Am I a Baby Boomer????

OK, here's another post to BBC today, this time in response to the question "Are You a Baby Boomer?" I don't know, am I?

Born in 1963, I'm on the cusp between being labelled a "Baby Boomer" or "Generation X". The best of the Boomers were striving for freedom and harmony, questioning authority in order to think for themselves and arrive at a rational, rather than an inculcated, worldview. Sometimes the quest to throw off chains led to excess, like drug overdoses or people being too quick to callously divorce. But even these problems were a painful side effect of a process of maturation, wherein people began to realize that they were entitled to be in charge of their own bodies and destinies. Some traditional values may need reclaiming, but only if they make sense, not just because they are traditional.

Note that I was also responding to some other posts that seemed to characterize the 60's as a period of wretched excess, leading to more of the same to this day. There may be more wretched excess; certainly less of it is kept hidden. But divorce, the increase of which someone lamented, should be acceptable, not a subject for whispered gossip. While people should proceed with some sensitivity that it is wrenching for a human to lose his or her mate, to be permanently tethered to another person by anything other than one's own free will amounts to slavery. Likewise, I am no longer a big fan of recreational drugs, but, well, it's your body. Throwing a user or addict in jail doesn't help them take better care of their body, and even rehabilitation may be nobody's business to enforce if a person chooses otherwise and has done no criminal harm to others. And whose to say that Timothy Leary didn't actually make a positive contribution to society?

Iran v. Bush

Just posted this to the BBC Have Your Say, in response to the question "Has Iran Benefited from the War on Terror?":

I think that in the Middle East, Bush's handling of the so-called War on Terror has tended to boost anyone seen as standing up to him. Mr. Ahmadinejad, interviewed by 60 Minutes, came across to me as no more of a madman than our Mr. Bush. The former's claim that Iran is entitled to nuclear power is as valid as anyone's, if perhaps also disingenuous and ultimately misguided (even peaceful nukes have the pitfall of dealing with the waste, and the risk of another Chernobyl). His veneration of suicide bombers was shocking, but then most cultures (mistakenly, I think, ours included) venerate dying and killing for a cause. We could talk to Iran, but I hear a drumbeat.

Water: The Most Essential of Resources

Posted to BBC discussion today:

Water, earth, and air are all essential to our existences. Why are we so cavalier about dumping our waste into them, and depleting our best resources? Further, we need to understand that the entire ecology evolved over eons to become a place in which humans thrive. If we continue to blindly alter it, it will no longer support us.