I am SO WEARY of the "John McCain is so old!" jokes. They're fucking stupid, repetitive, offensive, and useless. I can get behind some of the old pope jokes or acknowledging anyone who's clearly on death's doorstep and looks similar to a doddering corpse, but frankly? I don't view John McCain as ancient so the jokes are lost on me plus there are five billion more interesting jokes to be made about McCain. I don't want to hear the Barbara Walters jokes, either.
I turned off Craig Ferguson the other night because he made an old McCain joke about how he didn't want to have to sit next to him at dinner and feel obligated to cut his food into little pieces for him. Not that Ferguson is worse than the others, I just reached my limit and felt an immense tiredness upon hearing that and couldn't stand to look at his face anymore. Seriously, it's not at all funny. It's stupid and immensely insulting to a huge population of people who are trying to enjoy a time in their lives when many people have much to celebrate and offer the world. Instead of being honored they are met multiple times a day with dismissive, disrespectful, nastily stereotyped messages that they are somehow overstaying their welcome in the world and are silly, incompetent retards to think they have anything to offer society besides being the butt of stale jokes told by unimaginative, juvenile minds to be absorbed by youth-obsessed, elder-hating idiots.
I am not saying I "honor" John McCain or think because he's older he or anyone his age should automatically be praised and worshiped -- I don't -- he's just an example. The whole thing makes me want to make a list of people who've made part of their livings yukking it up making fun of old people JUST because they're old(er) and when they get to be retirement age, harassing the fuck out of them. Hey, you worthless piece of shit! You're over sixty-five now! Fuck off and die!
The way I was raised no one ever got those stupid black balloons for anyone's fortieth birthday. I was taught to celebrate aging and to keep living and working as long as possible. I was never taught to think of older people as targets for discrimination, humiliation, or idiotic assumptions regarding their abilities, fitness, adaptability, attractiveness, etc. I was taught that your value INCREASES with age. Instead everywhere I look we're all being told our worth diminishes with every passing year. It's fucking sickening and I wish people would knock it off. I refuse to accept that being older automatically turns you into a joke.
I'm guessing part of our problem is how mobile and wealthy we are so that it's easy for us to throw away older people into retirement communities, snowbird states, and nursing homes and rarely, if ever, visit and interact with them. We've segregated and dehumanized them. Or maybe it reflects a growing resentment of how much money we are spending/losing taking care of them now that they live longer? Or is it simply because we're a nation of stupid assholes?
