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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Wednesday, December22, 1999 Rejoice! In the Next Century, History Will Be Shaped bythe The future will be grand because our kids will be its Keepers. Meet the millen- ANNA QUINDLEN nials, and rejoice. History is most often written in terms of inventions and events, revolutions and revolutionary ideas. Butit is always essentially the story of people. The New Deal. The new technology. Cubism. Communism,These are talesof individuals, of Roosevelt and Gates, Picasso and Castro. Biographyis destiny, often for the entire world, Had Hitler been a better painter — ah, it is a conundrum for the ages. Andso I can predict, with what I believe is considerable accuracy,this about the century to come.It will be remarkable because its history will be shaped, and written, too, by a group of whatpromises to be remarkable human beings. The millennials, demographers have named them, born between 1977 and 1994, 70 million strong, the biggest bump in our national line graph since their parents, the baby boomers. Theseare our children;for my money they are a great bunch. My three are simply better thanI wasat their age. They are more interesting, more confident, less hidebound and uptight, better educated, more creative and, in someessential fashion, unafraid. Wecan say with pride that someofthat is because of the world we have created for them. Oneoutof every seven of their peers is black, one out of every seven fingerprints, that lead to interesting and sometimes monumental lives.It has also led many of them to be generous in ways unknownto me when I was young. In Paterson, N.J., nearly a third ofthe people working on a Habitat for Humanity This is not the conventional wisdom about this generation. Their collective building project are under 25. In River- legacy so far is often littered with nega- side, Calif., a senior who graduated at the top of her high-schoolclass oniy a decade after coming north from Mexicostarted a UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Latino, and because of that great diver. sity of population, as well as greater openness at school and at home, they do not havethelily-white illusionsthatcol ored my insular childhood, nor someof the fears of the other that have poisoned our nationaldiscourse. They have grown upseeing, and believing, that womenare as capable as men, While at 10 my career tutoring program for smart kids with limited language skills. As a child I remembera peculiar little philanthropy called “pagan babies,” in which we Roman Catholic schoolchildren adopted somefaceless child from some foreign complaint is always the same: They are tion (and who get to keep their own comes ever less necessary for gay men andlesbianstofollow the old conventions of deception. names). Fromone generation to another, the notlike us. This seems moreobvious than ever before, looking at these children through thelonglens of the 20th century as weleaveit. Born after Watergate and No great heroism has comealong to define these young people as a group, no world war, no wrenching economicca. tastrophe. But they have created personal valor out of such charity. A surveylast yearof college freshmen, a sampling of the eldest part of the millennial curve, Tolerance has madethesechildren,as found that three-quarters of them had @ group, moretolerant of themselves, of done some volunteer work in the last the quirks andfoibles, as individual as with lewd music, foul mout! nd, most terrifyingof all, one school shootingafter another, And some ofthis is true. And quarters from our mothers’ purses. By contrast my eldest son works at our church homeless shelter, with real people with whom hehas a real human connec- generation grows to adulthood, it be- working parents, poweredby the timpani of medication and video games. The teenagers are associated in the public mind jand, renamed her Monica or Theresa, andthen showered her with nickels and Madeleine Albright, Sally Ride, the women’s Olympic hockey team andtheir own moms haverightly convinced millennial their talents andnottheir gender. As this tives, even horrors. The small ones are saidto be spoiled, overindulged by guilty most ofit obscures the truth, particularly if youhave the good fortune to know some ofthe millennials up close and personal. choices were either mother or nun, girls that their world can be bounded by and at church. The quality those freshmensaid they admired most wasintegrity, and the people they admired most were their parents. year, at schools, in hospitals, for charities Vietnam, gas lines and record albums, heirs to the microchip and the cathode- ‘Millennials’ Al7 I memorized the Baltimore Catechism; to this day I cantell you that God made me to know him,to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him foreverin the next. By contrast ourkids and their classmates have hadendless discussions about whether God exists, whether God has gender, whether a mer ciful God would countenance AIDS or airplanecrashes. This core generational belief, that thereis usually more than oneanswerfor anyquestion, is threatening for their el. ders, raised on “becauseI said so.”Sois thefact that they are not all ofa piece. The dutiful son has a pierced tongue. The student-government president dresses like Morticia Addams. Where once we could identify who was who bythecol- lege, the color, the crew-neck sweater, now thelines of identity are constantly blurred, in our perceptions and in the stagesoftheir lives. This is disconcerting, difficult and wonderful. Socratic is better than rote. Discussion teaches more than dictums. They live a life that the one-size-fits-all Andpaths set in stoneare, we've discovered, often rocky as we move along them. Theseare the children ofpeace, prosperity and pluralism. Raising oui es on the most momentous New Ye: Eve of our lives, wondering what thefuture will bring to America, wecan lookat them and generations before them can scarcely imagine. weknowis good. ray tube, under pressure from parents who arehigh achievers or who wishthey hadbeen, in a world in which seemingly endless choices, good and bad, swirl around them like flakes in a snow globe: in large part knowthe answer. And what Gore and Bradley Finally Get Caught Up in Bitter, Divisive Two-Man Rumble WASHINGTON — Howtimeflies when your adrenalineis jacked up, your anger’s in the red zone, and you're in a shoving SANDY GRADY match with Godzilla. Gee, only a month ago Bill Bradleyin- that would be “civil” and “positive” with “no bloodletting.” Henaively asked, “Why can't it be upbeat as McGwire against Sosa?” Didn't take longfor testosterone — and Al Gore's irritating jabs — to wipe out Bradley’s pacifism. The Democratic scrum between Bradley and Gore is sud- vs. Anybody, though nobody's chomped offanear. Yet. The difference with Republicans is startling. GOP debates ooze chumminess. George, John, Steve, Orrin, Alan and Garyare as amiable as frat brothers. But as Gore and Bradley displayed in their televised mano a manocontest Sun- Afterall, as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle- PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS game. “Took Al three minutes to go forit,” Shrum said. But when Gore played his gimmick — “if you'll agree, I'll stop running all TV and radio commercials” — he encountered chillyridicule. “Sounds like you're having trouble day, Dem nerves are raw. These guys raising money,” chided Bradley. ‘‘No, matteroffact, I'm not.” pro wrestling’s faked hostility. “This is a ridiculous proposal,” snapped Bradley. “I'm notintotactics.” heartily dislike each other. Andit’s not Can’t say Bradley didn’t predict this mood switch. In early debates, Dollar Bill was formi loof, Lapsing into basketball idiom, he warned,“You can take only so manyelbows.” Andthat’s how they appeared in the one-on-one NBC match — likea couple of NBA bulls shoving, gouging, trash-talking, Before the TV argument, Gore adviser Bob Shrum suggested a ploy he'd used ina 1998 North Carolina Senate race: Challenge Bradley to forgoall TV ads. Sure,it Was a transparently phonyoffer. But it might stymie Bradley, throw him off his So, who won the TV confrontation? Sure, Gore drew headlines with his offer to ditch TV ads. It was a laughable gizmo. No way Bradley could surrender the ad war to Gore, who has vice president's nameID,the party establishment, and Air Force Two as symbolofclout. i'd call Bradley the winner. As he did Sunday, Dollar Bill gains credibility each time he showshimself the equal of Gore, whoprides himself as MasterofIssues. nocently foresaw a presidential campaij denly more like Ali vs. Frazier. Or Tyson dialogue with people.” WhenGore pressed him to debate twice a week, Bradley's exasperation blew. “You know something?” said Bradley, peering at Gore three feet away.“For the first 10 months I was running, you ignored me, pretended I didn’t exist. Sud- denlyI started to do better and you want to debate every day. Ridiculous.” “T’'m willingto doit right now if you'll shakeonit,” insisted Gore,sticking out a paw. “Al, that’s good. I like that hand. I don’t know if you get this, Al, politics isn’t about performance forpeople,it's about a Dum they don’t have glaringdifferences. Their agendas are similar as their dark suits, red ties. Forget their murky healthcare plansthatwill never see life. Bradley is tougher on guns, softer on school vouchers, They both tote baggage. NBC’s Tim Russert reminded Bradley of his vote against war with Saddam Hussein. Said Bill: “I stand by the call.” Russert nudged Gore on his role in Bill Clinton’s fundraising scandal. “I made mistakes,” admitted Al. But Gore's calculated gamble to get in Bradley's face, rough him up, is a puzzle. Sure, they’re neck-and-neck in New Hampshire. But for a VP with the party backing anda 2-to-1 national lead, such bullish aggressionis risky. Maybe Gore hopes to define himself, as Clinton did against Paul Tsongas in 1992. Maybe listening to Naomi Wolf, he’s playing the alpha male. More likely, Al and Bill are both caught up in macho, competitive heat. Trouble is, Gore looks edgy, stagy and desperate. Al's forced poise seemsartificial on TV. No wonder Bradley, whose stiffness evaporates when he’s angry, is Bill Bradley Al Gore giving the gimmicky veep a hard run. Gore's other problem: Clinton. Al defended his boss Sunday — no Washington or Lincoln, but history would reward his bitter two-man rumblesince Ted Kennedy tried to usurp Jimmy Carterin 1980. So far neither Gore nor Bradley has echoed Carter’s white-hot vow: “I'll whip his “achievements over his personal mistakes.” But Clinton's controversies will ass!” Onebackfire from the Al & Bill Wres- dog Gore, especially whenthe prez delivers a State of the Union speechfive days before New Hampshire's vote. Clearly 2000 Dems have their most tlemania: The party with a divisive primary fight usually loses. No wonder George W. 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