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youth culture

  • Trojan Tour Comes to Conventions- Even though Trojan Condoms launched its Evolve America tour last April, the safer sex campaign still made quite an appearance at both the Democratic and Republican conventions. Calling it the "condomvention" Trojan's bus rolled into Denver, Colorado for a huge party the first night of the festivities. With special guests including Ja Rule, Spike Lee, Alan Cumings, Josh Lucas, Tony Goldwyn, and Gloria Reuben, the party started with open bar and a little comedy. The Evolve tour targeted delegates, sexual health advocacy groups, policymakers and the presidential candidates themselves, urging them to acknowledge safer sex issues and get them on the political and social agendas. According to the International Business Times, the tour is designed to engage Americans directly by pledging to use a condom every time and sign a petition for change. This, they say, is in light of:
    "condom advertising restrictions on network prime time television in effect, and over a billion dollars spent on abstinence-only education that does not advocate condom use..."
  • Youth Vote Matters to Pols maybe not Hollywood- Really great retell of a situation Jackie Borchardt from Politics West recalls of her first evening of DNC08
    ""We need more young people like you," a California delegate said to me while I slurped a lemonade outside the convention hall. I set the record straight: I'm not here for Democratic Party business. I'm a journalist here to learn about the relationship between the news media and politics. Still, he said, the world needs more aware young people. Message to other 23 year olds who might be walking around the Pepsi Center this week: you are carrying a lot of weight. Whether or not the "youth vote" exists, people are paying attention to the presence of youth in this convention."
  • Being Independent, Being (Dis)Empowered- I'm going to explore a psychological identity crisis that seems particularly rampant among Generation X and Y Progressives in this election cycle: A widespread insistence on registering independent in states with closed primary elections, and therefore eliminating the opportunity to participate in the democratic process. This blog is cross-posted On One City: The Blog of The Interdependence Project (of which I am the Director).
  • Millennial Purchase Power- A new TIME Spring supplement Style and Design addresses the influence the Millennial Generation has over products and even purchase power they have in influencing their Baby Boomer parents. The first piece, a feature article, claims that Millennials seek the luxury and name brand products their parents do but they want them without the financial stability their parents have worked their lives to build.
  • Young Candidates Step Up- I found out about two new young candidates in Kansas stepping up to the plate to run for office. I'm learning more and more about young candidates across the country and always love to shill for them as I go.
  • Young Students an Easy and Convenient Target- In March the RIAA (Recording Industry) started a crackdown again on illegal downloads. In the previous three years the RIAA filed suits against about a thousand college network file sharing users. In March they planned to do a thousand in just a few months time.
  • young people are the key drivers of social change- Harry S. Truman Scholarship Policy Proposal by: Alex B. Hill Problem Statement International development is a vast and complex issue. With over 18 million people dying each year from the lack of development assistance in health infrastructure something new needs to be done. Within the US there is a trend that foreign aid dollars are coming more from private NGOs and nonprofits as opposed to official government agencies. For so many years international development was tackled in simplified single-issue campaigns, which only created any effect in the short-term. This can be attributed to the fact that most Americans have a limited worldview. Most Americans have not traveled internationally, especially to developing countries. Therefore international development issues remain remote and abstract to most Americans. International development is a long-term issue. It is inherently complex and difficult to understand. There is no single enemy, and outcomes are rarely clear-cut or translatable through numbers.
  • Extreme Makeover: Jesus Edition- A new study by the Barna Group shows that
  • Youth Haters at the NYTimes- Since when did it become the thing to do to hate on young people? This week the NYTimes has posted three articles the first saying we are meaningless non-voters the second Criticizing us for "delaying" things like marriage and permanent employment... And finally today's saying we're doing our civic duty but we're doing it all wrong because its too quite. Generation FU needs to get off our backs.
  • Alienation Myth or Marketing- My mother REALLY wants me to go to Family Day at the Southern Baptist Church this Sunday. So, in my fun this week, I wanted to look at some recent studies I've seen that talk about young people who are or who aren't alienated by organized religion and contrast that with actions we are seeing across the country
  • A Youthy Agenda- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a Progress Report for Young Americans Wednesday touting the successes of the new Congressional Majority that won on a “new direction” agenda last fall.
  • police brutality is the new hokey pokey- Previously posted on the Young People For Blog. The hokey pokey is what its all about, right? Wrong, at least not anymore. Police brutality and the use of excessive force on students are taking the lead. Have parents stopped singing the age-old tune, have teachers stopped using the activity in class, have wedding DJs stopped playing the tune at every wedding, have we forgotten that we live in a free country where really the hokey pokey should be what its all about? My horror began when I heard of a student at UCLA being tasered for refusing to show his ID. It was an obvious case of racial profiling and the police actions were beyond appalling. As much as I couldn’t believe it I said to myself this is just a single incident.
  • Social Networking is Hotter than Ever!- I use sites like MySpace and Facebook to keep up with friends that are all over the place. I happen to like MySpace because I can be “friends” with causes or campaigns that I like plus my web page can play music and I can make it whatever color I want. Some people like to have different kinds of friends. You know the type of friends I’m talking about, right? The ones who want to tell you how attractive you are when they haven’t even seen past your profile picture which for me right now is a Simpson’s avatar. The ones who have seductive pictures and want to lure you to their “special” site?? So – NOW there is a whole new exciting world for these folks!
  • If You're Happy and you Know it....- AP along with MTV did a recent study asking young people if they were happy. Its always fun to come up with a blanket study – but according to this mornings Forum with Michael Krasny on NPR who had Michael Greco an MTV Vice President talking further about the study – apparently they asked deeper questions rather than a yes or no and they did a kind of listening study where they actually examined things closer.
    “The study found that overall, most American young people (aged 13-24) report being happy with their lives and are optimistic about the future. 65 percent of respondents say they are happy with the way things are going in their lives in general and 62 percent think they will be happier in the future than they are now.
  • Jake Brown: The Man Who Fell To Earth- Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing
    click to enlarge
  • New Victorian Culture- The NY Observer last week came up with a piece about what they are coining as the New Victorian’s – twentysomethings who are opting to settle down, marry, and have families right after collage. No these youngsters are not the product of snake handling religionists who talk in tongues, marry at 12, and have babies to repopulate their cult – these are – in the case of this article – ivy league graduates with a good head on their shoulders and beaming with potential for progress in the big city. The traditional stereo type – possibly a byproduct of the 60’s – was to label co-ed graduate women with the anti-men, femi-nazi, lesbians, and a slew of others that amount to the fact that they will never marry, focus only on their careers, don’t even think of having children, and have as many lovers as they desire.