generations change, and don't

The End of the World. Millennials Falling.
Gen-Y Is Gen-Lost.
Choose Your Worry.

by Cody Barstow, Ph.D., (and fence rider for the Barstow Ranch)

Mojo City, May 7, 2005 - Back when I was seven and got tossed from my horse for something like the tenth time, no one had to tell me I had to go up to that damned beast (his name was Rush) and get up on him again.

Everything on me hurt. The shoulder I landed on. Ribs broken that still hurt tonight in the humid air. Got a then-early-dropping gonad I now call Harvey that's never been quite the same or pain-free ever since. And getting up on that horse again was no act of heroism. It was this ... I just got up and I rode him again that dusty-hot, sunny afternoon. It was what I knew I was to do out there, on the outskirts of MojoCity. Even at the age of seven.

It was what you did. It was called duty. I'd been taught that before I became seven. Before the shrinks think a kid can understand that. Sure, the kind of duty changed as I got older ... moving from my folks, to the society, to my peers ... but the responsibility to do that thing was the constant.

No one seems to know what to do these days, though. I've been watching all this crap going on about the conflict between the generations. We've got the Boomers, and the Generation X, and the Gen-Y (or the Millennials, if anyone can ever get a fix on how to spell Millenial, or Millennial so we can do a decent Google search and figure out what that's all about).

As I get it, from what I can find on the Net, the Boomers are supposed to be the rapers of the environment to fulfill their selfish needs; the Gen-Xers are presented as a bunch of disaffected forever-kids who can't coordinate things within their group well enough to go buy candles when there's a muni power loss at night; and the Millennials are a Gen-to-be-pitied with their unreasonable expectation that the world is to be handed to them.

I've had real-world dealings with all three groups. Had to look at them in terms of being a ranch fence rider who will look after the property and repair where the fence has been hurt. I've watched them try to do the job. Maybe this applies to everyone, I can't say.

You get Boomers who both succeeded in life and those who got so damned hurt in the process, and you learn things.

You learn you shouldn't hire the broken ones to ride a barbed-wire fence around your property because the broken ones (who are really very hard to recognize) will likely fall into the barbs and bleed to death on some cold early-dark morning when no one's awake to miss them and go look for them strung out on the wire. And some of them you find on the wire will (especially the Vietnam vets) be grateful the end had finally come.

Boomers like riding the wire because they're best at taking things down sideways, in a less obvious way, like they did in the Vietnam when they won their individual firefights by becoming like the Viet Cong. (I've spent a lot of time talking to these guys in front of the ranch fire in the house on nights they have time off but can't sleep, and even the ones who hated the war knew they'd gotten damned good at the killing and they had righteous pride in that.)

Then, you've got your angry Gen-Xers out there at the barbed-wire gate to the ranch, growling out loud as they sit in the saddle on the dust road leading to the promised land they're supposed to ride fence on, growling that it's wrong to keep others from the potential of opportunity ... that the gate separates them from ... (they seem to like donuts and coffee while they argue with the fence, and I bring it to them in the mornings whenever I hire a few of them. Personally, I like that because there's nothing better than donuts and coffee on a dirt road in the morning and I end up sharing the food and drinking coffee with them, silently wishing they'd hurry up and take over in this society because in all their anger, these are the ones who've got the guts and energy to do it up right ... though they don't know it, for some damned reason. They're so close to us ... )

And then you get Gen-Y, or the Millennials who sit there silently on their quiet horses and expect the gate to open itself to welcome them, because their parents told them the world needed them and that they deserved the best of all worlds.

And we all know that ain't going to happen for Gen-Y. So I have to kind of ride up to them and kick them in the butts to get them to remember they're supposed to ride the fence, look for breaks in the wire, and fix it. That it's their job to do that. Not to think that they have a right to order people around like they owned the place. And when they tell me that they tried so hard to get things done, I remind them that the fence hasn't been mended, no matter how hard they tried, and the preservation of their self-esteem by exercising their right to sleep past seven in the morning hasn't done a whole lot to get the horses fed in the ayem.

I'm getting older. I know I'm worried about the youngers the way my folks were worried about me. But ... damn.

But I'm coming up on becoming dead not too long from now so I ride on without too much concern, except for the worries about how my blood pressure doesn't seem to be coming into line even with the new prescription. I'm not looking forward to croaking too soon. I'd like to get laid again a few times more than once before the end.

And in the end ... the fact is, things don't change.

They do not change. No matter the hopes of my own Boomer gen raising their Gen-Y kids to believe they have a right to new opportunities and they don't have to work their way up the ladder. We still have wars that will not end until we find a convenient way out, like giving the responsibility to the country we invaded, and watching it fall as we did in Vietnam. We still have Boomers in their 50s protecting their social and job positions and keeping real good pressure on the throats of the young who want to displace us. And we are feeling no shame about that because this is purely a Darwinian matter of survival.

Things don't change. That's a fact. And no matter how upcoming generations are analyzed and pegged by some best-selling book ... every younger generation's got a centuries-old system of power and control they've got to beat. And they buy into it in the end because the system's so entrenched. The Boomers did. For all that was rejected, we want our due here in our waning hours that we're going to push for another 30 years on average.

And no one's telling the Millennials about that real world of influence and control. The books, and the parents are saying that just being who you are is enough. Just trying is enough. Just having self-esteem is enough.

But it ain't enough and those kids are getting cheated out of their right to challenge things because of so many misguided parents ...

No one's showing Gen-Y how to make things happen. How to grab the world by its ears and shake it till it gives up its glory. Instead, parents and the people who buy into the "just try" paradigm are telling them they deserve to rule. "And isn't it nice that your self-esteem is validated because you tried so hard to get up in the morning to feed the horses and it's a damned shame they died because you overslept ... but you tried so very hard."

The Boomers will rule till they die off because no one's challenging them. And they know how to control the youngers.

Because the Boomers were young once. And they were real good at it. And they remember the young-hunger. No one else seems to understand it.

My problem is, I can't find anyone to ride the damned fence along the south end and mend wire.

Trophy Deer Heads and the Wichita BTK Press Conference.

By Cody Barstow (fence rider for the Barstow Ranch)

Mojo City, February 26, 2005 - I got a TV feed in from Wichita and the pathetic press conference they held at 10:00 their time this Saturday. They've apparently apprehended the serial murderer known as the BTK killer.

If anyone ever complains about a picture of a hunter kneeling behind the dead head and antlers of the deer he's just killed, that person needs to review a tape of this conference and tell me there's any difference.

This was not a news event. This was nothing more than a herd of politicians and cops who needed to parade before the cameras and congratulate themselves because no one else would. Because the city had been so damned hard on thumping them for apparent incompetence in dealing with the case. They'd also been hugely accused of stonewalling the public in terms of the information they released ... keeping the public in the dark.

There, onstage, they kneeled behind the trophy-head of the BTK case, grinning and thinking fine thoughts of themselves.

And when it came to talking to the public of how they knew it was the guy or how they broke the case, they clammed up.

The case was ongoing. Can't say anything about anything. It's the same bullshit they gave that community for the past year.

Silence does not work. In fact, if you get past the relief-frenzy of the capture ... the citizens of Wichita have no real reason to believe they have the real killer until the cops and politicos tell the people why they think they have him.

There is room for this kind of minimal, but critical information while "the case is ongoing." But if you judge them for what was said during the press conference, it would seem that the politicos and cops in that city have little understanding of the needs of the civilians out there. The people need to understand how it was resolved, so they can put things to rest. Understanding is a critical part of resolution.

The politicos and cops seek instead ... well, you might think they seek only to look proud and use this event as a political opportunity to advance their careers with extended face-time in front of the TV cameras like the state district attorney seems to have done.

But that would be critical in this moment of the city's apparent victory. Sorry. But is it victory? The official continuation of the policy of stonewalling the public ends up raising this very real problem ... there is no hard reason for anyone to really believe the cops have really gotten the right guy yet.

Outrageous? Not really. With the authorities stonewalling even the most basic information, the people in Wichita have no logical reason to think one way or the other. They have only their faith in the authorities. Authorities who refuse to talk to them.

[as Saturday moves to Sunday, I'm told that at least one of the TV news programs appears to have softly backed off from a dead-certain account of how the BTK killer DNA match came about.

is it a stonewall? an under-the-breath comment from the state attorney general at the mike seems to have been that the public will never be allowed to know the full story. more than a bit offensive, don't you think?

on Sunday evening, I'm told a local station is saying sources ... the officials are still silent ... say the suspect is talking and it looks like he is the one. Good news.]