Hasta La Gadget!

I achieved what many would consider impossible. If not impossible, most would say it was unlikely.

I was a college dropout, yet I was able to earn high profile positions with some of the biggest businesses in their industry, earning more than twice that of my peers in my age group. All seemed good initially. However, there was trouble in paradise. Thanks to the economy, budget cuts and company-wide layoffs, I had three different jobs in three years. I left each company on good terms, but I left with a bad taste in my mouth.

I was smarter than every manager I ever had. I mean no disrespect, and by me saying I was smarter, I’m not implying that they were dumb or incompetent. However, I had a track record of proven success in my field. That was the reason they hired me over the countless others who were competing for my position. I went into each job thinking about the value I could provide and how excited I was to work with veterans. I hoped to learn the ropes, better understand the company politics and dynamics. In return, I would provide my much needed expertise in digital marketing. This was experience my managers completely lacked, because they were older and used to traditional marketing. SEO, SEM, PPC and social media were completely unfamiliar territory.

As I would settle into my role, I would notice that after a month a look and sense of overwhelming fear and panic would come across the face and body expressions of my managers. In group settings, conference calls and team meetings it would begin. I would say something brilliant that many in the room would agree with, and then I’d quickly be silenced by my manager.

My manager would take the “stage” and begin spewing off a bunch of nonsense that he/she and everyone else around us knew was proverbial B.S. I would then sit there blank-eyed wondering why I was not allowed to have a seat at the table. Why was I not able to contribute?

Here’s how older generations are ruining the workplace.

Gen Xers and Baby Boomers come to a workplace now filled with people that are in the same age range of their children. As such, they tend to take on a condescending, elitist attitude as if these “kids” couldn’t possibly know more than them. At the same time, in the back of their mind, they know that in many respects these kids know tremendously more than them.

In the business world, Millennials are in many ways better suited to lead than their older counterparts. Why? The reason is simple. Millennials value authenticity. They know that shoving a boring, self-serving advertisement down the consumers’ throats won’t work, so they’re better suited to tell it like it is and find business solutions and marketing positions that consumers are more likely to digest.

Move aside Don Draper. Your days are done.

When older generations bring their 1985 skill-set into the workplace, baggage comes along with it. They know that they are yesterday’s model and that the new fresh faces have valuable things to contribute. As a tactic of self-preservation, older generations intentionally keep their younger counterparts oppressed in hopes that they can slip under the radar and continue to pitch proverbial B.S. for another 10-20 years until they’re up for retirement.

I’ve got news for these people. They’re ruining the workplace for themselves and everyone around them, and they’re causing the world to progress slower. They’re destroying innovation and they’re destroying opportunity. They think they can hide, but eventually their time will be up and they won’t be able to stay hidden until retirement. They’ll be fired, re-org’d or replaced.

We need veterans and rookies to work together. That’s the only way a team will ever win, but this starts with all parties checking their egos at the door and coming into the office ready to roll up their sleeves and play in the same sandbox.

Michael Price is an entrepreneur and author of What Next? The Millennial’s Guide To Surviving and Thriving in the Real World. An advocate of ideas for radical change, he has received critical acclaim for his lessons in education, career, entrepreneurship, and personal finance.

By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli warplanes bombed a series of targets inside Syria early Monday, the Israeli military said, in response to a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli teenager the previous day.

In all, Israel said it struck nine military targets inside Syria, and “direct hits were confirmed.” The targets were located near the site of Sunday’s violence in the Golan Heights and included a regional military command center and unspecified “launching positions.” There was no immediate response from Syria.

In Sunday’s attack, an Israeli civilian vehicle was struck by forces in Syria as it drove in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. A teenage boy was killed and two other people were wounded in the first deadly incident along the volatile Israeli-Syrian front since Syria’s civil war erupted more than three years ago. The Israeli vehicle was delivering water as it was doing contract work for Israel’s Defense Ministry when it was struck.

“Yesterday’s attack was an unprovoked act of aggression against Israel, and a direct continuation to recent attacks that occurred in the area,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman. He said the military “will not tolerate any attempt to breach Israel’s sovereignty and will act in order to safeguard the civilians of the state of Israel.”

The sudden burst of violence has added to the tense situation in Israel, where forces have spent the past week and half in a broad ground operation in the West Bank in search of three teenage boys believed to have been abducted by Hamas militants.

Israel has carefully monitored the fighting in Syria, but has generally kept its distance and avoided taking sides. On several occasions, mortar shells and other types of fire have landed on the Israeli side of the de facto border, drawing limited Israeli reprisals. Israel is also believed to have carried out several airstrikes on arms shipments it believed to be headed from Syria to Hezbollah militants in neighboring Lebanon.

It was not immediately clear whether Syrian troops or one of the many rebel groups battling the government carried out Sunday’s deadly attack in the Golan. But Lerner said it was clear that the attack was intentional. Israel has repeatedly said it holds the Syrian government responsible for any attacks emanating from its territory, regardless of who actually carries them out.

Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel’s annexation of the area has never been recognized internationally.

The incident occurred in the area of Tel Hazeka, near the Quneitra crossing. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian troops had shelled nearby targets on the Syrian border earlier in the day.

Israeli police identified the boy as Mohammed Karaka, 14, of the Arab village of Arraba in northern Israel. Local media said he had accompanied his father, the truck driver, to work.

Late Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke to the boy’s father and sent his condolences. “Our enemies don’t differentiate between Jews and non-Jews, adults and children,” he told an international gathering of Jewish journalists.

In his address, Netanyahu said in conflicts like Syria, where al-Qaida-inspired extremists are battling Iranian-backed Syrian troops, there is no good choice and it is best for Israel to sit back and let its enemies weaken each other. “This is a fault line between civilization and savagery,” he said.

Jermaine Jones added his name to the list of heroes that have emerged for U.S. Soccer at the 2014 World Cup.

With the United States trailing Portugal in the second half, Jones produced the equalizer with a stunning right-footed shot from outside the penalty area. The shot, coming after a U.S. corner kick, froze Portugal goalkeeper Beto as it blazed into the net at the far post in the 64th minute.

WATCH: Jermaine Jones’ golazo for the #USA ties the game up at 1! A stunning strike! #USAvsPOR http://t.co/aNCzRagAzo

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 22, 2014

The latest Hercules movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson features brawn on par with 300 and other similar action movies that highlight power and the male body. The Greco-Roman demi-God also has uniquely American pedigree with even Founding Fathers such as John Adams focusing on him. But the Hercules that John Adams lauded is not quite the same that movie executives have banked on today.

In John Adams’s day, Hercules was in fact not the most muscular man on the block. Such a physique symbolized excess, even danger — a sign of weakness, of sorts, at a time when manhood emphasized self-restraint and moderation. Even artists at this time depicted Hercules as less developed than he is today in popular culture.

Adams actually proposed the image of Hercules for the Great Seal of the United States. Adams served with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin on a committee tasked with proposing a seal for the new nation. They worked with an artist and each put forth their own suggestions — none of which were accepted by the designer or the Congress. Adams’s committee gets credit for the motto “E Pluribus Unum” but the design of an eagle clutching arrows was produced by a later group.

In John Adams’ world, Hercules nonetheless symbolized power. Through the eighteenth century, the name Hercules was a favored one for ships. It was also used for male slaves perhaps to ironically underscore their degraded status.

But when Adams invoked Hercules, his idea of power was one of morality and virtue — he did so only using the particular story of “the Choice of Hercules.” The story focused narrowly on young Hercules’s confrontation with two women or goddesses, Virtue and Pleasure. Hercules must decide between taking the proper path for his life. Pleasure unsuccessfully attempted to seduce Hercules from the hard path of virtue. The story thus emphasized a moment in the life of young Hercules when he chose virtue and a moral path over a life of pleasure and indulgence.

For Adams, the “Choice of Hercules” captured the fortitude needed for the success of individual man but also of the United States, as a collective Republic of virtuous men.

For Adams, the choice of Hercules was fitting because it captured the central need of the nation — virtuous men who would choose a life of moral service over self-serving indulgences.

Writing to his wife, Abigail, in 1780, Adams also used the story of the “Choice of Hercules” to describe his assessment of life in Paris. For Adams, it was a place full of temptations and indulgences that individuals needed to resist, by following the model of Hercules.

We’re a long way from Adams’s embrace of Hercules as a man who chose the path of morality and self-service to today’s view of him as an action hero of extraordinary hunkiness — to be featured in muscle and fitness articles and magazines.

The objectification of women has long been criticized by the feminist movement but it may seem that in response, our culture moved toward also objectifying men (although not to the same degree) — rather than away from objectifying anyone.

You’ve come a long way, Hercules, and I suspect we all have a long way further to go.

Thomas A. Foster is the author of Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past (Temple University Press)

The United States is still alive in the Group of Death but hasn’t escaped yet.

In a thrilling group-stage clash that wasn’t decided until the final seconds, the U.S. team was on the verge of sealing a spot in the Round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup when Cristiano Ronaldo set up a game-tying goal for Portugal. The U.S. held a 2-1 lead into the final minute of stoppage time when Ronaldo blazed up the right wing and delivered a cross to Portugal’s Silvestre Varela in front of goal. In the 95th minute of play, the reserve midfielder headed past U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard to earn Portugal a 2-2 tie at Arena Amazonia in Manaus on Sunday.

Here’s the Varela goal from Cristiano in the final seconds that saved Portugal’s World Cup hopes: http://t.co/fglWiyBDrl

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 23, 2014

“Well, obviously, when you get it in the last second, it’s unfortunate,” U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann told ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap on the field after the draw. “But I think it was an amazing game, amazing performance by our guys. Nothing more you can ask for. We just go it the tougher way. We got to go and got to beat Germany, get a result against Germany. That’s what we’re going to do.”

After an early defensive miscue gifted Portugal the only goal of the first half, the U.S. side surged into the lead with two goals in the second half. In the 64th minute, U.S. midfielder Jermaine Jones scored an equalizer with a sensational strike from outside the Portugal penalty area. The right-footed shot, coming shortly after a U.S. corner kick, froze Portugal goalkeeper Beto and blazed into the net at the far post.

WATCH: Jermaine Jones’ golazo for the #USA ties the game up at 1! A stunning strike! #USAvsPOR http://t.co/aNCzRagAzo

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 22, 2014

The U.S. comeback seemed complete in the 81st minute when captain Clint Dempsey scored his second goal in as many games in Brazil. The go-ahead goal was produced by yet another U.S. foray up the right. A cross from defender DeAndre Yedlin from the end line found its way through traffic in the Portugal penalty area to U.S. midfielder Graham Zusi. He passed to Dempsey directly in front of goal. The player who scored the fifth-fastest goal in World Cup history in the U.S. opener against Ghana then knocked the ball into the net.

WATCH: Dempsey’s goal to put the #USMNT ahead! http://t.co/vVBrUZE1gr

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) June 22, 2014

Had the U.S. held on for the win it would have sealed a place in the Round of 16 and eliminated Portugal from contention. Portugal arrived in Manaus in desperate need of points from the match after suffering a 4-0 defeat to Germany. The draw ensured that all four teams in the group will be in contention heading into the final two games. The U.S. will face Germany on June 26 while Portugal faces Ghana. Both Germany and the U.S. can secure a place in the knockout stage with a win or a tie.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed,” Dempsey told Schaap on the field. “But at the end of the day, you got to look at the positives. We got a point. We’re on four points now. It’s going to go down to the last game and hopefully we’ll get the job done.”