Musing on Life, Courtesy of John, Paul, George and Ringo

F%$# I'm old.

Name the Star Trek Actor

Spoiler: It's Iggy Pop, (highlight to find out) who is looking more respectable than I had previously thought possible for him.

My mind is officially blown.

Also, he just turned 79, so I feel old.

Speaking of Geriatric Democratic Party Leadership in Congress

David Scott (D-GA 13) just died at age 80.  

He was running for reelection at the time.

He had been removed as ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee by fellow Democrats because his health problems prevented him from showing up, and he was increasingly unable to string together a coherent sentence.

It is complete bullsh%$ that members of Congress are using their office and their staffs as assisted living aides, and while there are Republican examples like Mitch McConnell, the fact that 7 of the 10 oldest Representatives are Democrats, etc. is an indication of a problem. (Further numbers, 15 of 20, 22 of 30, 31 of 40, and 35 of 50)

I think that I see the problem here. 

Whatever the Reason, This is a Good Thing

Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has announced that he will be retiring at the end of this year.

He's 78, and says that it's time for a new generation to take over, but given that he was forced out as ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and he has a serious primary challenger, (age 26) I think that he just saw the writing on the wall.

Generally Nadler has been a decent Congressman, but I'm not sad to see him go.

The geriatric Democratic leadership in the House and Senate have not served the needs of the Democratic Party, or the needs of the United States of America, for well over a decade. 

Gee, Ya Think?

Over at The Atlantic, they are stating the obvious, "The Democrats Must Confront Their Gerontocracy," but getting the focus wrong:

Last week, something happened that is extremely rare in Washington, D.C., but completely normal outside of it: People openly described an octogenarian as frail and overdue for retirement. The subject of discussion was Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting congressional delegate, who turned 88 on Friday. Recently, several D.C. figures have questioned her ability to serve. 

………

To a degree that seems bizarre to me as an outsider, the American party system, particularly on the Democratic side, defers to incumbents. (Since the 2022 midterm election, eight members of Congress have died in office. All of them were Democrats.) But in Holmes Norton’s case, something unusual has occurred: People close to her have continued to express concern about her ability to serve, and, even more unusually, have done so under their own names. “As her friend and someone who deeply admires her, I’ve made my peace with recommending to her that I think this is her final term,” the Democratic strategist Donna Brazile told The New York Times. The candor of Perry, Brazile, and others allowed the media to report forthrightly about Holmes Norton’s decline—her forgetting names, communicating in broken sentences, and struggling to read prepared remarks or recognize long-standing colleagues. 

They go on to mention Biden, of course, but not a whisper about Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer's age, for example. 

The author goes on to suggest something like the British Parliamentary system, which gave us a disastrously doddering Winston Churchill in his second time as PM from 1951-1955.

The real problem here though is not that elderly politicians lose their facilities, though obviously some do, it's that old politicians have old ideas, and that when they are unable to address new realities, they fail.  (See Pelosi, Nancy)