It's an interesting world. I had a great perspective, too. I was the kid in the corner for a lot of really interesting things: a big coup that OMG was just outrageous, the golden days of big investors in on an official movie project, a comm ev (like a court martial), worked for a Scn. law firm that specialized in shell corp/investments, hangin' out back then with people who now are, like, #3 and #4 in the worldwide org... I wish I could write worth sh*t cuz it would be fun to write about some of this stuff. Only I still am under a NDA, I believe, so. Not so much.

FNL: That was just heartbreaking! Smash! And Matt! And then Tami stranding Julie at the DMV !!!

And next week - for our season finale: stuntcasting .

I've got a "kids nowadays" questions. Are twenty somethings a little more reluctant to ask questions that might get taken as challenging than older generations?

Cause I gave a presentation on carbon trading the other day. (Completely unplanned. I was just there to watch the presentation, but the person who supposed to give was delayed by homeland security. So since I was there, and reasonably knowledgeable on the subject there I was with no notes, no preparation, nominated to give the presentation.)

Any at the end of a half hour, I took some questions. And there were good ones, but they all were neutral or supportive of the position the talk took. And since the talk was opposing carbon trading, and that is really a minority position, I knew everybody watching could not agree. And I had seen some skeptical expressions on faces as I was talking.

So I asked outright if anyone had other perspectives they wanted to share, or doubts or rebuttals or refutations. And when I still was getting no responses, I mentioned that I did not believe that civil disagreement with a speaker was in any way impolite, that part of public exchanges of ideas was a willingness to expose mistakes, and question facts or logic that seemed wrong.

And the students kind of glanced at one another, and there were all sorts of challenges. There really were a lot of doubts, but the students seemed to need permission to express them.

I don't know if this is a generational thing, or a regional thing or what. Anyone encountered anything like this recently?

I think it depends a whole lot on the context. Was this like as a guest speaker in a college class, or at a club of some sort, or what? Because I think people are a lot less likely to express dissent in a classroom.

Well we were using a classroom, but it was not a class. It was for a "Focus The Nation" event. But it was mostly a mixture of students and professors who knew each other - maybe a reluctance to express dissent in front of current Professor; their being there combined with it being a classroom might have made it feel like a class.

Today Annabel told us what she wants to be when she grows up--a doctor.

I thought, "That's nice, but conventional."

But she kept going: "And a space monster! And a robot! And...and a pirate!"

Reluctance to express dissent in front of current professor could be a huge part of it -- a combination of not wanting to be the one to say "I disagree" with someone who's determining your grade and a sort of "Well, I don't agree, but the professor seems to, and I'm sure the professor knows more about it than me, so I don't want to be the one asking a stupid question." (Not that I'm claiming to speak for all twenty-somethings, of course. Just myself.)

Still, make sense - not so much a generational thing as a social context thing.

But see, in college, I was not like this at all. It's possible it's a personality thing rather than a generational thing, but I was always willing to contradict a professor or another student being supported by a professor. I did well in school, so I doubt that I ever got knocked down for doing so. I was occasionally told, "it's well and fine to have your opinion, but when I give you your test you should know this is the answer I expect" but never without courtesy and in most cases, appreciation.

But it may have been just me.

There was one particular incident I'm thinking about where the professor was sort of playing devil's advocate, but the class didn't catch on and was all rah-rah about the position she was positing. And I was all, but you're all on crack and that is so wrongheaded and here is why and these are the supporting facts. And the teacher grinned at me and said she'd wondered when anyone would take an opposing position.

And I was never afraid to oppose after that.

So I dunno. Maybe it is generational.

Conformity vs non-conformity. I think that transcends generations.