It Sucks To Be A Boomer….

Just ask them. A researcher has tabulated results of "happiness research" has found that baby boomers are significantly less happy than their parent's generation are and significantly less happy than other generations historically.

While Baby Boomers struggle with rising mortgages and kids who barely know their hard-working parents, senior citizens are apparently having a ball.
 
About half U.S. residents in their late 80s report being very happy, while the figure for younger age groups plummets to a third or less, a new study finds. Another recent study found depression peaks at about age 44 around the globe.

But things are looking up for anyone planning to hang around: Americans, at least, grow happier as they age.

The new study also found that baby boomers are not as content as other generations in other eras. Other findings:

African Americans are less happy than whites.
Men are less happy than women.
Happiness can rise and fall between depending on economics of an era.

With age, the differences narrow.

"Understanding happiness is important to understanding quality of life. The happiness measure is a guide to how well society is meeting people's needs," said lead researcher Yang Yang, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. The study is published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review.

The research used data from "happiness research" - responses to questions about contentment with overall life gathered in the General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center.

Funny how that works, isn't it? The generation that tuned in, turned on and dropped out turned miserable as time passed. Their parents, however, just got happier with their lives. It makes you wonder how the results will be when the boomers pass into the so-called golden years.

I Gotta Get Me A New Dictionary

I simply can't keep up with the Associated Press's redefinition of words. Describing the Supreme Court's rejection of a suit trying to get lethal injection declared cruel and unusual, the AP describes the decision as "splintered."

The court decided the case 7-2 against the plaintiffs.

WASHINGTON - The longest pause in executions in the U.S. in 25 years is about to end. A splintered Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday, approving the most widely used method of lethal injection.
 
Almost immediately, Virginia lifted its moratorium on the death penalty. Mississippi and Oklahoma said they would seek execution dates for convicted murderers, and other states were ready to follow.

A nearly seven-month halt in executions was brought on by the court's decision to review Kentucky's lethal injection procedures, which are similar to those in roughly three dozen states. The break is the longest since a 17-month period ending in August 1982.

Voting 7-2, the conservative court led by Chief Justice John Roberts rebuffed the latest assault on capital punishment, this time by foes focusing on methods rather than on the legality of the death penalty itself. Justice John Paul Stevens voted with the majority on the question of lethal injections but said for the first time that he now believes the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Personally, I would have used another term. I understand why the AP has chosen to spin this as they did; the case was actually quite narrow and only a minority of the large majority backed the Chief Justice's opinion. But it certainly seems odd to call a 7-2 decision splintered. I just can't wait to see the AP describe a 9-0 vote they disagree with. I'm sure they'll call it fractured or something.

Carter Gives Propaganda Coup To Hamas

The ill-considered decision by Jimmy Carter to lend his prestige as a former President of the United States to Hamas has handed the terrorist organization a major propaganda tool. Hamas is busily cashing in on their propaganda windfall in the global press.

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas said on Wednesday that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter would meet two of its leaders from Gaza in Egypt, in further defiance of Israeli leaders, who have shunned him over his contacts with the Islamist group.
 
Hamas official Ayman Taha told Reuters senior leaders Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam would travel to Cairo later in the day for talks with Carter, who began a Middle East visit on Sunday.

"Mr Carter asked for the meeting. He wanted to hear the Hamas vision regarding the situation, and we are interested in clarifying our position and emphasizing the rights of our people," Taha said.

Longtime readers know that I have no use for Carter in any way shape or form. But this is beyond stupid, even for him. Meeting with a group that launches terror rockets onto Israeli civilians daily and who seized power in Gaza by force of arms is despicable. Even as poor a President as Carter was should realize that this is a really bad idea. Shame on you, Jimmy.

Questions, Questions

A surprisingly good look at the potential damage Barack Obama has done to himself with his "small town" comments comes from the New York Times this morning. There is a bit of identity politics claptrap in the article, but generally, it is quite honest in looking at the reaction of Pennsylvania voters to the controversy.

Cindy Phillips, 54, a flight attendant from Leetsdale, Pa., said she had intended to vote for Mrs. Clinton before the latest feud developed. But she said her position was solidified by Mr. Obama’s remarks that many small-town Pennsylvania voters, “bitter” over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

“He just doesn’t know Pennsylvania,” Ms. Phillips said in an interview. “People here are religious because that’s their background, not because they’re mad about jobs.”…..

……“It seems he’s kind of ripping on small towns, and I’m a small town girl,” said Becki Farmer, 32, who lives in Rochester, Pa., another Ohio River town hit hard by the closed steel mills. “That’s where your good morals and good judgment come from, growing up in small towns.”

Indeed, advisers to Mr. Obama concede, his job has been made that much more complicated by his remarks about bitterness among small-town voters. Though it remains unclear what effect the episode will have in the long run, it has suddenly prompted a series of questions — and worry — from Democrats about whether Mr. Obama could weather a Republican onslaught in the fall, should he win the presidential nomination.

The Times does try to paint this all in terms of Obama's race. But, frankly, I don't see that component in this flap at all. This is people reacting to the words of the candidate, not to any physical attribute that candidate has. That is exactly as it should be. Even Obama says that he does not see a racial component in this, just politics.

Bitterly Empty Words

Michael Gerson looks at the latest gaffe made by Barack Obama, the sneer at small town Americans bitterly clinging to guns, God and xenophobia. Comparing it to Obama's defense of his minister's anti-America rhetoric, Gerson sees a pattern.

In 2006, Obama argued that religious belief was authentic, well-intentioned and essential to the common good. In San Francisco, however, he seemed to slip into a crude academic Marxism, claiming that religion is an epiphenomenon, the outgrowth of deeper social trends; that the deepest realities of politics are economic instead of moral; that God and guns, bitterness and bigotry all somehow distract Middle America from real issues of justice.

During Sunday night's forum, Obama dismissed this interpretation as inconsistent with his life story. "It is very important to understand …that I am a devout Christian, that I started my work working with churches in the shadow of steel plants that had closed on the south side of Chicago." In other words: You know me. I'm better than that.

Looking back over recent months, there is a common thread in Obama's response to both the Wright revelations and his "bitter" gaffe. In his Philadelphia speech on race, Obama talked of "the anger and the bitterness"
of Wright's oppressed generation. He referred to "a similar anger" existing within "the white community" that politicians have routinely exploited on issues such as crime and welfare. America, in this view, is beset by anxiety and fear and resentment and racial stalemate, which can be overcome by Obama's broad understanding and audacious hope.

The problem, as Gerson points out, is that the voters don't actually know Obama very well at all. That makes the "explanations" just more empty words. Personally, I can't recall any major party candidate in my lifetime with as thin a resume as Obama has. But even in that tiny record, there are major inconsistencies. Obama's bashing of small town Americans for being anti-trade when that has been one of his major campaign themes is just one. His now oft-repeated assertion that he supports an individual right to bear arms when he once advocated banning all handguns is another.

The common theme that runs through Obama's defensive moves over both the Wright controversy and the "small town" issue is bitterness. But not quite the way Obama would have you believe. Rather, it shows that Obama, far from being the candidate of hope and change, is actually the candidate who sees bitterness wherever he looks. That isn't exactly a message of hope. It is one of pessimism.