Antiques Roadkill

In our society, the older you are the less you are worth. This is downright nutty as anyone who has ever sold antiques will tell you. So you gotta wonder why we place such a high value on youth when young people are in many ways inferior. Scientists who study such things report that the brain develops from back to front, and the part of the brain which controls reasoning and impulses--specifically the prefrontal cortex--is near the front of the brain and therefore develops last. Still, we nurture superstars who are relative toddlers, rewarding their childish antics with millions of dollars that they spend on God knows what. (Not hospice care, certainly.) The young fans who worship them are excused from criticism, being likewise still dumb, but the older ones who watch for reasons I cannot even guess are puzzling.

Einstein started the tongue thing years ago....

The latest in-your-face celebrity is Miley Cyrus, who is the new Brittany Spears, who was the new Lady Gaga, who was the new Madonna, who was the new Grace Slick, who was the new I forget, but you get the point. Young Miss Miley is shown on the current cover of Rolling Stone magazine, with her famous tongue sticking out, nude, in a swimming pool, proving what we all suspected: That underneath her clothing she is naked. (The harlot!) I guess that sells magazines, or at least Rolling Stone magazine, which ran the picture of another precocious 20-year-old, the surviving brother responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings, on its cover recently. Not sure, and don't quote me, but I bet anything the editor and art director are both older than 25, yet they made those questionable decisions.

What bugs me, since I'm no spring chicken myself, is that while many of them have lost their muscle tone and gotten fat, plenty of really cool and really smart "old" people walk among us. They too have tongues and are naked underneath their clothing. Often they do things of merit. To be fair, some of them can be idiotic morons just like the young folks, but on the whole they've got valuable wisdom to share. Maybe if we revered more of them instead of pushing them out of the way, things would be better all around.