Dan Erwin

Guess Who Got the Jobs 1st Quarter 2012

An analysis by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released in March found that the number of people 50-plus unemployed for six months or longer catapulted from 325,000 to 1.8 million between 2007 and 2011. It’s the older folk, we assume, who got the pink slips and are having the most difficult time finding work. Not quite true.

The Bureau of Labor statistics revealed some shocking statistics regarding the first quarter, 2012. Thirty-three percent (33%) of new hires were ages 25-54. That means that sixty-seven percent (67%) of new hires were ages 55-plus. Older folk are convincing employers that they can still be trusted to take on new jobs and perform at top level. According to a report in May AARP Bulletin, Who got the jobs, 788,000 workers older than age 55 got new jobs, and 385,000 younger workers got new jobs. 

When you drill down into the statistics. . .  .

It’s good news that older adults were leading the way in employment growth in the first quarter. But it’s not clear whether the new hires had been out of work for shorter or longer stretches. Furthermore, the types of jobs they ended up with are not known. I hope it’s not as a greeter at WalMart. Ummmm. . . I just remembered. Most WalMart stores have quit using greeters.   

But some disconcerting issues. . . .
There’s a significant possibility that older workers were taking jobs beneath their skill level and pay grade. Just for the opportunity to work.

Even more disconcerting, these statistics mean that younger people who might have filled those positions are still without work.

Edina Is Not . . . Well . . . Mississippi or Alabama

You have to move fast to keep up with some Minnesota cities, especially up-scale Edina.

In my recent blog on collaboration, I pointed out that competencies are inevitably a response to culture, society and economics. Indeed, the burgeoning emphasis on collaboration is uniquely tied to the evolution of the economy and the knowledge worker.

Now comes the fruit of another cultural shift. Reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the gift was, amusingly, an Easter gift to diversity.

First, the state’s Catholic hierarchy made an ass of itself in front of its own high school students at Minneapolis’ DeLaSalle High School regarding gays, gay families and of all things, adopted kids. The high schoolers raised an uproar with the hierarchy reps, causing the church to back down fast. What the church was trying to do—with only high school seniors present—was gain more votes for anti-gay legislation. Our Catholic fathers seem not to know that the arc of the biblical tradition is toward inclusion. So, the hierarchy probably lost more than it gained, showing the immense gap between the younger generation and old, white men in black robes.

But the more intriguing Easter gift was from the city fathers of Edina, who decided, unanimously, to add still more dates to their no-meetings list. The change only affected 3 of 120 meetings this calendar year. Now the no-meeting list includes the following:

Christian holidays: Christmas, Christmas Eve, Good Friday

Jewish holidays: The evening before and the day of Yom Kippur, the evening before and two days of both Rosh Hashanah and Passover

Islamic holidays: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha

Hindu holidays: Diwali

A priest at the Hindu temple responded that the move is “really awesome. That means American culture is really considerate of other cultures, they try to understand and want them to celebrate. It really helps us at the temple.”

Of course, this will drive the Tea Party nuts, but I suspect there aren’t many of that ilk in Edina.

“Edina” is Minnesota shorthand for lots of money, successful professionals and top public schools. But it has also become, like many East coast and Midwestern suburbs, a mecca (hmmmm--my Islamic reference.) for wealthy professionals, many of whom are Islamic and Indian.

Tolerant Minneapolis and the western suburbs (including Edina) are a case-study in how to change cultural attitudes. There was a time in the first half of the twentieth century when Minneapolis was known as the most anti-semitic city in the country. But the Star Tribune, under the leadership of the Cowles family, changed all that. Not only did they editorialize against anti-semitism, but the family strongly supported Planned Parenthood, editorialized for birth control and public schools, and led in the immense focus upon arts in the Twin Cities. We always enjoyed the arts in New York and Chicago, but we also knew that we’d get just as much exposure in the Twin Cities, especially in drama and music.

A few years ago, I found myself seated on a flight to Chicago beside Joe Dowling, the artistic director of the Guthrie. At the time the Guthrie was raising funds for its new edifice on the Mississippi and I chatted with Dowling about the status of the drive. “You have to remember,” he explained, “that the Guthrie is the most heavily endowed theater in the world.” As a New York theater-goer, that was more than a little shock to my system. But as I thought about it, not much of a surprise.

It continues to amaze me how much a few people can impact a culture for the good--and not reinforce its death-giving values.

Why Job Search is Like Throwing Darts at a Target with Your Eyes Closed

Job seekers submit hundreds of applications online, but with little hope of receiving a response. The flip side of that, as a Wharton survey shows, is that blunt-edged tracking systems instantly weed out candidates, including well-qualified ones who don’t fit the software criteria. The process is frustrating for both human resources and the job seeker.

A “broken” process from the very beginning
Applicant-tracking software makes it almost impossible for a job candidate to stand out in the initial screening. And companies have become a victim of their success in using social media tools. For the candidate, problems with the hiring process are not new, dating from the 1970s and 1980s. Three-fourths of companies didn’t inform applicants whether a position was filled 40 years ago and still don’t today. Sure, there are strong legal limitations on what companies can say about why a person doesn’t get a job. But, as Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads says, if large companies continue to treat applicants poorly, then the best might spurn them as well.

Hiring always involves a bit of luck, even for the best companies
A recent Wall Street Journal article revealed that 7.6 million people applied to Starbucks for 65,000 corporate and retail positions last year. And nearly 1 million people applied to P & G for 2,000 positions, while 2 million applied to Google for 7,000 openings. Drill down into that candidate list and you see what big companies face: only 35% of the applicants met the basic requirements of the job they applied for. 

The other worrisome difficulty for firms is that the “formulaic hiring” of software can result in a less creative workforce. Companies relying solely on the “blunt tools” of software can unintentionally rule out candidates whose expertise might benefit the company in unanticipated ways. Companies using software that focuses too narrowly typically assume that college major provides a direct line to analyze the most useful expertise. It’s conventional, but wrongheaded. Anyone who’s studied research creativity and significant contribution knows that much of the finest contributions are at the nexus of science and the humanities. To flip the conventional gray matter switches, some of the most contributive scientists also read Proust. And, shock, some of the more effective pattern thinkers in technology, for example, are musicians and English majors. Does the software pick up on this? 

Best approaches for companies
Smart employers are beginning to make their application very, very narrow. And lengthy. And seriously differentiated from competition. That discourages the thousands of folk who ship off dozens of applications. As Wharton’s Matthew Bidwell says, “The more questions an applicant has to think carefully about, the fewer applications he or she will have time to fill out.” It’s always important for employers to pull back from the mass market and focus on canvassing “internal employees, professional networks, job contracts where you work with third parties and even customers” to find the best recruiting leads and good candidates.

Best approaches for candidates
So what’s the job-seeker to do? A lot more than scanning online sites and hitting the “submit resume” button.  Since most companies have a recruiter and a hiring manager, your application had better be compelling to the recruiter-screener. If you can’t connect with the recruiter, you certainly won’t get to talk to the hiring manger.

The experts are advising candidates to make sure their resume addresses the “skills, capabilities and values” of the company. Pay close attention to the keywords of the offering and use them. Furthermore, try to find a connection within the company. Applicants for particular jobs should see if they know anyone who works there, anyone who knows anyone who works there, or even anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who works there. A lot of jobs come out of extended networks. Take advantage of the network of the networks. That means, inevitably, that you’ll be talking to a lot of people you’ve never met. But, if you want a job . . . that’s the drill.  

Photo by Flickr: Army Strong PA

You're Probably a Member of the 1%, Even Though You Don't Know It

The U.S. middle class is incredibly wealthy by international standards. A recent, thoughtful article, appearing in the March/April Foreign Policy, by Charles Kenny, is the kind that inevitably evokes hostile comments. Follow my link, and you’ll have the sheer enjoyment of how nay-sayers position their ideas. You can count on the comments coming out at the level of “it’s my money, and I earned it.” That’s as one-sided as the Bolshevik ideas coming out of the Russian revolution in 1917. That’s not to say that both extremes don’t have a point (though only partially so) and are/were a response to their context. 

Still, as Charles Kenny argues, American inequality is out of control. My eldest and myself have been in and out of the 1% for years, so we have had something to lose in taxing the wealthy. Still, any sense of maturity demands honesty in the situation. So here are Kenny’s stats: America’s rich are really, really rich. Census data suggests that every man, woman and child in the top 1% of US households “gets about $1,500 to live on each day, every day. By contrast, the average US household is scraping by on around $55 per person per day. But the global average is about of fifth of that.” 

That’s Kenny’s context. His argument is built on current data. According to the World Bank economist, Branko Milanovic, you need to  make $34,000 to be a member of the world’s onepercenters. Furthermore, as the late Nobel Prize-winning economist, Herb Simon says: “it’s the luck of where you’re born.” Simon estimated that the benefits of living in a well-functioning economy “probably account for 90% of individual income.” 

Furthermore, political scientists Vincent Mahler, David Jesuit and Piotr Paradowski examined the benefits—from pensions to child welfare payments—that taxpayers rich and poor in Europe and the US receive. While they were at it, they should have looked at all the bennies that corporate America receives. And that doesn’t account for a range of state subsidies like colleges and universities that we all receive.

The most intriguing conclusion by Kenny, is that “countries with high levels of inequality are far more likely to fall into financial crisis and far less likely to sustain economic growth.” Of course, this is going to mean that the richest as well as the middle class are all going to have to be taxed. Whining is certainly not relevant for either the 1% or the middle 60% of America’s taxpayers.

So when you hear all this baloney about “I made mine and nobody helped me out,” what should you say? Well, remember that facts, statistics, logic and reasoning don’t work with committed tribal members. The best way to shake the argument is with emotional appeals. I usually roll my eyes, laugh out loud, and say something to the effect of, “you can’t possibly believe that.” And then you either turn away from the stupid conversation or change the subject.

That process—a classic put-down--is well-documented in my own toolkit. I’ve found, that given the subject, about 20 to 25% of those same folk will want to talk intelligently about the issue sometime later. But they bring it up and they ask the questions. So you’d better have your facts straight, or be comfortable saying you’d like to pull the data together for them. The other 75% or so are a lost cause—at least for now. They write the hostile comments on blogs that challenge their ideas with good data.

More Clarity on Ben Franklin's Two-Bird Economic Theory

My December 7 blog on turkeys and bald eagles received some exceptionally useful insight on the birds—and their characteristics, from one of my readers, a lover of the wild turkey. Franklin, as I wrote, sorted economic philosophy between the turkey and the eagle. 

Franklin’s economic point was that though the eagle was classy looking, it made its living by feeding on the helpless. I related my grandson’s observation that the eagle was a mean bird who stole fish from the gulls in flight. One especially knowledgeable commentator and hunter, Chris Blazer of Montana, pointed out, in agreement, that the eagle was “frequently a scavenger.” 

Franklin argued, incontrast, that the turkey was symbolic of just one instance of the issues of freedom. He believed that people who work hard and play by the rules should have a fair shot at prosperity, and rejected the notion that self-indulgence and genetics should be rewarded. 

He was especially attracted to the wild turkey and proposed the turkey for the national bird, but my description, Mr. Blazer pointed out so well, was quite a bit shy of the mark. I described the turkey with an “easily distracted mind and artificially swelled breast.” Through the lens of the barnyard, the turkey is a hard worker, disciplined, a follower of the rules, and quite willing to give hell to anyone who tries to make trouble. Mr. Blazer pointed out that my description had little relationship to the wild turkey and the strength of Ben Franklin’s analogy. With Blazer’s input, Franklin’s point is far stronger. 

Mr. Blazer happens to be a hunter—and a fan of the wild turkey. He revealed my confusion (and ignorance) between the wild and the domesticated birds. As I wrote, “the domestic turkey is easily distracted and puffed up." But, "the wild turkey (in stark contrast) is a wily bird that eludes predators and hunters readily, manages to thrive in a wide variety of environments and, while not aggressive, defends itself and its own when provoked.” Franklin’s analogy has a lot more strength, insight and contemporary relevance than I first noted. 

As the writer so eloquently put it, “we could be a very different nation if we had followed his advice.”

Ben Franklin's Two-Bird Economic Theory

If you’re like me, a lover of roast turkey at Thanksgiving and the holidays, this is a good time to reflect on the turkey’s proud heritage. You might be surprised to know that one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, gave a lot of thought to that bird and its future role in America. He believed that the turkey, not the bald eagle, should be the national bird. He also thought that we should plaster pictures of the turkey on our coin and bills, giving the turkey place of honor. 

In a recent New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik, the writer reveals some highly fascinating ideas about Franklin and the symbolism of birds, specifically the turkey and the bald eagle. The turkey, I learned from Adam Gopnik’s article, is the Meleagris gallopavo and in the 18^th century the most local of birds. Indeed, we slammed on the brakes just Wednesday before Thanksgiving to avoid plastering a wild turkey across the pavement in Wellesley, Massachusetts. 

But it was a glorious moment in the 1780’s when Benjamin Franklin argued that the turkey should be the national bird, not the bald eagle. Gopnik explains that Franklin’s ideas are not a “finger-on-the-nose bit of Old Ben playfulness.” Franklin, like Warren Buffett, didn’t believe that there should be hereditary legacies in American life. And he used the turkey and the eagle to make his point. 

Ben Franklin’s two-bird theory:

Franklin sorted economic philosophy between the turkey and the eagle.  His economic point was that though the eagle was classy looking, it made its living by feeding on the helpless. To him, the eagle was reflective of old Europe, its class structure and its inequities. 

A couple years ago while fishing with my youngest grandson, Henry, we watched the gulls grab the dead minnows we tossed out. Suddenly out of the blue sky swooped a huge bald eagle, taking the minnow from one gull while in mid-flight. My grandson had it right: “That eagle is a mean bird,” he commented. He stole from the pathetic gull—and the gull flew away in fear. (Bald eagle-lovers will claim that this libels eagles. But. . . what would you expect from eagle-lovers?) 

For Franklin, Henry's comment about the eagle is spot on. Admittedly, the turkey has an easily distracted mind and artificially swelled breast. But Franklin knew that though the turkey might be silly and vain, it shares the feed with the other birds in the yard. It’s a hard worker, disciplined and it follows the rules. And, like a lot of barnyard birds, it’s quite willing—eventually--to give hell to anyone who tries to make trouble. 

In Franklin’s world of symbol-building, the national bird question was just one instance of the issues of freedom. He believed that people who work hard and play by the rules should have a fair shot at prosperity. He also rejected the notion that self-indulgence and genetics should be rewarded. 

That wise Republican, David Brooks, summarizes the conflicts of the turkey and the eagle best. He asks which values will be rewarded and reinforced? The choices are effort and self-discipline. Or, bad governance and rigged systems? 

It strikes me that Franklin’s thinking about the turkey and the eagle is even more relevant today than in the 18^th century. 

Hope your Thanksgiving was as enjoyable as mine, and that you prefer turkey.

Quotation of the Week: Ross Douthat

In place of reckless meritocrats, we don’t need feckless know-nothings. We need intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits, experienced people whose lives have taught them caution. We still need the best and brightest, but we need them to have somehow learned humility along the way.

-–Ross Douthat, NYTimes columnist 

All this, and from one of our astute, rather maturely insightful Gen-Y columnist. 

Just the other day I commented to one of my brilliant young friends that his parents had given him the gift of just enough insecurity. Facing phenomenal success in his work, that insecurity provides two especially meaningful personal characteristics, alluded to by Dothat, for today’s world: curiosity and humility. 

Curiosity: That desire to know and understand that shows itself best in the actions of both evaluating and appreciating knowledge and wisdom. 

Admittedly, insecurity can sideline us when it reaches into the depths of the soul and constricts our ability to respond to life. But insecurity can also motivate us to become more careful and thoughtful as we go about adding to our store of knowledge and wisdom. It can emphasize the practice of what Kahnemann calls “slow thinking.” One of the hazards we face in difficult decisions is our penchant for the easier one, often without realizing it. Slow thinking, in contrast, not only tells us to become more deliberative in our decision making, but it also emphasizes the necessity of figuring out what our brains are doing as they think. Curiosity, driven by insecurity, has a strong tendency to move in the direction of slow thinking—all for the good. 

Humility: Not merely that lack of boastfulness or arrogance, but a calculated sense of imperfection that makes us willing to listen to others and celebrate the potential and worth of their insights. It is not the smarmy, manipulative ingratiation that actually exists solely for the purpose of attention and further power. 

What initiated Dothat’s article was the recent failure of American meritocracy exemplified by Jon Corzine. Dothat’s insight regarding the American meritocracy serves as warning for those of us privileged by our intelligence. 

But this sudden fall from grace doesn’t make Corzine’s life story any less emblematic of our meritocratic era. Indeed, his rise, recklessness and ruin are all of a piece. For decades, the United States has been opening paths to privilege for its brightest and most determined young people, culling the best and the brightest from Illinois and Mississippi and Montana and placing them in positions of power in Manhattan and Washington. By elevating the children of farmers and janitors as well as lawyers and stockbrokers, we’ve created what seems like the most capable, hardworking, high-I.Q. elite in all of human history.

And for the last 10 years, we’ve watched this same elite lead us off a cliff — mostly by being too smart for its own good.

The article serves as an apt warning, as well as a partial explanation of the existence of the Tea Party.

Big Is Beautiful, Especially R & D

Although a lot of people have read my blog, Big is Beautiful, I've been surprised at the total lack of rejection. Now comes still more input about big corporations and their research and development, supporting my suspicions and ideas.

It's true that Steve Jobs built the first Apple computer in his garage. And also true that Mark Zuckerberg typed the original lines of code for Facebook in his dorm room. But their real genius was not the invention by itself. It was translation. 

When we talk creativity and innovation, we seem to omit the differentiating issue: translation. The ability to translate theory into practice. Robert Sternberg, the cognitive scientist, talks about creativity and innovation in three stages. First is that of creative intelligence, the ability to go beyond the given and create novel and interesting ideas. These are typically people who see connnections that other people don't see. Gates saw his basic software as connecting to IBM and Apple's computers, with the potential for making them free-standing.

Analytical intelligence, that ability to evaluate ideas, solve problems and make decisions is extremely important for creatives to analyze their own ideas and evaluate their merit. I worked for a number of years with a partner who could toss about more ideas than I could digest. But he seemed to lack the ability to evaluate the usefulness of those ideas and put them to work.

The third aspect of creativity, practical intelligence, is all about translation. It's the ability to "translate" theory into practice and abstract ideas into practical accomplishments. Translation, ultimately, is about selling. Indeed, the ability to sell your creative ideas determines whether it ends up on the scrap heap or becomes a product or service. 

3M is famous the world over for its R & D. Having consulted there for years, I've learned that the best ideas can easily go into the circular file. Thus, inventors spend a lot of time with colleagues figuring out how to use the idea and how to sell it to the leaders of the company. And if the senior execs don't buy that idea, it goes nowhere.

The Foreign Affairs writers had this to say about big companies and their contributions to research and development: 

Today, we celebrate small places with big ideas. It is true that Steve Jobs built the first Apple computer in his garage and that Mark Zuckerberg typed the original lines of code for Facebook in his dorm room. But the genius of Jobs, Zuckerberg, and many others was in turning their ideas into highly competitive global enterprises. Apple now employs 46,000 full-time employees -- and it is the combined energy of those employees that delivered the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the National Academy of Engineers ranked the greatest achievements of the previous century based on how each innovation improved people's quality of life. Major U.S. corporations -- the Edison companies, General Electric, AT&T, and General Motors -- played significant roles in the development, production, and distribution of the majority of these achievements.

It is safe to say that without its major corporations the U.S. economy would not be, and would not remain, the largest and richest in the world. Big businesses invest significantly more in research and development than smaller firms. And they are far better placed to capture economies of scale and scope, which is crucial to making U.S. goods and services competitive abroad. Large companies account for more than 70 percent of U.S. exports. The same economies benefit U.S. consumers, too. Despite the vilification of Walmart, for example, the arrival of a Walmart Supercenter to a neighborhood leads to a 25 percent decrease in the average grocery bill for local residents.

Beyond R&D performance, sales abroad, and bargains, big business offers what the United States needs most: jobs, and many of the best in the country, at that. The largest firms pay about 50 percent more and provide 10 percent more working hours per week than small companies. These firms provide jobs to almost a third of the American work force.

In our glorification of small business, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We really, really need big corporate America. Big really is beautiful.

You cannot possibly realize how deeply writing this goes against my biases and my historical mindset. But reality is reality. And I believe it's important to sing the truth, even when it is very, very difficult. Otherwise, our country will be in a long, very hard slog.

Big Is Beautiful

Small business may be beautiful, but it’s neither productive nor prosperous.

I’ve been suspicious for years about the hullabaloo from both Republicans and Democrats that small businesses are the drivers of the economy. It has crossed my mind on numerous occasions that this is merely a political calculation. There are hundreds of thousands of small business owners and they vote for tax and business policy issues. Furthermore, the small business lobby is very powerful.

But if you’re an HR person, I suspect you know the truth. Big business is the driver of the American economy. Not small business.

Think about it. If you really want an HR job (or any other function) so that you can learn the business, your first stop is at a large firm. The majority of small firms don’t even have an HR position. The office admin takes care of those matters. Don’t be too quick to occupy Wall Street. Just make sure the government gets it under control. That is, if you want a growth opportunity in HR or most any other function, and your name is not Zuckerberg. So make certain your crap detector is working the next time you hear all the bullshit about small businesses from the politicos and us small business owners. This is not a simple, straightforward issue. It’s highly nuanced, covert and subtle politics. Better reframe your mindset about big business—and small business!

He didn’t lay out the statistics, but James Surowiecki added a lot of information to the subject in a recent article, beginning with the fact that Americans have always been ambivalent about big business. Take the grocery business. In the first 50 years of the 20^th century A & P was the biggest and most important chain store. My family like most, enjoyed the low prices. But those low prices came at a cost to the small grocer. Until 1936 and the Robinson-Patman Act, suppliers could offer chain stores better deals than other retailer. That congressional act made it impossible for suppliers to legally provide the chains with better deals. The result, of course, was that prices increased for the public at large. In other words, it wasn’t consumers the government was trying to protect—but small business.

The global meltdown has surfaced still another intriguing insight about small businesses. The developed countries with the highest percentage of workers employed by small business are Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Guess whose economic woes are wreaking the most havoc on financial markets. And guess which countries have the lowest percentage of workers employed in small business—Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the U.S.—some of the strongest economies in the world. This is an intriguing set of correlations.

In his article, Surowiecki ticked off the economic advantages of big companies:

• Significantly higher productivity growth
• Economies of scale and scope
• Ability to invest in productivity-enhancing technology
• R & D spending

It has been ever thus.

In a new book, Marc Levinson shows that A & P, like the future WalMart, was able to invest in its own warehouse-and-delivery system, improve inventory management and make the supply chain more efficient. All investments not possible for the small business.

So why do people like me go into business? Well, as a recent study by Erik Hurst and Benjamin Pugsley shows, we have no interest in becoming big-business owners or even in bringing a new idea to market. Instead, most of us simply want to run a small company, do work we enjoy and have control over our financial lives. In commenting on these small business ideologies, James Surowiecki concludes his article with this:

Those are admirable goals, but they’re not going to make companies more productive. And that matters, because greater productivity is the main driver of long-term economic growth and higher living standards. Because big companies are more productive, they offer workers, on average, better wages and benefits—or, as in the case of Walmart, they offer consumers significantly lower prices. And the impact of these things on living standards is not trivial. It’s hardly a coincidence that in the decades after the Second World War, when ordinary American workers became part of the middle class, very big companies employed a huge percentage of the workforce: in the early seventies, one in five non-farm workers worked for a Fortune 500 company. Small may be beautiful. It’s just not all that prosperous.

And in a parting shot, Felix Salmon says it’s start-ups that create jobs and that the lionization of small businesses is “unhelpful.”

Quotation of the Week: Andy Rooney

The well-known curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, is retiring after nearly 35 years at the tail end of 60 Minutes. I never was much of an audience member, but when I dropped in, Rooney was usually adept at surfacing responses from me. They varied from, "Oh god, no. Don't be a dumbass," to a burst of laughter. The one that follows was quoted in Time this week. I must confess that I nearly fell off my stool laughing. The notion begins as far back as Socrates-- but Rooney turns it on its head.

James Poniewozik set it up this way: But while it's easy to sum him (Rooney) up as a cranky old man telling the world to get off his televisual lawn, one of my favorite observations of his was an un stereotypically Rooney Sentiment suggesting that it's myopic for one generation to assume that everything new is worse.

--It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there.

I have never been a devotee of the notion that the younger generation is the worst generation we've ever had to deal with--whoever "we" is. Fact of the matter, I've always had a great deal of fun trying to distinguish how the ideas of the new generation, whether X or now, Y, are both similar and different than my generation.

Recently, though, I've thought that my homeland is going to hell in a handbasket what with the ideological ilk of both the left and the right Gen-Xers. I've wanted to scream at their ignorance, "Oh, grow up. Get real. Learn some history. Turn the media off, remembering that they're in the business of getting your attention by hook or crook." FYI:I still remember the look of shock from my beloved Gen-Y protege when I told him that the sole business of the tube was to make money for its corporate supporters. And I supported that with data from an old course in grad school on the role of media and its advertising heritage. So, I said, don't take the media too seriously. That was a message for me, too.

So whenever, in my fundamental pessimistic optimism, I let the pessimistic side have too much power, like Rooney, I have a conversation with myself, reminding me that my pessimism may be nonsense.

A good way to sum this up is with a comment from an interview of Bill Clinton by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. As Clinton explained why there's so much dysfunction in congress today, he noted that it was partly a problem belonging to the media. "What works best in politics (and the media) is conflict. But what works best in real life is cooperation." He went on to point out that cooperation is boring, everyday stuff not capable of getting viewer attention. That said, it's an astute observation of at least part of the problem we face in the nation today.