My 'senior' moment

& correspondence with readers

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Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

What is the age threshold at which one becomes a ‘senior citizen’?

Reader, I have been thoroughly and justly dragged on Twitter (a reminder that I will never call it “X”) for this:

Now, before I begin discussing this semantic dispute in detail, let me ask subscribers to click on the age when they believe it’s accurate to begin referring to someone as a “senior citizen.”

Next, an admission of error:

Statutes pertaining to assault in Illinois enhance penalties for those age 60 and older, and the law against financial exploitation of the elderly says, “elderly person” means a person 60 or older. The Statewide Senior Citizen Victimizer Database Act also defines senior citizens as those 60 and up, as does the Illinois Identification Card Act. The federal Older Americans Act also sets the senior line at 60

Thus CWBChicago was correct in defining the victim in a way that indicated the alleged perpetrator — whatever his actual first name might be — stands to face harsher sanctions if found guilty. As a matter of law, I was wrong to say otherwise.

Yet the law and practice is inconsistent on this point. The Illinois Act on the Aging says that “‘Aged’ or ‘senior citizen’ means a person of 55 years of age or older,” while the Senior Citizens Real Estate Tax Deferral Act doesn’t kick in until a homeowner is 65. The state’s “Eliminate the Digital Divide Law” says that "Senior citizen home" is a “residential facility for people who are over the age of 65.”

The Senior Citizen Courses Act and the Senior Pharmaceutical Assistance Act are among the laws that also set the senior line at 65. Illinois driver’s license fees aren’t reduced until one reaches age 69.

You can collect Social Security starting at age 62, but Medicare doesn’t kick in until 65. AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) and the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) set the informal line at age 50, which is just absurd.

Then there are retailer discounts, many of which are offered to those 55 and older.

Here is one of the many response tweets to my post.

Here are a few other responses from CWBChicago defenders, many of whom were quite frothy about my legally inaccurate view that “senior citizen” is a term that has a colloquial understanding that tends not to include 61 year olds.

I’m not apologizing or defending anyone when I say that, to me (I’m 66), the threshold at which the law ought to give special deference and offer special protections to people because of the average infirmities and frailties of age ought to be 65, the same age at which we can rightly, informally refer to people as “seniors.”

I am, however, apologizing to CWBChicago. I don’t agree with the definition in the assault law, but they got the definition right and I didn’t.

Their racist and antisemitic reader can fuck right off, though.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

The fake Daily Northwestern

I wrote last week that I approved of authorities dropping criminal charges against pro-Palestinian protesters who wrapped a fake front page around the real editions of the Daily Northwestern student newspaper, though I did argue that it was an act of vandalism, not parody or satire as some news outlets have reported.

Marc Martinez — The charges that were filed against the NU students was perfectly legitimate. They were misdemeanors and called for a light sentence such as a fine or community service. There was no reason to drop the case. If I stuffed advertising fliers, or my own newspaper, into the distribution boxes or into editions of a paper without the publication’s approval, I would certainly be charged, and it wouldn't be shrugged off. And the alleged perpetrators aren't errant children. They are adults. They certainly knew what they were doing.

I heard an NU prof on TV say, “It was just civil disobedience and shouldn't be criminalized.” Duh, civil disobedience means breaking the law and part of the moral authority is acceptance of the legal consequences.

Steve T — Colleges usually insist on handling student legal matters internally, with penalties given accordingly, but this case somehow got referred to cops and it happened to involve students of color, who statistically receive an unfair amount of punitive scrutiny in schools. I’m glad to see that shining some light on the issue caused the charges to be dropped and an investigation into why the case ended up with prosecutors in the first place.

Campus protests that cause no harm to anyone outside of the school should not cause students to fear being sent through the state criminal system, where permanent harm is likely.

Pete Prokopowicz — It was sophomoric and unserious. My takeaway is that the kids who did it are kids and don’t know much about anything.

Zorn — The Daily Northwestern published a hand-wringing editorial that said even though the “imitated front pages damaged our relationships with community members” they didn’t support the criminal prosecution in large part because the arrested perpetrators were “people of color.”

Our University and community — along with the American policing and justice system as a whole — has a long history of placing people of color in harm’s way. As a publication that strives to unearth these injustices through our reporting, we remain wholeheartedly opposed to any course of action that would entwine our publication with this harmful legacy.

We hope this situation invites reflection about the impacts that people, particularly people of color, may face as a result of decisions that involve the police. Making a call or filing a complaint demands extraordinary thought and consideration beyond an action’s legality.

Zorn — Fine, I guess. They were the victims here and can have their say. But the implication that race had something to do with charges that were filed by a state’s attorney’s office led by a Black woman is excessively to comically earnest.

A Northwestern history professor also dwelled on the race of the (now formerly) accused students in his op-ed in the Tribune in which he called the vandalism “good trouble.”

First, Brett Gadsden noted that the paper “received scores of outraged phone calls and emails” over a front page with the headline, “Northwestern complicit in genocide of Palestinians.” Then he pivoted and claimed the fake was obviously “political satire … akin to that produced by The Onion.”

No. The Onion doesn’t make trouble — good or otherwise. It cracks jokes.

Finally, Gadsden linked the charges to “the problem of the overpolicing of certain communities and the criminalization of conduct that might otherwise be considered innocuous.”

Again, it wasn’t satire and it wasn’t parody. It was protest vandalism — a form of civil disobedience that’s not even supposed to be innocuous. Letting it go was appropriate, but glorifying it or suggesting it was all OK is not. Let’s hope we don’t find that out when hate groups, emboldened by this enabling nonchalance, try the same thing

Presidential candidates in their dotage

Beth Bales — I am pleased you mentioned President Joe Biden's verbal missteps, or brain freezes or whatever you want to call them. But if you watch the videos online, Biden often seems lost. He seems like he's frequently trying to come through the fog, and I have to ask people — are you comfortable voting for him and if so, why? He is not up to the task! Isn't anyone afraid? And lastly, I cannot believe our choice is going to be someone in clear cognitive decline and Trump. I don't want either one.

Zorn — I will have more to say on this in Thursday’s issue, but, while I share your concern with Biden’s acuity, I’m far more alarmed by how addled Donald Trump seems to be. For every minute of video of Biden freezing up or losing his train of thought or confusing his facts there is at least one minute of Trump babbling nonsensically or getting his facts all foozled.

Joanie Wimmer — I’m comfortable voting for Biden. I like his demand-side as opposed to supply-side fiscal approach to economic issues, his support of civil rights for minority groups, including the LGBTQ+ community, his statesman-like approach to foreign policy and his belief that the United States should play a significant role in world affairs, promoting democracy and human rights. The videos of his bad moments don’t bother me at all. There is a huge difference between people having “senior moments” and people suffering from dementia. Everyone over 65 has had senior moments where it takes longer for them to retrieve a name, or certain other data from memory, but they are still able to retrieve it.

Zorn — Jon Stewart asked a relevant question during his return to the hosting chair of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central Monday night. Since so many of Biden’s advisers swear that he’s sharp and engaged and focused in meetings, why are we not seeing video illustrating that? The way to overcome the significant public concern that Biden is too old and enfeebled to serve another four year term is not to shout down those raising those concerns but to demonstrate that they are overblown by having him perform capably in tough interviews and show command at press conferences.

But just remember, as Laurence E Siegel wrote, the only realistic option to Biden looks like it’s going to be“an evil egomaniac, primarily concerned with his own desires.”

Betty Bowers has it right:

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s dialogues with God

Rick Weiland — In quotables last week you featured a lengthy quote from Speaker Johnson in which he relayed a number of things he said God said to him in conversation. Traditionally, people who said God was talking to them were led off to a secure ward in a peaceful sanatorium.

Zorn — Mocking someone’s faith is out of bounds. What people believe or don’t believe about the supernatural is their business, so long as they don’t try to turn those beliefs into laws that impact those of us who don’t share their beliefs.

But rolling your eyes at someone’s claims strikes me as fair enough, particularly when they imply divine endorsement of their political positions. Here, Johnson’s claim that “the Lord began to wake me up … in the middle of night — and to speak to me (about) plans and procedures and ideas on how we could pull the (Republican) conference together” and then told him to “step forward” to take the job of speaker suggests a grandiosity and presumption that does not demand respect.

Conan O’Brien’s improvisation on a podcast ad for bidets

“Garry Spelled Correctly” — Thank you for posting that Conan O'Brian video. Thank you because, once again, it showed why I never watched him. He was as funny as being burned alive! I'm guessing everyone at that table laughing hysterically at his pathetic attempt to read the bidet ad was stoned out of their minds to find that drivel funny!

Lynne Allen Taylor — Conan was hilarious. Reading the bidet ad without commentary, that would be drivel.

Jeff Stern —I was listening to Conan’s podcast while driving and the bidet ad came on. I almost had to pull off the road.

Joanie Wimmer — Rubbing one’s skin with dry paper is a singularly ineffective way to clean one’s skin. We don’t wash our hands by rubbing them with paper. It is rather bizarre that bidets are not more common.

Zorn — I beg to differ with Garry (CQ) about Conan O’Brien, whose wit and improvisational skills are very impressive. My only problem with his podcast, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” is that he tends to slobber all over his celebrity guests. Not quite as much as Kenny Lust does, but he almost never treads into the awkward territory where interviews get revealing.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

This last one is thematic for today — I know it’s not really a visual tweet. And I know that Phil Are Go’s fake book cover and the Valentine image are faked, but they are obviously faked and thus exempt from my sometimes futile effort to keep phony jokes out of the contest. They are bad trouble.

Vote for your favorite. I’ll share the winner in Thursday’s main edition.

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media.

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll!

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