tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215332732012-01-05T02:02:47.222-08:0060's NowAs the '60s generation enters their 60s--looking back, looking forward, looking around...Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.comBlogger21412560sNowhttp://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-74777946929145782682012-01-05T01:54:00.000-08:002012-01-05T02:02:47.245-08:002012-01-05T02:02:47.245-08:00The Long GoodbyeI saw an interview with Harry Belefonte on Charlie Rose recently. Especially since he's promoting his autobiography, Belefonte talked about his fascinating life, in music and film but mostly in politics. He has a long history of activism, that extends back to Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King. When the subject of President Obama came up, Belefonte expressed disappointment. In the Bush Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-44535942157553793632011-12-17T01:59:00.000-08:002011-12-17T01:59:31.059-08:002011-12-17T01:59:31.059-08:00Thought of the HeartThis is the season when the famous dead of the past year are remembered again, in a group. I've checked many such sites on the Internet, replete with photos, but none of them include James Hillman, who died in October. I will make my usual remembrances from the year past on other blogs, but since my last two posts here have involved Hillman and his work--and he's been key to earlier posts--I Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-26297672410343659852011-08-29T02:24:00.000-07:002011-12-17T02:01:47.780-08:002011-12-17T02:01:47.780-08:00On Turning 65me and my grandfather, my First Communion. Ignazio Severini was around 60.
Again, in terra incognita for baby boomers, the 60s generation. Though since turning 65 at the end of June, a bunch of others have done it, including Bill Clinton and George Bush. So obviously it's different for all of us.
It's been a more ambiguous and perhaps a more sobering milestone that 60, which may have Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-36631017379007662232011-06-30T01:26:00.000-07:002011-12-17T02:01:47.781-08:002011-12-17T02:01:47.781-08:00Faithful to the Calling
This piece of James Hillman's talks on the archetypes of Senex (Saturn, old age) and Puer (youth) has something very moving and apropos to say to me, that today I want to share. It's about fidelity to your calling.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-36114378363390321042011-06-07T01:33:00.000-07:002011-06-07T01:33:30.527-07:002011-06-07T01:33:30.527-07:00The Boomer RevoltHere is what GOPer political strategists probably thought they were doing with the Ryan budget proposal to kill Medicare: by exempting those 55 and older, their proposal would not touch and therefore not interest much of the Baby Boomer population. Those hitting 65 wouldn't care because their Medicare is unaffected, but those more than a decade away wouldn't even be thinking about it yet.
But Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-25199165218894344552011-05-05T00:06:00.000-07:002011-05-05T00:10:13.391-07:002011-05-05T00:10:13.391-07:00Levels
This didn't make the headlines, not in bin Laden week--not that it would have anyway. But since it's a report to be delivered at a big international conference, maybe it still will. The report by Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program says that the ice in the Arctic and Greenland is melting much faster than previously predicted, and is likely to result in a much greater rise in sea level Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-17917923631331647822011-04-19T01:42:00.000-07:002011-04-22T05:57:14.564-07:002011-04-22T05:57:14.564-07:00For As Long As We've Got
Power Shift 2011 is a gathering of 10,000 or so mostly young people organizing for action to confront the Climate Crisis and related environmental crises. Leaders of the group met with President Obama, and the report of this at Climate Progress elicited the usual political grumbling and the inevitable debate on whether the Baby Boomers ruined everything. A bit unusual however was that it Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-51469589814520589832011-04-11T01:51:00.000-07:002011-04-11T04:30:43.855-07:002011-04-11T04:30:43.855-07:00Growing Nice
This annoying little quote has been hanging in my virtual file for awhile now, but I'm still in the mood to refute it. It's from a salon review of a TV series I've never seen. Here's the assertion: "The older you get, the less cool you are. The less cool you are, the nicer you are. This is why old people are so nice to each other."
I won't argue with the observation that older people are Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-65909147563472052102011-03-14T01:58:00.000-07:002011-03-17T03:47:29.235-07:002011-03-17T03:47:29.235-07:00War on AgeAmong the many targets of the Rabid Right in Washington and the state governments they control--and those targets include children, women, the poor, the sick, the arts, public transportation, public anything, various ethnicities and religions, the non-wealthy in general--is the fact of aging.For many years, to be old in America almost always meant to be poor, but certainly to be helpless. Then Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-70222146230260857012011-03-09T00:19:00.000-08:002011-03-09T04:07:10.055-08:002011-03-09T04:07:10.055-08:00Return of the BoomersBox office of what used to be the Manos Theatre in Greensburg, PA, where I was a regular at Saturday cartoon show/double creature feature matinee marathons. It's now called the Palace Theatre, and does live shows--which in fact is how it started, before it became a movie theatre. But that ticket booth is the same as in my 50s childhood.Taking the pulse of the motion picture industry in the run-upCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-49113681234290485722011-01-20T23:52:00.000-08:002011-01-20T23:54:44.087-08:002011-01-20T23:54:44.087-08:00When the Trumpet Summoned UsPresident John F. Kennedy delivered his famous Inaugural Address fifty years ago today. Here are some excerpts that usually don't get quoted but should:"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass miseryCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-400190682508727262011-01-11T23:56:00.000-08:002011-04-02T03:05:31.071-07:002011-04-02T03:05:31.071-07:001/11/11Except for the numerologically inclined--and a classical music radio host in desperate need of a theme to organize her broadcast hours--I'm not sure anyone took much notice of the 1/11/11 of today's date. Especially since it's been little more than a week since 1/1/11.
But I think these dates have more of a spooky novelty to those of us who grew up in the latter half of the 20th century, when Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-89670810128566021702011-01-01T23:00:00.000-08:002011-01-12T04:06:45.467-08:002011-01-12T04:06:45.467-08:00When We're 65--whoo!It's 1/1/11 and the first official baby boomers turn 65 this year, including me. There's a wearily and maddeningly cliched piece on the subject on the front page of the New York Times. Here's the online link, but don't bother unless you click on to the comments as well. There you will see the hostility behind the supposed irony of the piece expressed directly as generational resentment, with the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-67754193096279783852010-12-15T02:05:00.000-08:002010-12-15T02:36:29.624-08:002010-12-15T02:36:29.624-08:00The Long and Winding RoadAmidst a few months of significant John Lennon anniversaries, there's this melancholy one for the Beatles as a whole: it was forty years ago this month that the band officially broke up. Dan Charness has a piece on this at the Atlantic in which he says that the breakup was well on the way to happening as early as the recording of the White Album:"With more time and experience in the studio, each Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-37379557971540644672010-11-01T21:57:00.000-07:002010-11-01T22:35:33.107-07:002010-11-01T22:35:33.107-07:00Ted SorensenTed Sorensen died last week. He was the primary speechwriter for John F. Kennedy before and after he became President, and a White House advisor. His words and rhythms are in the best Inaugural Address of the 20th century. When I was a starry-eyed teenager watching every detail of the Kennedy administration, Sorensen was an exceptional example of what writing could bring to shaping the destiny ofCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-51507244984481806822010-10-18T03:10:00.000-07:002010-10-18T03:40:00.122-07:002010-10-18T03:40:00.122-07:00TV/Mom I was surprised at all the play the death of Barbara Billingsley got, because she had played June Cleaver in the 1950s sitcom Leave It To Beaver. But apparently she became the symbol for the 50s TV mom, judging not only from the media response to her passing, but to websites which name her in the negative--June Cleaver, the symbol of all that was wrong with the 50s ideal woman, the ideal 50s Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-7834920075459753072010-10-14T12:06:00.000-07:002010-10-15T00:28:07.772-07:002010-10-15T00:28:07.772-07:00In Pittsburgh, 1960 is Now How important is the seventh game of the 1960 World Series in Pittsburgh, fifty years later? When Forbes Field was torn down, two elements of it remained--home plate was set in cement and marked, but a portion of the left field wall was simply left there--because it's where Bill Mazeroski's home run left the park.Still, time passes, the Pirates won two more championships at Three Rivers Stadium Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-13606510506092467962010-10-13T02:31:00.000-07:002010-10-13T03:48:34.963-07:002010-10-13T03:48:34.963-07:00The Best Game Ever Today is the 50th anniversary of what some experts call the best baseball game ever (and not all of them are from Pittsburgh)--the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, won by the Pittsburgh Pirates over the New York Yankees with what is still the only home run in the bottom of the ninth to decide a Series in the 7th game, hit by the Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski. That's the sequence in the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-46644810974840014152010-10-13T01:43:00.000-07:002010-10-13T04:25:49.184-07:002010-10-13T04:25:49.184-07:00 Photos above: from high atop the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, two classic photos that capture the moment of Maz's homer--and the beginning of the most pervasive and joyful celebrations in western Pennsylvania history.It's been called the greatest baseball game ever played, and it was one of the few games the Pirates played in 1960 that I didn't see or hear. All summer I wentCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-75741517212740266282010-10-09T01:05:00.000-07:002010-10-09T03:29:59.117-07:002010-10-09T03:29:59.117-07:00John Lennon at 70"How terribly strange to be seventy," sang Simon and Garfunkel in 1968, when they were 27 (Paul will turn 69 on the 13th of this month, and Art on the fifth of November) and John Lennon was 28. It's hard to imagine John Lennon at 70. But that's what he would be today--October 9-- had he not been shot and killed in 1980, a couple of months past his 40th birthday.But maybe it's not so hard to Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-36542182719997886962010-10-09T00:00:00.000-07:002010-10-09T01:03:43.127-07:002010-10-09T01:03:43.127-07:00Happy Birthday, John click collage to enlarge. John Lennon would have been 70 today.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-46526453346178275662010-08-13T16:48:00.000-07:002010-08-13T17:11:51.466-07:002010-08-13T17:11:51.466-07:0060's Now News: Kids, Brains and Rock & RollIt's a common experience: memory changes with age. But how those changes manifest is an individual thing. What's more or less healthy, and what's a sign of real trouble to come? The spectre of Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases haunts the 60s.There's news in the science of it all, but taken as a whole it's unclear what it means. Promising research may turn out to be a "breakthrough," andCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-5996423368263142032010-07-28T00:49:00.000-07:002010-08-07T23:55:30.002-07:002010-08-07T23:55:30.002-07:00A Legacy of WordsTony Judt is a distinguished historian and author of my generation, who is writing heroically. He has ALS, which is an awful degenerative disease I've seen in too much detail. It's a mysterious and varied disease. Some who get it young, like Stephen Hawking, live with it for a long time. Others deteriorate rapidly, and according to this article, that's the case with Tony Judt.He's been published Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-7598697124562295372010-07-12T17:39:00.000-07:002010-07-12T17:43:47.956-07:002010-07-12T17:43:47.956-07:00Anniversary of Empathy Sunday was the official 50th anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird's publication in 1960, and its powerful introduction of empathy as a necessary quality in confronting issues of racial justice. Much more on the book, the film it inspired and their continuing influence here at Dreaming Up Daily.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21533273.post-65741346941064580852010-07-08T02:37:00.000-07:002010-07-08T02:42:29.196-07:002010-07-08T02:42:29.196-07:00Generations of the Future The irony is inescapable--the generation that didn't trust anyone over 30 and trademarked the Generation Gap, is now the dread enemy of the young. But how real--or contrived--is this conflict, and for what sinister purpose? See the post below.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0