"My worry is that Democrats like Hillary have been saying, 'The Republicans are worse!' for so long that they've begun to believe it excuses everything."

(4 of 4)

Basketball-laden holiday weekends are death for readership, but this essay is worth your time to read. At this point, they're all "worse."

Why Young People Are Right About Hillary Clinton, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

... Young people have repudiated the campaign of Hillary Clinton in overwhelming and historic fashion, with Bernie Sanders winning under-30 voters by consistently absurd margins, as high as 80 to 85 percent in many states. He has done less well with young African-American voters, but even there he's seen some gains as time has gone on. And the energy coming from the pre-middle-aged has little to do with an inability to appreciate political reality.

Instead, the millions of young voters that are rejecting Hillary's campaign this year are making a carefully reasoned, even reluctant calculation about the limits of the insider politics both she and her husband have represented.

For young voters, the foundational issues of our age have been the Iraq invasion, the financial crisis, free trade, mass incarceration, domestic surveillance, police brutality, debt and income inequality, among others.

And to one degree or another, the modern Democratic Party, often including Hillary Clinton personally, has been on the wrong side of virtually all of these issues.

Rant: On design committees and old fartedness.

There needs to be a new rule.

For any “design” committee of any local organization that purports to be doing something remotely civic, or “for the community” – especially when accepting public money in any form – and also having 50% of its members over the age of 50, all of the committee’s “design” decisions must be presented to a Youth Committee of randomly selected teenagers and young adults, so that the old folks can have their latest solemn masterpieces of 1960s-era Readers Digest respectability publicly mocked before foisting them on the rest of us.

It rankles this 53-year-old realist that so often, persons my age or older make "design" decisions bound inexorably by their past-date stylistic prejudices. They may be volunteers, and they may be working hard ... but working hard isn't the same as working smart, and working "old" is even worse.

Just saying.

Laurie Penny in The Guardian: "There is a curious frigidity to our understanding of youth and sexuality."

I've decided to healthblog, too. It's remarkably easy. My first entry, which reminds us that purity is a ball, comes courtesy of The Guardian's on-line service -- not to be confused with the UK's National Health Service, although by mentioning the latter, I'll (hopefully) be blacklisted by the tea fartings.

Our sex lives. Their agenda; Moral posturing paints the young as victims or villains of a sexualised society. We are just getting on with it, by Laurie Penny.

Dr Petra Boynton, a sex educator and academic, says the change in sexual behaviour isn't nearly so dramatic as the media make out. Most young people still don't lose their virginity until they are over 16, she says. "As adults we're very quick to look at young people and say 'Aren't they awful', without looking at the wider issues – like our appalling track record on sex education."

Wannabeen birthers aside, there remains hope for the future.

Barack Obama’s historic, precedent-shattering presidential victory in 2008 was attributed to many factors, but one consistent explanation is the voting margins in his favor among young people, minorities and the better educated. In short, he did well with those who represent what we're becoming, not where we've been.

It is telling to consider the primary sources of orchestrated disaffection as the nation attempts to “discuss” health care reform: Not young, not of color, and lesser educated, across the board, excepting of course the money/power lobbies standing to be adversely impacted by fairness.

As numerous commentators have observed, the anger is irrational, but easy to explain. The screamers fear the loss of their own positions of societal primacy. They are old and monotone in a young and multi-hued nation, and it scares them into lashing out.

The Obama constituency is still there, albeit with voices seemingly drowned by the rancor on the right. I don’t recommend that the reasonable scream back. Just make sure everyone knows that in spite of the dunderhead (dittohead?) spite-filled bluster, you’re still out there. As is the case with New Albany’s congenital obstructionists, it’s easier to incite anger against than to patiently explain the merits of “for.”

Back home in New Albany, there is an event coming on August 29: Night on the town in New Albany, by Tara Hettinger (News and Tribune).

When 23-year-old Jala Miller moved to New Albany a few months ago, she invited her friends to visit the city.

They asked why would they come to New Albany.

So, she decided to give them and everyone — 21 and older — a reason to visit downtown and be reintroduced to all the redevelopment that has been taking place: a beer walk/olympics on Aug. 29.

You can visit the newspaper’s web site and read the entire article, but the single most important point made therein is included in the preceding citation.

It is the organizer’s age.

Granted, I’ve no clue what Jala’s political views are, but what I know is that she had an idea, did research, diligently implemented her findings, and if all goes well, a crowd of her peers will be roaming through downtown New Albany on the 29th. Some of them will return, and some may even stay.

2010 is coming, and the generation that ultimately matters, both here and in the country as a whole, does not include Professor Erika, Healthblogger, Larry Kochert or even me. Let’s hope their voices continue to be heard amid the embittered, elder-generated bile.