Slate magazine issue on old people

Here at Slate, we take the subject of growing old more seriously. Heck, it’s going to happen to all of us someday—if we’re lucky. And so we have commissioned a series of articles on aging and the aged. We wanted to see the world through the eyes of our elders, to explore the ways in which old folks influence our economy, politics, and culture. To walk a mile in their Rockports.

Wednesday

“Pimp My Buick: Will new technologies make old people safer on the road?” by Farhad Manjoo. Posted Sept. 10, 2008.

“What’s the Best Adult Diaper? That depends,” by Justin Peters. Posted Sept. 10, 2008.

“The Senior-Citizen Cookbook: How your food needs will change as you get older,” by Sarah Dickerman. Posted Sept. 10, 2008

“Diary of a 100-Year-Old Man: Dreams of My Mother, and a Visit From My Grandson,” by Leon Despres. Posted Sept. 10, 2008

Recycled: “Naughty Nursing Homes: Is it time to let the elderly have more sex?” by Daniel Engber. Posted Sept. 10, 2008

Tuesday

“Is Grandpa Bad for the Environment? Climate change and the aging population,” by Jacob Leibenluft. Posted Sept. 9, 2008.

Best Friends Forever: Grumpy Old Men, The Bucket List, and the undying appeal of the old-buddy movie,” by Jessica Winter. Posted Sept. 9, 2008.

“A Visit to My Future: What happens when I try to live like a senior citizen,” by Emily Yoffe. Posted Sept. 9, 2008.

“The Oldest Profession: Why don’t architects ever retire?” by Witold Rybczynski. Posted Sept. 9, 2008.

What else happened during Sarah Palin’s speech (the ice shelf collapsed)

from a correspondent–

Alaska and Tucson forever associated… Perhaps she can give you a free ride:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/256059.php
This article asks whether she will put on eBay her new plane.

OOPS, she ordered Al Gore to stop flying his plane. Presumably it was a reference to climate change. The only one during her speech. Now she got a plane with a big carbon footprint. She can transport some moose or hundred reporters.

Her Al Gore joke contrasted with a week full of estimates of the magnitude of the expected magnitude of the sea level rise, news about the Canadian ice shelf loss and of polar bears in peril. Neither the media nor the pundits tearing apart her speech thought of asking whether she has any plan (or plane) to relocate the affected Native populations.

No one thinks about relocation nor have they much. There are several hundred towns which must be relocated some or great distances, including houses, schools, electrical plants, sewage, garbage, telephones, churches, graveyards, water treatment, etc etc.

By the way, the Republican Murkowski jet, which was unable to visit most places in Alaska (no runways large enough), did NOT sell on e-Bay. It finally had to be given away, relatively speaking.

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Sarah Palin, the elderly, the disabled, older Americans and rural Alaska

[revised]

naomidagenbloom 2008 September 2

Vuee, Vuee, We need to hear MORE from you now about the way Alaska has come into our consciousness via your governor–the believer in “stakeholders.”

Readers can’t get off that easy, Little Red Hen– what questions do folks have?

The reason I have been rather quiet, blogwise, is because the news from rural Alaska about living there isn’t good. There has been next to nothing improved since earlier posts, this includes the past 18 months of the personable Gov. Sarah Palin. I’ll give examples below, but they sound depressing. So readers, what do enquiring minds want to know? If nothing else, I can at least point you to some good sources of facts or commentary from Alaska perspective.

An older friend of mine (from Tucson) sends this musing upon the early photo of Sarah Palin and her caribou ( http://newsminer.com/photos/galleries/2008/sep/01/sarah-palin-growing-alaskan/1156/. It is the photo of the red-nosed caribou NOT a reindeer.)

>My deep reflections, caribou inspired::
1. Macho women don’t need to wear pantsuits to assert themselves.
2. Most currently popular female names go from my daughter Michelle to my mother Sarah.
3. Sarah definitely shoots better than Dick. How about Joe’s expertise with firearms?
4. Candidates should not be judged only on basis of age, gender, and looks.
5. Candidate’s children are given on-stage prominence. It should be unfair to have the youngest ones debate politics, but what about having a food fight?

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• there’s the older gentleman who is resigning himself to move 400 miles away from home to be near his grandkids because his grown children had to move to Anchorage to find work to meet the utilities payments
• there’s all the older people who need an assisted living arrangement or nursing home (a 400 mile trip, if one can afford to get into Bethel from the village to get on the jet)
• there’s fuel oil at $6-15 a gallon
• there’s the Bush-Cheney stimulus payments which only went to those who have taxable income. They don’t go to those who cashed in IRAs early to pay electricity or who struggle to make sense of their returns.
• there’s electricity at 40 cents or more per kilowatt hour (with a subsidy for residences) in rural Alaska (Wasilla pays considerably less, without subsidy)
• there’s gasoline, needed to go out and “grocery shop” on the tundra or out in the river, at $6 to $18 gallon.
• there’s gaining grandmother status at 34
• there’s raising grandchildren at 70
• there’s having your one-time $1200 “energy check” from the state stolen by your children for smokes and booze

2008-09-04 Look guys, what someone else found
gov-sarah-palin-call-in-kyuk/

2008-09-04 Fact Check of Governor Palin’s Speech http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2008/09/saradise-lost-chapter-twenty-five-obama.html

PALIN: “Senator McCain also promises to use the power of veto in defense of the public interest – and as a chief executive, I can assure you it works.”
REALITY: PALIN OPPOSED CRUCIAL EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE AND SENIORS FUNDING [...]

Andrew Halcro does a fine job at http://www.andrewhalcro.com/grading_palins_speech_a

Also: tech support has a listing of reasonable sources at Sarah Palin content

2008-10-27 Palin’s gaffe about her policy on “special needs” while her record shows she has none
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlueOasis/~3/431498178/showDiary.do

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