I'm not normally a fan of Janet Albrechtsen (A right wing Aussie columnist) but I like most of this.

Resolve to quit the whine club

FORGET new year's resolutions. I am making a new year's admission. I'm a member of the crappiest generation.

No disrespect intended, but I'm guessing you are too. US comedian Louis C.K. christened the term, pointing out that we live in an amazing world that's wasted on a generation of spoilt idiots.

So if you really need a new year's resolution, try looking around in tingling amazement, even for just a moment, at the lives we lead in 2011, compared to, say the lives of those who lived in 1911, or 1951, or 1971, or even 2001 - and stop whingeing about your life.

Poverty? Down. Life expectancy? Up. We live healthier. We're wealthier. Most of us live in bigger houses with TVs the size of table-tops and have more than one bathroom. We get more welfare when we need it. We're better educated. We're better informed. As a friend of mine says, every marker that should be up is up. Every marker that should be down is down.

More...

I gave up whining a long time ago. I can take anything that APPEARS to be wrong at the first glance and usually find something good that became of it. That even includes some tragedies. I only need to look at my own life to know that. I've had a few epiphanies in my life and know how they turned my life around for the better. Hey, and I'm not in any way a religious man.

I can see some obvious problems everywhere, and I WILL complain once in a while, but I can always put it in perspective. I don't worry about things I have no power over even though I can see obvious solutions to problems that could be solved.

She calls herself a right-winger? Doesn't she realise that the perfect world as extolled by that newspaper of integrity the Daily Mail happened for a very short time in the 1930s when the Master was obeyed by the hoi polloi who still knew their place (usually in a tin bath in front of the fire having just completed a 14 hour shift down the pit).

Poverty? Down. Life expectancy? Up. We live healthier. We're wealthier. Most of us live in bigger houses with TVs the size of table-tops and have more than one bathroom. We get more welfare when we need it.

True....but we are also in debt for all of it.

She calls herself a right-winger? Doesn't she realise that the perfect world as extolled by that newspaper of integrity the Daily Mail happened for a very short time in the 1930s when the Master was obeyed by the hoi polloi who still knew their place (usually in a tin bath in front of the fire having just completed a 14 hour shift down the pit).

I thought that was only on Saturdays.

Poverty? Down. Life expectancy? Up. We live healthier. We're wealthier. Most of us live in bigger houses with TVs the size of table-tops and have more than one bathroom. We get more welfare when we need it.

True....but we are also in debt for all of it.

Speak for yourself

She calls herself a right-winger? Doesn't she realise that the perfect world as extolled by that newspaper of integrity the Daily Mail happened for a very short time in the 1930s when the Master was obeyed by the hoi polloi who still knew their place (usually in a tin bath in front of the fire having just completed a 14 hour shift down the pit).

I thought that was only on Saturdays.

My Grandad was posh. He had a bath twice a week whether he needed it or not.

Poverty? Down. Life expectancy? Up. We live healthier. We're wealthier. Most of us live in bigger houses with TVs the size of table-tops and have more than one bathroom. We get more welfare when we need it.

True....but we are also in debt for all of it.

Speak for yourself

Not you or I, per se, but the population in general. Figures released recently in NZ show that the population is spending 10% more than they are earning. Credit card figures in the US and UK show a simmilar trnd I think.

It's the Gen X and Gen Y groups most guilty. When I was a student flatting, "neccessities" were a mattress and bedding, these days students have to have a couch and TV, a playstation, mobile phone, car etc. There is more things to buy, and so more things have become "neccessary".

Even here in SE Asia things are looking up.

There are millions of the poor who now have motor-bikes, so that they can get to the factories and earn cash, rather than stay in their palm-thatch shacks and watch the rice grow.

This very morning on the way to work I saw one of these newly-emancipated fellows knock a school-girl off her bike, just for the fun of it.

Few of these newly-rich yet have electricity, let alone TV, but they are building brick houses instead of their old palm-thatch huts. They will generate more garbage than before, by the ton, with no services to clean up. So it rots in the streets. The roads have to be surfaced and sealed to cater for these motor-cyclists, so the run-off in the rainy season will flood down the sides of the roads, into these nice new brick houses. And the few at the top will sell all the goods made by the many, will import 'must-have' new goods from abroad, sold at a nice profit.

For developing nations there is still a long way to go, and they will never catch up - the developed nations will have to get down to the level of this new competition, if there is to be equality. There is not enough money (or whatever standard one wishes to use) to allow all people to rise to the level of Australia, or the US or Germany. There is only triumphalism of the Western nations and their right-wing advocates. Even the 'socialist' of a Western nation is usually only looking to equalise the lot of the population in his country. He does not want to go down to the level of India.

But in all this never had it so good (Harold MacMillan in the 1960s) attitude, think of the Timorese, the Mongolians, so many others who have abandoned their traditional life and standards to try to achieve Western capitalist consumerism, and what it has cost, and will cost, them. They will never again have that background that has sustained their way of life for thousands of years. Soon they will all be drinking tinnies of VB in their streets as well. Because they have lost their old lives, without achieveing a new one.

Of course this right-wing commentator says that things are better than ever. This is the constant refrain of the right. 'You've got it good, don't change it or you may lose it.'

(That's my early-morning rant for the day over. Heading up for eight in the morning. I've been here for an hour already and done nothing.)

Even here in SE Asia things are looking up.

There are millions of the poor who now have motor-bikes, so that they can get to the factories and earn cash, rather than stay in their palm-thatch shacks and watch the rice grow.

This very morning on the way to work I saw one of these newly-emancipated fellows knock a school-girl off her bike, just for the fun of it.

and yaddady yaddady yaddady....

There 's a line from an old movie that pretty much sums it up.... "How do you keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paree?"

There 's a line from an old movie that pretty much sums it up.... "How do you keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paree?"

The French have a simple solution - they pay the farmers enormous sums of money out of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy). This isn't their money, of course. It's stolen from the British under a system supported by all governments since Edward Heath (although Maggie T did try to steal our money back). So these farmers, who grow nothing, get enough money to come up and see Paree whenever they wish.

Isn't this just another version of that extremely old chestnut?

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect

their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently

inhabit taverns and have no self control."

Inscription, 6000 year-old Egyptian tomb

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint".

Hesiod, 8th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Plato, 4th Century BC

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."

Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

But have you heard what they are listening to these days?

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

But have you heard what they are listening to these days?

Yes and its just disgraceful

So where were they complaining about their cell phone connection speed?

There's a difference between disrespecting one's elders and loose living and complaining about the limitations of the latest technology, and the writer specifically points out it's not just a malaise of the young.

same same, frankly. Everyone has some kind of idea that it was BETTER in their day. Not bloody likely, just the usual rose colored glasses everyone puts on when looking back, it used to be so much better blah blah blah.

That was a fascinating list of old records showing that every generation since time immemorial thinks the youth are worse than in their day (SBK). The generation gap will always be.

Odd sort of chap that I am, I have nothing to complain about; I had it quite tough as a youngster and since moving to NZ, things have only got better: 3 meals a day of whatever I want to eat, medical care available whenever I may want it, intelligent loving respectfull children....I count my blessings and although it would be nice to have a late model car, a pool, hot and cold running maids etc, I know full well that what I do have is so much more than what I had and what others have.... and I still have the will, the potential and the ability to aquire more material and "spiritual" "wealth"

It's not quite contentment (that would imply no more aspiration, and I do want more out of life), and it's not quite gratefullness (that would imply thanking someone/something and I am not religious and I owe nobody), but it is a feeling of being lucky to have what I have, whatever it is that I have.

Isn't this just another version of that extremely old chestnut?

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect

their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently

inhabit taverns and have no self control."

Inscription, 6000 year-old Egyptian tomb

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint".

Hesiod, 8th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Plato, 4th Century BC

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."

Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

Damm, sbk, I didn't realize you were that old. You're almost as old as me.

I was born about 10,000 years ago

There ain' t nothing in this world that I don't know

I saw Peter, Paul and Moses

Playing ring around the roses

And I'll whup the guy what says it isn't so.

I'm not sure crappiest generation applies, but dumbest of the past several may. This was an interesting book I picked up in a US airport a couple of years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Generation-Stupefies-Americans-Jeopardizes/dp/1585426393

I agreed with a lot of the issues the author cited but perhaps not the cause. I think bad parenting has a lot to do with it.

She specifically says it's not age related.

My father's90 and he complains about the free international calls he can make on Skype dropping out all the time.

I can remember when he had to go down to the public phonebox with a fist full of pennies.

Buddha give me strength.

everyone complains and to then say this is something new is just as ridiculous as to say the youth of today are going down the toilet. Everyone complains ALL THE TIME.

Well I'm going to have a whinge. I moved into my new house three days ago and I still don't have internet access (that's not the whinge though).

So now I'm downtown in a cafe using their free WiFi and every few minutes a waiter passes by and asks do I want another ice cold beer (that's still not the whinge).

The thing is, my glass has now been nearly empty for a nanosecond and he hasn't been around to check if I want another.

Stuff highspeed broadband internet I want instant access bartending and I want it NOW!

Seriously though, when in a country like Viet Nam or Thailand just stop, take a good look around and see what some people do to keep living.

Makes you 'umble very 'umble.

So now I'm downtown in a cafe using their free WiFi and every few minutes a waiter passes by and asks do I want another ice cold beer (that's still not the whinge).

The thing is, my glass has now been nearly empty for a nanosecond and he hasn't been around to check if I want another.

Stuff highspeed broadband internet I want instant access bartending and I want it NOW!

Is that an 'ice-cold' beer, or an 'iced' beer?

VN local bars are like Thai local bars - dump a kilo of ice into a glass, then wet it with a few drops of beer. That's my whinge.

Driving to/from work - the past three days there has been at least one mo'cycle accident on each journey. Getting scary. No serious injuries, just sheer insanity from the bike riders. Two affected the car, rest happened about 20-30m in front of car.

Phil - today's Vietnam News has front page photo of Dung Quat, with PM declaring it officially open (two years after completion).

She calls herself a right-winger? Doesn't she realise that the perfect world as extolled by that newspaper of integrity the Daily Mail happened for a very short time in the 1930s when the Master was obeyed by the hoi polloi who still knew their place (usually in a tin bath in front of the fire having just completed a 14 hour shift down the pit).

Is this what left-wingers think that right-wingers think? Would explain a lot...

Isn't this just another version of that extremely old chestnut?

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect

their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently

inhabit taverns and have no self control."

Inscription, 6000 year-old Egyptian tomb

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint".

Hesiod, 8th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Plato, 4th Century BC

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."

Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

Any opinion that can survive 6,000 years must have some validity...

SC

She calls herself a right-winger? Doesn't she realise that the perfect world as extolled by that newspaper of integrity the Daily Mail happened for a very short time in the 1930s when the Master was obeyed by the hoi polloi who still knew their place (usually in a tin bath in front of the fire having just completed a 14 hour shift down the pit).

Is this what left-wingers think that right-wingers think? Would explain a lot...

No this is what British left-wingers think that British right-wingers think. We think the US right-wingers think that it ought to be compulsory to own at least 3 guns and that people without health insurance should be obliged to perform their own operations using a rusty old knife and a sharpened spoon.

Isn't this just another version of that extremely old chestnut?

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect

their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently

inhabit taverns and have no self control."

Inscription, 6000 year-old Egyptian tomb

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint".

Hesiod, 8th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Plato, 4th Century BC

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."

Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

Any opinion that can survive 6,000 years must have some validity...

SC

your thinking bears no logic. racism is alive and well after thousands of years, heck so is genital mutilation in some countries. Does that give them validity???

If racism exists in every community ( which I contend does, I've lived in many, not found one without it ) then doesn't it become the norm, even if you don't like to admit it ? ( bearing in mind if you're not a racist, there's always an exception to prove the rule )

Isn't this just another version of that extremely old chestnut?

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect

their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently

inhabit taverns and have no self control."

Inscription, 6000 year-old Egyptian tomb

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint".

Hesiod, 8th century BC

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Plato, 4th Century BC

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."

Attributed to Peter the Hermit, AD 1274

blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda. sorry guys but really. 6000 years of the same old crap.

Any opinion that can survive 6,000 years must have some validity...

SC

your thinking bears no logic. racism is alive and well after thousands of years, heck so is genital mutilation in some countries. Does that give them validity???

Some people believe that certain forms of genital mutilation have health benefits. It's not something that I, or my forefathers back as far as I have been able to ask, have ever practised, and regardless of its validity or otherwise, not something that I intend to adopt. I assume the people that do that sort of thing have some sort of reason for it, though. I certainly would not dismiss the practice simply because it was the same as what many people had done in the past.

Racism clearly has a valid basis, and there are good grounds for fearing and disliking people who are different from ourselves, due to competition for resources etc and the evolutionary need to ensure the survival of one's own gene pool. Remember, we are not free-thinking individuals, but only hosts for our genes. Some of us choose to rebel against instinct and assert a more intellectual, learned behaviour. We call it civilisation, and it appears to be relatively successful. Indeed, in my opinion multi-culturism and miscegenation are means of spreading and ensuring survival of one's genes, and to a large extent, that attitude derives, I think, from my culture. Other cultures are less inclusive and tolerant.

So when you choose to stamp out genital mutilation, or religion, or racism, condemnation of youth, I suggest that you make a rational assessment of why that undesirable feature exists, rather than assuming that your own opinions on the matter are shared by all.

SC

I find that most generations improve with age to a certain point. My own has. Young people today! If only they had had as long to mature as we have, and I have had plenty of time to blot out the stupidity of my youth.

Sorry, but just because an argument is old and tired doesn't lend it validity. And just because someone is older doesn't mean they have any brains. Older people have been complaining about younger people for aeons, its called the inability to adapt and change and the norm for older people to somehow view themselves as smarter and better simply because their way is the way it was always done. I don't subscribe to that theory and think its rooted in a resistance to new ideas and new ways of looking at things rather than any superior intelligence or knowledge.