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The Biggest Day in Gen-X history?

On November 4th, 2008, the United States elected Barack Obama to be the 44th President of the United States of America.

President-elect (PE) Obama's birthdate puts him in the "Boomer" generation (c. 1961), traditionally speaking.  However, I would argue that he's more in the "cusp" between the "Boomers" and "Gen-X," and more experientially aligned with Generation X. 

Several differences with previous Presidents include his familiarity with technology (or even reliance onn it), his comfort with racial and civil equality (especially considering his own bi-racial heritage), his desire to discuss differences and to promote dialog and diplomacy, and having attained higher levels of education.  He's also a well-travelled man, both in foreign and domestic locales, and the child of divorced parents. 

Even more imporantly, PE Obama is a huge fan of sports and is completely frustrated with the current state of NCAA Football and the BCS system.

Now, can he fix the mess we're in now, economically, socially, politically, globally, etc?  It seems many of these problems were, in my opinion, were created by our own Gen-Xers, who have achieved higher ranks in corporate and political organizations.  As mid-level managers, senior executives, product managers, investors, politicians, etc., Gen-Xers have had more and growing influence in the issues and decisions of our day.  We've created a mess with our reliance on credit and consumerism, as well as being naive in the complex historical events that have shaped the political world order and environment.  Can we "buck up" and fix it?  Do we have the willpower and ability to sacrifice? 

Time will tell...good luck President-elect Obama.  We hope you can bring the pieces together.

The Olympics are here...

The 2008 Summer Olympics are about to begin, hosted in Beijing, China.  A lot has changed in the Olympics since the 60s and 70s, when Gen-Xers started observing the Olympics.  In the 70s and 80s, our generation started to become participants in the Olympiad, the world-class athletes who represented their countries' finest competition in truly "global" competition.  "Global" is relative, though, considering some countries and/or athletes have boycotted games for moral, political, religious, and other reasons.

The most major change for us came in 1992, when the Olympic Summer and Winter events were switched to an alternating four cycle, with the Summer and Winter games in years two apart.  Prior to this, both the Winter and Summer games occurred in the same year, with each Olympiad celebrated four years apart.  Was this a marketing ploy by the IOC to increase interest in the games?  Was it done to help the country's maintain "relevancy" in their Olympic efforts to raise funds and keep awareness alive?

There were major tragedies in the spirit of the games, though, too.  In Munich, Germany in 1972, members of the Israeli team were taken hostage, resulting in deaths.  In 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, a bomb was exploded during nighttime festivities, killing two and injuring and maiming over one hundred others.  The 1980 Moscow games were boycotted by many Western nations over the controversial invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S.S.R.  In 1984, many Eastern Bloc countries retaliated and boycotted the Los Angeles games, citing security concerns for their athletes and delegations.  The 1984 Winter Games were proudly held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.  Since then, the city has been essentially destroyed due to the Bosnian-Serbian conflict.

The actual events have changed drastically, too.  Performances have improved dramatically due to training, strength, diet, and technology.  Many new events have been added to each of the various seasonal arenas, too.  Many "fringe" or "extreme" sports have been added.  Martial arts, synchronized swimming, snow-boarding, beach volleyball have been added to attract interest from younger spectators.  Finally, there has been a major shift in the athletes' professional status.  It had once been "customary" that the athletes in Olympic games were to be considered amateur, but this has changed dramatically as now it is frequent to see many highly paid athletes competing for "the gold," including NBA, NHL, MLB, and other sports such as tennis, equestrian, etc.  The only major event to be really still considered "amateur" is boxing.

Our dysfunctional times

Gen-Xers are often recognized as being sarcastic, facetious, cynical, jaded, skeptical, pessimistic, etc.  Why is this?  Well, consider some of the major events of our time growing up as kids, in our family life and culture, in politics and the world, in society and business, or just about anywhere around us.

• Often, both parents work outside the home, divorce rates sky-rocket, and we become known as the “latch key generation”
• We see the first hand effects of desegregation, hippies, Roe v. Wade, and the feminist movement
• Politics were corrupt, including a disgraceful resignation by a sitting President Nixon, Savings and Loan mismanagement, Iran Contra affair
• Conflicts including Viet Nam, the Cold War, Lebanon, Arab-Israel conflicts, Afghanistan invasion, El Salvador, the Falklands, Libya, Shah of Iran exiled and 444 days of hostages held in U.S. Embassy
• Jim Jones and his followers in Guyana committed mass suicide in religious virtuosity, Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
• Americans land on the moon while poverty and high infant mortality rates run rampant for an industrialized nation
• Civil and political leaders are killed (King, Jr., Kennedy, Hoffa, Kent State)
• Red dye No. 2, DDT, CFCs, burning rivers, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, Love Canal, Bhopal, Exxon Valdez
• AIDS, cocaine, crack, ebola, tobacco wars, fast food, obesity, ADD/ADHD
• Disco music, Michael Jackson, Debbie Boone, The Osmonds, Lawrence Welk, Hee-Haw, All in the Family, Star Trek

How could you not be a cynic after having experienced some of these events?