Hot Topics: Schwarzenegger-Shriver Split Symptom of Boomer Divorce Epidemic?

This week's news that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver have separated after 25 years of marriage may just be the latest tremor in a far bigger seismic event that's rocking baby boomers' world. Or at least, that's the story line that a lot of news media and blogosphere commentators are pushing these days.

For example, CNN's Amy Wilson notes in this blog post that the Schwarzenegger-Shriver split comes in the wake of another high-profile breakup of a seemingly solid midlife couple, former Vice President and environmental activist-icon Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, and other failed marriages for prominent boomers. Wilson evokes a 2010 Pew Research Center survey that shows that boomers are more inclined than younger adults to bail from a failing relationship. In the poll, 65 percent said that divorce is preferable to staying in an unhappy marriage, compared to 54 percent of younger adults. (Both boomers and younger adults also are much more inclined than over-65 Americans, by a 70 to 50 percent margin, to believe that the main purpose of marriage is happiness, the study showed.)

Wilson derides a generation of "Howzabouta Second Chancers" inclined to recklessly ditch our longtime mates. "There is a national predilection of boomers to demand midlife happiness, even if it means they chuck a good portion of the first part of their sort-of eternally vowed adulthood," she writes.

Boomers' inclination to divorce -- about 35 percent have split from spouses, and boomers make up the majority of divorced Americans -- has been media fodder for a while. But in the wake of the Arnold-Maria cataclysm, expect to see more wrist-wringing TV news stories like this one. We may also be seeing the first rumblings of a pro-divorce backlash, as evidenced by this Huffington Post piece by author Leo Averbach, with the upbeat headline of "Divorce Can Transform You." And in perfect sync to the Zeitgeist, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) seems to finally be moving toward dumping her philandering hubby (portrayed by Chris Noth) in the hit CBS series The Good Wife.

Bob Dylan Turns 70: When the folk-rock icon and poet of a generation wrote his 1974 song "Forever Young," Bob Dylan was thinking of his old backup group, The Band, which rejoined him after a hiatus for a big tour. But with Dylan about to hit the septuagenarian mark on May 24 and still going strong as a performer, memoir author and satellite radio host, the song is starting to seem as if it ought to be about him. AZCentral.com has compiled a nice collection of Dylan tributes from luminaries ranging from poet Maya Angelou to director Martin Scorsese. And LA Weekly blogger Michael Simmons contributes this sweetly sentimental essay on being a life-long Dylan devotee.

Jerry Seinfeld is Now Truly Master of His Domain: And I don't mean in the sense of that infamous episode from Seinfeld, in which the characters had a contest to see who could abstain the longest from, ah, a certain act of self-indulgence. The New York Times reports that the nightclub comic-turned-sitcom superstar of the 1990s is debuting his new website, JerrySeinfeld.com, which will offer video clips of nearly every recorded comedy performance by the 57-year-old Seinfeld, dating back to 1977, when he made his debut -- in glasses and Disco-width lapels -- on the local TV show Celebrity Cabaret. Each day, though, the website will offer just three of the clips, reflecting Seinfeld's insistence upon what he calls "portion control" of content. "Burger King now has a burger where you decide how many patties," he explains. "How disgusting is that?"

The Oldest Major Leaguers: The sports blog Bleacher Report, in an admitted effort to remind boomers of just how old we've gotten, informs us in this article that only five active MLB players were born prior to 1970. The most superannuated star of all turns out to be Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, who was born in 1966. With 173 career wins with the Sox, Wakefield now trails only the immortal Cy Young and Roger Clemens on the team's all-time list. But count on Wakefield to reach that mark, and then some. After all, remember another knuckleballer, the late, great Hoyt Wilhelm, who played until a couple of weeks short of his 50th birthday.

Chicago Code Fails to Make Cut: Apparently, not enough TV viewers were swayed by my rave review of the gritty urban cop drama, created by Shawn (The Shield) Ryan and starring Jennifer Beals, the boomer actress most famous for her role in the 1980s hit movie Flashdance. TV Squad has this intriguing post-mortem interview with Ryan that gives a daunting perspective on just how difficult it is for a new dramatic series to survive on network TV these days. Ryan says he's hopeful that complex, serial narratives such as Hill Street Blues and Lost aren't going the way of the mastodon, now that reality competitions such as American Idol and The Voice seem to have supplanted drama as the source of America's water-cooler talk. But after the failure of Code and his critically acclaimed but ratings-challenged F/X series Terriers, Ryan says he's done with complicated crime shows for a while. "There's a desire -- and I don't mean this in a bad way -- for simplicity of concept," he admits. For his sake and ours, we hope that doesn't last.

Top 5 Cars Boomers Love to Lease: This article from The Street.com informs us that unlike our parents, who preferred to buy cars and drive them for a decade, the boomer generation prefers leasing. According to a survey of 1,600 or so boomer customers at LeaseTrader.com, the No. 1 leased vehicle that the generation prefers is the Lexus RX, an SUV that's luxurious but not quite so ostentatious as, say, a Porsche Cayenne. That's us in a nutshell -- classy but sensible.

Age-Adapted Design That's Stylish, Too: The Los Angeles Times reports on the 2011 Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, where manufacturers unveiled subtle adaptive design features intended to make life easier for aging boomers without looking dowdy or institutional.The innovative products on display included medicine cabinets and drawers with LED strips installed around their edges so that older eyes can see what's inside more easily. The LEDs don't get hot, and they're "discreet and efficient," as one manufacturer's rep explains. Another potentially popular gadget is the Helping Hands trash drawer, which opens by touch and closes automatically. Drawer Box Specialties chief executive Glen Blankenship, 70, told the Times that he created the device partly with himself in mind, since he's not quite as strong as he used to be. The next hot bathroom trend for boomers: bidets, or as the industry calls them, "washlets."