Am I being “age-ist”? Maybe. But maybe not. The world is a pretty complicated place right now and I’m thinking that it’s not such a great time to elect our oldest President ever. So sue me.
Cindy McCain is younger than John McCain.
OK, there’s nothing terribly shocking about this. A lot of men marry women younger than them. It seems to be somewhat of a societal norm.
So then what’s this post about?
Is it about her addiction to prescription drugs?
Is it about the accusations of alledged drug theft?
Is it about her insistence on not releasing her tax returns and then changing her mind (or, as the Republicans like to call it, “flip-flopping”?)
No, no, and no.
It’s about this delicious paragraph from an interview with Harper’s Bazaar magazine:
“He was also 42, 18 years her senior, a difference Cindy ‘never noticed’ until a year later, when, applying for their marriage license, ‘we discovered we’d both lied. I’d made myself three years older, he four younger’.”
Yep - it seems that I’m not the only one who thinks John McCain’s age is an issue. Apparently, he does as well.
Oh my god, could this guy be any duller? Does he really inspire anyone? Is there anyone watching this on CNN right now who’s going to walk away from it saying “Finally - I have a candidate that I can be passionate about!”?
I mean, even the people who are at this press conference - who you would think are his most loyal backers (or who are being paid to be there) seem half asleep… only mildly regaining consciousness when Old Man McCain flashes his weird grin and lamely tries to get the crowd riled up by repeating the phrase “That’s not change we can believe in.” (Get it? That’s Obama’s tagline - get it?)
Automatic transmission is younger than John McCain.
Introduced for the 1940 model year, The “Hydra-matic” was the first fully automatic transmission developed for passenger cars.
I love how - in the old, old, old days - they were able to dress everything up and make it sound futuristic by adding “amatic” to the name. I also love the ever-so-subtle sexism in the above ad… because, clearly, only the women-folk driving their husbands’ cars to and from the market are the ones who would benefit from this new technology.
Aaahh - good times. Good, old, freakishly-antiquated times.
Title LXII, Chapter 646-A of New Hampshire State Law is younger than John McCain.
The U.S. Flag Code - which sets guidelines “for all handling and display of the Stars and Stripes” - is also younger than John McCain. However, since the code dictates that penalties are left to the States, let’s turn it over to the great state of New Hampshire:
“It shall be unlawful to knowingly desecrate (”Desecration” meaning the act of diverting from a sacred purpose or use to which a flag has been devoted by another individual or group of individuals. The act of desecration shall include burning, defacing, mutilating, destroying or trampling upon the flag.) a flag of the United States while it is properly displayed… (or) while it is the property of another.”
The above photograph depicts a flag John McCain autographed for a supporter at a January rally in Keene, N.H.
Ron Paul is (not) younger than John McCain.
He is, in fact, almost a year to the day older than John McCain - and yet some people are hoping that McCain taps him as his running mate.
(Mama) Cass Elliot is younger than John McCain.
In keeping with the Ralph Lauren and Bob Dylan entries below, Cass Elliot was born with the perfectly ordinary and honorable name of Ellen Cohen. (Hmm - maybe my next blog should be called “FamousJewsWhoChangedTheirNamesWhoAreYoungerThanMcCain.com.)
Contrary to popular opinion, she did not choke to death on a ham sandwich (Um, hello??? Cohen? Ham? Did anyone really believe this one?) but rather she died of a heart attack likely due to her weight. Had she lived into her 70s, however, she likely would’ve had the good sense to not run for President.
Bob Dylan is younger than John McCain.
Dylan (aka Robert Zimmerman) would turn over in his grave if he knew what had become of the country he knew in “The Times They Are A-Changin’”:
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
Ralph Lauren is younger than John McCain.
A heterosexual and Jewish (Ralph Lifshitz) fashion icon, Mr. Lifshitz is very well-preserved for a man of his age.
I saw a documentary on this guy a while back and now just saw his photo on Gawker.com. I’m drawn to it the way John McCain is drawn to an early-bird special and, thus, needed to post it here…. yet I have nothing really to say.
Anyone want to take a stab at writing a post for it?
Woman’s Day Magazine is younger than John McCain.
Woman’s Day, which was originally an in-store recipe planner, became a full-fledged magazine in the year John McCain was born. It sold for 2¢ and featured articles on crafts, cooking, home decoration, needlework, and more.
I wonder how its founders - along with their current subscriber base of 4,200,000 - feel about this little bit of “straight talk” directed at Cindy McCain by her loving husband:
“At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you….”
Well, we all know how it ends. So nice, so Presidential.
Larry Flynt is younger than John McCain.
Bi-polar, paralyzed from the waist down, one-time Presidential candidate, and an all-around creepster, Mr. Flynt was sued by Jerry Falwell in 1983 over an ad that suggested that Falwell’s first sexual experience was with his mother. Lovely.
Flynt won the case and, according to Wikipedia, “the decision clarified that public figures cannot recover damages for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” based on parodies”… which is very good news for me.
The Margarita is younger than John McCain.
Matt G. from the UK just wrote in with this great suggestion off of my earlier treatise on the Nacho - thanks Matt!
The origin of the Margarita is a subject of heated debate (well, at least among the five or six people who lay claim to its invention) but my favorite has to be that it was created by Enrique Bastate Gutierrez in the early 1940’s as an homage to Rita Hayworth, whose real name was Margarita Cansino (”Cansino” being Spanish for “drink until you can’t feel anything from the waist down”).
The Nacho is younger than John McCain.
For the first seven years of his life, John McCain lived in a cold, dark, lonely, nacho-less world. (I think I read that on the Internet - so it must be true.) He described this period as “the worst time of his life” - although he might have been referring to that whole Vietnam thing… where, coincidentally, he also was deprived of Nachos).
John McCain takes a hard stand against illegal immigration - calling for tougher border security and more careful screening at points of entry into the United States. Thank goodness he was just a mere lad at the time of my hero Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya’s brave and noble journey to the United States.
(Incidentally, for my peso, the above restaurant serves the best Mexican food in New York.)
