The Boomer Bible

The Boomers of management consultant Laird's title are baby boomers, and the author systematically skewers all of the things he claims that generation holds sacred--television, Wall Street avarice, the heroes of our nation's history and our Eurocentric cultural heritage. Boomers have forsaken established religions to follow Harry, the First Babe of the Boom, who gives them great things to eat, drink and inhale and who proclaims for them total exemption from responsibility for their actions. This ``bible'' also includes ``The Book of the Damn Yankees,'' a version of American history, and the ``Psongs'' (``Happy is the man who gets to walk around with a pocketful of cash''). All of these topics have been treated better before. The book's pseudo-biblical style can be amusing at first, but it wears thin long before the end of the volume's 700-plus pages. The author is capable of an insightful observation or a genuinely funny line, but these are few and far between. And with his hipper-than-thou attitude, Laird seems to despise everyone but himself, while his muddled politics, neither left nor right, seem designed to confuse and deliberately offend readers. (Oct.)