December 11, 2017

Aging... at the NYT.

Screen shot from an inner page at the NYT — "Things I’ll Do Differently When I’m Old" — with the comments open and showing the highest-rated comment at the top (click to enlarge):

36 comments:

Curious George said...

1. Never fuck an Allison

David Begley said...

“If my driving capability is questioned, I will not reject the comment out of hand because I am afraid of losing my independence. I hope there will be self-driving cars by then. If nothing else works, I hope someone will turn me in.”

I will open my mind and question my liberal beliefs. I will watch Fox News and stop reading the failing New York Times. The failure of the Democrat party will become clear to me. I will express my independence despite nutty and vehement opposition from my liberal family. Finally I will vote for Donald Trump and make America great again.

Screw those people.

cronus titan said...

The top-rated comment beautifully captures the NYT's base, who are the only people that matter to the NYT.

David said...

The article is a downer.

Ann Althouse said...

I read the article because (from the title) I believed it was going to be about how the writer was going to be different from his younger self. But it's about how he's going to be different from the old people who have been annoying and offending him throughout his young years. It's stuff like: I'll stop driving, use a walker, and wear diapers.

I thought it was going to be stuff like: I'll stop worrying about what other people think of me, I'll say what I really think, I'll stop assuming I believe what everybody else thinks, I won't just do what everyone assumes you do because you're old....

Big Mike said...

This septuagenarian has bad news for youngsters like you, Althouse. You still try to be polite in public, so you don’t always say what you think.

Paco Wové said...

Stupid old people! Har har har.

This must be more of that liberals caring about people I hear so, so much about.

Henry said...

I was born old.

Bad Lieutenant said...

This implies that the writer is getting driving complaints now, and dismissing them. Not too early to take good advice!

Shane said...

I'm 54 and hope to be doing this until I am in my eighties.

Michael K said...

"I will watch Fox News and stop reading the failing New York Times. "

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said "I watch Fox News because it makes me more stupid."

Tucson has a lot of crazy leftists (The University is here) and I doubt that person thinks about the irony in that sentence.

Still, I enjoyed it for a moment at the stoplight.

tim in vermont said...

I guess that what they are really saying is that they promise they won't learn anything new over their entire lifetimes, because what they know now is the Truth with a capital 'T.'

tim in vermont said...

I thought it was going to be stuff like: I'll stop worrying about what other people think of me, I'll say what I really think, I'll stop assuming I

No no no. These young people already know everything! No way that decades of additional experience will ever teach them anything new of importance!

tim in vermont said...

Whenever I hear that song "Forever young" I think "Forever an idiot." I mean nobody wouldn't take being physically young again, but they always add "knowing what I know now." Ever notice that?

tcrosse said...

Too soon old, too late smart, as my Grandma used to say.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

3. Stay safely inside the HiveMind cupping my cocoa, wearing footie pajamas, listening to the the hack press lie to me while I buy it.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

4. Antifa masks work well hiding the baby pacifier.

Bruce Hayden said...

This article really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The author kinda spoke for the Baby Boomers about the reality that the Youth Feheration is getting old. Many of us are eligible for Social Security, and the leading edge have been on Medicare for several years now. Back at my 45th college reunion this year, I was surprised at how many of them s were entering retirement. And many of us remember the recent loss of parents and the earlier loss of grandparents. We are facing our mortality, and probably not doing it well.

One of my father's worries was not giving up driving. He had had to take the keys away from his mother after she had some questionable incidents. Still, at 92, he passed his driving test. He just failed the vision test. He got his license renewed anyway, with a note from his eye doctor. We thought that egregious, after the grief my parents gave my other grandmother for her husband having her practice highway driving every year on the way to and back from Florida. She was only 90 at the time. But last weekend, I was with the brother who lived with my father the last decade or so of his life, and he admitted that he had gradually worked our father out of driving, driving him everywhere, and that he only drove a couple times after getting his license renewed. My partner, on the other hand, hid the car keys, and would divert her father until he forgot what he was looking for, after he had been diagnosed with Altheimers. That was she acclimated him to not driving. A couple years later, sister visits, and when he asks where the keys were, finds them for him. He promptly got lost. That sister is now living with their mother, and we hope that the guns are still well hidden.

The cane thing is also worrisome. My partner has declared that if she ever gets to that point, she will off herself. Which is why we are worried about her mother's guns. I am more realistic. Maybe. Finally got my father to use a cane 2-3 years before he died. He had been unstable for years, esp because of his eyesight at night. I think that I will be less vain. But you never know. I think though that I will do better at it than my partner, despite her doing just fine with no longer driving (because she has me to drive her everywhere). Which was surprising for a woman whose last car was a souped up candy apple red 500 SL, and right before that a black on black 300 SC Sportsline. She loved her fast cars.

One worry that I have is that I won't downsize my clothes as I age. You see all these geezers with their collars far too loose when wearing a tie. Obviously, they got used to a shirt size, while working, and didn't downsize as their neck shrunk. I lost maybe 30 lbs this last year, moving to a diabetic low carb diet, and I noticed this last weekend at a funeral that my collar was maybe too loose. Luckily, I had put my L sized dress shirts away in a box in the closet maybe 5 years ago, and only kept out XLs. That should help. I'm

Bruce Hayden said...

Let me remind everyone - the author was 50 a decade ago, which puts him 60 now. Which is why I think that he is grappling with aging.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I hope that when I am old I will stop driving (they are a menace, and I avoid cars with disabled licensed plates like I would avoid cars driven by an obvious drunk) and I really hope that I will stop being a giant pain in the ass in the grocery store. Lady, you've been buying tunafish for sixty years. Do you really have to block the aisle to peer at each and every can for twenty minutes when I just want to take 2.2 seconds to grab some and move on with my life?

(of course my brain implanted Amazon chip will know when I am low on tuna and will automatically send the 3D printing file to the Amazon food materializer in my kitchen by then)

Henry said...

Regarding driving: My grandmother drove into her 90s. At some point she figured out how to navigate to all the necessary places -- post office, library, church, grocery, pharmacy -- taking only right turns. Even so she had no peripheral vision and drove at an extreme old lady pace.

I've educated myself to stop worrying about slow drivers. We all get where we are going eventually.

Kevin said...

You know what Trump would say to Allison if he met her?

Winning!

Actually he'd be much more polite. But when she showed her obvious disdain for him, it's probably what he'd walk away thinking.

I know I do when I meet an Allison.

mockturtle said...

Tim reminds us: Whenever I hear that song "Forever young" I think "Forever an idiot." I mean nobody wouldn't take being physically young again, but they always add "knowing what I know now." Ever notice that?

Yes, and I say it often myself.

wild chicken said...

I'm 54 and hope to be doing this until I am in my eighties

Doing what?

Kevin said...

Doing what?

I assumed he meant reading Althouse, posting on her blog, and using the Althouse Amazon portal for all of his purchases.

tcrosse said...

There was an Allison in my high school class. She was very beautiful, but even the Mean Girls thought she was too bitchy and stuck-up. If she's still above ground, she'd be older than the Allison under discussion.

Joe Schmoe said...

Apparently the comment author currently watches Fox News and votes Republican.

RichardJohnson said...

Never watch Fox News. Never vote Republican/

I never watch Fox News because I don't watch TV. Years ago, I made an anti-Chavista comment in an article about Venezuela. Someone replied that I got my news from Fox. I replied that I got my news from Venezuela from Venezuelan blogs, such as Caracas Chronicles, Venezuela News and Views, and Devil's Excrement.


There are plenty of non-Fox News sources for those who don't accept the Demo/MSM narrative.
Allison needs to get out more.

That Allison's comment got a lot of positive feedback shows that there is definitely a market for the NYT. Just not a market I want to fund.

Bill Peschel said...

Kevin wrote: "I assumed he meant reading Althouse, posting on her blog, and using the Althouse Amazon portal for all of his purchases. "

Times like these I wish we had a +1 for comments like these. But then we'd have to put up with Discus or Facebook.

jaed said...

Seriously, what is the matter with these people?

I understand hating Trump. I understand hating Fox News. But when it gets to the point where the hate objects are literally ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT, it's time to seek help, and possibly industrial-strength medication.

OldManRick said...

Bob Dylan's comment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGEIMCWob3U

I was so much older then - I'm younger than that now.

Still rings true.

Christy said...

I rode with my 85 year old aunt to lunch last month. She never got above 31 until the interstate when she upped it to 41. I chose to be glad she was careful. Mama mourned the loss of her car until the day she died, just short of 90. She drove 10 years beyond when the doctor told her to stop. We finally told the mechanic to hold onto it after a repair to wean her off.

Clyde said...

Sure, Allison. Keep voting Democrat and keep getting the crooks and pervs that you deserve.

Clyde said...

Bad Lieutenant said...
This implies that the writer is getting driving complaints now, and dismissing them. Not too early to take good advice!


This. Starting with, if you constantly drive in the left lane and are constantly being tailgated and having people pass you on the right, you don't belong in the left lane! GTF over to the right!

Sebastian said...

"differently"? Obviously, being a Dem prog isn't "different" from all the other geezers. And I don't believe "Allison" used to vote GOP and watch Fox. Conclusion: at the NYT, even the top comments are lies.

"GTF over to the right!" Aging means losing your WTF/GTF antenna.

Martin said...

People like Allison have no idea how dreadfully vapid and boring they are.