±«Óătv

Baby boomers may be dominating the 'traditional' world, but the virtual one has been overtaken by their children. And given the influence, which the web has been having on politics, culture, business and lives of ordinary citizens in the past 3 years especially - it is obvious which generation will get it all. The Rupert Murdochs of this world may be buying myspace.com and other digital entities, but they do remain 'digital immigrants'. And the future (the very near future in fact) belongs to the 'digital natives'.

It’s another Newsnight LeftyFest with Arianna Huffington! Let the Bush/Blair baiting begin! Please don’t let the show transform into a bully pulpit for AF’s left wing views. Not all viewers of Newsnight are big Lefties.

Isn't it odd to be discussing babyboomers like this, like in review, when the oldest at just approaching 60 and the youngest are only 40?

Especially strange on the UK side of the Atlantic, where most babyboomers have been excluded from much power, sandwiched between those who made their name as the first "teens", and the "angry" young people and radicals of the early 1960s and the brash young entrepreneurs and radical-right of the 1980s. Perhaps babyboomers here got subsumed into the sheer numbers who entered the new universities.

Perhaps in the USA, with a far shorter and reduced "gap" in childbirth during WWII the effect was not as pronounced.

Anyway, can anyone explain why Arianna Huffington is so quote worthy, and has been for so long? Let's remember, please, when, with another surname, living in London, she was the muse of Bernard Levin, for years, in his columns in The Times. He thought her wonderful, but never said why. Now she's a "left" bete noir of the US neocons. But what did she ever DO?

It was a strange juxtaposition of a piece on morality with one on babyboomers. What is the Moslem world trying to tell us babyboomers if not that the hedonism which is our defining motive is evil?

Has anyone heard about Heyday?
Its a brand new organisation - check out www.heyday.co.uk They are in the forefront of recognising Baby Boomers! Its really a brilliant way to work together under one umbrella - 50% of the population will soon be over the age of 50! And Heyday allows you to come together and discuss burning issues it also offers lots of deals and discounts.
If you are reading this, you should at least check out this website, I think it really does target us correctly. Its new - and its funky - and its about time!

I think a bit of peace and love and the odd free festival wouldn´t go amiss in England nowerdays

As a young English person, with a difference thankfully in certain parts of Germany it is still possible to live the life of an extreme rebel.
I have always been called that as well.

Participating in Anti-facist protests, and lots of young people in Berlin at the start of 2003 for the anti war protest, going there on a cheap rail ticket for 5 euros on slow trains 12 hours there 9 hours back, sleeping rough on Minden Station with three mates and a girlfriend half way there only to be woken up by an announcement that the 3 o clock train was 5 mins late (typically German), living in a flat with four people who´d opted out of school in favour of some serious rap music and a LOT of partying, getting way out of sync at electro parties going on holiday to Holland, smoking a couple of joints for my father who is buried at sea and sleeping in the Bush getting woken up by rabbits and nightingales.

Yes I have a lot of sympathy with the baby boomers, down with the pesky thatcherites, bleaach

Why does anyone take Arianna Huffington seriously? She was just as nutty back when she was a Republican. I can still remember when she was the dutiful housewife to her (gay) millionaire Republican husband and trying to literally buy a Senate seat here in California. Is Britain this desperate for celebrities?

Vis-à-vis my earlier post #3. I knew it! AF couldn’t help taking the opportunity to do some Bush baiting even though the topic had nothing to the WOT. She defended Clinton’s moral authority by asserting that Bush took us into an illegal war. She should know that Clinton took us into an “illegal “ war in Bosnia, “illegally” fired hundreds of cruise missiles at Baghdad, and “illegally” destroyed an aspirin factory in Somalia all while ignoring the threat posed by OBL.

Interesting that the most important baby boomer of all last night - if age is the criteria (though I suspect what part of the world you come from is given vastly more importance by ±«Óătv) - was given a right going over by Liz McKean,
for actually giving a damn,
in such condescending tones:

LMcK: "Why this conflict? Why has it driven you to take a stand?...

LMcK: When you look around the world - Chetchnya Darfur - two current, difficult conflicts. Why is it this one that's taken your attention?...

LMcK: In the few weeks before the ceasefire, do you think Israel overreacted?...

LMcK: So given that action had, was initiated by Hezbollah in the taking of the two soldiers, you don't think that Israel was justified to respond in the way that it did...

AJS: Actually, they were captured not within Lebanon itslef, but on the border... [not necessarily so if we listened to reporters other than our own home-grown ones]

LMcK: In the weeks before the ceasefire, would you like to have seen the British government calling for an immediate end to the hostilities?... Should our government?...

AJS: I don't see why they didn't... I haven't found any reason why that wasn't done...

LMcK: You've cancelled your holiday so that you could conduct this week's[what sounded like 'farce'] fast... and I wonder whether you think Tony Blair should have cancelled his holiday, given the seriousness of this situation...

AJS: ...One think I do know though that when he comes back, he's got to face a question by some people - 'prime minister what was the reason?' and I think he's got to explain to parliament because some people wanted it to be recalled - 'what were the reasons for not actually declaring a ceasefire, please explain to us why were planes, taking arms into an already inflamed situation, landing in Britian.' These questions are going to have to be answered at some point.

MK: "Do you think it's right for such a senior churchman to be involved in such a deeply political issue..."

TOO RIGHT I DO - they should be comming out in their droves in every possible public space to challenge the morality of people in this country for letting TB and his gang get away with the most obscene double dealing, profaning the name of christianity in the process.

So this was all about celebrating Bill Clinton's forthcoming birthday, eh? The ±«Óătv really love that guy don't they!!
And how unfunny was Stephen Pound on last night's programme? Stop trying to play the comedian Mr Pound - you were not funny, just annoying!

I thought that this review was effectively rewriting history, ignoring the many wars post WW2 that britain and the U.S have been involved in, ignoring the many people who had to fight against the status quo to cause political change, and the subsequent countrywide depression of the masses for the benefit of the elite in the 80's. And all this while consumerism expanded and conquered the irrational elements of the human psyche for the profit of a few, enslaving us to an endless pursuit of unachievable happiness whether it be a youth addicted to drugs that have been proved by certain scientific studies, most often those funded by multinational pharmacutical companies, to alliviate a newly constructed idea of depression, or an aspirational white anglo saxon male who is being persuaded to buy an even better razor that, suggested by the advert, will get you an attractive women and a fast sports car.

This review is another example of a placebo intended to divert peoples attention away from other events and to alter the truth to induce an opiate like effect on society, reinforcing the general ideologies that keep the elite in power and suppressing critical thought.

The media is the opium of the people.

I thought it was funny that Christine Hamilton condemned Bill Clinton for being "immoral" (I assume referring to the Monica Lewinsky affair) but then declared that she was appearing on stage with the "Bangkok Lady Boys"!

Someone who didn't sign their Blog entry wrote: The political, cultural, industrial and academic worlds on both sides of the Atlantic are currently dominated by baby boomers. This post-war generation has changed our world and are still in charge of it.

And not one of us ever yet became Prime Minister of the UK. Some error in the narrative there, surely?

Am I alone in my distaste for the kind of lazy sociological labelling represented by the term "baby boomer"? The notion that there is a large homogenous grouping of people with sufficiently common purpose and values to be described collectively in this way is, to me, quite absurd.