Rant #3,290: Sign of the Times

First off, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, and I hope all of you are taking care of your loved ones on this special day.

Second, we finally got some appreciable snow yesterday, so much so that watching out for myself, I canceled an appointment with my doctor because I did not want to take a chance on the snow and ice.

Third, I have to defend President Biden and former President Trump, because certain quarters of our population are going after them because of their respective ages.

Each have made recent gaffes with names, and polls are out showing that the American people believe that these two are "too old" to be our president, and that most of those polled hoped that there were younger candidates running for the commander in chief position.

And all of this is being magnified and propelled by Republican candidate Nikki Haley, who has latched onto the ageism topic because she is so far behind in the race for the White House that this is the one and only thing she has to keep her going.

Biden and Trump are far from perfect, and neither will get my vote come November.

It has nothing to do with their ages. It has to do with their policies and their past performance, and lack thereof.

But to knock them for their ages perpetuates the myth that people of a certain age should be led out to.pature way before their time.

I am an obvious victim of ageism. After I lost my job right before the pandemic hit, I could not get arrested, and while the jobs were out there for the taking, no one was going to hire someone who was perceived to be over the hill, at age 62.

Now at age 66, and nearly 67, fuggedaboudit.

Although Biden and Trump made gaffes referring to names and positions, that doesn't necessarily mean that they have had it.

Holding their ages up as evidence, rather than their policies, casts a shadow not only against the two of them, but against anyone past a certain age, people like myself, whose faculties are as good, or better, than they were at younger ages.

To cast a blanket doubt against these two pretty much puts doubt in the minds of younger people about anybody of a certain age.

If someone is qualified, age really has nothing to do with anything.

I know 90 year olds who are as sharp as they were when they were in their 30s, and to make a generalization that all of us in our sixties and seventies and beyond are ready for the scrap heap is just so wrong.

Haley is 52 years of age, and she has often spoken about her parents in glowing terms.

I would suspect that they are in their eighties--are they ready for the same old age home as she says Biden and Trump are?

Look, she is hanging by the tip.of her toenails in this race for the presidency, and this ageism thing she is pushing might just give her enough of a push that she will run against the two as an independent, talking a good game but hanging in there as the "youngest" candidate.

Ageism is the most difficult charge to prove in the workplace, but it is now at the forefront of the presidential race.

If it is against the law in the workplace, why is it being accepted in the presidential race?

It is wrong whenever it comes up, and honestly, Haley should know better.

Desperate people do desperate things, and bringing up the age of people destroying you in the polls is really kind of bush league, isn't it now?