Talking In Code

On the ride home from work today, I heard a segment of the Sean Hannity program on 97.1 FM, the conservative talk radio station in St. Louis. Hannity was lamenting a lot of the recent travails surrounding the Bush White House. He chalked a lot of it up to a type of left-wing person he describes as a "Child Of The Sixties".

A "Child Of The Sixties? Is he talking about me?

I was a child during the Sixties. I grew up in a sprawl suburb smack dab between UC Berkeley and Altamont. Born in 1959, and if the math is right, turned 13 in 1973. I remember Viet Nam, Patty Hearst, People's Park, Kent State, and 1968.

Looking back, the Sixties were a l-o-n-g time ago. Four decades (or is it five?). That would be like me back in 1977 calling someone a "Child Of The 30s". Huh? No one ever said anything like that. How could we even relate?

The 1930s was a decade out of the history books, the high (or more appropriate *low*) point of the Great Depression.

Nonetheless an equal timespan is being invoked today to discredit some people from participating in our current political discourse.

A lot of the people reading this blog were probably not even born by the 1970s, let alone the '60s. So when they hear someone like a Sean Hannity complain that a modern-day political critic is a "Child Of The Sixties", do they even care?