Boomers Receive another Call to Service

Harvard University's Business Guru, Rosabeth Moss Kanter issues a new blast of encouragement to boomers to dedicate their "retirement years" to service--

World, get ready! The Baby Boomers are becoming the Senior Boomers, and they want to change you again.

The generation that marched in Washington in the 1960s is marching into elementary schools, high schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters seeking opportunities to serve. Activists in civil rights and women's movements four decades ago now want to eradicate diseases, transform education, reform health care, or alleviate global poverty.

She contrasts the last generation's choices--Gerry Ford and let us add George Bush--with those of the boomer crowd:

Post-career options for healthy adults once ran the gamut from A to B & B. They could choose athletics (as in golf), like former President Gerald Ford and countless former CEOs, or run a Bed-and-Breakfast, the choices of former Senator George McGovern. Today's mature boomers aspire to be Bills: to start a foundation and champion social causes like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. Among leading edge boomers, 50-59 years old, who say they will never retire, nearly two-thirds are interested in public purpose work.
For a nation still reeling from the economic meltdown, this is a huge opportunity. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act recently signed by President Obama, includes provisions encouraging boomers to embrace service careers for their next life stage.

We should add for realism purposes--that the two Bills can well afford the choices they made--since they continue to earn income as they move through the more morally uplifting worlds of philanthropy--many of us not so blessed with the skills and talents they share may have to engage in more mundane activities. But it would be interesting to hear from you dear reader as to what choices are on your mind right now.

A 1966 Liverpool Meeting Remembered

Dylan met with some Liverpool kids when on a historic European tour in May 1966--one of the children whom he was photographed with--Chris Hockenhall describes in a blog why he made this short film for the BBC. Chris remembers the day (despite being 10 years old) so well for two main reasons--"On the morning of 14 May 1966 I had been doing some extra school maths work (not my decision) with my aunt but my concentration was nil as I literally counted the minutes away to when I could get back home for the BBC showing of the Cup Final." The final was between his own team Everton and Sheffield Wednesday. Everton won the cup that year despite being two goals down at one point.


After the game he and some other "similar aged Everton fans" kicked a soccer ball around "on some waste ground on Dublin Street, near the Dock Road" when a curious Bob Dylan came across them and had some photos taken... That night, Chris adds "one of rocks greatest tours played at the Odeon and If I had been a few years older I may well have been there... and what a 24 hours that could have been — except I was oblivious to the evenings events at that time."

I wondered what I would have have made of meeting Mr Dylan at age 10? Why did he want to be photographed with these children? Was he sensing something authentic here--something hard to find in the States? Was he intrigued by the poverty and dour nature of these hard looking Victorian streets? What do the adults now make of Dylan's music? What songs, if any. touch them or speak to their experience? On a more contemporary note--where were their lawyers? Since most probably Barry Feinstein (Dylan's photographer and featured in the video below) failed to gain parental permission to take these under age children's pictures, and most probably did not compensate them for their work-- it seems odd there were no lawsuits filed.
A testament to the positive feelings for Dylan shared by this group?

Here is the little over nine minute video :

Darwin, Lincoln and Us

Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life, is a good read. Smart, well written, non condescending and large visioned. His case that Lincoln and Darwin--born on the exact same day in history --February 12, 1809 (any astrologers listening?) shaped profoundly the late Victorian view of the world--and modern liberalism is well argued. Gopnik--an accomplished New Yorker writer focuses on both mens' use of language and shows how their literary style enabled them to make their arguments resonate beyond the elites. Lincoln found a way to look at history--as a working out of the balance of forces the moral fate of mankind--a Providence that acted without regard to individuals throughout history. Darwin--came more or less to the same conclusion--in terms of our place in the universe using methods 180 degrees different from Lincoln. The interest is not in the profundity of these ideas--ideas that could easily have been dismissed or ignored in the hands of other less accomplished writers--but in the ways they advanced their ideas and gained large and influential followings. Both created a new kind of scientfic based secularism--one that did not so much banish faith--but placed religion on a different less central track in our affairs. What does this have to do with boomers? Some thoughts come to mind--boomers questioned the way that liberal ideas had been handed down to government (in the post JFK era) in the service of flag and country to justify a militaristic set of policies that benefited one group rather than the larger whole. Instead they urged a new foreign and domestic policies --policies based on anti colonialism, pluralism rather than the numbing 50s conformity and freedom of expression. Boomers rebelled against the way the mass media worked hand in hand with governments in the "manufacturing of consent." In doing so they turned to Freud and Marx--(successors at least to Darwin--Lincoln having got lost somewhere in the mix). Freud and Marx back in the sixties needed a bit of spicing up so their latter day interpreters--Marcuse, Fanon, Levi Strauss, O'Brown, Reich)got to work to do battle with the military industrial complex and post colonialism. Since these intellectuals had no real lasting answers to society's ills-it is not surprising that the 60s counter culture movement such as it was --ended up in such a mess.

As the new right gained ascendancy in the post Goldwater years--conservative intellectuals such as William F Buckley seemed to offer some moral spine to what was perceived as directionless social forces. But what was lost in the mix was the moral beliefs articulated by Lincoln--that democracy --government of the people--by the people-- embodied a more important set of values than government as the uncritical friend of the rich and powerful.

Possibly now under Obama--influenced strongly by Lincoln as well as Darwin (note the new Presidents' support of stem cell research, his respect for the science supporting aggressive approaches to combating global warming)can help bring us back to a return to the older version of liberalism. Arguably, Obama's political project is now possible because the right ca no longer use race and gender as a barrier to social progress or employ crude patriotic appeals to support policies that only benefit the rich and powerful. Our victory as boomers was key to this success--but as in all things but particularly politics--there are no lasting victories--and no permanent defeats--we must keep on working for the values we believe in.

Boomers Unprepared for Retirement

Boomers who tended in their youth to live for the moment need to wake up according to Washington Post columinist David Ignatius--who writes as a fellow boomer

"People have accused the baby boomers of being whiners almost since we were born. But just wait until we get to retirement age and discover that we don't have nearly enough money to take care of our "golden years." That's going to be the ultimate generational bummer."

According to new research boomers who have not taken seriously the need to prepare for their "golden years" are about to get hit with another whammy--the recent economic meltdown:

"53 percent of households that hold at least one retirement account, the median combined balance was a mere $45,000.Hold on, you say, that figure includes some younger workers who haven't started saving in earnest yet. Okay, for households headed by persons between the ages of 55 and 64, the median value of all retirement accounts was just $100,000. Purcell noted that for a 65-year-old man retiring last month, that $100,000 would buy an annuity that would pay a paltry $700 a month for life, based on current interest rates. And here's an extra bit of bad news: The Fed data used in Purcell's study were gathered in 2007. With stock market declines since then, the median account balances are probably even lower now."
Ignatius quotes from a poll released in January by the National Institute on Retirement Security showing that "83 percent.. were worried about having a secure retirement; of those with a 401(k) account, only about half thought they would have enough money to retire. And 71 percent said it was harder to retire now than for previous generations."

So no longer is the line "I am going to work until I drop" a throwaway line--it is going to be all too true of our fellow boomers. Boomers helped by people like Madoff, may have killed retirement as a serious option in America for a generation or more, except as an option for the extremely wealthy--and even many of those (haven't you noticed) --prefer to keep on working.

Are Boomers Prepared for Alzheimers?

Alzheimer's is the second most-feared illness in America, following cancer, and may affect as many as five million Americans. As the baby-boom generation moves through retirement, that number could soar to more than 11 million by 2040, and have a huge economic impact on America's already fragile healthcare system."
Maria Shriver (wife of the California Governor) is raising awareness about the need for research into this tragic disease and offering some hope in focusing on some recent discoveries that will accelerate a cure if further funding is forthcoming.
According to the HBO Alzheimers Project Shriver (whose father died of the disease and is the projects executive producer) described Alzheimer's as "an epidemic for this generation", saying that as Baby Boomers age, the disease is coming right at them and something needs to be done.
She said a cure could be within reach if the world focused on it, allocated the funds for research, and pressured lawmakers.

On a personal note, I started my website LifestoryDVD in part as a way to help people who maybe in the early stages of the disease at least record their memories for their children and grandchildren, and use lifestory telling as a therapy to at least help delay the full onset of the disease.

Will Boomers Embrace or Resist the Coming E-Book Revolution?

Will boomers embrace the new e-book revolution or resist it and leave it to generation x or y to figure out?
As the largest generation with still a good deal of disposable income despite the crash, also with the last
generation for a taste for reading as opposed to sitting by an electronic screen--my guess is that the boomers
will reinvent the entire process of writing books, distributing them and reading before we move off.
I was prompted by these thoughts due to an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal that
focused on how the economics of ebooks--otherwise known as digital books will transform
our half a millenium or so habit of reading the printed word. Author Steven Johnson writes
in this section about how we will get to discover new books:

"The economics of digital books will likely change the conventions of reading and writing as well. Digital distribution makes it a simple matter to offer prospective buyers a "free sample" to entice them to purchase the whole thing. Many books offered for the Kindle, for instance, allow readers to download the first chapter free of charge. The "free sample" component of a book will become as conventional as jacket-flap copy and blurbs; authors will devise a host of stylistic and commercial techniques in crafting these giveaway sections, just as Dickens mastered the cliffhanger device almost two centuries before.

It's not hard to imagine, for instance, how introductions will be transformed in this new world. Right now, introductions are written with the assumption that people have already bought the book. That won't be the case in the future, when the introduction is given away. It will, no doubt, be written more to entice readers to buy the whole book.

Steven Johnson tells a story about how he was suddenly inspired in a coffee shop to stop what he was reading on his Kindle
and "dutifully working my way through an e-book about business and technology, when I was hit with a sudden desire to read a novel. After a few taps on the Kindle, I was browsing the Amazon store, and within a minute or two I'd bought and downloaded Zadie Smith's novel "On Beauty." By the time the check arrived, I'd finished the first chapter."

Nice.

Johnson predicts that a la carte pricing will emerge

".. as it has in the marketplace for digital music. Readers will have the option to purchase a chapter for 99 cents, the same way they now buy an individual song on iTunes. The marketplace will start to reward modular books that can be intelligibly split into standalone chapters.

This fragmentation sounds unnerving -- yet another blow to the deep-focus linearity of the print-book tradition. Breaking the book into detachable parts may sell more books, but there are certain kinds of experiences and arguments that can only be conveyed by the steady, directed immersion that a 400-page book gives you. A playlist of the best chapters from "Middlemarch," "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Beloved" will never work the way a playlist of songs culled from different albums does today."

Boomers are we ready for this world--will we be the ones to embrace or resist? What about you? Please send us your comments.

Is the Obama Era Heralding a Return to Sixties Values?

Frank Rich got it about right this week in the New York Times as he applauded Harvard's President and Ohio Weslyan's cajloing new graduates to forgoe the promises of getting rich and do something important for humanity.Rich quotes first Dr Drew Giplin Faust who urged the new grads to

to "Find work you love,” adding that The “most remunerative” job choice “may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying.”
This same note was hit a month earlier by the commencement speaker at Wesleyan University, Barack Obama. “The big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy,” he said, amount to “a poverty of ambition.” He wasn’t speaking idly. As America knows, Obama turned down the lucrative career path guaranteed to the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review to pursue the missions of service and teaching instead. The potential rewards for our country, now that that early choice has led him into the White House, are enormous.



Obama had choices--but many of today's grads know that the high paying jobs on Wall Street aren't likely to come back for a while if at all. The loans however that it took to enter the Ivy League are not going anywhere and so most new graduates will have to look forward to a long period of reduced lifestyles before they can become the new masters of the universe.
Good thing though? Non profits and idealistic enterprises can sure use the brainpower that would otherwise be wasted making huge bonuses for not very economically productive work.

So our "thought leaders" will need to help our young students whose reward system has been measured out in dollar signs with new harsher realities. Boomers will have to rise to the challenge too. As the parents of many of these youngsters -they have a role to inform them of the choices they made not necessarily between serving mamon and public service but in terms of the humanistic values they recognize as important and lasting. Good luck everyone as we enter (re-enter) this brave new idealistic age.
Let's hope this one--makes the lasting improvements that the sixties seemed only to promise us.