Columnist Jane Glenn Haas Dies; New Senate-Aging Members & More
IN THIS ISSUE: “Comprehensive” Bipartisan Compromise (It’s Groundhog Day, Again).
1. REMEMBERING GEN-BEAT COLUMNIST JANE GLENN HAAS, 75
***Sen. Herb Kohl Retires Aging Committee; *** 113th Congress members of Senate Aging; *** Nine New Reports from AARP’s Middle Class Security Project
***Happy 70th and Harvard/Nieman Foundation I.F. Stone Award to New America Media (NAM) Founder Sandy Close; ***Bernard Starr’s Book answers the Question, “So-o-o, Is He Jewish, this Jesus Fellow?”
1. REMEMBERING GEN-BEAT COLUMNIST JANE GLENN HAAS, 75
*** Jane Glenn Haas, a charter member of the GBO family, died on Jan. 23.
It was indicative of Haas of the Orange County Register (OCR) to file her year-end review of 2012 with an initial complaint about the high unemployment rate persisting for seniors and older boomer and then declare, “Yes, I sound like a curmudgeon. And with good reason. After all, I am one.” That nationally syndicated column (Jan. 2) went on to describe her Christmas Day tumble, rendering her with a broken arm and no way to rise from the kitchen floor for 10 hours until a friend arrived to go out to dinner. (Jane had neglected to put on her can’t-get-up emergency button). That incident followed a total shoulder replacement last Spring requiring months of recovery (and having to drop out of her MetLife Journalists in Aging Fellowship on doctors orders).
True to Jane, though, her column stated, “Let’s turn it around.” She concluded the piece with her merrier inventory:
“My children are all happily married and their children – my gorgeous “grands” – continue to amaze and inspire. I’m working. My house is warm and my automobile is full of gas. There’s food – probably too much – in the refrigerator and pantry and I’ve even got a little money in the bank. Some of you have had worse years than I have. Most, I hope, had better. Whatever, let’s look 2013 square in the calendar and see 12 months of opportunity.” She then declared she would greet the New Year with a bottle of very good merlot.
Jane, however, won’t get to see 2013 unfold. Ever-practical and helpful, she posted her final column (Jan. 15), distributed to 300 newspapers via McClatchy News Service, with well-researched advice on how seniors can avoid falls. On the day that column appeared, though, she suffered a stroke and died eight days later.
GBO, given our topic of aging, refrains as much as possible from including obituaries. But Jane presents a notable exception. If you are not among the many journalists who knew her, you should be aware of the loss she represents in the coverage of aging. Jane Glenn Haas was the Mother Goose of the generations beat, nurturing, unflappable and always there with a good laugh and a great story.
The obit in the OCR, her paper of more than 20 years, reviewed Jane’s vitals: She died Jan. 23, at 6:30 a.m. She was 75. Since officially retiring in 2006, she continued writing as many as two syndicated columns a week for the OCR and regularly reviewed books for Orange Coast magazine.
Jane began her journalism career at the Courier News in Elgin, Ill. The editor told her he could not pay her more than $75 a week because she was a woman. (She earned her first raise within a year.)
After many years as a business journalist, she was assigned in the early 1990s, and much to her annoyance, to cover aging and retirement. She told friends later that she had known little of the topic and would have preferred more exciting things.
But, as those who knew her would expect, she plunged into the subject and before long discovered what a rich area it is. It was so substantive, in fact, that she soon refused to cover the “bungee-jumping-granny” stories. “Send someone on GA,” she say, nodding toward the general assignment desk, and she raised questions about stories that stereotype older people without exposing the serious issues that face.
Jane was much honored with the American Society on Aging’s Media Award, American Medical Writers Association’s Rose Kushner Award, American Heart Association’s C. Everett Koop Award, two Pulitzer Prize nominations, just to name a few.
So devoted to the linked issues of feminism and ageism, Jane founded WomanSage. The Register obituary quoted her colleague Marilyn Ditty, the group’s current president, “Jane created something wonderful when she started WomanSage. She helped women who are really struggling. (WomanSage) provides friendship, but also a network to help women get back on their feet.”
Jane became so widely recognized for her expertise on women’s midlife and later-life issues, she was quoted in such media as Time, the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. She also appeared on NBC’s “Today” and was a featured speaker at many conferences. For seven years, she hosted a call-in TV program on aging issues on a local TV channel. And she appeared regularly on PBS stations KCET in Los Angeles and KOCE in Orange County.
Jane, who a born in Buffalo, N.Y., wrote Time of Your Life: Why Almost Everything Gets Better After Fifty, an edited collection of her columns, and was working on another to be based on the thousands of online survey questionnaires she had collected from 50-plus women about their lives. Among the revelations challenging conventional wisdom, she told GBO once after gleaning insights from the surveys, was that a large majority of older women wanted romance and companionship-but wanted no part of another marriage: No need to protect children and too many two-family, legal and emotional complications.
With a hearty laugh, she loved to tell about the time shortly before the retirement of her husband, Bob Eaton, a former OCR copy editor, were driving somewhere and he broached the fantasy of moving to the country and opening a bed and breakfast. What a life that would be. I can’t recall her exact words, but it went something like, “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life changing beds and cleaning toilets, Bob-I’ve still got work to do.”
She spoke and wrote about that as a revelatory moment for her. Because it is so common for men to marry younger women – and then retire a few years before their spouses with Golden Years dreams that might not shine as brightly for their wives – Jane realized she had to give voice (and a wake up call) to older women. “It’s your time to speak up for yourself,” she’d convey. “We’ve still got things to do-we’re not ready to retire!” Not only did she continue writing columns, but she created WomanSage to help aging women find their voices and community together.
Jane is survived by a daughter, Joanne Lucas, of Long Beach, Calif., a son, Andrew Haas, of Keene, N.H.; and seven grandchildren. Bob and her son, Thomas Haas, both died in recent years.
Her family has requested that in lieu of flowers, contributions should be sent to WomanSage, 5319 University Drive, Suite 136, Irvine 92612. Messages to her family should be sent to 52 Seton Road, Irvine 92612.
*** GBO will include additional information and remembrances of Jane from generations beat journalists and authors in our next issue.
2. RESOURCES
*** Aging Out of and Into the 113TH Congress: U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., ended his 24 years in the Senate chamber-and his chairing of the Special Committee on Aging-with the closing of the 112th Congress. In the 113th Congress, replacing Kohl, who turns 78 on Feb. 7, will be newly elected Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin. Among her assignments, she will also serve as a member of the Committee on Aging.
*** The Special Committee on Aging’s New Chair is Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. The Ranking (minority party) Member will be Sen. Bob Corker, Jr., R-Tenn., age 61. As a Special Committee, the one on aging does not have authority to create legislation. But it does investigate issues and oversees programs. It highlights older adults’ needs and how programs serve elders well or should be improved. Nelson also remains on the all-important Finance Committee, which oversees Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and tax policy.
Besides Nelson and Baldwin (also the first open lesbian elected to Congress), other Democratic members of the committee on aging are Ron Wyden, Ore.; Robert P. Casey, Jr., Penn.; Claire McCaskill, Missouri; Sheldon Whitehouse, R.I.; Kristen Gillibrand, N.Y.; Richard Blumenthal, Conn.; Joe Donnelly, Ind; and Elizabeth Warren, Mass.
GOP members, include Corker plus members Susan Collins, Maine; Orrin Hatch, Utah; Mark Kirk, Ill.; Dean Heller, Nev.; Jeff Flake, Ariz.; Kelly Ayotte, N.H.; Tim Scott, S.C.; and Ted Cruz, Texas.
A very helpful source we tripped over on the Internet is the website Congress Merge, which as the tagline, “Data for Lobbying Congress and Grassroots Management.” It includes who is on various committees with their contact information. It also lists current congressional schedules for the coming week, such as hearings by House and Senate Committees.
*** Nine New Reports from AARP’s Middle Class Security Project, a yearlong project of the AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI) documents significant declines in aging America’s financial stability. It is the first major research release under AARP’s new director Debra Whitman, former staff director of the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
The new reports show that without changes, many younger Americans will have lower standards of living than their parents in retirement. The reports cover a range of topics, such as the impact or health costs, loss of affordable housing, rising debt and the importance of maintaining Social Security and Medicare.
Also from PPI are two sources on the effects the economic downturn has had over the last five years on older workers and current prospects for them. See “Five Years of Hard Times for Older Workers,” and check out the Huffington Post blog on older workers by long-time employment-security expert Sara Rix — “Older Workers and the Great Recession: A Look Back Over Five Years.” For those 55-plus, her analysis shows older-worker unemployment lingers at 5.9%, almost twice the rate of 3.2% in December 2007.
For more information or to get the “PPI Weekly Report” announcing things such as new reports or testimony, contact Rick Deutsch, PPI’s director of policy outreach, 202-434-3855; e-mail: ppi@aarp.org or rdeutsch@aarp.org.
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS
***Happy 70th to New America Media (NAM) Founder Sandy Close, who celebrated her birthday on Jan. 25. Close, who has run NAM’s parent organization, Pacific News Service, for most of its over four decades, was honored in 2011 with the George Polk Award for Career Achievement and previously, among many honors, received a MacArthur “genius” fellowship. This December she received the 2012 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence from Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
With Jessica Yu, Close co-produced the documentary, “Breathing Lessons,” about the life of quadriplegic journalist Mark O’Brien. The film won the 1997 Academy Award for short documentary-and is the basis for the current motion picture, “The Sessions,” starring John Hawkes and Helen Hunt. (As depicted in the movie, it was Close who gave O’Brien the assignment to interview sexual surrogate therapists who worked with severely disabled people. Although that is only briefly mentioned in the documentary, it is the basis of the motion picture.)
More to GBO’s point, it was Close, who, after years of caregiving for her late father and husband, decided to create NAM’s ethnic elders newsbeat, which is now beginning its fifth year. For those who have the privilege of knowing her, at 70, just watching the truly indefatigable Close will give you Energy Lessons.
*** So-o-o, Is He Jewish, this Jesus Fellow? Actually, he always was, say historic sources, according to gerontologist Bernard Starr, PhD. GBO’s last issue mentioned his latest book, Jesus Uncensored: Restoring the Authentic Jew. Starr drop us a note saying that the blog he filed on Huffington Post about the book got a huge response. It currently shows 1,472 “Likes.” Except that, “I now get a lot of e-mails about meeting Christian singles.”