Author: Fran Johns

Supreme Court
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Reading Along with David Souter

by Fran Johns

You have to love David Souter. First he tosses the world’s best tenured job out the window when jobs aren’t exactly going begging, then he doesn’t announce a book deal, then you start learning about his digs. The New Hampshire farmhouse, it turns out, wasn’t exactly a castle: no phone, no running water, a definition of Souter-rustic. Then you learn he has quit the farmhouse in Weare for a Cape Cod in Hopkinton. How many people do you know who uproot from Weare and resettle 8 miles away in Hopkinton? I learned this from a learned piece in the New York Times and explored some of its implications on my True/Slant blog (you’re invited.)

Here, though, is why I love David Souter: his books were getting too heavy for the farmhouse to handle. When you get too many books, you buy a house with stronger shelves. David Souter has his priorities right.

My father might have rivalled the good Justice. When he retired, after 28 years, from the 3-story house owned by the college he worked for, it fell to my sisters and me to deal with the books. Over a period of roughly two years we furnished a small room in the college library, gave away truckloads to anyone with a book-yearning appearance, divvied up another hundred or so and finally ripped the backs off — and this is as painful for the ripper as for the rippee, I suspect — of the rest so they could go to the country recyclers.

My current, final husband is in this same rarefied class: books are in stacks on the floor where they overflow the wall-to-wall shelves. But when a friend publishes something new or the Daedalus catalogue comes… well, what’s a reader to do.

I submit this Souter Plan for reviving the economy: accumulate more books, buy more shelving, move to a house with stronger walls when necessary. (Excepting this writer, please; I asked for a pre-nup that stipulates I will die first so I don’t have to deal with it all.) If everyone followed this plan we wouldn’t need Cash for Clunkers to stimulate the economy, and we’d probably have world peace because we’d all be too busy reading.

General interest
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Straight Talk Q&A on Health Reform

by Fran Johns

One of the best fact-checks re health reform I’ve seen lately was just sent out by Ricardo Alonso-Zalvidar for the Associated Press:

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin says the health care overhaul bill would set up a “death panel.” Federal bureaucrats would play God, ruling on whether ailing seniors are worth enough to society to deserve life-sustaining medical care. Palin and other critics are wrong.

Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision. The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes. Here are some questions and answers on the controversy:

Q: Does the health care bill promote “mercy killing,” or euthanasia?

A: No.

Q: Then what’s all the fuss about?

And here’s where it all started:

A: A provision in the House bill written by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills, making a close relative or a trusted friend your health care proxy, learning about hospice as an option for the terminally ill and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort.

The sessions would be covered every five years, more frequently if someone is gravely ill.

Alonso-Zaldivar covers all the basics in this brief, to-the-point article. My personal favorite opinion is also in there. It’s a comment made by Monsignor Charles Fahey, 76, a Catholic priest currently chairman of the board of the National Council on Aging:

“What I have said is that if I cannot say another prayer, if I cannot give or get another hug, and if I cannot have another martini – then let me go.”

Maybe we should put that martini provision in the bill.

via Health care overhaul bill Q&A.

General interest/Health/Politics & Causes/USA
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Justice Souter's Retirement Housing

by Fran Johns

It turns out not even Supreme Court justices are exempt from the dilemmas of senior housing. Too many steps? Too many books? What’s a retiree to do?

When he retired from the Supreme Court in June, it was expected that Justice David H. Souter would return to his beloved family farmhouse in Weare, N.H., a rustic abode with peeling brown paint, rotting beams and plenty of the solitude he desired. While the new home is only eight miles from his rustic farmhouse, the two could be worlds apart.

But Justice Souter, an individualist on and off the bench, decided to move.

On July 30, he bought a 3,448-square-foot Cape Cod-style home in neighboring Hopkinton listed at $549,000. The single-floor home, for which he paid a reported $510,000, sits on 2.36 well-manicured acres.

This is not going to work for the downsizers who don’t have access to a cheap, reliable lawn service. But it’s easy to pinpoint a few of Justice Souter’s upgrades in the downsize:

The farmhouse has no phone lines; the Hopkinton house has “multiple,” according to the real estate listing. The farmhouse’s lawn was spotted with brown; the Hopkinton house has a verdant lawn and neatly trimmed hedges. And for Justice Souter, 69, who is known to be a fitness buff, there is a home gym as well as a spa bath.

Or, he can just mow his own lawn. The core issue, however, is closer to those reported by hundreds who are opting for retirement apartments, urban condos and other housing choices mentioned in earlier columns.

Justice Souter told a Weare neighbor, Jimmy Gilman, that the two-story farmhouse was not structurally sound enough to support the thousands of books he owns, according to The Concord Monitor, and that he wished to live on one level.

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor will want to keep a lid on her library shelves.

Off the Bench, Souter Leaves Farmhouse Behind – NYTimes.com.

Health/Money/Politics & Causes
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Can We Hear It for Truth-Telling?

by Fran Johns

Although the They’re going to kill the grannies! campaign continues, some heavyweight voices of sanity are being heard above the roar. Sojourners founder/author/activist Jim Wallis weighed in Friday with a few choice words of wisdom:

I have said that one important moral principle for the health care debate is truth-telling. For decades, the physical health and well-being of our country has been a proxy battle for partisan politics. Industry interests and partisan fighting are once again threatening the current opportunity for a public dialogue about what is best for our health-care system. What we need is an honest and fair debate with good information, not sabotage of reform with half-truths and misinformation.

Yet in recent weeks, conservative radio ads have claimed that health-care reform will kill the elderly (it won’t), that it will include federal funding for abortion (it doesn’t), and that it is a socialist takeover of the health-care system (it isn’t). The organizations promoting these claims, including some Religious Right groups, are either badly misinformed, or they are deliberately distorting reality.

I think it’s all of the above. But what’s particularly frightening is the number of people who, hearing these messages over and over, are passing them along as presumed truth. My Inbox is having some dark days thanks to conservative friends wanting to know if I’m aware of one untruth or another. Because I have some conservative friends I like and respect, I try to listen, understand their points of view and keep lines of communication open — but it’s getting hard. Wallis cites one reason why:

A particularly egregious example is an ad that the Family Research Council has run in selected states. It depicts an elderly man and his wife sitting at their kitchen table. He turns to his wife and says, “They won’t pay for my surgery. What are we going to do?” He continues, “and to think that Planned Parenthood is included in the government-run health care plan and spending tax dollars on abortion. They won’t pay for my surgery, but we’re forced to pay for abortion.”

These kinds of ads should be stopped. They do not contribute to the debate that is needed to ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care. It is rather exactly the kind of misinformation campaign that could destroy needed reform.

It’s going to be a long, hard August.

Jim Wallis: Truth-telling and Responsibility in Health Care.

General interest/Health/Money/Politics & Causes/USA
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Ethical dilemmas for one and all

by Fran Johns

In case you don’t have enough medical/political/ethical dilemmas on your plate, William Saletan tossed out a hefty bunch, in last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, to chew on:

The most powerful revolutions of our age aren’t happening in Washington, the Muslim world or the global economy. They’re happening in science and technology. At a pace our ancestors couldn’t have imagined, we’re decoding, replicating and transforming the human body. These revolutions are changing how we live, what we think and who we are.

Bodies used to be unalterably separate. Yours was yours; mine was mine. That isn’t true anymore. Organ transplantation has made human parts interchangeable. Thanks to aging and obesity, global demand for kidneys and liver tissue is increasing. Meanwhile, anti-rejection drugs and other innovations have turned more and more of us into potential donors. But supply isn’t keeping up with demand, so doctors, patients and governments are becoming more aggressive. Death is being declared more quickly so organs can be harvested. Rich people are buying kidneys from poor people. Governments are trying financial inducements to encourage donation. The latest proposals, outlined in Sally Satel’s “When Altruism Isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors” (2008), include tax credits, tuition vouchers and cash. As pressure grows from the left through socialized medicine, and from the right through free markets, organs will increasingly be treated either as a commodity or as a community resource.

The one that catches my eye (see Looking at One’s Own End-of-Life Choices, 7/30; Palliative Care: Rush Limbaugh vs the Grannies, 7/24, and a slew of other recent posts) is confronted in a reasonable, head-on fashion.

Beyond transplantation and mechanization looms the broader question of longevity. Over the last half-century, the age a 65-year-old American could expect to reach has increased by one year per decade. In 1960, it was 79. Today, it’s 84. Life expectancy at birth has passed 78 in the United States and 83 in Japan. We have no idea where these trends will end. It’s been just six years since we decoded the first human genome and less than two years since we learned how to make adult cells embryonic.

The cost of caring for old people will be enormous, but that’s just the beginning. We’re fixing and replacing worn-out body parts for older and older patients. How much life do we owe them?

The long-run solution, outlined by Robert N. Butler in “The Longevity Revolution” (2008), is to treat longer life as a resource, not just a goal. That means exploiting its benefits, like wisdom and equanimity, while focusing medicine and lifestyle changes on extending health and productivity rather than dragging out the last bedridden months.

It is well past time for us to stop looking at prolongation of life, regardless of quality, as the be-all-and-end-all of health care. Religious groups, right-wing factions and assorted others are screaming that even coverage of honest conversation with one’s physician about prognosis, treatment and options is going to shove people into early graves. But conversations of such sort, and civil discourse in general, are desperately needed.

OK, according to the above statistics this writer still has eight years before my projected demise; but I am definitely one of the grannies Mr. Limbaugh and his ilk profess to be protecting. Thanks very much; rather than drawn-out bed-ridden months I will take wisdom and equanimity any day, if our health care reformists will please focus on addressing health and productivity for all ages. Problem is, the voices of “protection” are drowning out the voices of reason. Which makes this not just a dilemma but a potential national tragedy.

Crossroads – You – The Updated Owner’s Manual – NYTimes.com.

General interest
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Independent living – An all-generations issue

by Fran Johns

My friend Tom, well past retirement age, worries not only about his own future as calamitous health problems mount up, but with the future of his son, who has Asperger’s syndrome. Long an advocate for mental health and volunteer with the National Association for Mental Illness (NAMI), Tom knows the pitfalls and opportunities and options; none provide guarantees for his son’s future.

One innovative possibility for shepherding people with autism (Asperger’s is a form of autism) into a brighter future is being launched this fall in California, and was outlined by Michael Bernick, former Director of the California Employment Development Department, in an op ed piece in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.

The California State University East Bay campus in the Hayward hills is the site of an unusual experiment in higher education for people with autism. Starting in the fall quarter, college-age autistics will be encouraged to attend and build an educational community; one that draws on the autistics’ unusual academic strengths. The experiment will test the possibilities for autistics in a university setting, and more generally the possibilities for a range of students with disabilities.

Twenty years ago in California and across the nation autism was largely invisible. Today, rarely a day goes by that there is not an article regarding autism in the news media. The shelves of bookstores and libraries are filled with books on causation of autism, early intervention, parenting and even “warrior mothers” of autistics.

In earlier generations, people with autism and a variety of other mental illnesses that might well have responded to education and treatment wound up in institutions. Boomers are the first generation to consider people on the autism spectrum in two new lights: they are many, and they may be able to live with a degree of independence.

A (California) Senate report estimates that by the year 2012 at least 70,000 autistics will be registered with the state’s Regional Center system, and the number of Californians with a condition on the autistic spectrum will number more than 350,000. The emerging Center for College Students with Autistic Spectrum Disorders is an attempt to open wider higher education for autistics. The young adults with autism, born in California in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the number of diagnosed cases of autism grew geometrically, are now reaching college age. They and their parents are faced with life after high school. In particular, they are challenged to find alternatives to a life of dependency and Social Security payments that has been the main lot of adult autistics in California.

Those of us on my block have watched a young neighbor with autism grow into adulthood, sometimes with exasperation but always with a degree of affectionate admiration. We despaired over the decibel level of his voice, but there weren’t a lot of dry eyes by the end of his bar mitzvah. Maybe we’ll carpool to his college graduation.

As with the need for older adults to remain independent and as productive as they can or wish to be, autistics aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from such programs as the one coming to Cal State Hayward.

Imagine Raymond Babbitt of “Rain Man” in college. Might it not be a better alternative for him, and much less expensive for society, than institutionalization or the SSI/SSDI government system? Might he even bring unusual skills that can enrich university life for others?

via College for autistics.

Health/USA
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Beavers in Manhattan, Mink in California

by Fran Johns
Mink
Image via Wikipedia

Maybe beavers have little in common with Boomers, or Beyonders, but after reading T/S Contributor Caitlin Kelley’s Canada/NY beaver piece just now I felt compelled to respond with today’s news of California urban mink. Their newly discovered presence was documented by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Jones:

First, there were beavers. Then otters and muskrats.

And now – as if the Martinez Public Works Department needed more cute, furry mammals paddling around Alhambra Creek – there are mink.

Ten months after the city spent $500,000 to shore up the eroding creek bank, a condition many blamed on the beavers and their obsessive handiwork, a mother mink and four babies were spotted this week cavorting near the beaver’s primary dam, just north of the Escobar Street bridge in downtown Martinez.

The silky, razor-toothed critters have apparently taken up residence in the pond created by the beavers’ dam, along with a variety of other aquatic wildlife.

But then again, maybe there IS some relevance. Recent posts re health and housing, which seem to be atop the news for over-50 generations if not everyone else too these days, have had friends asking if there isn’t something ELSE to write about? Well, yes. Exercise and fitness. The absolute best of which is snagging a half hour or two and heading out to circle the Central Park reservoir or roam around Golden Gate Park, or wherever your city walking place of choice happens to be. Mine is 16th Street, San Francisco, start at the Bay, end at Market (or continue whatever direction from there) and you’ll encounter every ethnic/social/business/industry/arts category you could want and the views aren’t bad at the tops of the hills. But back to the mink:

Mink are native to the area but are highly unusual. They’re more often spotted in the delta or the Sierra Nevada, but their population could be rising because of the decreasing popularity of mink coats, Bell said.

Maureen Flannery, collections manager for the ornithology and mammalogy department at the California Academy of Sciences, also confirmed that the animals in question are Neovison vison, a.k.a. American mink.

The babies probably were born in April or May and will stay with their mother until fall, when they will head out to claim their own territories, she said.

I’ve also had questions about food-and-nutrition writing, this being another biggie for over-50s (under-50s are either already sold on healthy lifestyles or eating pizza and sushi and fries and just not giving a damn about calories and cholesterol.) And fine dining also enters this late-breaking news:

Dan Murphy, owner of Bertola’s restaurant adjacent to the beavers’ dam, was also taking a wait-and-see attitude. Liability concerns over the restaurant’s weakening foundation were one reason the city decided to shore up the creek bank last fall.

“I don’t really care,” Murphy said. “Although I guess the creek’s becoming more and more of a habitat, which is pretty cool.”

Martinez vice mayor Mike Menesini, proclaiming his “a very welcoming city” is waiting to see how this newly-mixed community gets along.

So far, the mink, beavers, muskrats, otters and turtles have adopted an attitude of mutual indifference. The crayfish aren’t so lucky – they’re often dinner for their carnivorous creek-mates.

The Beaver Fest in downtown Martinez today features bagpipes, bluegrass and jazz bands. Dancing in the streets is good exercise too.

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