that you are in the same generation if you get the reference. The first political event that I remember is the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency, and this memory is vague. Other events barely had an impact at all. Adolescence and the high school years (12-17): This is a crucial period in the formation of a generation. We don't create any of the culture, but we become its most avid and lucrative consumers. Music, in particular, and pop culture more generally are perhaps most important during this phase. By the time I came of age, grunge was just about dead, although it was still being played on the radio station that I listened to (Q101 in Chicago - it used to be cool!). Third Eye Blind, I hesitate to admit, was an early favorite of mine. Radiohead's OK computer came out when I was 13. This period also saw the popularity of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Blink 182, Limp Bizkit and Matchbox Twenty. These were not groups that I enjoyed, but their salience to members of my generation cannot be denied. Perhaps my preference for backdating my generation to 1980 is due to the fact these elders had been listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam when they were fresh and new - although those bands were certainly of a different generation, the generation in between: Generation X. As far as major events go, this period of my life was marked by the Clinton impeachment, the contested election of 2000, and the most salient event of all: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. There can be no question that this event made a powerful impression on everyone in "my" generation. The college years (roughly ages 18-22): I believe that whether or not one chooses to attend college, this age remains somewhat distinct from the later twenties. Neurobiologists claim that our brains do not truly finish developing until somewhere in the ages 21-23. These are tumultuous times for anyone in this age category. This is the period when a generation begins its dialog with the nation as a whole, although it is usually dismissed as hopelessly idealistic and naive, or else as apathetic and uncaring (ahem, Generation X, ahem...). And on the level of pop culture, the generation starts to produce as well as consume the music and culture. As an example of what I mean, consider that the first Baby Boomers turned 18 in 1964. Actually, many of the artists who most influenced them were not truly of their generation - this is generally true, as the generation has little control over its identity until sometime during this phase, when it begins to define itself. For me, the Iraq War and the height of partisan fervor (and Republican incompetence) occurred during this period - one which I am only now on the cusp of completing. Young adulthood (23-30): the generation begins to make real contributions to society, but usually begins at the bottom of the heap, doing grunt work for the older folks. However, this is also the final period when generational identity can still be molded - by the time we turn 30, our generation's image and flavor have been established. It is also the time when our generation affects the one on our heels - or perhaps the time when half of the generation leads the other half. To return to the Boomer example, the eldest Boomers turned 23 in 1967 - the year of Monterey pop and the "Summer of Love." In my opinion, 1967 marks the first year when the full weight of the baby boom culture was felt in America as a whole, and concerns about the generation gap, etc., occurred. I look forward to finding out what my generation will do, although much of it has already happened, or is underway. Middle adulthood (31-45): the generation begins to have a real influence on politics, business, and the professions. They raise marry, raise children (for the most part), have divorces, and work their way up the ladder. The once "radical" notions of the generation become more mainstream - I look forward to this period as a time when, for example, outright racism will be an anomaly (I do not think we will ever be entirely rid of this scourge) and when bias against homosexuals will be substantially lowered. We will also make real strides in combating global warming (or we will be doomed...). etc. etc. etc. Late adulthood (46-64): The generation takes the reigns from its predecessors - the election of Bill Clinton was seen as a sign that the Boomers were now in charge. As an Obama supporter, I'm hoping this is the last year of their rule, but if Hillary Clinton or a Republican becomes president, we will have to put up with 4 to 8 more years of boomer rule. That should hopefully be it, though. Old age (65+): The generation begins to retire, and begins racking up health care costs and nostalgically listening to the music of their teens and twenties. More on this subject to come? You'll just have to wait and see...