You simply can't have this discussion without Bill Strauss and Neil Howe. They are the recognized experts in this area of study, and no amount of generalizing by either Gary Kamiya or Leonard Steinhorn should ignore that.

As a Gen-Xer (or "13er," in Strauss and Howe's argot), one of the odd things about Steinhorn's argument about the importance of everyday life activities is that it actually makes the case that Gen-X, not the Baby Boom, is the "Greater Generation."

What the (admittedly enlightened) vanguard of the Boomers advocated is what Gen-Xers overwhelmingly now live. We're the ones, much more than Boomers, who actually embrace intermarriage and multiracial circles of friends. (Gen-Xers are exponentially more multicultural than any previous generation -- a fact Boomers conveniently ignore when they drag us into high-handed "diversity training" workshops.) We're the ones who are implementing full gender equality in the workplace -- albeit as much because of economic and demographic necessity as due to high-mindedness. And we're the ones who are on the front line of the final civil rights fight, the one the supposedly "free love" Boomers ignored -- gay marriage.

And if we're more cynical and yes, socially conservative in some ways than the Boomers ... well, you'd be too if your late Silent/early Boomer parents were divorcing, abandoning and yes -- even though I'm pro-choice -- aborting you in droves in the name of "self-actualization."

But of course, Strauss and Howe would note, because history works in cycles, Gen-Xers are condemned by history to not only have their accomplishments ignored but also actively decried. If Boomers Kamiya and Steinhorn can't relate, Ernest Hemingway's "Lost Generation" surely would have.

Let us not forget a few other things the "Greater Generation" have contributed to the planet (in no particular order).

Modesty, free love, AIDS, career AND family, latch-key kids, "50 is the new 30," aging gracefully, political correctness, the Hilton sisters, letting Jefferson Airplane get all the way to Starship, yuppies, etc.

I'd heard a rumor that they had cured cancer too, but I think that might've been on an episode of "Thirtysomething."

1. I was surprised to find out that my parents' generation was considered the "greatest" generation. My parents struggled through the depression and WWII, and it left them bitter, stingy, and morose, with only the slightest superficial attempts at sociability or more importantly, relating to their children. They seemed to project their misery on to me and my brothers. We were certainly never spoiled.

2. The average household in the fifties, when boomers were growing up, only had one bathroom, one car, one TV, and one phone. Kids walked or rode bikes to school and had daily household chores. Exactly how is this spoiled? That is, considering today's American standard of living.

3. It puts me into extreme cognitive dissonance to realize that Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc. are also Boomers, the same age group as myself. They seem like old men to me. It's kind of like "Revenge of the Nerds" only much worse. Nothing was more square or rare in the 60's than a Young Republican! Living in San Francisco at the time, it seemed everyone my age was "on the bus". Obviously, there were a few who just couldn't or didn't get what was really happening with the enormous seachange/cultural tidal wave that was going on. These people turned to alcohol and coke. It has alwasys seemed to me that the reactionary conservative backlash by boomers and subsequent generations was really a case of sour grapes, that awful feeling when you know you've missed the most incredible and mind-blowing party of your entire life and it'll never happen again. They could have been there; they just didn't make it, for whatever reason. They turned to materialism, aggression and dogmatic religion to fill their emptiness. The average boomer didn't sell out. They just became parents and bought houses, and all that that entails.

4. Speaking of indulged generations, how about the kids of today with a $1000 wish list for Christmas - cell phone, Xbox, Ipod, etc. Many kids today don't know how to do the simplest household chores, like washing dishes, putting away the wash, cooking from scratch, etc. They are and want to be entertained all the time with the huge array of electronic media gadgets that their parents have given them. They think porn is normal. What will this generation gow up to be?

Born in 1946, graduated HS 1965 small town indiana, went to art school, indianapolis, San Fransisco, hitchiked, drugs, Canada, Mexico, everything. Too poor to maintain deferment, joined draft as moral acceptance of my responsibility to occupy my place in Vietnam. Ist cav infantry. Head wound. and disability ever since. Now I am an artist, and carpenter and as horribly disgusted with my country now as I was during the 60's. I knew then and know now of a thousand people who feel the same. America is on the down slope of empire. Having forsakin all noble principles, and turned into a capitalist greed machine that derserves it's fate in the dust bin of history. Trouble is the boomers are all old now, or would be burning the streets today to protest Bush's actions. If violent revolution was ever justified, it would be today.

Agreed: many "boomers" were born in 1940 and after. But even the word 'boomers' bothers me.

I was in college in NYC from 1960-1964 and stayed in Manhattan until the early 70's.

There was a huge variety of us in the counter-culture, but it was a palpably intense and political time. Some of course went into bombing etc which most of us found horrific. But nearly all I knew then shared these things: We were avid in our anti-Vietmam rallies, and we felt we helped end that hidous war. We took grass, mj or whatever we called it. We didn't all drop out (many of us could not afford to) but we in major cities did feel the huge shift from the conventional fifties.

We didn't have to comb our hair. We could wear whatever was comfy, mini-skirts for some, jeans and tie dye shirts for others. We could sit togther and not speak and not be phony. We went, most, to Washington Marches and less of us to the South to help with the horrors of segregation. We listened to the same music, unlike now, which were mainly 10-15 albums (Laura Nyro; Bob Dylan, Joan Collins, Joni Mitchell, the Beathes, Procol Harum to name a few). By 1967 we were joining women's groups. We were against sexism after we were against racism. We were against authority, wary as we said of anyone over 30. We were naive but intensely engaged and therefore happy. We had no big leaders, contrary to the media hype about Abby and Jerry and others. We had a LOT of sex and no fear of AIDS; we had confusion about selling out and didn't want to. Some were social activists. Some were druggies, (Haight Ashbury) and as mentioned the few who turned to violence were basically shunned by us (The Weather Underground). But most of all it was a time of acceptance and love, the be-ins, and of being au natural not dressed for success.

Those from weathlier families could afford to drop out and tune in with Acid and making beads, but most of us could not leave graduate school, due to being working class. however school was more radical, our readings were more radical (Franz Fanon and Herbert Marcuse)/ We in the universities were big on reading, an enviable thing, and we read everything we could and studied political science and psychology and did not subcribe to those book of the month middle brow books that lined our parents bookcases. We were indeed unique, esp after the assination of JFK, in 1963 and on thru the deaths of MLK and then Bobby Kennedy in 1968, and we were happy. We most of us didn't get married as quickly as the former generation and

to end, I can say that the birth of that era gave birth to many of us who still share such values as protesting war, as dressing casually, as not living for money but for making a contribution however unformed or often. We were not the greatest but the luckiest of youths. We had cohesion and a telepathic relation to youths in Paris, and Berkeley and loved NYC because no one was snobbish and most among us were equalitarian. Yes, I look back and can say, compared with our kids and our parents, we WERE THE LUCKIEST GENERATION esp in the big cities, where no one was a stranger, nothing like now.