You don't give modern cardiology enough credit.
He sounds terrible. My parents are a couple years older and they don't slur their speech like that.
It's hard to fake a Texas accent for decades.
2 is correct. It's breathtaking.
I have no idea what to do with "Iraq too".
He's really not that old for a rich white guy with parents who stayed healthy until much older.
Now that he's been eclipsed in general outrage by his natural successor, he's free to jab at the people who correctly castigated him, via their biggest just reason.
He's slurring his words a bit - the "s" sound comes out badly, so that "decision" sounds like "deshision."
I feel like he always did a bit of the sh-thing.
Yes! I knew there was some SNL impersonation that I couldn't put my finger on. Or maybe I'm thinking of Johnny Carson?
Do you think he feels guilty? I guess I do.
14: I just realized that was ambiguous. Yes, I think George W. Bush feels guilty. Yes, I also feel guilty, although my participation in the decision to invade Iraq was somewhat less significant.
15 confused me, and then I realized it was a reply to 13. Just trying to help out anyone else who may have been confused.
I misunderstood "Kony 2012" and sent money to Kony.
Just pointing out that foreign policy is hard.
What did he say in the aside after "Iraq too."? I could not catch it. Sounded like 75?--- ah maybe it was "I'm 75."
One take away from working at the polls yesterday was a reminder of the worrisomeness of our gerontocracy based on interactions with voters and other (mostly aged) poll workers. And am not excluding myself even one little bit.
It's too bad Gen X, at least the less awful parts of it, is still too disinterested in everything to forcibly seize control.
He says "75." If he'd said "I'm 75," that would have been a reference to his age, but simply saying "75" is a signal that a light squall the Storm is coming.
Gen X is the Prince Charles to DiFi's Queen Elizabeth.
too disinterested in everything to forcibly seize control
At this point, a lot of us would settle for assistant manager at the dispensary.
Selling out to consult is nice if you can get it.
Dispensaries pay shit from what I've heard.
In defense of letting old people continue to run things, I have a job and a six-year-old. Cassandane and I struggle to coordinate dinner and bedtimes so one of us can attend school board meetings. We're supposed to find time for all day or out-of-state things too?
Anyways, I'm not Generation X, I'm technically a millennial. How much longer can I put off civic engagement?
is still too disinterested in everything to forcibly seize control
I'm interested! I'm trying! But I can't get any leverage anywhere.
Have you tried saying horrifying things on the TV?
Bill Clinton, GW Bush and Donald Trump are all 75.
Al Gore is 74! He should run again on an alternate timeline platform.
Al Gore is 74! He should run again on an alternate timeline platform.
I'd vote for him. I still feel bad about not voting for him in 2000.
The youngest member of Congress just lost his primary. No hope for the youth.
Classic Kinsley gaff. I'm glad he shows evidence of guilt. I appreciate the evidence that sociopaths aren't that common at the top.
( In a 1988 interview he said: "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth - some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say.")
Also I'm going to continue to assert that while both the US and China have gerontocracy(s), in the US the leadership sees the population as liabilities, people they have to divide the loot with. In China the leadership sees the people as workers they can get benefits from employing.
That's the good point of going into consulting.
There will be a story on the radio tomorrow that says another progressive candidate and I are in the process of deciding which one of us is going to run in the election. One of us will step aside and support the other.
23 and 43: I totally agree. We've been completely jumped over as a generation.
Kaye Fabe is not a bad way to describe it. We are good friends and close allies from the same faction of the local party. She had initially declined to run, but is a stronger candidate than I am, so I would be willing to back off if she decides to jump in.
The thing about being a Gen X politician is that the Boomers won't go away and there are so damn many Millennials coming onto the scene. We just don't have the demographic power, and our window of opportunity is beginning to recede.
46: Boomers were presidents in their 40s. Early 40's folks now are Millenials.
If Obama winds up being the only Gen X president, I'm good with that.
(Birth dates be damned; his biography is so X it isn't even funny.)
Forgetting generational labels for a moment, there is a gap in presidential birth years that covers 1946 (3 of the motherfuckers) to 1961. Not unprecedented (there is a 1924 to 1946 gap) but none from the middle of the boomer period.
However, the '46 guys all did have what are considered classic boomery experiences growing up (Vietnam avoidance etc.), and of course most of what is considered "boomer culture" was shaped by slightly older folk.
Current gerontocracy in US Gov't for the most part is pre-Boomer.
48: Agree--the early 60s assignment to boomerhood is flawed. (Of course the whole generational labels thing is even more flawed...)
I think that gap 46-61 gap is somewhat unlikely to be filled. But I think we're likely to get one or two GenXers in the 61-82 range at some point. DeSantis, Scott, Haley, Harris, The Rock, Youngkin, etc.. Other than Pence ('59) and Buttigieg ('82), all the candidates with high betting odds who haven't already been president are in that range. Donald Jr. ('77), Kushner ('81), and Ivanka ('81) are also in that range.
FOH with that post-80s birth years are gen X.
I mean post 1980/80s. I'm late 70s and there was some question about whether the X border reaches me- no way is 1982 gen X. I recall something about if you had exposure to computers as part of regular grade school education it means you're post-X.
I was born in the mid 70s and don't think having used a Commodore PET makes me a Millennial.
I was born in the early 70s and we had an Apple ][c. Dad did well.
I guess that was junior high for me, but my sister was five years younger.
I only got to play Oregon Trail like twice though.
I'm used to seeing GenX including '80 and '81 with '82 as millennial. Though personally I'm born in '80 and feel more millennial than X, so I'm fine shifting it.
At any rate, what I actually think based on political polling is that 60s birthdays are GenX, and then you see a continuous shift for a decade before it stabilizes again with millennials in the early 80s. It's a full decade of slow shift, with no real sharp jumps.
Nope. We're really different. You just aren't paying attention.
I was in graduate school before I could name all of the Beatles.
49: I wonder if the 1946 thing* has an actual reason to it, kind of like how age cutoffs in school end up having lasting effects on kids. As in: being among the oldest Boomers meant being in the best position to grab opportunities that eventually led to being in position to be President. Obviously Bush & Trump had underlying advantages that weren't related in any way to age, and n=3 is a ridiculous group, so maybe this is all dumb.
*HRC '47, Gore '48, Kerry '43, Biden '42
A lot of early '80s Millennials call themselves "elder Millennials" or "Xennials" bc they feel a lot more grounded in the pre-digital upbringing of Gen Xers. But I think you had to have a pretty unusual upbringing to be born after '84 and have really experienced the 3-channel, no-home-computer grade school lifestyle of basically all Xers. And that's setting aside the unsupervised play that AFAICT died along with Adam Walsh.
I was in graduate school before I could name all of the Beatles.
They hadn't reached Nebraska by then, so don't feel bad.
For a while there was a GenY which was roughly 75-85. GenX was you learned computers later like HS or college, GenY was you started using them as a kid, millennial is you don't remember a time without them.
A lot of early '80s Millennials call themselves "elder Millennials" or "Xennials" bc they feel a lot more grounded in the pre-digital upbringing of Gen Xers. But I think you had to have a pretty unusual upbringing to be born after '84 and have really experienced the 3-channel, no-home-computer grade school lifestyle of basically all Xers. And that's setting aside the unsupervised play that AFAICT died along with Adam Walsh.
Yeah, I think the cutoff would have to be before '84. Maybe '81 or '82. I was born in '84 and I think my childhood was classic (early) Millennial.
65: Grew up watching The Monkees though.
I assume it was just because the songwriting was better, even if the career was over sooner.
70: Although I guess it's not really fair to make a Pratchett joke until you've finished Mort.
The 'xennial' category is kind of dumb, but it's where I ('79) am. Early 80s isn't really Millennial, but it's very much not Gen X.
something something generation awesome something
I always feel like a gen x fraud, '78. However I also feel like a fraudulent Jew and I don't even try to make hay out of growing up in the south. But anyway feeling fraudulent is comfortable territory.
A fraud is the most Generation X thing to be.
I hate baseball, but Roger Angell was just great. But I guess a Boomer like me would think that.
72: Someone I know, who is intensely annoying for many reasons, wanted to be called a cusper. Isn't 80-81 the geriatric millennial cohort?
Yeah, Gen X starts in 1961, and I will die on that hill. No, I don't care what Pew's research has found.
We're only going to have one president more, but, unlike Grover Cleveland, when he comes back, the interregnum of the usurper will be erased, and so DJT will forever be the 45th president under the flawed old arrangement, and first Executive for Life under the great new constitution.
Over on the twitters, when I made my observation about Obama someone was very very invested in something called Generation Jones. I just let them go on and was like, whatever. QED.