Chapter 16

   If our great and grandparents were the Greatest Generation for securing the freedoms of democracy, our parents' generation were genius at business.

         Iacocca and the Japs.

A man falls

A shell lands on a downtown market

"The graphic images from this massacre generated widespread American sympathy and galvanized President Bill Clinton and his NATO allies.  They issued an unprecedented ultimatum, in which they threatened massive air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs if they resumed their bombardment of Sarajevo or continued what Clinton described as the 'murder of innocents'" (preface, "A Problem From Hell").

  For us the decade of the 1990's had started with as much immense hope as there was misery in the world.  Israel and America's political leaders seemed to be hearing us"

"us", a quickly burning-out "bunch"

compared to the boomers in

size, doggedly chanting for 

World Peace, like we'd caught 

an unnamed virus from Pope 

John Paul.  The hid-their-lights 

when necessary "activists" and 

"progressives" to Cold War 

stalemate-cooled-icy-vicious-behind-the-scenes had chained themselves to trees and the radicals rafted into subtle impact zones to be, sometimes not so subtlely.  Greenpeace, Gorilla Girls, 28 Days and the pursuit of drug-doing as lifestyle: Grunge, were statementing some sort of group Will & Testament.  Plenty of us waffled between ascetic and just "individual" getting into the microsegments of time as 24/7 kid-pay jobs replaced education system babysitting in our lives. Strategists warned of shifts in the balance of power but the Boomer engine repeatedly proved outboard motor to post-Vietnam stasis in D.C.

  Don't rock the boat generally meant not to jeopardize the group buffet. 

Margaret Thatcher in Moonboots.  It was just one of those sayings amongst creatives sometimes seeing politics taking cues from popular.  Our agers came up with dozens of soundy expressions to indicate gear-shift.  They said, he said, she said, it:

  Trying to "go with the flow" sometimes meant hanging on every word, more often ignoring, and then increasingly just be in the moment.  For those of us not wanting to fling ourselves off bridges with bungee cords or otherwise, just out of focus, slightly out of frame served as a cocktail: ingredients--Constitution + Living It.

  Loosed from the moors and morals by tribal viking shields focused/focusing on 1. Keeping up with the Joneses 2. Glossy glossy frus frus ode du toilet and talcum powder 3. Go west young people; ours produced.  Mostly to not suprafanfare but Oprah gave shout outs.

  For every pair of mom jeans, a cut out butt section started a recycle project.

  Their ALWAYS older than us, young women rageboasted of twin beauty mothers.  When ya coming home, I don't know when had been a lullaby.  Pass the what?  Pass the popcorn was knowing, I can change me, but

  In the days and days after September 11th there was just as much shock at where does this leave our group as there was at rogue terrorists who could be so

  Part of the literature is peering through a telescope at a planet post world on fire; a lot of it was suggestions on what to do; most exuded both uncertainty and forged-into what did you expect.  Some measure of mass consciousness had incrementally sunk.  Not unlike in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the what does it matter now obliterated genuine optimism regarding redemption.  Like Ossama Bin Laden had caught a gold fish in a bottle and sent a message back:

This is your culture on crack, 

The terrorists put out the cigarette butts.

  Stillness.

  A small footpath through the ashes.

  Another tower.

  Hamas gunning down concert goers.

  Another village wiped away.

  1995.  Buick put out a fifty year since 1945 commemorative TIME magazine issue.  "The hour was late, all was chummy good will when Molotov remarked that at last he could tell the others what had happened to those Poles."