About once a week for the past six years, The Sacramento Bee published a feature story on aging, usually on the front page and center, accompanied by a color photograph. Senior writer Anita Creamer would take in-depth looks into the myriad personal aspects of growing old; and with her eloquent prose reward readers with a balance of heart-warming and heart-wrenching…
For the time being, it might be best to retire “progressive” from the aging services profession. The word’s use has outlived its welcome. It’s a good word, for sure, but its integrity has been compromised by overuse, mostly of the unsubstantiated sort. Professionals in the field of aging services or long-term services and supports (LTSS) proclaim that the public’s demand…
Guest Essay by Paul Downey, President/CEO, Serving Seniors (San Diego, CA) A perk of my job is that I get to meet interesting people who have earned their wisdom through living life. I enjoy walking through Serving Seniors’ facilities, chatting with some of the 2,200 “historians” who come through our doors each day. They’re happy to share stories of good…
Daring to disprove the adage you can’t tell a book by its cover, the California Senate Select Committee on Aging and Long Term Care published A Shattered System: Reforming Long-Term Care in California: Envisioning and Implementing an IDEAL Long-Term Care System in California. The report weaves a dramatic tale of impending doom, broken dreams and wishful thinking. A mix of…
Annie Lennox, 60, magically rocked the house at the Grammys with her rendition of “I Put a Spell on You.” Hopefully it proved to more than a few viewers and audience members that talent and longevity rule over large egos and even larger butts. Singer-songwriter Lennox, a superstar in her own right, took the opportunity to channel the belief that…
There will come a time when you think to yourself: This may be the last coat I ever buy. And it is not because you’re retiring to Florida. It’s because you realize you are getting old. Old enough, in fact, that even an inexpensive coat could very likely outlive you. This is not meant to be depressing so much as…
If for no other reason than it affects everyone, ageism is the most pervasive of all forms of discrimination. Though some of us have more experience than others, the fact is everyone is aging. The behaviors contributing to ageism, while no more or less deplorable than those contributing to racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and any other “ism,” are uniquely all-inclusive. “But…
“I’m not thinking the way I used to think,” Nicholas Carr laments in his provocative essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (The Atlantic, July 2008). “I have this uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping my circuitry, reprogramming my memory.” Book author Carr suggests his mind isn’t so much going as it is changing,…
Funny how the level of defiance and indignation that public figures exhibit in denial of bad behavior directly correlates with the likelihood of guilt. A sampling of the legion of perpetrators includes: President Bill Clinton wagged his finger and proclaimed, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” Only to eventually fess up, “Indeed I did have a relationship…
Here’s a New Year’s resolution for the ages, all ages. Let’s resolve to make aging cool — in both perception and reality. It’s a daunting task, one that will most likely take beyond this year, if not a generation. But we need to move quickly and deliberately, before aging completely devolves into novelty acts and parodies of once vital lives….
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