Looking for light: Christmas 2016

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God...

What came to be through him was life,

and this life was the light of the human race;

the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Gospel according to John, chapter 1

Take those words literally, spiritually, metaphorically, mythically, mystically, poetically, or however you can. At the end of 2016, we all need reminders that the universe is ultimately good, creative, loving, alive; that though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice. We need to hear that light overcomes darkness.

There is so much darkness.

For most of 2016 the world has felt like Narnia before Aslan showed up: always winter, never Christmas. Even Christmas alarms us as the world perches on the edge of chaos. We read W.B.Yeats's "The Second Coming" and wonder:

...[W]hat rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And then an angel slashes through the darkness, shouting: "Don't be afraid!"

And the shepherds, who have been diving for cover, suddenly notice that the sheep are laughing at them, and so they sheepishly crawl out from behind the rocks and begin singing "Everything's gonna be all right."  And they all live happily ever after ...

... except for those Bethlehem babies that Herod murdered, of course; and Jesus's family, who were so afraid of the new king that they hid from him in Egypt; and Jesus himself, who was executed by a Roman puppet too timid to stand up to the mob; and most of Jesus's best friends, who within a few years were dead, and not of natural causes...

There has always been so much darkness.

In noontime darkness two thousand years ago, the dying Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In this dark year, 2016, the dying Leonard Cohen cried out,

You want it darker

We kill the flame

And yet there has always been a glimmer of light in the darkness.

The world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around.... 
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

Martin Luther King Jr., "I've Been to the Mountaintop," 1968

On the year's darkest days, we light candles for Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa. Their light is faint. It flickers. It is imperfect. But still, we light them.

As we head into a possibly calamitous new year, I think of Cohen's "Anthem":

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

If 2017 turns out to be even darker than 2016, I hope I can hang onto the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins in "God's Grandeur":

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

The light shines in the darkness, 

and the darkness has not overcome it.

Is it too much to hope?

How does your net worth compare to Donald Trump's?

Here's a fascinating video using the Morgan State University football field to compare the age of the earth - approximately 4.5 billion years - to the length of time humans have been on the planet.

You could use the same visuals to compare Trump's net worth  - approximately $4.5 billion, according to some estimates (and much more according to Trump) - to other Americans' net worth.

Trump's net worth, using the $4.5 billion figure, is the entire football field.

Approximately 99% of individual Americans' net worth ($8 million or less) is within the last 7.5 inches of the football field.

Approximately 50% of individual Americans' net worth ($82 thousand or less) is within the last 1/12 of an inch of the football field--the width of a matchstick.

Approximately 20% of individual Americans' net worth ($4314 or less) is within the last 100 micrometers of the football field--the width of a human hair.

Odd that so many voters didn't see Trump as part of the elite.
_____________________________________

Check here for U.S. wealth amounts by percentile.

Powerful Men: when philandering becomes misogyny

[Pablo Picasso, The Harem, 1906]

In its March 13, 1998, issue, Commonweal magazine published an article I wrote just as Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky began dominating the news. As far as I know, it received only one comment. Someone thought my language was crude.

I am reposting that article the day after the Washington Post released a video in which "Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women . . . , saying that 'when you’re a star, they let you do it.'” This happened in 2005, 8 months after Trump married his third wife, Melania, and 6 months before their son, Barron, was born.

More than 18 years have passed since I wrote the Commonweal article, and some things have changed--though not nearly enough.

If I were writing a similar article today, I would continue to encourage women--no matter their political beliefs--to speak out about Men Behaving Badly. Fortunately, women in 2016 are a good deal more vocal about sexual harassment and abuse than they were in the 1990s, though some are still trying hard to excuse the inexcusable.

I would definitely say more about how men--no matter their political beliefs--should speak out whenever a man demeans women. Fortunately, a number of prominent Republican men have finally denounced Trump's vulgarity--though unfortunately, few have named his behavior assault and adultery, which it certainly is, and it took most of them way too long to say anything at all.

Here's what I wrote in 1998 [lightly edited]. I am deeply sorry that it needs to be read again.

----------------------------------------

"Of course, this isn't about sex. It's about possible obstruction of justice." "Clinton's sex life is his own business. What matters is whether he's doing what we elected him to do." "If his wife can live with him, why should we care?"

Gosh, we're all so grown-up. Sex may have been all we thought about in the late sixties, but we're far beyond that now. If it weren't for those questions of perjury and the electoral mandate, we would certainly not be watching all those prurient commentators, now would we?

Well, I for one find sex fascinating, and having been grounded by the flu just when Monica hit the airwaves, I relentlessly watched the alleged scandal unfold. I confess I've been startled to hear countless fastidious people denying any interest in Clinton's sex life (though at parties, after a drink or two, they begin calling him the Unabanger, and worse). This is not because I'm a Clinton-basher. I voted for him twice, and I hope he is eventually found to be pure as the driven snow. But I am really watching because I am amazed at [some] women's willingness to overlook men's perfidy.

The subtext of l'affaire Clinton is that old law of nature: the most powerful male can have all the females he wants. In the West he is unlikely to have a state-supported harem, but he is allowed to keep a wife, a mistress, and any number of sexual servants at his disposal. Who allows him to do this? We all do--especially when we say that allegations of sexual misconduct are relatively unimportant, as long as the alleged perpetrator tells the truth about them.

If the top baboon can have all the females he wants, it's clear where he's sitting. His bright pink rump is planted firmly on the glass ceiling. Look up, women: you can't miss it. If you're young and nubile, he may beckon to you. Take a breathtaking ride up the elevator past that glass barrier, right into the inner sanctum of power. Make him feel good and be rewarded with small gifts and better jobs. Afterward, as you fly past your plainer colleagues on your way to the basement, console yourself: at least you have seen the view from the top baboon's penthouse, while they--with all their integrity and hard work and brains--will never get past the barrier.

Well, one of them might. For there is also a top female: the wife. She may be powerful in her own right. She certainly shares her husband's glory. She bears his children, speaks for him when he cannot be present, counsels him at will. And she can live above the glass ceiling for life--as long as she does not mind the eager young things getting off and on the elevator[, and as long as she is never replaced by a newer model].

According to one school of thought, men will behave if their wives play a prescribed role to perfection, whether the role be domesticity and maternity or professionalism and assertiveness. If men do not behave, it is because their women have somehow failed. Perhaps this idea works with lesser baboons (though it seems hardly fair to blame one person for another's misbehavior), but the top baboon does not generally subscribe to it. Their wives' dazzling beauty did not keep the husbands of Jacqueline Kennedy or Diana, Princess of Wales, from finding extracurricular interests. Brilliance did not protect Eleanor Roosevelt from the other woman; gentle reticence was no safeguard for Mamie Eisenhower; political astuteness was insufficient for Lady Bird Johnson. Did all these women simply make poor choices? Coretta Scott King and Kasturbai Gandhi married saints, but both had to endure the elevator that kept delivering fresh women (Gandhi, who presumably was not after power, also claimed not to be after sex: he wanted naked young women in his bed so he could strengthen his character by saying no).

Back in 1964, the year [before] Hillary Rodham graduated from high school and a year after publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Jack Jones was crooning to nervous housewives: "Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up...." You'd better look good when your husband walks in the door, advised Hit Number 14, "Wives and Lovers," because "day after day, there are girls at the office, and men will always be men." Is that really what it means to be a man--to be unable to resist attractive women? And are the only possible female responses either to "Stand By Your Man," if you're directly involved, or to argue that adults can do whatever they like sexually, so long as they're otherwise fulfilling their job descriptions?

I'll agree with the prevailing wisdom on one point: the current scandal is not about sex. But it's not about perjury either. It's about power. With enough power, we apparently still believe, a man can have all the women he wants. Some will throw themselves at him; others will be more subtle. Very few will turn him down, and virtually nobody will kiss and tell. And through it all, the wife smiles graciously and makes excuses.

This scandal is also about self-respect. Women--whether single or married, professionals or homemakers--are not tokens of winning, like poker chips, and we demean ourselves when we speak of adultery, sexual compulsiveness, and harassment as peccadilloes. I don't know how, when, or if women are going to get past the glass ceiling. It is more likely to happen in our lifetime, however, if we have the courage to say that philandering is misogyny. It's time to stop making excuses for men who see women as prizes in the power game--playmates, not players.

Maryland: The Clueless Driver State

We hadn't driven in Baltimore for more than a few minutes before we noticed that there was something seriously weird about the drivers. They weren't aggressive or angry. They seemed to float along in their own little bubbles, completely unaware of other drivers, traffic signs, or lane designations.

We were commenting on this when we drove onto a bridge and saw a sign that explained it all:

All right, then.

I wasn't shocked when I read that of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, GMAC ranked Maryland third worst on knowledge of traffic laws. 

Nor was I amazed to discover than of 200 U.S. cities and conurbations, Allstate ranked Maryland third worst on the per capita accident rate.

Now I understand why, when we moved to Baltimore from a Chicago suburb a couple of years ago, our car insurance doubled.

It's not that Maryland drivers are lethal: 37 states have a higher traffic fatality rate, and only 13 states have a lower one. They just don't seem to care about little things, like whether or not there's already a car in the lane they'd like to be in.

Pretty much every time we drive anywhere, we see at least one moving or non-moving violation. Today, for example, I parked in a lot reserved for compact cars. (I drive a Chevy Spark [144.7" x 62.9"], which is 15" shorter than a Honda Civic.)

At the entrance to the lot, a sign said "For compact cars only." Each parking space said COMPACT in yellow paint.

I parked next to the white Lexus LX470 (192.5" x 76.4") and left. When I returned, the red Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited (189.8"x 76.5") had taken the white SUV's place.

Well, at least they weren't RVs. I sighed and left the parking lot, slowing down to avoid hitting a compact car that blew through the stop sign.

And explaining doesn't seem to help...

Some Republicans in Congress.

Headline in the Washington Post, last year:

Half of American whites see no racism around them

Headline in the Washington Post, today:

Sexism is over, according to most men

Right.

Let's look at the 114th Congress, shall we? (Wonks: you can check out the stats here.)

Where industrious ants get dinner

You know Aesop's fable about the ants and the grasshopper. Conservative libertarians think it's scripture.

One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.

"What!" cried the Ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the Grasshopper; "I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone."

The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust.

"Making music, were you?" they cried. "Very well; now dance!" And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.

But this morning I saw something far more sinister than heartless ants. A grasshopper was caught in a spider's web, and the ants were eating him.

No wonder the ants wouldn't share their food.

They're going to miss the concerts, though. And when the spider is done with the grasshopper, they'd better watch out.

FINDING MYSELF IN BRITAIN by Amy Boucher Pye

If you're an American and spend much time in the U.K., somebody will undoubtedly quote you something that apparently George Bernard Shaw never actually said:

"England and America are two countries
divided by a common language."

Once upon a time I was the American editor for a British publisher, and I heard that aphorism frequently--probably because part of my job involved translating children's books from British to American English (please don't mention schoolchildren taking their rubbers to school!), or explaining to my British employers, for example, that the American author who referred to patting someone on her fanny was not being impossibly vulgar.

Altogether, my children, grandchildren, and I have studied or lived in Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Colombia, Taiwan, and China--so books about cultural differences interest me greatly. I was delighted to learn that my friend Amy Boucher Pye was writing such a book, and thrilled when she sent me a copy of Finding Myself in Britain: Our Search for Faith, Home & True Identity.

Amy is a Minnesota-born writer, editor, and vicar's wife (translation: her husband is a pastor in the Church of England) who has lived in Britain for nearly two decades with her U.K.-born husband and two children. When she moved to Cambridge (U.K.) as a new bride, she had no idea how isolated she would feel with an ocean between herself and her family and friends. Frequent moves as her husband finished theological college (seminary) and then took on several short-term appointments made it hard to feel at home anywhere. As a vicar, he was always busy on Christmas and Easter, so no trips to Minnesota for those holidays.

And then there was the plumbing: showers that barely trickled, separate hot and cold taps (faucets) so that warm running water was impossible. And the perpetual cold: drafts blowing the curtains out from the leaky windows, the radiators that came on only twice a day. All exacerbated by the legendary British stiff upper lip that would rather cope with discomfort than try to eliminate it.

As you can tell from the title, however, Amy grew to love her life in Britain, which has become her home if not her native land. What's not to like about free medical care? Twenty days a year of paid vacation plus bank holidays? Frequent breaks for tea (which is properly made in the U.K.)? Deep friendships that transcend cultural differences?

God, prayer, scripture, and evangelical writers and speakers show up frequently in Amy's story of her transformation from lonely foreigner to contented dual citizen. Herself a writer of devotionals, she encourages her readers to foster spiritual growth by keeping journals and rereading them at the end of each year--perhaps an intense evangelical form of the Ignatian daily examen.

If her approach to spirituality feels a bit over the top to people who do not share it, there is still plenty to enjoy for Anglophiles, expats, and Brits who spend time with Americans. Amy has a great sense of self-deprecating humor (how British!). Her Minnesota recipes may intrigue Brits unused to chewy cookies and pumpkin pie. And her abundant observations about British/American differences could spare eager Americans from self-inflicted indignities (the wrinkled nose, the tight smile) such as may occur, for example, if they prematurely introduce themselves (as one of her English friends explained, "Higher up the social scale it is still considered terribly forward to volunteer your name before having been formally introduced").

Be that as it may, if you happen to run into Amy, never fear. Though she now carries a British passport, she will be happy to learn your name!

In case Mr Trump couldn't make it to church this morning...

If Donald Trump, who is technically a Presbyterian, attended church this morning (not unthinkable - he did attend an Iowa church one Sunday just before the caucuses), here is the Epistle reading that he probably heard:

If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things-- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

Colossians 3:1-11

Some prominent evangelicals have claimed that Mr. Trump may be a new Christian. If this is true, I'm sure he'll be especially interested in studying this passage, since it is addressed to new converts who are just learning what it means to follow Jesus.

Mr. Trump has said he collects Bibles. If he unavoidably had to miss church this morning, he might want to pick up one of those Bibles, look up the passage, read it slowly and carefully, and ask himself how to apply its words to his life.

Picturing dementia: empathy, insights, and the occasional belly laugh

[One of Chast's unforgettable cartoons]

Some 25 years ago my parents and one of their best friends, Gertrude, started showing signs of dementia. As their conditions worsened, Gertrude’s daughter Ann and I began trading morbid geriatric jokes. Laughing helped us face the daily struggles of caregiving: it felt so much better than crying.

 In 2014, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast published a graphic memoir about her aging parents that would have been perfect for Ann and me. Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?... is often improbably funny. Its comic-strip presentation is poignantly true to life: frazzled caregivers will recognize themselves on every page, and they may also see aspects of their parents in Chast’s clueless father and ferocious mother. Chast’s drawings let us cry, and then they make us laugh—sometimes simultaneously.

____________________

These are the opening paragraphs of "Picturing Dementia," my double review - of Chast's book, and also of Dana Walrath's Aliceheimer's - in the May 11, 2016, issue of Christian Century. 

You can read the whole review online (and see more brilliant drawings by Chast and Walrath) at http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2016-04/picturing-dementia.

I hope you will. If someone you love has dementia, you probably need these books.

Why this is the perfect time to vote for Bernie, even if you don't want him to be president

I voted for Bernie today. I am not sure he'd make a good president.

What I like about him--his refusal to be bought, his idealism, his modest lifestyle, his populist appeal, his independence, his concern for the common good--are the very characteristics that would probably make it hard for him to govern a nation that's in thrall to Money and Power.

But I voted for him anyway, even though it's highly unlikely he'll be the candidate in November.

And if you're a Hillary supporter in one of the 18 states still awaiting their primary, this is the very best time to vote for Bernie. Your vote will not make Bernie the candidate, but it could very well make Hillary a better president.

I voted for Bernie because Hillary needs to hear his message, over and over again. She needs to hear it so insistently that it will get through to her in spite of the power brokers who have financed her campaign.

She needs to know that a lot of us think she is dangerously hawkish. Her vote in favor of the Iraq war might be excused based on the misinformation available at the time, but her handling of Libya (and I don't mean Benghazi) shows her eagerness to rush in where better angels fear to tread.

She needs to face a continuing, relentless wave of public protest against her ties to big money sources including Wall Street and foreign governments.

If she becomes president, she needs to use her admirable skills to get Citizens United reversed and to do whatever it takes to assure that elections are never again bought and sold.

If she doesn't pay attention to those of us who wistfully admire Bernie's principles, the United States may soon be in big trouble. The rest of the world has gotten fed up with rich bullies. Despite their blustering, the sun did set on the British Empire, and it could soon set on ours.

I wish we had a candidate with Bernie's ideals and Hillary's political savvy.

But since we don't, I voted for Bernie because his heart's in the right place. And in November, I expect I'll vote for Hillary because her heart was once in the right place too... and maybe we Bernie supporters can help her see the light once again.

DOLLAR car rental update

That certainly has been our experience. Repeatedly.

See my earlier post, "Beware DOLLAR's "Lock Low and Go" Scam!" for the whole story.

When the Better Business Bureau intervened, Dollar offered us partial reimbursement of the money they overcharged us. We refused their offer. If a price is guaranteed, that's the price we should pay. Unlike the Dollar manager we dealt with, we believe that's what "guaranteed" means.

UPDATE: Dollar has now agreed to refund the full amount that they overcharged us. We have told the Better Business Bureau that we accept this resolution, but that it shouldn't take repeated calls to customer service followed by complaints to the BBB, to the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, and to our credit card company to get a company to honor its guarantee.

I have not enjoyed pursuing this scam. I often thought I'd rather just let it go--it wasn't all that much money. But then I thought of all the thousands of people who rent cars at Midway Airport. If all of us who are overcharged take action against scammers, maybe the car rental companies will figure out that there's more profit in being honest than in trying to repair the damages caused by dishonest employees.

Beware DOLLAR's "Lock Low and Go" scam!

Looking for a good price on a car rental? Dollar and its partner, Thrifty, have some of the best prices online. But sadly, when you use their "Lock Low and Go" promotion, you risk being scammed.* We found this out the hard way last weekend when we tried to pick up our reserved car at Chicago's Midway Airport.

Here's how the scam works:

1. On their home page, Dollar guarantees you a Compact car or larger vehicle for the price of a Compact car.

2. Click "Learn more," and you see that Dollar defines Compact car as a vehicle that has room for, and seat belts for, at least five passengers.
This sounds good. You see that you can save even more money by paying in advance. So of course that's what you do.

3. You go to the Dollar counter at the airport, and the agent offers you a Chevy Spark.
Now, I love Chevy Sparks. I own one, in fact. But a Chevy Spark has four seat belts, not five, and is by no means a compact car. At 144.7" long, it is 15.3" shorter than a Honda Fit, 12.6" shorter than a Prius C, 10.8" shorter than a Toyota Yaris, and even 6.4" shorter than a Mini Cooper 2-door hatchback.

4. Realizing that your three passengers and their bags can't possibly fit in a Chevy Spark, you protest that such a small car must certainly be an Economy car, not a Compact car.
"Yes, I know it's small," the agent says, "but Dollar classifies things differently, and we call it a Compact." You dispute this with her for five minutes, but she will not budge. No other Compact cars are available, she says.

5. The agent tells you that you have only two choices: take the Chevy Spark, or pay more for a larger car.
She offers you a Midsize car for $10 a day, plus airport taxes and fees, which increases your total by $52.54. You argue some more. Nothing can be done. You are traveling to an important appointment. You do not have time to continue the discussion. You have already paid for a Compact car, so you can't just step over to a competitor's counter.

6. You take the larger car and agree to the added $52.54. What else can you do?

7. Later, you go back to Dollar's website. You reaffirm that Dollar's Lock Low and Go promotion guarantees a Compact, 5-passenger car or larger. You also confirm that Dollar considers the Chevy Spark an Economy car, not a Compact car.

You note the descriptions of Economy cars (4 passengers), Compact cars (5 passengers), and Lock Low and Go cars (5 passengers).

8. You call Dollar's customer service department, repeatedly.
They are closed for the weekend. So you call back early Monday morning. In fact, you call three times and talk to two agents.

9. The agents tell you that you must try to resolve this with the manager where you rented the car. 
You point out that it is most likely the manager who caused the problem in the first place. You remind them that you will be there to catch a plane and won't have much time. No matter. That's the only way you can do it.

10. You go to the airport three hours before flight time in order to talk to the manager. The manager refuses to refund the money you should not have been charged in the first place.
You show the manager that Dollar's website guarantees a Compact car or larger. You show him that Dollar's website classifies the Chevy Spark as an Economy car. He acknowledges both facts, but he says that, as manager, he has the right to offer you any car he wants. He says that you agreed to take the Midsize car instead of the Economy car (even though the Economy car was inferior to what you had reserved and was unusable), and that therefore it was correct to charge you extra.

11. Without your consent, the manager credits your bill with $20 (because he's a nice guy, he says) and tells you he has closed your account. 
Frustrated, you phone Dollar's customer service department right there. After a long wait, an agent comes on line and asks you for a lot of numbers. You give them, and the agent then asks for them again. Eventually the agent transfers you back to the phone tree that you got when you first called. You wait a long time again. The second agent also asks for your numbers twice. She speaks softly, and you can't understand her. You ask her to speak up, and she says she can't or she'd disturb other agents. You stay on the line and listen as hard as you can.

12. After several calls and long waits, a customer service agent tells you that your account has not been closed, so she can't help you. 
You have a plane to catch. You take the bus to the terminal.

13. You turn to Twitter.

You: Hours spent trying to resolve @DollarCars scam at MDW. Avoid Dollar everywhere? Or just at MDW?
Dollar: @[You] Hi [You], very sorry to hear of this. Please DM us your reservation number and rental record number so we can take a look. - TC
You: @DollarCars my res no: [...] & my RR: [...].
Dollar: @[You] Were you able to rent a vehicle today? Please dm us for further assistance. 

14.  You have already spent many hours trying to get Dollar to honor their guarantee, to no avail. You decide that $34.54 (the extra charge minus the credit) is a small price to pay for what you have learned: You will no longer rent from Dollar or Thrifty. If they are blatantly dishonest and unhelpful about this, can you trust them with anything else? And you will warn your friends about them too.
______________
* I do not know if Dollar is a dishonest company that intentionally scams its customers. All I know is that this is what happened to us at Chicago Midway's Dollar counter, that several employees at Midway told us confidentially that we are not the first to be so scammed by Midway's Dollar, that it would be a very easy scam for any rental car agency to pull off, and that Dollar's customer service department has been completely useless in resolving it. If they do eventually resolve this to our satisfaction, I will certainly post an update. Meanwhile, let the buyer beware.

The 2016 Candidates and the Missing Middle

In this oddest of presidential election seasons, one odd fact is rarely mentioned: the curious age spread of the candidates.

At their first inauguration, our 43 U.S. presidents* have ranged in age from almost 43 to almost 70. More than half were in their 50s. Their median age was 55, and so was their average age.

But in 2016, now that we're down to eight candidates (Bush, Carson, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, and Trump vs. Clinton and Sanders), not a single candidate is in his or her 50s.

Rubio: 45 years, 237 days

Cruz: 46 years, 29 days
Bush: 63 years, 343 days
Kasich: 64 years, 245 days
Carson: 65 years, 124 days

Clinton: 69 years, 86 days

Trump: 70 years, 220 days

Sanders: 75 years, 134 days

A few 50-something wannabes have dropped out of the race (Christie, O'Malley, Paul, Santorum), as did some 60-somethings (Huckabee, Fiorina, Gilmore). If the polls are right, the remaining 60-somethings who have not yet reached Social Security's full retirement age (Bush, Kasich, Carson) will not be in the running much longer. If they drop out, we will be left with no candidate over 46 or under 69 on January 20, 2017. 

I made a chart to see how weird this is. The current candidates' ages are highlighted in yellow.**

To see a chart you can actually read, click here.

Cruz and Rubio are younger than every elected president except John F. Kennedy (Teddy Roosevelt was even younger, but he became president when McKinley was assassinated).

Clinton is older than every president except Ronald Reagan. Trump and Sanders are older than any president ever.

Looked at another way, the most likely candidates are either younger than my firstborn or older than me. I find this slightly scary.

----------------------------------------

*Yes, I know Mr. Obama is #44 - that's because Grover Cleveland, who was elected to two non-subsequent terms, is counted twice in most lists but not here.

**Red print indicates names and ages of the 16 presidents who served at least two nearly full terms. Except for Ronald Reagan, none of these was older than 62 at first inauguration.