A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys.
--from Noel Paul Stooky and Puff the Magic Dragon

Ted Anthony, a national writer for the Association Press who covers American culture has written an article about Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards, a book by Josh Wilker. Anthony says the book is many things including a portrait of an era.

This review is such an enjoyable read. There are so many artful paragraphs, it's difficult to select just one excerpt. Nevertheless, I loved this:

"How could disco be an object of ridicule when it had just arrived a few years ago? Why was Thurman Munson dead? What WERE those blacklight posters you weren't allowed to look at in the back of Spencer Gifts? How could companies other than Topps be allowed to make baseball cards?"

I think this book would make a great gift for almost every Gen X man.

By the way, Ted Anthony is the national AP reporter who interviewed me after Michael Jackson died. He's my Facebook friend, but I'm convinced we'd get along famously IRL.

Photo Credit: Parl via Flickr with Creative Commons

Last night, I was watching Greta Van Sustern on Fox and heard House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) say this in reference to Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.):

"He's young, he's aggressive. Listen, we come out of two different generations..."

The quote made the Huffington Post.

Boehner was born in 1949. Cantor was born in 1963. I'm really, really, really, really, really, really glad to know that someone born in 1963 is young. It means I must be a tween! 

Have you heard of YouCut? It's the brain child of Cantor, a "first-of-its-kind project designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. "

YouCut allows Americans to vote, both online and on your cell phone, on spending cuts that they want to see the House enact. I think this program, very Gen X in design and approach, is why Boehner secretly loathes Cantor, but what do I know? I'm just an Xer - "perpetually too young and too old." Ha!