Yep, caught on pretty quick
Thank you
Hmm, I’ve never heard of generation Jones. I was born in 59, and I always felt Baby Boomer was off for me. My dad served in the Navy for part of the Korean war. My sister and brotherare/were 7, and 5 years older than me respectively. They seemed like they were so much older than me that a different generation seems appropriate. Where did the title, “Jones,” come from.
I think it’s a play on the concept of “keeping up with the Joneses”. Wikipedia’s entry on it features photos of Prince and of Kamala Harris as examples of that cohort.
The Wikipedia article on it cites that, as well as it being an “anonymous” name for an anonymous cohort, and “jonesing for something more.”
Ah, I thought that might be after I posted. Thank you.
Adam Duritz of Counting Crows would have us believe it’s a reference to “Mr. Jones”:
According to Duritz (who was born in 1964), the song title had a hand in the naming by Jonathan Pontell of “Generation Jones”, the group of people born between 1954 and 1965. “I feel honored that my song Mr. Jones was part of the inspiration for the name ‘Generation Jones’.”
Now I kinda wish Songbird had been wrong when they debunked the claim that Mr. Jones was about Adam Duritz’s dick.
Did you not read the entire post? Because he addressed that very point here.
Bolding added.
Did you actually read @Cervaise’s post? Because he specifically said
Bolding added
He actually wants the voters to be able to make a real choice, not a dictated answer. Isn’t that what you want?
Separate aside, I don’t think it makes much sense to define “Boomers” so precisely as born after the war ended. Because the children born during WWII didn’t face the same social and societal situation as those who were adults or nearly so during the war, and their formative years faced the same societal conditions as the children born after the war.
Similarly, generations are vague approximations, whereby the end points are pretty murky to begin with, because by nature social conditions are in flux, and trends homogenize the group.
So I’m ok with defining generations in smaller brackets, or sub generations or something. Generation Jones is transitory to Gen X.
Obama himself said specifically that he considers himself Generation Jones.
Heh. Why else do you think his response got the mod note?
Thanks very much for re-reading and extracting the relevant points. I was too irritated to reply myself.
It’s almost as though dividing large groups of diverse and unrelated people into arbitrary and meaningless ‘generations’ is an exercise in absurdity. And pointlessness. And fuitlity.
Tell that to advertisers.
I don’t need to. They’re far more sophisticated in their targeting than ‘everyone born in the country between these years.’
Oh I agree. I think 20 yr groupings are too broad because social conditions aren’t stable for that long.
More than that, conditions change slowly and continuously. The idea they’re “stable” for X years, then suddenly jump, then are stable in a new and different configuration for the same X years then suddenly jump again is simply laughable.
Discussion of “generations” here.
This begs the question (which I think is the correct use of the expression) of why we reward seniority in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in the first place?
Why should a newly elected senator of State X have less power and influence than a more senior senator from State Y? Are we not disenfranchising the voters from State X? How is this democratic?
And it has all kinds of associated undesirable consequences, like voters being reluctant to replace an incompetent, out-of-touch, corrupt, or aging incumbent because their replacement will necessarily have less seniority.
I think our congressional representatives should all have equal power and influence. If they want to elect a head (such as the Majority Leader or Speaker of the House) to enforce decorum, so be it, but I think the current system of rewarding mere seniority has serious problems.
Totally had a pong machine.
Should be Atari waver, but my family went with the competing tech - Intellivision. But a couple of friends had Atari.
Typo bites me in the ass.
It goes hand on hand with the two party system. Political parties are not in the Constitution, but emerged as a means of political collective power. A lot of benefits like committee assignments are controlled by the parties, and thus are symbols of and rewards for party loyalty.
Seniority means time collecting favors and building mutual support and demonstrating what you can do for the party. It means connections with lobbyists and interested parties with donations. That means political support outside of Congress.
Power within the party is earned, therefore, that power accumulates in Congress as well.
How is it democratic? It’s not, it’s a symptom of our representative republic. Collective power breeds powermongers, and a hierarchy for those representatives.
Because they know what the fuck they are doing, that is why.
Not according to the classical, logical meaning of “begging the question,” although those of us who insist that that’s the “correct” use may be fighting a losing battle. If you have to say what question it “begs,” you’re not using the expression correctly in its classical sense.
