I am exhausted by fluffy, navel-gazing “news” stories that purport to explain and encapsulate an entire generation of Americans. These mostly focus on “Generation Y” or “The Millennials” these days, but comparisons also abound to “Baby Boomers” and “the Greatest Generation.” Almost always they either hyperbolically praise or criticize , and do so with either minimal or no evidence. The critical pieces in particular are frequently written by people not of those generations, which adds a fun extra layer of “you damn kids need to be told what’s wrong with you.”

A perfect case in point is this piece from the Huffington Post: Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy.

Let me paraphrase: a significant portion of Generation Y is arrogant, lazy, entitled and delusional; and thus are unhappy because they are arrogant, lazy, entitled and delusional, so stop it. Also, apparently all Generation Y-ers (or only the ones that count, I guess) are college-educated, middle or upper class, and (presumably) white.

Here’s the thing. People are complicated. Even just in the US, we live in widely varying social, economic and physical environments. We belong to different races and come from different cultures, often more than one of each. But even if you had two people who grew up in the same environment and came from the same cultural groups, that is no guarantee that they will behave identically, because people are complicated! To think one can take a group of diverse Americans who only share one attribute–they were born between two arbitrary dates– and somehow make meaningful inferences about that whole group, or a large portion of it, is ludicrous.

Let me put it another way.  Many Generation Y-ers may be arrogant, or lazy, or entitled, or delusional. Or all four. But so are many Generation X-ers. And Baby Boomers. And Greatest Generation-ers. Furthermore, there are members of all generations– Generation Y included– who are humble, hard-working, realistic and grounded. I’ve met them!

So can we stop with these pointless, stupid journalistic exercises please? All you are doing is manufacturing stereotypes.

By now you’ve probably heard of Terry Jones, the preacher in Florida who put the Koran on trial, found it guilty, and “executed” it by burning a copy of the book. Subsequently, riots broke out in Afghanistan in which 16 people have been killed, including 7 U.N. employees. Now Americans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, are starting to suggest that perhaps Mr. Jones should be prosecuted for his actions.

First things first: the preacher is an idiot. To protest the actions of radical, fundamentalist Muslims, he did something considered to be blasphemous to all Muslims. That’s like protesting the KKK by burning Bibles. He and his congregation are world-class twits for having done what they did.

But how can anybody be considering taking legal action against him? Seriously? How does this not fall squarely into the First Amendment? Freedom of speech extends to people who say things that we–perhaps vehemently–disagree with. Frankly that’s the very point of it.

Some have compared it to shouting “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater. I don’t see the comparison. The panic induced in a theater would result in harm even though the people involved would act (more or less) rationally: trying to get away from the perceived fire. In this case, 16 innocent people were killed because somebody burned a book thousands of miles away. I don’t care how blasphemous it is; that is not rational. To somehow suggest that Mr. Jones should be prosecuted because of what he said, no matter how stupid, is completely contrary to the principles this nation was founded on.

I have never been more enraged by punditry than all of the criticism that has been leveled at the President about our intervention in Libya. It feels like pundits have produced  thousands of column inches and countless hours of television and radio coverage has been devoted to criticizing the President’s plan (in many cases by the  people who pressured the White House to set up a no fly zone  in the first place!). And yet none of the criticisms I have read or watched have provided a single practical, workable alternative.

Guess what? Every possible plan can be criticized one way or another. We do nothing– an abdication of our moral responsibility to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians. We do a full-scale invasion to depose Gaddafi– a slap in the face to our overtaxed armed forces already fighting two foreign wars. We wait for UN approval– we’re subservient to the whims of the United Nations. We act unilaterally– we’re an out-of-control superpower wanting to impose our colonial ambitions on the world.

So rather than having the courage to advocate and defend an unpleasant plan of action, the pundit-verse is cowardly sniping at the adminstration’s plan. So to all the pundits out there– do us a favor, would you? Tell us YOUR plan, or else shut the &@#$ up!!

One thing has been bothering me about the debate over the new health care bill is that every discussion between lawmakers I’ve heard in the media goes something like this:

Opponent: “Forcing people to buy health insurance is unprecedented and violates the commerce clause of the Constitution.”

Supporter: “It will cover 30 million new people and make health care cheaper and all of my constituents want it.”

Am I missing something? I am really hopeful that the healthcare bill they’ve will result in better and cheaper access to health care, but shouldn’t somebody, y’know, make some sort of cogent argument that it is constitutional? And then tell me what it is?

Here’s the thing: 18 state attorneys general are filing a federal lawsuit challenging the bill. Somebody please tell me the defense in the case has a better argument than “Hooray Obamacare.”