Digital Dinosaur Boomers Alert : Rudd Begs YouTubed Video Game Brainwashed Online Youth To Help Him Save The Country

Why can't I write Fox News-style headlines and stories on an Australian blog? I can, and I will.

By Darryl Mason

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, or Krudd as he is covertly known by the 'wired-up' generation who are champing at the bit to sit on death panels to weed and cull the ranks of future national wealth-absorbing Baby Boomers (unless a Liberal Party government wins the early 2010 elections and John Howard returns, Menzies-style, to shepherd them into senility) is now inviting the digitally-enhanced hordes of Generation Y to help him design future Labor policy.

It's true! The most nightmarish future fear of all Baby Boomers has already come spine-chillingly true. Goths & Emos are deciding how to run the country.

If you were Prime Minister for a day - what would you do to :

• help our young people grow up safe, happy and resililient
• give young people the skills they need to learn, work and fully engage in community life ?
• reduce the physical and mental health risks facing young Australians, including negative body image, anxiety and depression, obesity and alcohol-fuelled violence?
• enable young people to accept responsibility for their actions and their behaviours?
• help young people to negotiate the challenges of today's society?

Wait....resililient? R-E-S-I-L-I-L-I-L-I-E-N-T?

Yes.


How can Kevin Rudd run the country when he can't even master SpellCheck? If what the Liberal Party is saying is true about what the K Rudd Krew is doing to this nation (and let's face it, when have The Liberals ever lied [?]), the Goths & Emos probably can't do any worse.

But maybe the prime minister himself didn't write that piece on his blog today. Maybe it was a staffer? Maybe Krudd's emo-advisor?

Nope.



The prime minister is already sending people scurrying for their dictionaries (or as the digital youth call them "those word things") on a near daily basis without him going and making up words.

Even quite catchy words like Resililient.

UPDATE : On Twitter, I tried to blackmail the prime minister using the screencap of his misspelling of 'resilient'....



...but I decided instead to go pubilc with it fro the glood of th natoin.




.

20-Somethings All Fkd Up On Drugs And Booze....

Well, A Few Are

By Darryl Mason

Studies that show young people are blasting themselves out of reality on drugs and booze should never be trivialised. Then again, it is traditional for tabloid media to take statistics and turn what could actually be good news, positive news, into another 'Young People Today Are Anti-Social Drug Pigs' set of headlines and community decaying charicatures.

When the stats actually reveal that most Australian 20-somethings are not actually fukk'd n' bombd out of their minds, tabloids must apply the word 'underclass', and load up the intro :

An underclass of young Australians is battling depression, booze, drugs, and poor health, according to a landmark study.

One in five Australians in their mid-20s has a serious mental or physical health problem.

Twice as many suffer depression or anxiety, take illegal drugs, or engage in risky, anti-social behaviour.

What the decades-long, landmark study, the Australian Temperament Project, actually reveals is far more interesting than that guff. But the good stuff, that is the positive news, is dumped beyond the headlines and the first few paragraphs, where most people do not read :

"(They seem) to be an industrious, engaged group of young people..."

About 80 per cent had jobs, 20 per cent were studying, half of them worked 39-50 hours a week and another 10 per cent worked more than 50 hours a week. And 60 per cent were involved in a committed relationship with a partner.

Spin the 'underclass' stats another way, and you get this :

5 out of 6 23-24 year olds do not suffer depression or anxiety.

5 out of 6 do not engage in anti-social behaviour.

5 out of 6 do not use cannabis, or any illegal drugs, and do not binge drink regularly.

4 out of 5 do not have any long-term mental or physical health problems.

Consuming toxic quantities of booze, however, remains a problem. They hit their mid-20s, they drink more, and more often. Then again, isn't 3 or 4 drinks regarded by health officials as a 'binge' now? But as with cannabis, Es, speed and acid, most of them will likely decrease their drinking as they get bored with it, in their late-20s, and tire of hanging in nightclubs and pubs most weekends, when clear-headed work and love and hibernation Saturday nights become more desireable, along with healthier bank balances.

If the worst that can truly be said of a reasonably small number of 23-24 year olds is that they drink too much, then they're not doing too badly after all.

They may not be marrying and having kids at the rate that Baby Boomers did, but they are not soaking up anywhere near the same quantities of drugs and alcohol. More of them have jobs, more of them are working longer hours, and far less of them are dying on the roads.

Plus, more importantly, the mid-20ers are nowhere near as isolated from their families as Boomers were in the 1970s. Look at this remarkable stat, shamefully buried at the bottom of the story :

...94 per cent of young people said their relationship with their parents was important to them.

The best news of all.