Timothy Crouse’s book gave us the overused phrase “boys on the bus.” Now, it seems, the boys (and girls) are being yanked off the bus in droves. Fewer and fewer reporters for the nation’s major dailies are riding the campaign bus and flying on the press plane to regularly cover the remnants of the pre-convention presidential race.

That bodes poorly for both the survival of the print press and the level of political knowledge of the electorate the print press decreasingly serves.

Jacques Steinberg of The New York Times reports that 650 journalists parachuted into Cleveland, Ohio, in February to cover the debate between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. “But,” Mr. Steinberg writes, “early the next morning, as the two candidates set off for engagements across Ohio and Texas, representatives of only two dozen or so news organizations tagged along.” [emphasis added].

Newspaper managers say they have reasons for pulling the boys off the bus.
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What’s the difference between a skeptic and a cynic?

A skeptic is someone who, when told something, doesn’t immediately believe it to be true and looks deeper into the issue before making their decision.

A cynic is someone who, when told something, automatically assumes it to be false, and doesn’t bother looking any further, because it’s just got to be bullshit.

It’s essential, especially in these times of fear and paranoia, that we maintain a healthy skepticism about what we are told. Full Story »

There is a very important man in human history whose name too few people know:  Alfred Korzybski.  He’s the father of general semantics, and before you say to yourself, “Oh, it’s only semantics,” understand that improper use of semantics can absolutely, positively, kill you.  I’ll explain why, shortly.

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Bill Strauss, who co-authored a number of important books on generational dynamics, is dead at 60.

This is a great loss. Strauss and his colleague Neil Howe were responsible for some of the most insightful and important analyses ever done into American generations. Thanks to them we now have a heightened ability to understand the cyclical nature of generations, affording us a tremendous capability to anticipate coming trends.

13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail, their examination of Generation X, literally changed my life. Up until I discovered it in th early ’90s I had no idea about the broad economic and social factors shaping what I thought was my own personal little hell. Full Story »

Rolling Stone is at it again.

As if picking out the 500 greatest songs, 500 greatest albums, and 100 greatest artists weren’t argument fodder enough, now the magazine whose masthead motto used to be (cue laugh track) “All the news that fits” and whose motto for the last 25 years has been “All the money we can gets” has created another list to foment bar stool scholarly discussion:

25 Greatest live albums…. Full Story »

Pundits are much like birds flocking south for the winter…they travel in large groups, directed a certain way by a few leaders that twist this way and that, directing the rest of the flock to follow. It seems that if you watch the flock, it looks like they have no idea which way they’re going, so willy-nilly and arbitrary are their changes of direction.

And so it is that this week we get no fewer than four distinct flocks flying around this week, each one presenting a very different directional tilt on the topic of whether or not Barack Obama is a candidate for “Generation X,” the “Millenial” generation, both, neither, or something totally different. Full Story »

Matt Taibbi, our newest Scrogue, is perhaps the premier political writer of his generation. He made his bones with Mark Ames at Russia’s legendary expat rag The eXile before moving on to The Beast and New York Press. He now writes for Rolling Stone and will soon release his fourth book, ‘The Great Derangement.’ He’s also covering the ‘08 campaign in a special RS diary entitled “Year of the Rat.” His caustic wit often compared to Hunter Thompson, he’s called Mitt Romney “a poll-chasing stuffed suit with a Max Headroom hairdo,” Tom Tancredo a “vengeful midget,” President Bush “a retarded Christian AA version of Woodrow Wilson” and gets Fred Thompson confused with Joe Don Baker. Taibbi was kind enough to answer some questions from S&R’s Mike Sheehan.

Taibbi: They’ve done some good things. In the 109th and the other Republican Congresses the two-day work week was standard, and even those two days were often half-days. This Congress has brought back the five-day week. They’ve eliminated for the most part the “vampire congress” late-night sessions and phased out the holding open of votes to intimidate recalcitrant members and that sort of thing. But on the other hand… the Democrats came in amid much fanfare and announced that they were reforming the system, eliminating earmarks, etc. After the first Continuing Resolution they passed (I think it was on January 31), Rahm Emanuel was bragging about how it was an “earmark-free bill.” But there are all sorts of earmarks in it. A guy I know named Full Story »

I know I’m crazy with the posting today, but I wanted to mention another resignation that will be much less heralded, and much more lamented: Economist and uber-progressive blogger Max Sawicky is hanging it up.

I’m a latecomer to Max’s readership, but his work has inspired me to be a better, stronger writer and blogger. Max told it like it was, never gave an inch, yet was always willing to listen and debate. He put centrist Democrats and the netroots both on notice that being DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) was unacceptable, that simply electing anyone who called themselves a Democrat wasn’t enough, and that progressives had a right to demand more of the so-called “liberal” party than Blue Dogs and slavish adherents to free trade.

When I grow up, I want to be an irascible, cranky, uncompromising, brilliant, eloquent, and still passionate proponent of real progressive change–with a ponytail from New Jersey, just like Max. I’ve got the ponytail and the origins right, but I don’t think I’ll ever match Max’s wit, wisdom, and style.

No one can, really, but Max himself. Come back soon, man.

Detachment. Disassociation. Ennui. Call it what you want, but Generation X has been steeped in a post-Boomer loss of identity that has lingered for so long now that it’s being unceremoniously shoved aside by Generation Xtreme, the under-30’s that find boredom too boring. Begone, middle-aged punks, shoegazers, headbangers, OGs and goths… make way for the emos and the BDSM-liters. Full Story »

I’ve written recently about some generational issues facing companies - most notably the “macro-succession crisis” that I suspect very few corporations have even thought about in meaningful detail. In that post I examine how the coming Baby Boomer retirement explosion is going to engender all kinds of crisis, especially in larger legacy corporations that are so top-heavy with Boomer leaders that their Gen X successors are ill-prepared for the transition that must begin taking place in the next five years.

But if you’re a different kind of company - say an entrepreneurial outfit started and run by front-edge Xers (people now in their early to mid-40s) - you’re in good shape, right? Full Story »

I wrote a couple weeks ago over at Black Dog how companies across the US are flying headlong toward a massive macro-succession pile-up, and the collective personality of the Millennial Generation (born from ~1980-2000) is going to play a major part in mid-management breakdowns in the next few years.

If you’d like a glimpse of the stress the Millennials are already exerting on organizations, you’ll want to read a new analysis from the Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal.com site. In it, Jeffrey Zaslow chronicles how businesses are addressing the Mills’ excessive need for praise: (More at Black Dog Strategic…)

I was reading a Seattle Times story earlier today on how men in their 30s are earning less than their fathers did. An interesting story top to bottom, but the concluding section drew me back around to something that I really haven’t talked about enough lately - the looming generational macro-succession nightmare facing corporate America. (Read the rest at Black Dog…)