The Baby Boomer Generation is a source for trends, research, comment and discussion of and by people born from 1946 - 1964.
Covering issues on the Boomer Generation including original content for Boomers, bulletin boards, user comments, Sixties and Seventies music, Baby Boomer culture, health and coverage of issues for "Aging Hipsters."
August 10, 2010
Predicting Alzheimer's: In Time for Baby Boomers?
If, like me, you tend to worry neurotically about the perils of old-age, especially Alzheimer's Disease, the news about new early testing for Alzheimer's will either cheer you or terrify you. Spinal tap testing and PET scans are not yet available to the public, but it would be nice for Baby Boomers if they'd hurry up.
While probably not cause for immediate hysteria, possible changes in Social Security could effect Boomers. The NY Times has a good overview of potential Social Security scenarios.
According to this article on the Huffington Post, Millennials--our kids, in other words--"study harder and more often, engage in more community service, participate in greater numbers of extracurricular activities, and hold a more optimistic outlook on the future than any other generation in modern history. "
Considering all the crap Boomer parents took for 'helicopter parenting,' over-involvement in our kids lives, and stressing self-esteem above much else, it looks like perhaps we did something right after all.
Just when I thought I was ready to break down and try hormone replacement therapy, I read this article in the NY Times Magazine. It seems that, with the exception of boomer women on the younger edge of the continuum, many of us are already too old to use estrogen to smooth out the menopausal and post-menopausal crazies. Cynthia Gorney explains the 'timing hypothesis' of estrogen's benefits and risks. Bummer.
We were alerted to this documentary by a friend of AgingHipsters on Facebook. Here's what we know:
KINGKENNEDY is a unique feature film that tells the story of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. It has been made entirely from archive material with no narration or talking heads. The film speaks for itself. Watching KINGKENNEDY is a powerful and moving experience. Its message of freedom, dignity, equality and hope is as important today as it was in the sixties.
Check out their website to learn how you can help funding to facilitate the film's release: KingKennedy.com
If you haven't seen Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style blog yet, you're in for a treat. Older women rock--but we already knew that. One of the best parts of getting older just might be giving a giant finger to fashion trends that favor 15 year-old anorexics and letting our fashion flag fly. Perhaps it just takes a certain accumulation of experience to pull off such individual and exceptional style.
Here we go again - quick to seize on any bit of falsehood, the blogsphere, Facebook included, is abuzz with the still unsubstantiated rumor that Faisal Shahzad (the Times Square bomber) is a registered Democrat. And your point is what?
Painting with a broad brush like this is disingenuous, and designed solely for the purpose of pandering. If I believe the subtext of this rumor, then because I'm a Democrat, I must be an Islamic terrorist. Or worse yet, because I registered as a Republican in 1974, I must be some rabid tea partier. Neither of which is true.
Frankly, I think what I'm hearing is a collective sigh of relief from the right that this guy wasn't some home-grown terrorist, or a registered Republican like Timothy McVey. Fact is, these guys are stone-cold killers motivated by what they believe is a higher purpose - and party affiliation has nothing to do with their dementia.
And in case the right-leaning megaphone is about to blame Obama's immigration policy for giving this guy his citizenship, the facts are he got his Green Card during the Bush administration and he was a naturalized citizen by virtue of his marriage to an U.S. citizen.
Doesn't anyone check the source of this stuff? Are we so dead-set on advancing a myopic view that we lose sight of the obvious?