This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

An accidental theme seems to have evolved on the online version of The Salt Lake Tribune's Opinion section.

Generations: Great, stubborn, literate and left out.

— 'Unbroken' World War II vet more than a hero — Leonard Pitts Jr. | The Miami Herald

" ... Indeed, his whole generation — the ones who overcame the Depression and saved the world — is leaving that nation behind and perhaps it is only now, as they do, that we can truly appreciate who and what they were and did. They were not perfect, Lord knows, but they were more right about more things than their children and grandchildren ever gave them credit for. They didn't do a lot of whining. Their navels went ungazed. They saw what needed to be done and did it with no expectation of reward. They understood they were part of something larger than themselves and that, sometimes, the price of belonging is sacrifice. ..."

— The tea party's embrace of martyrdom — Dana Milbank | The Washington Post

" ... Hiroo Onoda, the last imperial Japanese soldier to surrender after World War II, hid in a jungle in the Philippines for 29 years, refusing to believe that the war was over. He finally turned himself in, wearing his sword, cap and patched uniform, in 1974.

Onoda died this year at age 91, but his passion for lost causes lives on — in the person of Chris McDaniel, a failed Senate candidate in Mississippi. ..."

— Politicians don't write like Warren Harding anymore — Margaret Carlson | Bloomberg View

" ... Every so often, we get a poignant reminder of what has been lost now that letter writing has been replaced by texting, emoticons or nothing at all, if you're a politician afraid to commit anything to paper for fear it will show up on page one or be read aloud by a committee chairman on a tear.

"History is the poorer for it. Nevermore will we have a Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt, Teddy or Ike free to memorialize in real time what is going on in their heads and hearts. This makes the trove of love letters written by Warren Harding, to be unsealed at the Library of Congress and published online later this month, all the more appealing. ..."

— A generation born at the wrong time — Peter R. Orszag | Bloomberg View

"It's bad luck to be born 20 years before a time of high unemployment. It affects your income when you enter the workforce, naturally, but that's not all. It can keep your earnings relatively low — and chip away at your health and happiness, as well — for a lifetime. ..."

— Republicans out to block the millennial vote — Catherine Rampell | The Washington Post

"First they came for blacks, and we said nothing. Then they came for Latinos, poor people and married women, and we again ignored the warning signs.

"Now, after our years of apathy, they're coming for us: the nation's millennials. ..."

Also, elseweb:

— Why Teenagers Today May Grow Up Conservative — David Leonhardt | The Upshot

vs

— Race and Beyond: Millennial Voters Aren't Conservatives in Waiting — Sam Fulwood III | Center For American Progress