Mary Daniels Brown

Last Week’s Links

The COVID Strategy America Hasn’t Really Tried

“The clearest way to reduce deaths is to push to vaccinate more of the elderly—yes, still!”

Sarah Zhang reports in The Atlantic: “even though America’s vaccination and booster rates look better in the older groups compared with the young, they are still too low. As a result, deaths in the United States are still too high.”

Category: Health

How to get better at making every type of decision

Allie Volpe describes certain human biases that can complicate the making of decisions, particularly decisions about complex or life-altering questions. She also offers concrete suggestions about how to deal with these biases and how to manage the decision-making process.

Category: Mental Health

The Dog Breeds That Are a Woman’s Best Friend

“Especially when one lives alone.”

Because men generally die at a slightly younger age than women, many women face a period of widowhood. Social scientists have long known that having a pet to care for can reduce feelings of loneliness or depression for widowed people, either male or female.

When my husband and I were looking at various retirement communities in preparation for our retirement relocation, something I noticed was the number of older adults out walking their dogs. This article, though emphasizing women, provides some advice appropriate for either men or women looking to take on a pet.

I have one consideration to add that this article doesn’t mention. Most retirement communities I’m familiar with allow “small pets.” If you anticipate moving into such a community, I’d advise you choose one of the smaller breeds described here. A boxer, golden retriever, or mastiff probably won’t be welcome in a much down-sized living situation.

Or maybe you’d rather consider a cat?

Category: Assisted Living, Retirement

There Will Be No Post-Covid

Charles M. Blow, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, expresses something I’ve thought for quite a while now: As much as we’d all like to get back to normal, normal won’t ever be the same again, and we are going to have to learn to live with that reality.

Or, as Blow puts it: :the America we knew ended in 2019. This is a new one, scarred, struggling to its feet, dogged by moral and philosophical questions that on one hand have revealed its cruelty and on the other have forced it into metamorphosis.”

Category: Health, Personal

Activist Learning: How Anti-Vietnam War Academics Reinvented the Strike

The escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965 brought about the creation of a new form of protest—the teach-in. It was so effective a vehicle for dissent that the academic community quickly became the main source of opposition to the war. Though it was later eclipsed—notably in the media and, thus, the popular mind—by younger noisier protests, for about a year and a half the nation’s faculties, with the assistance of graduate students and some undergraduates, provided the leadership and the intellectual framework for the growing challenge to the escalating conflict. An initially small group of professors literally taught the rest of the country why the war was wrong.

This excerpt from The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s by Ellen Schrecker brought back memories for me. I was a student at Boston University, a very politically active campus, from 1966 to 1970.

Categories: History, Personal

Her dad died. So her favorite NFL star took her to the father-daughter dance.

“Philadelphia Eagles player Anthony Harris flew across the country to escort his 11-year-old fan to the event”

Amid all the incivility and protest, I hope we take a moment to appreciate and publicize stories such as this.

Category: Personal

Last Week’s Links

Increased physical activity lowers ‘preventable’ deaths in older adults, study finds

Small increases in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among older adults in the United States prevents up to an estimated 275,000 deaths annually, a study published Monday JAMA Internal Medicine found.

When the Last Thing You Want to Do Is Exercise

As a companion piece to the article above, Christie Aschwanden suggests some “ways you can find inspiration and maybe even a little glee in your daily workout.”

A 73-year-old knew she was being scammed. So she lured the scammer to her home and had him arrested, police say.

Lots of people think it’ll be easy to scam us older adults. A couple of them met their match in Jean.

As pleasing as this story is, PLEASE DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME without contacting local law enforcement before you make any arrangements to meet the scammers. Also, don’t volunteer your address, bank, or any other personal information until you’ve arranged for reinforcements.

I’m 72. So What?

“Catherine Texier pushes back against society’s dated ideas about older women, claiming her place among those who are determined to remain vibrant and relevant in the last decades of their lives.”

My generation is caught between two tectonic forces: the impulse to live full throttle till the end — as long as our health can handle it, the way we chose to live since our 20s — and the push from society to put us back into our place and nudge us towards the nursing home, so that the next generations can take over.

Conflicts between nursing home residents are often chalked up to dementia – the real problem is inadequate care and neglect

Some sobering information from Eilon Caspi, assistant research professor of health, intervention, and policy, at the University of Connecticut:

Resident-to-resident incidents are defined by researchers as “negative, aggressive and intrusive verbal, physical, material and sexual interactions between residents” that can cause “psychological distress and physical harm in the recipient.”
These incidents are prevalent in U.S. nursing homes. But they are largely overlooked by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency overseeing care in approximately 15,000 nursing homes across the country. Consequently, such incidents remain untracked, understudied and largely unaddressed.

Caspi emphasizes that the patient with dementia is not to blame for such incidents. Rather, the facility has the responsibility of adequately supervising all residents.

7 New and Forthcoming Books by Writers Over 60

J.R. Ramakrishnan profiles some “fully grown-up writers with thoughtful, diverse books out in early 2022. Their subjects are both fiction and nonfiction.”

Why I Will Never, Ever Go Gray

One of the topics that arose over the long course of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic was people who, unable to get to the salon for a touch-up, discovered the joy of letting their hair go gray. But here Norma Eisen, who had her first gray hairs at age 13, presents the opposite view: “Though some of my friends were flaunting silver locks, I still dyed my hair. Even when the stars looked more gorgeous than ever by going au naturel.”

Don Wilson, Who Gave the Ventures Their Distinctive Rhythm, Dies at 88

Don Wilson, co-founder of the instrumental rock group the Ventures, whose twanging, hard-driving sound, propelled by his dynamic rhythm guitar, led to hits like “Walk — Don’t Run” and helped shape the surf music of the early 1960s as well as influencing generations of guitarists, died on Saturday [January 22, 2022] in Tacoma, Wash. He was 88.

Last Week’s Links

End-of-life conversations can be hard, but your loved ones will thank you

Deborah Carr, professor of sociology at Boston University, writes “most people dread thinking and talking about when, how or under what conditions they might die.”

Although most people know they should talk about these issues with loved ones, most don’t actually have the difficult discussion, Carr reports. “But everyone should talk about and prepare for death precisely because we want to minimize our own suffering at the end of life, and soften the anguish of loved ones left behind.”

Here Carr offers some guidance about both what to talk about and how to initiate the discussion.

In 1973, ‘Soylent Green’ envisioned the world in 2022. It got a lot right.

George Bass discusses how the film Soylent Green, released in 1973 and set “in the then-far-off future of 2022,” is “eerily prescient” in its portrayal of what is now our present.

The Federal Writers’ Project: Exploring “The Greatest Literary Project in History”

“Now, some in Congress are looking to the FWP as a model for a new jobs program for writers,” writes Clare Barnett. Read her history of the original Federal Writers’ Project, developed to employ writers in “the biggest public works program in American history” during the Great Depression.

Pickleball: The Rules, Rise, and Reach of a Surging Sport

Kenny Ducey reports on pickleball, “the racquet sport that has taken the world by storm over the past few years.” He defines core players as those who play at least 8 times over a year; these players “skew older, with 54% of them aged 55 and up.”

Janis Ian Lets Her Music Speak Her Mind (One Last Time)

“At 70, the singer-songwriter who has always been unafraid of difficult subjects is releasing a final album, ‘The Light at the End of the Line.’”

With all the recent obituaries of musical greats from the Boomer era, I was glad to find a story about one who is still performing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired new health habits for these 4 scholars – here’s what they put into practice and why

Four academics discuss the habits they have developed to help them cope with the stress of the ongoing pandemic.

Last Week’s Links

Michael Lang, a Force Behind the Woodstock Festival, Dies at 77

“He and his partners hoped their weekend of “peace and music” would draw 50,000 attendees. It ended up drawing more than 400,000 — and making history.”

Even if you weren’t there, you probably remember this.

Ronnie Spector, ’60s girl-group icon who sang ‘Be My Baby,’ dies at 78

We’ve lost another voice from those heady music days of the 1960s:

Ronnie Spector, whose towering voice propelled indelible early 1960s hit records including “Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You” and “Walking in the Rain,” died Wednesday after a brief battle with cancer. She was 78.

A taste for sweet – an anthropologist explains the evolutionary origins of why you’re programmed to love sugar

I have a notorious sweet tooth. But apparently it’s not my fault.

Medicare Proposes to Cover Aduhelm Only for Patients in Clinical Trials

Here’s a follow-up to a news story included in last week’s links (the second story down).

Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen

In an excerpt from his book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention, Johann Hari explains: “Social media and many other facets of modern life are destroying our ability to concentrate. We need to reclaim our minds while we still can.”

Your biological age may be different from your real age. A new institute at Northwestern plans to explore the issue.

The Potocsnak Longevity Institute, a new organization at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Illinois, U.S.A., is opening this month. It “will focus on research related to aging, and on treating patients suffering from its effects.”

New Research Reveals How Alzheimer’s Progresses in the Brain

This article reports on an October 2021 study from the University of Cambridge that “sheds new light on how Alzheimer’s disease progresses in the brain, with implications for future treatments and prevention strategies.”

COVID-19 causes mobility, physical declines in older adults, study finds

News from United Press International (UPI):

Many adults age 50 years and older sickened with COVID-19 experience declines in mobility and the ability to perform day-to-day physical activities up to eight months after infection, a study published Wednesday [January 12, 2022] by JAMA Network Open found.

Last Week’s Links

Students’ Right to Protest at School Was Affirmed By Tinker v. Des Moines

This piece from Teen Vogue is from a series “in which we unearth U.S. history you may not have learned in school.” Most of us who hang out on this blog also probably didn’t learn about this topic in school—because we lived it.

This look at “the landmark Supreme Court decision, Tinker v. Des Moines [1969], which affirmed students’ right to free speech,” includes some reminiscences by Mary Beth Tinker, the student originally suspended from school for wearing a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War.

Decision Looms That Could Determine Fate of Alzheimer’s Drug

Federal officials are wrestling with a decision that could go a long way toward determining the future of the controversial new Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, and whether significant numbers of patients use it.
In January, Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people 65 and over, plans to issue a preliminary decision on whether it will cover the expensive medication. The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Aduhelm in June has drawn fierce criticism because clinical trials showed the drug had significant safety risks and unclear benefit to patients.

Abducted son finds family by drawing map of village he last saw aged four

Here’s another one of those amazingly heartwarming stories I find so satisfying:

Thirty years ago, when Li Jingwei was four years old, a neighbour abducted him from his home village in China’s Yunnan province and sold him to a child trafficking ring.
Now he has been reunited with his mother after drawing a map of his home village from his memories of three decades ago and sharing it on a popular video-sharing app in the hope that someone might be able to identify it.

Kraken fan Nadia Popovici lauded for pointing out Canucks equipment manager Brian Hamilton’s cancerous mole during game

And here’s yet another such story. This one got a lot of publicity in my local area (Seattle, WA, USA), but in case it didn’t make the news where you live, you can read about it here.

8 Google Maps Hacks to Use on Your Next Trip

I always enjoy learning helpful ways to use current technology, so this article caught my eye. One point to note: You can use Google Maps to find where you parked your car, even if you’re right in your own neighborhood rather than on an actual trip.

THE STORY OF: The Cabbage Patch Kids Dolls

Do you remember scouring store shelves back in the early 1980s hoping to snag a Cabbage Patch Kid for your child? Here’s the complete history of the phenomenon, which is way more complicated that I could have ever imagined.

And you might be truly surprised, as I was, to learn that there is STILL an official Cabbage Patch Kids website, where, for a significant investment, you can order one for your very own.

Does Wisdom Really Come from Experience?

Rachel Syme, a staff writer for The New Yorker, discusses the podcast 70 Over 70, which aims to feature 70 people who have passed their 70^th birthday.

“As with any interview show, the strength of each episode depends on the guest. It’s not enough that someone is simply long in the tooth; he or she must also be self-aware about what being “old” means, attuned to the delicate interplay between aging and regret, mortality and joy, irrelevance and freedom.”

I haven’t listened to the podcast myself, but there’s enough written description here to let you decide whether you want to track it down.

Last Week’s Links

The Year in 41 Debates

From The New York Times:

Is America no longer governable? Can psychedelics cure us? What’s in a Subway tuna fish sandwich? This December, Times Opinion is looking back at the most important — and absurd — debates of 2021.

Serious cognitive problems see abrupt drop among older people, study says. Here’s why

Katie Camero reports on the results of a recent study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease:

There was an “abrupt decline” in the percentage of older Americans reporting serious problems with concentration, memory and decision making over a decade — particularly among women, according to a new study. . . .
From 2008 to 2017, the percentage of adults ages 65 and older in the U.S. with serious cognitive issues dropped from 12.2% to 10%, researchers from Canada found. In a hypothetical scenario without the decline, about an additional 1.1 million older people in the U.S. would have reported experiencing mental congestion.

Betty White Shares Her Secrets Ahead of 100th Birthday: “I Always Find the Positive”

Vanity Fair shares a portrait of Betty White, apparently prepared before her death on December 31.

In Good Taste: Marilyn Stasio on a Lifetime of Book Reviews

“The legendary critic talks about how she got her start, how crime fiction got taken seriously, and what she’s reading now.”

For many years Marilyn Stasio was the crime columnist for The New York Times: “A rave or pan from Stasio could float or sink a novel.” She was “unceremoniously fired from her position (a move falsely announced as a retirement) in February.”

But at age 81, she’s still going strong. Read this interview “about how reviewing has changed, when to find beauty in the ugly, and why Agatha Christie is still the greatest.”

Lost perspective? Try this linguistic trick to reset your view

Social psychologist Ariana Orvell describes distanced self-talk, the “process of reflecting on one’s self using parts of speech that are typically used to refer to other people – ie, second- or third-person pronouns, or even one’s own name.”

In particular:

When using the second-person pronoun ‘you’ to reflect on ourselves, we can move beyond our default, egocentric perspective, and consider our thoughts and feelings from the stance of a more objective observer. This distanced self-perspective then opens up new ways of thinking, which can make a difference for our feelings and behaviour in a variety of emotional situations.

How We Make Sense of Time

“January 2022 arrives as our methods of keeping time feel like they are breaking. Calendar pages turn, yet time feels lost. In this year of all years, what does it mean for a year to be new?”

Colorful fireworks against a night sky. Overlay: 2022 — Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash

But this year of all years, what does it mean for a year to be new? How do we measure our lives? The past year began with the promise of mass vaccination and the hope that life as we had known it would return. The year is ending with unmet expectations — Omicron’s spread, people lighting candles for their third Covid birthday cakes, and meager jokes that 2022 could really be “2020, two.” How do we make sense of time when calendar pages turn, and yet time feels lost?

Welcome, 2022!

(Feature Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash )

After the debacle of 2021, I’ve been awaiting the arrival of 2022 with high ambivalence. When I woke up this morning and remembered that today is the first day of 2022, the phrase guarded optimism immediately came to mind.

So, in the spirit of guarded optimism, I wish you all Happy New Year. I’ll be striving toward optimism—but without letting my guard down, of course.

colorful fireworks against a night sky. Overlay text: Happy New Year!

Because I love lists, here are some links for your reading pleasure on a lazy New Year’s Day.

Meteor showers, eclipses, full moons: All of the reasons to look up in 2022

“The new year is sure to be a sky-gazer’s delight with plenty of celestial events on the calendar,” declares CNN. Learn when to expect total lunar eclipses, meteor showers, and supermoons.

New Books Explore the Many Ways Covid Has Altered Our Lives

By Eve Fairbanks for The New York Times.

Omicron’s New Years cocktail: Sorrow, fear but hope for 2022

Sorrow for the dead and dying, fear of more infections to come and hopes for an end to the coronavirus pandemic were — again — the bittersweet cocktail with which the world said good riddance to 2021 and ushered in 2022.

This Associated Press articles follows the new year as it arrives around the world.

Readers were more likely to abandon books
Readers wanted lighter fare as a counterpoint to real-world devastation
For some, reading was nearly impossible at the start of the pandemic. In 2021, it got easier.
Audiobooks were a popular choice
Some people shared ingenious reading ideas you might want to steal

The article ends with a list of the “top books of 2021, according to our readers.”

Last Week’s Links

over its history, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has added numerous special services to help customers (that’s you and me) deal with pressing medical, familial and financial issues. Here are some of the lesser-known things Social Security can do for you.

Telehealth Became a Lifeline for Older Americans. But It Still Has Glitches

Medicare has extended coverage of remote health care. While telehealth removed barriers to care for many during the pandemic, some say there is more to be done.

‘I was always curious’: Indian woman, 104, fulfils dream of learning to read

I’ll never apologize for loving to come across stories like this.

What the Stoics Understood About Death (And Can Teach Us)

In this excerpt from his book Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living, David Fideler writes, “Unlike many other countries, the United States has accomplished a world-class disappearing act when it comes to keeping older adults (and any other reminders of death) out of sight and out of mind.”

Here he describes how European cultures handle aging and reminds us, “A Stoic wants to live well—and living well means dying well, too. . . . In other words, as the final act of living, a good death is characterized by acceptance and gratitude.”

Why Do Women Sprout Chin Hairs as They Age?

Certainly I’m not the only one who has asked herself this question

How to Use Your Phone’s Privacy-Protection Tools

t’s always good to keep up with articles like this, since our phone settings can be changed every time there’s a new operating system update. Since these updates usually happen automatically, it’s a good idea to check these settings periodically.

The Rise Of Nannacore: Insta’s Silver Influencers Are Keeping Things Fresh

Scarlett Conlon discusses “the wardrobes of senior style icons” as seen on Instagram.

Lucille Ball on the Big Screen, the Small Screen and Offscreen

Have you seen the movie Being the Ricardos, starring Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball? I haven’t seen it yet, so if you have, I’d love to hear your reaction.

See you next year!

Last Week’s Links

Leaving the Law Behind for My Dream Job

“Maurice Carlos Ruffin on finding the courage to pivot to fiction writing in mid-life.”

At age 41, Maurice Carlos Ruffin quit his job as a lawyer and published his first book. He admits that he made more money as a lawyer, “[b]ut the satisfaction I have now is more than worth it.”

I’m always inspired by stories of people who have the courage to, as Joseph Campbell put it, follow their bliss.

Not Home for the Holidays

People across the country are saying no more to holiday obligations. After the drain of the pandemic, some are choosing to skip the stress of travel or of spending hours around a table with people they don’t entirely enjoy. Even those who like their families are choosing to be apart, opting instead to be with friends who live close to them or to go on far-flung trips they’ve always wanted to take.

Almost two years after COVID hit, Tacoma’s senior centers remain closed. It’s taking a toll

This story pertains to my city, but it discusses a problem that hadn’t occurred to me. Perhaps the same thing has happened where you live?

Two Musicals on the Perils of Aging

Those of us who don’t live in New York City don’t have direct access to this type of entertainment, but just reading about them can give us food for thought. Do you think of your older-life as a musical? I certainly don’t think of mine that way.

COVID time warp

“Scientists are beginning to unpack the way people processed the passage of time amidst the stress, uncertainty and isolation of the 1 year, 8 months and 21 days since WHO declared a pandemic.”

Do you remember how eagerly, a year ago, we thought about hanging up a new calendar for a new year that would undoubtedly erase the pain of 2020? And look how that turned out. Now, instead, we face another new year—but one of uncertainly about whether this pandemic will ever end. No wonder our sense of time has become so disjointed.

This article looks at some research into the brain’s ability to perceive and predict time—“a fundamental feature of life.”

As U.S. Nears 800,000 Virus Deaths, 1 of Every 100 Older Americans Has Perished

Although people 65 and over are among the most vaccinated in the U.S., they “make up about three-quarters of the nation’s coronavirus death toll.”

“In both sharp and subtle ways, the pandemic has amplified an existing divide between older and younger Americans.”

2021 in Review: The Year in Vibes

“2021 feels as though it does and does not exist, a hangover from the depths of terror in 2020.”

Kyle Chayka reports that 2021 “has offered an unplaceable vibe.” It was supposed to be the year when we broke out of the funk caused by the COVID pandemic. Instead, we had new variants of the virus that made 2021 much like a continuation of 2020.

“A year that never started can’t really end, either, and so the boundary of the New Year feels unreal as well. But the time did pass, and in looking back we have to recall grace where we can.”

Here Chayka presents his “attempt to capture the year’s ambiguous nonverbal phenomena, both positive and negative.”

Last Week’s Links

Understanding Doomscrolling

The enduring pandemic continues to affect our lives. Here’s a look at doomscrolling, “the habit of scrolling through an excessive amount of news stories on the web and social media.” Find some explanations for why we do it and suggestions for controlling it.

After the group broke up in 1970, Nesmith moved on to a long and creative career, not only as a musician but as a writer, producer and director of films, author of several books, head of a media arts company and creator of a music video format that led to the creation of MTV.

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‘I was always curious’: Indian woman, 104, fulfils dream of learning to read

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