There’s no lack of opinion about the sex abuse scandal surrounding the football program at Penn State. The best have focused on the fact that college sports, particularly football, are abusive in their very nature, taking advantage of young people while paying 7-figure salaries to coaches. On the other hand, we have this post, where a 31-year-old graduate student argues (poorly) that the Penn State scandal is evidence of the failings of his parents’ generation. (Note to readers: Go read the link above before reading further in this post. I’ll wait.)

Thomas Day, a graduate student in public policy at the University of Chicago, has decided that the pervert who allegedly raped multiple young boys and the athletic culture that let him get away with it (and, ahem, the district attorney who decided not to prosecute when Penn State Police reported the incidents), are one more example of his elders screwing up. His argument is weak on a number of levels, but strong emotion will do that to you. Then again, one would hope that someone in graduate school could come up with a more cogent and non-generalized argument than that Baby Boomers basically inherited the Garden of Eden and destroyed it before passing it on to their kids.

He says that his parents generation:

… inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

Really? Baby Boomers were born between the years of 1946 and 1964. They reached their 20s between the years of 1966 and 1984 and took the reins, so to speak, of the world at about the age young Mr. Day is now, between the years of 1976 and 1994, and they lived through a Great Recession of their own in the ’80s. (Boundless economic prosperity, my fanny.) Day argues that Baby Boomers have have spent their entire lives trying to mess up their kids’ future. As opposed to, say, earn enough money so they could send their kid to Penn State. Or buy him a car. Or put food on the table. Or fight for Title IX and affirmative action and women’s rights and Civil Rights and, oh yeah, set up Pell Grants and other higher education initiatives so the younger generation (aka Mr. Day) could have a chance at a better life through higher education. (Note to Day: I didn’t say have a guarantee of a better life. I said a chance. There are no guarantees in life.)

I’m guessing that Day probably was spoiled by his parents, as were so many children of the Baby Boomers and spoiling comes with consequences. While my husband and I took a different route from many Baby Boomers and lived on one income while we raised our four children, we had many friends who were dual-income families and, Day is correct, those dual incomes led to lots of spending. But that spending was not, as he argues, all about the parents. Rather, it tended to be all about the kids, and the result is a generation that believes things should be easy: they should be able to start at the top with a job, the top with the type of house they buy, the top of the heap with everything.

Life has been easy for Day’s generation, and now that they’ve got a really bad break – an economy that’s crashing on all of us, not just them – they are whining and, in Day’s case, blaming Baby Boomers. More from his piece:

Now we are asking for jobs and are being told we aren’t good enough, to the tune of 3.3 million unemployed workers between the ages of 25 and 34.

News flash, sweetie – you don’t ask for a job. You EARN a job. You compete for a job. You work your butt off at a McDonald’s or a Staples or a vet clinic or wherever will hire you, and in your free time, you network and apply and hone your interview skills and compete for the job you want. You don’t complain. You don’t spend a bunch of money eating out multiple times a week or going to happy hours. You save and scrimp and get by and then, hopefully, get to work. Something, by the way, your parents generation did in droves. In fact your parents’ generation is still at it. Why? Because they’re good at their jobs and, sadly, there is an entire generation (that would be yours, Mr. Day) who don’t think they should have to work all that hard and thus, can’t compete with the Baby Boomers for the jobs out there.

More:

Our parents’ generation has balked at the tough decisions required to preserve our country’s sacred entitlements, leaving us to clean up the mess. They let the infrastructure built with their fathers’ hands crumble like a stale cookie. They downgraded our nation’s credit rating. They seem content to hand us a debt exceeding the size of our entire economy, rather than brave a fight against the fortunate and entrenched interests on K Street and Wall Street.

Really? First, your parents generation is still trying to help clean up the mess. Do they need help from the younger generation? Absolutely – but the younger generation has, thus far, not shown up in any record numbers. The Baby Boomers downgraded the country’s credit rating? Funny, I thought that was Standard & Poors, which, as you surely know, also gave great ratings to the banks that got us into the mess in the first place. As for the battle over entitlements and the debt, again, not your parents’ generation but, rather, Congress and – surprise! – one of the leading figures of the younger generation – President Obama. Believe me, your parents’ generation is just as pissed off about all this stuff as you are.

What is holding your generation back, Mr. Day, isn’t a lack of leadership from your parent’s generation, but rather, a lack of dedication and spine from within many in your own generation. This is, after all, the generation for whom the term “delayed adolescence” was coined. They want sushi instead of beans and rice or chicken-vegi casserole. (And that sushi your generation so craves? What about the environmental damage that over-fishing is causing? Where’s the leadership there?). You want to take over? Please – we’d love to see some of your ideas. But the ideas that you spout in your opinion piece don’t hold water. Such as the idea that we have a leaderless culture and that’s what led to Penn State students acting like criminals:

Perhaps the most vivid illustration this week of our leaderless culture came with the riots in State College that followed Paterno’s dismissal. The display resembled Lord of the Flies. Without revered figures from the older generation to lead them, thousands of students at one of the country’s best state universities acted like children home alone.

The riot had nothing to do with those students lacking elders as leaders. It had to do with some college students being immature and – no doubt fueled by the shots your generation so prefers to beer – stupid. If they had been mature and thoughtful, they wouldn’t have been defending Paterno, they would have been raising money for the victims and figuring out a way to reform the college football system. If they’d been thinking (as leaders do), they would have never fallen into such god-worship of a football coach and a university in the first place.

You think you can fix the world? Have at it, brilliant boy. We are waiting for someone from your generation to step up and lead. But what have you done for the country lately? The Occupy Movement, where one person speaks and the rest of you repeat and no one seems to know exactly what the goal is? Have you run for public office? Do you vote? Most of your generation hasn’t even given deep thought to the upcoming elections. This post says you’re dispirited; I would say you’re intellectually lazy because it takes time and focus to study and examine all the issues this country is facing (and all the many sides to each of those issues). Do you do that? Have you read a policy paper? Or do you, like most of your generation, get bits and pieces from Colbert, Jon Stewart and Facebook?

In your follow-up post to your screed on Baby Boomers, you said that “in time, our generation will take the wheel.” That sentence, Mr. Day, is what is wrong with your generation: You’re still waiting to dive in with both feet and solve the problems. When your parents were your age, I bet they were in the thick of things. Stop waiting. Take the wheel now. Come up with solutions now. You actually take a pass at DOING anything in your follow-up post:

There is so much to be done in Washington — immigration reform, reforming our entitlements, cleaning our environment, putting people back to work — and my parents’ generation could make their mark as the one that kept America on top for good, if they only acted.  Listen, I’m 31 and in graduate school.  Very few people in my generation are in positions where we can directly make change.

You are wrong, Mr. Day – and – dare I say it? I think you might be afraid. You can directly make change now. Run for office, for goodness sake. There is many a Baby Boomer who worked full-time while in graduate school and volunteering for the public good or serving in public office (local school boards, for instance). You can do it.

You are long on critique but short on solutions. We ALL all know we need immigration reform, etc., but HOW we get to that reform is where the hard work is. Roll up your sleeves and jump in Mr. Day, or, respectfully, stop blaming your parents’ generation for what ails us. Unless you are living off the grid, you’re part of the problem, too. Take the time, energy, concentration and focus to really examine the country’s problems and figure out possible solutions. We eagerly await your ideas and hope they come soon because, frankly, your parents’ generation is getting tired.

I was asleep when reports of the first attack on the Twin Towers came in. First the phone rang, then my 12-year-old daughter – who was up at the crack of dawn getting ready to meet the early bus that ferried a small group of advanced math students to middle school at O’dark-thirty – burst into my bedroom.

“Courtney says a plane just hit the World Trade Center!”

I wasn’t sure my girl even knew what or where the Trade Center was, and Courtney was not the most reliable source. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

“A plane didn’t hit the World Trade Center,” I said, getting out of bed. “And if it did, it would be on the news.”

At which point, the young one turned on the television and we stared at the smoke billowing from the first tower and then, horrifically enough, saw the second plane hit the second tower.

Everyone remembers where they were when they first heard about the terrorist attacks, when a day in early September 2001 split time in half and a date – 9/11 – became, within 24 hours, a date that would never need the year behind it again. It’s been 10 years since the nation rallied together and accepted things like stripping down at airports and spending trillions of dollars invading other countries in the hopes protecting freedom and liberating a people I’m not so sure wants liberating.

We’ve changed, as people and as a country, and starting last week, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the UA has sponsored a bunch of events examining just exactly how deep and wide that change is. 9/11 Week: How We’ve Changed is part of Tucson Remembers 9/11 events, and if you’ve missed (or didn’t know about) the first lecture and panel discussion that happened last week, there’s a few more to come. Full details of the SBS events are here, but here are three in brief:

Wed., Sept. 7, 6 p.m.; panel discussion: “What does it mean to be Post-9/11? Politics, War and Security”; UA Education Bldg, Room 211 (Kiva Auditorium)

Thurs., Sept. 8, 6 p.m., panel discussion: “What does it mean to be Post-9/11? Media, Privacy and Community”; UA Education Bldg, Room 211 (Kiva Auditorium)

Sat., Sept. 10, 3 p.m., book event: “Once in a Promised Land”; discussion led by author Laila Halaby; Joel D. Valdez Main Library, 101 N. Stone Ave., Lower Level Meeting Room

There’s also a concert at Centennial Hall and a documentary movie about the lives of victims of the 9/11 tragedy, both on Sunday, Sept. 11, but the three events above are designed to have the community join together in discussion about the changes we’ve allowed (accepted? encouraged?) in our country since that fateful day, for good or ill. They are reflective, and feature some of UA’s top scholars. In spite of competing with the planned Presidential address and the start of the NFL season, everyone should consider expanding his or her mind a little by attending one of the events above. After all, there’s always TiVo.

Welcome to today’s rant about local public transportation. Before I begin, let me say that I’ve been riding the bus now for about four months and this is the first major problem I’ve had. That said, it was a major problem. Thus, my need to do what my Google+ profile says I sometimes do: raise a ruckus.

Today, the Route 6 Sun Tran bus heading north was about six minutes late to the Euclid and University bus stop. This may seem like small potatoes to folks who are unfamiliar with bus exchanges, but it was a make-or-break issue for me. You see, I have to catch the 312 Express bus going north at the Tohono Transit Center near the Tucson Mall – and the final 312 (there are a paltry three in the morning and three in the evening) leaves at 5:40 p.m. If I get picked up on time at the Euclid and University (on time being between 5:06 and 5:08 p.m.), I arrive with no more than three minutes to spare before the 312 takes off for Oro Valley. Which means, natch, if I get picked up six minutes late, I will miss my connection.

(Just in case anyone from Sun Tran actually reads this post, let me say I’m fully aware of the “time stop” rule. There is no time stop for Euclid and University, but there is for Euclid and 6th, the stop before Euclid and University. That time stop is 4:53 p.m, meaning – as I’m sure you know, being Sun Tran officials – the bus is supposed to leave that stop at 4:53 p.m. If said bus does leave then, it arrives at Euclid and University between 5:06 and 5:08, depending only on if it hits the red light or not. There’s no reason moving up two (admittedly long) blocks would take more than the 15 minutes from 4:53 to 5:08. In fact, it should take far less. But I’ll accept the 5:08. Just not one second later.)

When a bus arrives excessively late and threatens your Express connection, the solution is to have the bus driver of the late bus call the bus driver of the Express bus and ask him/her to wait. I asked the driver of the 6 to call, and, he said – as he dropped me off six minutes late at the Transit Center – that he tried three times to get through to dispatch but the lines were busy.  When I asked him what I was supposed to do to get home, he shrugged. When I asked him why he was late in the first place, he said, “What am I supposed to do? There’s traffic, there’s people getting on slow, I can’t help it if I’m late.”

Really?

A train at rest in Paris. They rarely rest.

Frustrated and unsure what to do – but remembering my time in Paris  bravely navigating, in a language I could barely read, trains (that ran on time and frequently) – I got on the Route 16 Sun Tran because it said “Foothills Mall” and I figured that was about six miles closer to my home.

I spoke with THAT driver, who told me the prior driver should have hit the “priority” button when calling dispatch. Wondering if this simple solution would have saved me such trouble (and wanting to alert Sun Tran of the problem with the 6 so it doesn’t happen Friday) I called the Sun Tran customer service. I was eventually connected to a person who told me that the priority button is only for emergencies.

“So me having to walk nine miles home because your driver was six minutes late isn’t an emergency?”

“Well, I’m not saying it isn’t an emergency, but it isn’t a real emergency. Like an accident, or someone hurt on the bus.”

Maybe. Probably, in fact. But it is more than an inconvenience – if I didn’t have a husband to come fetch me, I would have had to hoof it home. Many of the folks I’ve talked to on the bus depend on it as their only form of transportation and they do not have a spouse with a car. I registered my complaint and asked if the driver could be told immediately that he needed to get his tail in gear and get to his stop on time tomorrow so I wouldn’t have a repeat of being stranded.

No, said the customer service person. He could write up my complaint, file it for investigation, and then – this is the part that really stood out in the conversation – due to the BUS DRIVER’S UNION – the investigation takes three days before any disciplinary action is taken against the driver. Three days? C’mon union guys, this is a quick phone call.

“I don’t want disciplinary action,” I said, “I want a solution for tomorrow.”

“Well, ma’am, we do our best.”

No, Sun Tran, you don’t. And because most of the people who ride are poor and are at the mercy of the drivers and the system, no one ever really raises a ruckus. (Unless you’re known for that sort of thing; see first paragraph above.) You want people to use public transportation, Tucson? Make it work for us. Will it cost some money? Absolutely. Will you have to fight off the naysayers about high speed trains or super bus lines or Portland Metro-like coolness? Yes. But my goodness, people: Just do it.

“That’s the one thing I miss about being back east,” said a woman on the Foothills Mall bus after she overheard my complaints to customer service. “They ran buses every 6 minutes on every route during peak hours.” Then she explain how ridiculous it was that there were only three express buses in the morning and three in the evening. “They only have three because they say there aren’t enough riders, but they don’t seem to get that if they had more frequent buses and more of them, people would ride more!”

Sun Tran has frequent buses on many of its routes, but not the Express ones, the ones that go to the parts of town that – let’s be honest – are home to many of the upper-middle class and higher income folks. Folks who could – and would – support public transportation if it provided what they want: reliability, decent comfort, and frequency. So the people who would (and should) ride buses don’t because, dang it, if you miss your connection, you have to wait an hour for the next Express. Unless, like me, you’re catching the final Express. Then you’re SOL.