Is this how the other half lives?

I've always been a bit of news junky.  In college I typically read two or three newspapers a day (Sports section, classifieds, and Fashion excepted).  I loved the smell of the paper, the ink on my fingers, and the satisfaction of reading crisp, clean copy that was researched in hours and written in minutes.  It will be ball-chilling cold day in hell when I give up my warm, familiar paper for a cold, computer screen or some goddamn iPad.

But, these days I'm less attracted to the hard news than I am to the opinions.  I head straight to the editorials.  I read the columnists I like first and have a passing glance at those whom I tend to disagree with.  It's my age, I tell myself.  I'm becoming a bitter old man who would rather have his opinions validated than heard.  I even find myself reading the letters to the editor.  I want to dive into the complaints, the adversarial postures, the grating discord.  I want to immerse myself in the hatred they feel for the opposition.  I want a good argument.  I want a winner.  

And, every now and then I run across something in these editorials or letters that sends me flipping back to an earlier page in an earlier edition.  This is what happened today when I ran across a letter that brought me to this:

American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation

This article made me absolutely furious.  Fuck this kid!!!  Fuck him with the rusty end of a broken pitch fork!!!  And fuck this goddamn journalist too!  Who are these people?  How dare they muster the presumption to speak so condescendingly about an entire generation!  Other than the little fuck in this article, who the hell is complaining about “entitlement?”  Really, where the fuck are these people?   

I don’t know about this piss ant kid or this jerk-off journalist, but I've worked my ass off my entire life.  From the time I was fifteen years old I've worked cutting trees, laying concrete, washing dishes, flipping burgers, slinging hash, and turning wrenches.  I walked to work, lived off potato salad made with the free condiments from the Circle K, and paid my rent on time.  

I competed against little shits like this kid as an undergraduate.  When the out-of-town wealth from Tulane went out partying, I was the one pouring their drinks, wiping off their tables, and mopping their vomit off the floor.  While they went off each summer to fill their resumes with unpaid internships and sinecures at daddy’s office, I took on extra work to make it through the next semester. 

And this little fuck has the audacity to think that his $400,000 degree should put him at the front of the line?  What happened to valuing hard work, persistence, and determination?  My god!!  Is this kid serious?  Is he really shocked that he didn't land an $80,000 executive-track position right out of college? Does he really think that merely having a degree from Colgate carries that much weight?  I honestly don't know which is more depressing, the fact that this little twerp is so delusional or the fact that were it not for this recession his expectations would be realistic.