Hello, Mauritius, our 100th country
We’re still a very new website—just 9 months and a few weeks—but our scrawny tentacles are stretching slowly around the globe. We are very pleased to announce that the island nation of Mauritius just became our 100th country. Well, strictly speaking, it’s not our country. It’s a country from which someone visited us. But we...
Fitness is the big have
If it seems to you that everything breaks down into haves and have-nots, you are as smart as you think you are. It’s a barbell world. You are at one end or the other. The middle class that connects the two extremes grows thinner and bends under the stress until it adopts a parabolic shape...
Saturday mash-up: May 5, 2012
Yes, yes. A day late. But what is time if life is an eternity? You are exhausted with special events—Tax Day, National Parks Week, Derby Day—so you may have failed to notice that May is Older Americans Month. You should go to the web site, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration...
Happy John Muir Day, Happy Earth Day
So much to celebrate. In case you missed it, California Governor Jerry Brown proclaimed yesterday as John Muir Day, and he urged Californians to visit one of the state’s “public open spaces.” A bit of a catchall, that—one that would in theory include a municipal parking garage—so he quickly clarified that he meant a “national...
Howdy, Mongolia!
We did it! February 24, on our six-month anniversary (yes, it does sound like something high school sweethearts would say), we did what connivers always do: we professed our affection, and our thanks, and then asked for something in return. Specifically, we asked our good readers to help us reach just one reader in Mongolia....
Help us find our first Mongolian reader!
Gentle reader, if you have at your disposal some way to forward a link to this web site to a kind soul in Ulan Bator, or anywhere else in the fine high country of Mongolia, please do so. Here’s why: As of today, we’re six months into this experiment and reasonably...
We take your point: let the old birds fly
This probably doesn’t count as an exposé because, well, no one tries to hide it. But the story in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is nevertheless shocking and appalling. The Journal reports that the “fastest-growing population in federal and state prisons are those 55 and older,” and the cost...
The secret to a reasonable retirement: flee the country
As America ages—and it’s really aging—America’s newspapers and websites are churning out lists of great places to retire. Sadly, these survey stories are meaningless for a large proportion of older folks because (as reported a few weeks ago) a staggeringly high percentage of Americans have only a pittance set aside for retirement....
More magical thinking about retirement
The seventh annual Retirement Survey from Wells Fargo, released last week from the company’s headquarters on top of its huge mountain of government money, is thought-provoking. But not in a good way. It is thought-provoking because it reveals so much recklessness, fecklessness, and denial. And those qualities make us stop...
The Silent Generation? Really?
The Pew Center is doing interesting work on how people use the internet. Did you know that the thing people do the most online is search, and second most is get health information? At every age. So teenagers and olds are all preoccupied with their bodies and how they are...
