Oct. 19, 2006: Bud Talkinghorn

Generation spoiled

My own generation was seen as going straight to hell, by the previous one. Some were into drugs, free love and rebellion. However, after a few tie-dyed years of exploration most donned their ties--Windsor-knotted--and got on with adulthood. Partly, this was due to the early training as kids. If you wanted to augment your father's stingy allowance, you mowed lawns or shovelled driveways, and you even had competition for that money. Well, no kid gets up early today to earn extra money. Even the kids from welfare homes feel too entitled to do manual labour. Females helped around the house, often with the cooking chores. Today, they might help pick out the frozen dinner to be microwaved.

While we led the way in throwing away our wedding rings, the pre-boomer generation still went through the motions of marital life. Our parents' solid marriages gave us a sense of failure when ours crashed. That humiliation factor has dissolved. Now, if it doesn't work out to our perfect satisfaction, we split. Formal dating is passe. "Hooking-up" is the norm for young adults. This "hook-up" term covers everything from petting to making the beast with two backs. It negates any sense of commitment or cutting down on your checklist of desirable qualities. If the relationship doesn't produce instant fireworks, then you simply move on to the next "hook-up". By extension, if your job doesn't grant the required advancement to spend like the women on "Sex and the City", it is time to take up your old room at the parents' house. Oh, and saving for a contingency is so yesterday. If God didn't want us in hopeless debt, he wouldn't have invented credit cards.

Added to this sad picture is that many of this Generation O are graduating from universities half-educated. Try to have a decent conversation with them and they keep falling back on their leftist, politically correct arguments. Push them though, and they retreat, because they have no facts, nor even logic, to back up their socialist canons. They may start to avoid you at parties. This is never accepted as defeat however. Rather, with their nacissistic personalities, they write it off as refusing to talk to a bigot, who openly holds politically incorrect beliefs.

Our generation is to blame for much of these youths' attitudes. It is we who partially spoiled our children, which led naturally to our offspring completely spoiling their own kids. It was the rare student in my day who owned his own car. Now the parking lots of high schools and universities have to be expanded continuously. The universities are plastered with ads for Visa and Master Card. Get them addicted to plastic money, even though they are saddled with huge student loans, and many will never get a decent job in their fields. The entire education system has helped these kids feel invincible. Social promotion and grade inflation have turned out near illiterates, with a "whatever" mentality. It is time for a re-appraisal of how we will raise our future generations. The trend now does not bode well.

© Bud Talkinghorn



Polling on Canada's role in Afghanistan

Lewis MacKenzie has it right when he says that Afghanistan poll questions incorrectly play down what is at stake. MacKenzie suggests asking the poll recipients this question: "Do you support the return of the Taliban? If yes, move to the next question. Do you support teachers being beheaded in front of their classes, because they allowed female students in?" The following questions show the barbaric treatment of women under theTaliban's former rule. Treatment that often means the women being killed--either because they were executed in "honour killings", or because they can't go to male doctors, and the Taliban won't allow females to practice medicine. Males are controlled as well. They must have beards and those must be of a set length. Kite-flying, music, television, dancing and other amusements are verboten. It was as though Ghengis Khan had been reincarnated and returned to rule Afghanistan. The Taliban want, ultimately. to drag Afghanistan back to the 7th century. And here is a question that MacKenzie didn't ask. Where are the so-called moderate Muslim states in keeping this tyranny at bay? At the very least, why aren't the Gulf Emirates and Saudi Arabia pumping billions into modernizing this benighted country? They always seem to have plenty to finance global terrorism.

© Bud Talkinghorn



The Axis of Lunacy

President Bush should have called The Axis of Evil, the Axis of Crazies. They don't come any more crazy than Kim Jong-il, or that Iranian nutbar, Ahmadinejad, who has visions at the UN, and worships some "Secret Prophet", who will reveal himself sometime and bring the Caliphate to the world. It is now a millennium-plus that he has remained in seclusion, but nutbar thinks this prophet will reveal himself to him. On top of that, Ahmadinejad is building a nuclear weapon, which he refers to as the "Islamic bomb". Saddam rounds out the trio of murderous madmen. He has been neutralized, but his Baathist army hasn't been. This army is aided and abetted by foreign jihadis who wish to ignite a massive civil war with the Iraqi Shi'ite population, who outnumber them 2 to 1. It doesn't get anymore bizarre than that. The only hope of containing these madmen is to have the UN finally live up to its charter and forcefully oppose them. Unfortunately, that biased talkshop will do nothing to confront these dangerous regimes. That is increasingly falling on the shoulders of the Anglosphere alone. However, the strain of being global policemen is showing. It is time for the UN to step up or pack up.

© Bud Talkinghorn