Sharon's Gerontocracy

Stockholm -- Sharon gets a stroke. But the question is why would Israel or any country have Ariel Sharon as its Prime Minister? If you wanted someone for your small business, would you hire this morbidly obese person who's a stroke-waiting-to-happen? Can't Israel, in this time of crisis, do better than to entrust its future to this 77 year-old with no future? And to his outgoing vice-Prime Minister, erh, a 82 year old Simon Peres.

If this is not a gerontocracy, what is?

But let's not forget the gerontocracy in the U.S. Empire. Cheney and Rumsfeld, failures and retreads from the Vietnam War. They are the ones, along with George Bush Senior, who are regents for G.W. Junior. And the real powers behind the throne. China has already gotten rid of its gerontocrats, and is into its third generation of leaders. But here we are in the U.S., and we got nothing better than to recycle the people from the Ford presidency. Yep, they had to cut and run in Vietnam. And they will have to in Iraq cause they're doing a hundred times worse. These losers.

And last but not least, only the Vatican, the world's oldest-running gerontocracy, would appoint someone like Ratzi-nger. You would not think that any sane institution would, after the lingering illness of the last "Pope," would appoint someone who has had a history of life-threatening illness as a Ratzi-nger. But nope, you'd be dead wrong. Because there's nothing a gerontocracy loves than nasty old men.