I Will Never Understand TV Programmers

I'm really at a loss as to how today's "millennials" are "civic minded." What does this even mean? They vote? Volunteer? Help old ladies across the street? Does this guy even know any "millenials"? Because I've been teaching them for awhile, and "civic minded" would not be one of the first 378 adjectives I would think of for that age group (18-29, apparently).

And as for "pushing out" Generation X...how do you push out a group that jumped ship 11 years ago? Are there really Gen-Xers (I always hated that name) who still watch MTV? If so, who are these people, and more importantly, what is wrong with them?

Hookups

Amy has a good rebuttal to this annoying Charles Blow article where he bemoans "the end of dating" and hookups.

She writes:

Hooking up is not some sort of evil social phenomenon that will destroy our culture; it's a no-bullshit way of getting to know someone for people who are interested in sex. Frankly, a lot of sadness has been reaped in this world because of marriages (or relationships) between one person who loves and needs sex and another who can do without, or would just rather not. What's wrong with these two pools of people having such drastically different "loving" styles that they become less likely to mix?

Indeed. The unfortunately named Blow, is well, a blowhard who tries to explain what he sees as the culture of those crazy kids to other clueless people. There's nothing inherently wrong or right about hookups, or about dating for that matter. People should do whatever they want to so long as it isn't hurting someone else. Just because it seems strange to out of touch people over the age of 40 does not mean it is wrong. And even if it was wrong, writing an article as an explanatory guide of the insanity of youth to fuddy duddies is not a very appealing genre.