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Criticizing the local daily’s crime coverage is usually Tony’s thing, but I’m swagger-jacking* today due to the Post-Dispatch’s coverage of a robbery and sexual assault that took place on Wash U’s South 40.

Curiously, the Post-Dispatch piece does not mention the race of the attacker.

Like most St. Louisans, I don’t subscribe to the Post-Dispatch, so I don’t know if today’s edition carried a picture of the attacker next to the article. But shouldn’t the article mention the race of the suspect anyway?

Maybe the Post-Dispatch assumes that we’ll automatically know his people’s continent of origin.

Or maybe the Post-Dispatch knows more about catching a criminal than I do, and thereby knows that the colors of his belt buckle (silver) and the piping on his gloves (red) is more important than his race (black).

According to a local television station, the girl was “beaten and bloodied” but is recovering well.

The suspect’s picture is here.

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*Speaking of the originators of the phrase, this may be one of the best workplace-safe photos Tony has ever used.

With events like this, it’s time our legislators (and local reporters) start promoting this.

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A little over 12 years ago, an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called and asked if I was interested in writing an op-ed for the paper. The topic was Generation X. She gently suggested that I write about how the stereotype of my generation being apathetic was incorrect, and how my age group was actually very conscious of important issues of the day, like the environment.

In what would prove to become a pattern of personal behavior over the next decade, I told the woman what she wanted to hear, then went off and did the opposite.

Here’s the result, reprinted without permission from the September 28, 1994 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Our generation is being called lazy, disrespectful and apathetic by our elders. Once again, our parents are right. Generation X is apathetic because it was brought up in hypocrisy and wasn’t introduced to basic American values.

A few years ago, actor River Phoenix was a hero. When he wasn’t extolling the virtues of veggie burgers or whining about animal rights, he could be seen telling his fans to “Just say no.” Phoenix died last year after overdosing on a plethora of illegal substances. So much for the notion that veggies live longer.

Much more detrimental to Xers than misplaced idolization is the idea that kids shouldn’t be allowed to fail. Anytime a teenager fails, the failure is blamed on racism, sexism, homophobia or big bad conservatives like Rush Limbaugh.

Teens should be held responsible for their actions and not have excuses made for them when they fail. For strong-minded teens, failure leads to perseverance, and perseverance leads to sucess.

Most teenagers seem to believe that our country owes them something, rather than the other way around. At my school, some students even refuse to stand for our national anthem. If corporal punishment were still allowed, I’d volunteer to give these disrespectful morons an old-fashioned whack on the butt.

Why the lack of respect for our country? Maybe because students learn that America is inherently bad. We are still taught to feel bad about slavery. We are lectured on the violation of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the heroism of Japanese kamakazis. And, of course, we Americans were terribly prejudiced not to embrace those peaceful communists like Mikhail Gorbachev (and Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung . . .)

We are on the brink of a cultural war. These will be the defining years for Generation X. As we mature, we will realize that the conservative ideals our ancestors lived by and died for are the cures for social decay. When we face up to individual responsibility, we will make our country a better place.

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Like any good political scientist, I prefer to rely upon anecdotal evidence rather than scientific data when passing judgment upon others. Fortunately, both methodologies jibe with each other somewhat when talking about the census numbers released this week.

Click here to follow along.

First, the good news: Missouri’s SAT scores continue to be higher than the national average. This is misleading, though, as the only students taking the SAT in Missouri are the ones expecting to get into top-tier schools (most college-bound students in this state take the ACT instead). But then again, why should anyone put any weight on the value of a standardized test? The SAT is obviously biased against minorities (1), which is why the nation’s top universities don’t use it as a primary criterium for admitting students. (2)

The fact that Missouri ranks near the middle of the “poor” rankings is somewhat disappointing. I really thought we had done enough to rank higher. Oh, well … there’s always next session’s Medicaid cuts.

The worst news is that Missourians have gotten significantly fatter in the last year. This makes sense to me, considering that just about every twenty-something woman I know got married last year, and you know what that means. Also, as your local television station has reminded you ad nauseum for the past week, there are still a number of Katrina refugees living in Missouri. Their presence undoubtedly inched our obesity numbers upward, seeing that they don’t seem to miss many meals.

Not to get all preachy on you, especially before a big feeding weekend like Labor Day, but the obesity numbers represent a serious problem for all of us, and especially for the black community.

Numbers from the Centers for Disease Control show that 77.5 percent of black women are overweight (compared to 57.0 percent of white women). The same study reports that 49.6 percent of black women are obese (compared to 31.3 percent of white women). In popular terminology, overweight = “healthy”, “big-boned”, or “thick”. Obese = “fat”. (3)

As a white male, I realize that my people are responsible for most of the evils facing the black community — black-on-black violence, unemployment, drug abuse, absentee fatherhood, Kevin Federline — but I can’t accept the credit for obesity.

I don’t see Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton spending much time talking about the black obesity epidemic, so there’s certainly a niche to be created by some ambitious black leader who’s willing to do something more than just complain.

Some of us are born “slower” than others, and might never get a perfect SAT score. And there are undoubtedly some poor people who actually want to work, but have physical or mental limitations that keep them from doing so. But there are very few people who could not, if they really wanted to, find the resolve to take the stairs or eat one less box of donuts every morning.

I hope our obesity numbers improve in the next year. Let’s eat less. Let’s exercise more. And if that doesn’t work, let’s at least keep those Ernesto refugees out of our state this year.

(1) Except for Asians and Indians, who it’s obviously biased in favor of.

(2) Oh wait, they do? I wonder why.

(3) “Big-boned” people: do not e-mail me to argue about BMI vs. body fat, because I know more about it than you do. Seriously.

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