Let's Get Together Before We Get Much Older

Ladies and gentlemen, readers of all ages, I have returned from the blogging abyss to ensure that you, my loyal readership, do not waste away for another day in a world without hope, a world without color, a world without your daily dose of Running Down a Dream.

Since it is commencement season for many around this great nation, including my very own sister, this editorial from P.J. O'Rourke in last Saturday's Los Angeles Times seems timely, if not entirely appropriate:

First you have to listen to a commencement speech.

Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.

We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.

My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.

So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand.

"Fairness, Idealism, and Other Atrocities" by P.J. O'Rourke in the L.A. Times.

Note: Many thanks to Mr. Mason Orr for the O'Rourke-editorial heads up.