A Father's Story; A Pentagon Tribute

We live in extremely difficult times, and we Baby Boomers have seen all of this before.

It is nearly impossible to believe that so many of us have forgotten the lessons learned from - and the pain inflicted by - the Vietnam experience, but clearly we have.

An ill-conceived, disastrously managed war. Our young, and in some cases, not-so-young maimed and killed. Our economy and our serenity and our standing in the world damaged nearly beyond repair.

Our troops richly deserve our support and respect and gratitude, but the cause for which they and their families must sacrifice - while so many of us remain untouched? We must think carefully about this. Yes, our enemies are vicious and tenacious and they must be confronted, fought and defeated, but where were they before we invaded Iraq and where are they now?

Here, on Memorial Day, are two relatively brief pieces worthy of your review.

One is from the Wall Street Journal and reflects the anguish of a father who not only lost a son to the war but must struggle to come to terms with his role in that loss; the other is about a moving weekly ceremony at the Pentagon and is written by - actually relayed by - a friend and colleague, military correspondent Joe Galloway.

Please read them. Please think about them.

R.I.P. And Pass The Buffalo Wings

Hard to know what to think about this one.

An interesting story in the Press-Enterprise, a newspaper that is based...somewhere (its website is amazingly vague about that), is promoted with this irresistible headline:

"Funerals are becoming a personal celebration."

This is how it begins:

"Louise Felicetta threw her husband, Dominic, a big bash on Feb. 24, the day after his 72nd birthday. At the Gourmet restaurant in San Bernardino, 200 friends and family members nibbled on wings and meatballs, danced to a live band, watched the couple's life unfold on videos and sifted through photos and memorabilia.

"But the guest of honor wasn't there. Dominic Felicetta, of Rialto, was dead. After a short bout with pancreatic cancer, he had been cremated. His ashes eventually will be co-mingled with his wife's and buried in the family plot.

" 'He didn't want a funeral or memorial," says Felicetta, 79. "It was a special day. I came home a little sad, but uplifted." '

Yep, that's how I'm hoping Mrs. BoomVista will feel on that somewhat special day. A little sad, but oh-so-uplifted.

Setting that aside for the moment, along with the fact that the piece attributes all of this to self-absorbed Baby Boomers, even though Mr. Felicetta and his slightly melancholy but uplifted widow are Boomer Emeriti, the article does reflect a growing reality.

Many of us are unlikely to do the fill-in-the-blanks funeral routine. As the piece says, without any apparent awareness of the pun, "Blame it on baby boomers for thinking outside the box."

Mrs. BoomVista, for instance, knows that I want to be buried with a portable XM Satellite Radio and a six-pack of batteries. Yes, XM's 60s music is that good. I'm serious (not to be confused with Sirius).

What about you? Given it any thought? Oh, c'mon, you know you have.

The rest of the article is here. (Upon close examination, the Press-Enterprise might cover the Riverside-San Bernadino area of southern California. But it's apparently not the sort of thing they want to say definitively on their web page.)

We Bet They Do

First, the kicker quote from an AP story about nudist colonies seeking to recruit younger members as an offset to the wrinkling maturing crop of Baby Boomer customers:

"Unlike any other place in life, people actually look at you when they talk to you."

Yes, we bet...

Anyway, the rest of the article is here. It, uhm, raises the question: How comfortable would you be on the receiving end of widespread visual attention?

Sad News Today

Lauren Terrazzano, the young Newsday reporter who wrote so movingly about her battle with cancer, has died.

She was married for just over a year. She was 39 years old. "What matters is the present moment," she wrote.

Our condolences and best wishes to her husband, other relatives, friends and colleagues at Newsday.

Here is the obituary published by her newspaper.

Standards and Practices, Part 2

Well, I guess some standards still exist and some lines cannot be crossed without consequences.
--
XM Radio Suspends Opie & Anthony

WASHINGTON and NEW YORK, May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- XM Radio announced today that the company has suspended Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia, hosts of "The Opie & Anthony Show" and ceased broadcast of the show for 30 days, effective immediately.

XM Radio deplored the comments aired on "The Opie & Anthony Show" last week. At the time, the company strongly expressed its views to Opie and Anthony, and they issued an immediate apology.

Comments made by Opie and Anthony on yesterday's broadcast put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter. The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them.

As a company, XM provides customers with tools to control what they listen to on XM. "The Opie & Anthony Show" appears on one of XM's explicit language channels (XL). Whenever a radio is tuned to an explicit language channel, the letters "XL" continuously appear on the screen. XM frequently mentions on its explicit language channels that the content may be inappropriate for certain listeners and tells how to "block" channels that feature this type of content. Channel blocking is available through xmradio.com or by calling 1-800-XMRADIO.

Standards and Practices

People who know me well are a little surprised that I haven't yet mentioned one of the things that is making this Baby Boomer's journey into the Third Third most enjoyable: XM Satellite Radio.

One day, I will wax poetic about XM and what it delivers. One day...but not today.

Today, in a bit of an echo of the Don Imus situation, I am compelled to speak harshly about something that was broadcast on XM this past week.

This is difficult for me because I am such a fan of XM and such a proponent of free speech, so I think I'll begin with this description of the event, posted on the web by someone else:

"Warning: Extremely Vulgar Language. XM Shock Jocks Opie and Anthony engage in discussion about forced sex with the Secretary of State. A studio guest, Homeless Charlie, begins describing the scenario as the hosts laugh and encourage him. Anthony talks about the horror for Rice as the guest is "holding her down" and assaulting her. They invite Charlie to be a regular guest."

If you want to hear this for yourself, and I don't particularly recommend it, you can access an audio clip here. A full New York Times account of the resulting controversy can be found here.

Some people I know, also XM fans, are shrugging their shoulders about this. Just a skit, they say. You could hear the same thing on HBO or Saturday Night Live. Some other shock jocks are expressing alarm, saying that criticism of O&A shows that it is becoming a "dangerous time" to be on radio.

Let's be clear. This was not a 'skit.' This was not a comedy routine you would see on HBO. It was not a segment of Saturday Night Live. It would have been edited out of any program broadcast on any television network in this or virtually any other country.

This was a detailed, profanity-laced discussion about forcible, violent sex - also known as rape - on someone, a discussion that appeared to approve of that act and made light of it.

If someone were to rationalize this away, what is next?

Is it OK to have a similar, approving discussion about, say, slavery?

The genocide of Armenians, Jewish people or others?

A forcible, violent sex attack on a six-year-old child?

This was an abuse of free speech every bit as much as yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater is an abuse of free speech, and - in my opinion - it should be condemned as such.

Back in the '60s and early '70s, the most popular weatherman in New York City, the largest market in the country, was Tex Antoine. One night, his weather report came on right after a news report about a violent rape of a five-year-old girl.

Antoine said, on the air: "With rape so predominant in the news lately, it is well to remember the words of Confucius: 'If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.' "

He was suspended and ultimately fired. His career essentially ended that night.

I don't remember anyone raising free speech issues or complaining that it was becoming a dangerous time to be on television.

Extra! Extra! Read All About Us!

Two messages here.

1. We mentioned this awhile back, but this Sunday's New York Times Magazine is entirely devoted to Baby Boomers. More about that in a minute, but first...

2. It seems like advertisers finally get it, and they are warming to us.

For many years, ad agencies made it clear that they weren't interested in us. Too old. Too locked into our ways.

This made so sense, of course, because we tend to have considerable disposable income - not all of us, but many of us - and we have a history of disposing it.

Well, it took 'em awhile, but advertisers are wising up.

The NYTimes calls this Sunday's edition: “The New Middle Ages: A Special Issue.” It says the magazine "will be devoted entirely to topics facing baby-boomers as they hit middle age. It will cover the ways in which our nation’s most talked-about generation addresses lifestyle choices concerning work, money, travel, politics, spirituality, relationships, health and more."

And here's the kicker: The issue has attracted what the magazine calls "significant advertiser interest" - 56 advertising pages, with the largest contribution in ad sales coming from the financial sector.

(The paper says that NYTimes.com/Magazine, an online version of The New Middle Ages issue, will offer exclusive interactive features, including a crossword puzzle with clues created by former President Bill Clinton, an original documentary on boomer sex lives by Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Rachel Dretzin, a video Q&A about the new science of longevity and a questionnaire that measures a person’s wisdom.)

Good News, Bad News

So, the nation may have a little extra time to deal with the...timebomb...that is Social Security and Medicare, but once again, we Baby Boomers are inadvertently causing a problem and, once again, we'll be penalized.

Once again, something we were promised , something on which we depended, will be reduced, curtailed or withdrawn.

Yesterday delivered news that, as the Associated Press put it, "Fewer benefits, more tax money and some accounting magic have bought an extra year of life for Social Security and Medicare, trustees of the government's two largest benefit programs said Monday."

Still, the article said, the Medicare trust fund could crash by 2019 and the Social Security trust fund could run dry by 2041.

"Today's report reinforces the need for Congress to address runaway entitlement spending that will bankrupt future generations of Americans," said House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Yep, that's you he's talking about, Mr. and Mrs Runaway Entitlement Spending. That's where we're wasting money. Not on an ill-conceived war gone bad. Not on Halliburton. Not on bridges to nowhere in Alaska or tax cuts for the super-rich. You. You and your oh-so-precious Social Security and Medicare funds, those safety nets you've been buying on the installment plan for the last 40 years or so.

Shame on you.

So, what's the plan? Should we end that expensive war? Rollback those tax cuts? Nah. Here's the preferred plan, according to the Social Security trustees' latest report:

"An immediate increase of 16 percent in payroll tax revenues or an immediate reduction in benefits of 13 percent or some combination of the two."

Maybe He Just Fell?

From a Reuter's article:

"SAN FRANCISCO: Iggy Pop marked his 60th birthday just like any other respectable senior citizen would.

"The eerily athletic Godfather of Punk stripped down to a tight pair of blue jeans and dived off the stage into the arms of his adoring fans during a concert in San Francisco with his reunited band the Stooges.

"Towards the end of the 80-minute show, the crowd at the Warfield theater sang along as his bandmates struck up Happy Birthday, and Pop was surprised as balloons bearing his image dropped from the ceiling.

"A fan also handed him a white T-shirt inscribed 'Birthday Boy Iggy,' which the singer proudly displayed to his unimpressed bandmates.

"Pop, whose real name is Jim Osterberg, seemed thrilled by all the attention, but did not dwell too much on the special occasion. He muttered a few thanks along the way before resuming his usual routine: manic singing and dancing, spitting into the crowd, scampering onto the speakers and throwing his microphone stand around the stage..."

Downsizing consultants

No, we don't mean getting rid of consultants, though our experience suggests that would be a terrific idea.

What we have here is a whole new business model: People who advise Baby Boomers about what to take with them when they go. To a smaller house or apartment, that is.

According to an interesting piece in today's Baltimore Sun, these folks are called "senior move managers."

From the article:

"These professionals guide clients through a journey that's often as much about sorting through a lifetime's worth of memories as it is about possessions. They help clients decide what to take, what to leave and how to redirect it. They also set up and organize their new homes.

"The field is attracting many middle-aged women who are searching for a career that combines their entrepreneurial dreams with their nurturing abilities.

" 'Our service is far more than packing items; it's providing the intelligence in sorting through and interpreting a customers' needs and wants,' says Kim McMahon of Let's Move Inc. in Howard County."

Sounds good, Kim. But we're telling you right now that we're taking the drums (including the cymbals) and every single one of our baseball caps, and that's that.


(Just like we did the last time we moved, pictured to the left.)

Beep-Beep

Submitted for your consideration:

This paragraph from today's Wall Street Journal story about the Blackberry/Crackberry service outage, an article that is reproduced here with a little emphasis but no additional comment.

"Tuesday night, the West Coast was wrapping up its workday when the outage began. Lori Sale, a senior agent at the Los Angeles-based talent agency International Creative Management, was at her 14-year-old son's baseball game when her BlackBerry stopped working. She first realized something was wrong at about 5:15 p.m. PDT, when she noticed she had received no emails on her BlackBerry since 5:03 p.m. Ms. Sale, who estimates she receives more than 500 emails a day, became alarmed when her boss then called and asked why she hadn't responded to his email sent four minutes earlier about a sudden problem."

Q: Seven letter word for...

...a former president who will create a boomer-focused crossword puzzle for the New York Times.

A: Clinton

Advertising Age reports two facts of interest to us.

- The New York Times Magazine apparently will devote much of the content of its May 6 issue to baby boomers.

- Bill Clinton, a known crossword freak, is producing a boomer-oriented puzzle that will be available that day, though apparently only online at the Times' website.

"This is all part of building out the game portal," Robert Z. Samuels, senior product manager, games and mobile, New York Times Digital, told Advertising Age.

Presumably, the crossword puzzle will include a clear and definitive definition of the word "is."

The Kids Are Gone, Let's Buy Something...

...that's on sale.

(And, no, BoomVista is not going to carry your pocketbook as we walk through the mall.)

OK, we are 78 million strong and, Lord knows, we're not in the habit of denying ourselves anything that we want or think we need. So that means we spend money, and that, in turn, has inspired more than a few companies to begin specializing in Boomer-related consumer research.

We'll spend some time looking at those firms, but for now, we've come across an interesting study by a unit called BoomerEyes. According to the group's website and a summary of the report:

- We spend about $2 trillion annually.

- Nearly 40 percent of the 1,110 survey respondents are empty nesters, and they say they have an average of $315 more to spend each month.

- Nevertheless, nearly half of the respondents say that financial issues are at the top of their list of concerns.

- More than 70 percent of those 50 to 64 years old say they spend a lot of time using the Internet. (Which we here at BoomVista consider very good news indeed.)

"What matters is the present moment"

Every now and then, someone writes or otherwise creates a work that explores a familiar theme yet touches us in a new and profound way. The following newspaper column, published this week in Newsday, certainly qualifies.

The writer, Lauren Terrazzano, is only 39, tragic in itself. But I bet every Boomer knows someone who is dealing with an equally awful challenge. (I have two close friends, both Boomers, in situations similar to this.) And we know that, as we get older, we will confront all of this more frequently and more closely.

And we, too, will learn - or relearn - that "what matters is the present moment."

Enough said, by me.

--

Lauren Terrazzano: Life, With Cancer

Focusing on present matters the most

April 10, 2007

'Two to three months," the doctor said, almost reluctantly, when I finally posed the question. That's eight to twelve weeks. Sixty to 90 days. Or 2,160 hours, if you want to get right down to it.

I don't know what possessed me to ask the oncologist how long I have left. In the nearly three years I've been battling this disease, I've never asked for my prognosis. I hate that word. But my body has betrayed me lately, more than usual. I've had a rough couple of weeks, with news of my cancer spreading, new blood clots, and fluid buildup in my abdomen, which has made it difficult to breathe.

There seem to be no more weapons left in the arsenal. Chemo is no longer an option; nothing seems to work. I've had so much surgery I feel like the Bionic Woman: "We can rebuild her." But with each operation, it has been harder and harder, quite frankly, to rebuild me.

Whether the oncologist is right, no one knows. These white-coated mortals do their best and make their best guesses based on data and statistics and other cases. But death, like life, is not a precise science. Only fate knows. What I know for certain is that I am 39. I have seen people like my grandfather live simple but happy long lives. He died when he was 93. On the opposite end, in my job as a reporter, I have seen 3-year-olds die at the hands of abusive parents. Nothing really makes sense when it comes to death...

Read the rest of this column here.

Keep The (Friday Night) Lights On

First, a reminder that the finale - either season or ultimate - of "Friday Night Lights" is on the air tonight (NBC, 8 p.m. EDT, 7 p.m. CDT). For more information and to learn why we should care, see the previous BoomVista post on this subject.

Second, word is surfacing that six additional scripts have been ordered, a terrific leading indicator that the series will be renewed.

Third, Susan sends along this advice from today's San Jose Mercury News:
--
By Charlie McCollum
San Jose Mercury News

Want to save "Friday Night Lights"? Here are some things you can do:

Go to fan site www.fnl-online.com, which outlines its campaign to keep the show on the air.

Write to Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment, at 3000 W. Alameda Ave., Burbank, Calif. 91523. Be polite. He loves the series.

E-mail your thoughts to NBC by going to www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us. Go to the pulldown under "questions not found on the FAQ page." Use the pulldown to find "Friday Night Lights" and send your message.

Don't Mess With Us

How could this happen? It turns out that now WE are the establishment.

According to a new study by the Scripps Howard chain of newspapers, Boomers now hold a majority of the 6,100 elected state and national offices around the country,

The study found that 55 percent of the nation's governors, state lawmakers and congressional representatives and senators were born between 1946 and 1964.

Ten of the 15 announced or soon-to-announce candidates for president are Boomers, as were the last two occupants of the White House: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

We also control the U.S. House and soon we will control the Senate.

We are SO going to outlaw learn how to appropriately appreciate hip-hop "music."

Read more from the report here. (Whaddya think? Click the comments link right below this post.)

All Together Now...

Well, that PBS program was constructed a little oddly, but seemed very perceptive indeed.

One key insight: The explosion of television and other mass media during the 50s and 60s made ours the first generation in human history to repeatedly share formative experiences at precisely the same time.

Not all 78 million of us, of course. Economic realities and other issues left some folks behind, but still....

The Kennedy and King assasinations. The Cuban missile crisis (duck and cover). Howdy Doody and Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet.

So, in the end, half of us (more or less) developed crushes on Annette Funicello - the cute one - at the same time. Later, half of us (more or less) developed crushes on Paul McCartney - the cute one - at the same time.

Never before has a generation been as...bonded...by mutual experience as ours.

And now, as we enter our 60s, here we go again. Together.

Now we have our own century

Tonight, PBS presents a two-hour documentary that runs strides slips right into our sweet spot: "The Boomer Century: 1946-2046."

It seems to touch all the right themes, and the advance reviews are promising.

You can read more about it and also find a lot of supporting material here.

Look for it on your local PBS station and/or set your Tivos.

Hmm, Tivos. We should talk about that.