culture: September 2006 Archives

On the one hand, we have the rise of attitudes geeky enough so that the word “Orwellian” can be deployed without a second thought, on the assumption that even if the reader has not actually read 1984 -- which is pretty much always what people are referring to when they invoke Orwell -- they will at least understand that the reference implies all manner of science-fictional concepts, such as how language influences, controls, even narrows, our thinking. On the other hand, we have willful avoidance of reason, of a rational, commonsense approach to the many, many problems we face as a global society.

First, we have this, via South African news source IOL, a story about a proposed ban on trans fats in New York City restaurants:

The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year — from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

[from the Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle]

And Xer drug use was juuussst right?

(Technorati tags: generation gap, Boomers, Millenials, drug use)