GBO NEWS: Bill Maher’s Ageism in Mirror; Oscar Nominees; New Books
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
Feb. 14, 2014 — Volume 14, Number 2
Editor’s Note: GBO News, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generation publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. If you receive the table of contents as an e-mail, just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org.
IN THIS ISSUE: A Valentine for Labors of Love.
1. FISCAL REFORM SCHOOL: Bill Maher Sees Mirror and Hates Old People; ***Solid Sources on Myth and Manipulation of Generational War
2. EYES ON THE PRIZE – AND OSCAR, TOO: Three Aging Related Oscar-Nominated Short Documentaries; *** Molly (Ivins) Awards Deadline; *** Pacific Freelancer Awards Deadline
3. THE STORY BOARD: David Sirota on PBS pension series conflict; ***Floyd Norris on “Who killed pensions? Can they be resurrected?”; ***Mark Miller on elder poverty; ***Mandi Woodruff on high need for Social Security; ***Rich Eisenberg’s “Guide To Self-Employment Retirement Plans”; ***Paul Kleyman’s “Little Help for Prisoners Released After Decades”
4. THE BOOKMOBILE: Two from Vanderbilt University Press—***Beth Baker’s With a Little Help From Our Friends: Creating Community as We Grow Older and ***Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family Caregiving edited by caregiving expert Carol Levine; ***Changing the Way We Die: Compassionate End-of-Life Care and the Hospice Movement by Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel.
1. FISCAL REFORM SCHOOL
The verbal rampage begins: “In the battle for government giveaways, we have to stop thinking in terms of rich versus poor, or black versus white, and admit it’s really a war between the young and the old . . . . These days, when Grandpa finds a quarter behind your ear, he keeps it.”
And goes on: “But let’s not kid ourselves where our tax dollar goes. It goes to Grandma, because she votes, and young people don’t.”
And on: “Why, if seniors are having all this government subsidized fun, why are they the angriest people politically?”
The screechings of former GOP Sen. Alan K. Simpson about “greedy geezers” who suck on Social Security like “a milk cow with 310 million tits”?
Nope. It was merely Simpson’s lazy “liberal” proxy, Bill Maher on HBO.
Yes, that Bill Maher, who has tagged his show, “satirized for your protection,” is funny enough, unless you actually know something about his targeted topic. Let’s concede that he’s really a soft-core Jon Stewart. Maybe Maher’s network, HBO, can’t afford the thorough news research staff Comedy Central seems to pop for “The Daily Show.”
Maher’s “New Rule” this last week can’t get much past a government report showing that “between 2006-11, Medicare spent over $172 million dollars of taxpayer money on penis pumps.”
The cuts he mentions for “Head Start, nutrition assistance, and child welfare,” not because of Tea Party anti-tax fervor, but those – dirty old men. What an original and stereotype-defying insight. Anybody check to see if the Koch brothers got penis pumps? (Platinum, of course, gushing Texas crude.)
In the name of gender equality, Maher makes sure Grandma gets hers, too: “These days, when Grandma yells, ‘Bingo!’ it’s because an old vet just found her G-spot.”
All of which leads to Maher’s revelation from, “respectable news sources (well, one, anyhow, CBS). We quote the ineloquent comic in cablese: “There is a phenomenon occurring where people in nursing homes are now fucking like rabbits on an adjustable bed.”
To bolster his case that seniors profligate in their public spending are driven by post-adolescent super-libidos, Maher cites a CDC study reported by CNN showing the rise in venereal disease among older adults. But had his research staff actually read the online article, they’d have noted this line: “… Adults aged 45 to have nearly tripled over the past decade.” Not exactly the nursing home set. Anyone not know that Medicare, doesn’t start paying the bills until age 65, unless you are severely disabled?
That is, no tax dollars were harmed in the sanitizing of Maher’s punch-line research.
The 57-year-old funless man also seems not to get the point of the study, that our age-denying society is ignoring an increasing public health issue due to lack of awareness by both our rapidly aging public and the health care professionals who are failing to test and advise them on the matter.
No doubt, factual retorts tend to flop like rubber chickens at the feet of court jesters. The sad fact is, though, that this one, a presumptive liberal, purporting to represent the smart middle with a presumably independent tongue-wag, draws a pretty large and influential audience. Liberal, conservative or middling, though, the truth about elder affluence is undeniable.
In California alone—where Maher lives- the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research has shown in numerous studies facts such as that over 50% of those 65—plus in the state – a half million elders – live on incomes that are below double the meagerly federal poverty line. UCLA’s extensive research, being replicated nationally uses the new poverty measure called the Elder Index to show what seniors really need to meet their monthly expenses.
Just consider that the current U.S. poverty level is $11,670 for an individual—for all of 2014, Mr. Maher, not per month. The Elder Index finds older people need about double that (roughly $23,000 a year) just to cover food, clothing, shelter, transportation and increasing out-of-pocket health care costs (not counting the Astroglide Maher seems obsessed with). And half of the Golden State’s Golden Agers don’t earn more than that much.
*** Solid Sources on Myth of Generational War: GBO News readers interested in some actual facts (not a redundancy in this case) about why income inequality in the United States IS a matter of “rich versus poor, or black versus white,” and clearly not about generational warfare, here’s a list of just a few genuine experts on the neverending entitlement debate:
- Henry J. Aaron, Brookings Institution senior scholar and the “Hammerin’ Hank” of social insurance. Here’s a link to an incisive paper answering a colleague on the idea that the government spends too much on seniors at the expense of the young.
- Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute’s, who wrote a pretty good blog last year, “Kids vs. Seniors: An UrbanMyth.”
- Robert B. Hudson, editor of the Gerontological Society of America’s Public Policy and Aging Report, and who commented tersely about Maher’s New Rule, “It’s not seniors beating up on kids; it’s conservatives beating up on kids: FAP –> SSI . . . AFDC –> TANF.”
- Eric Kingson, distinguish Syracuse University professor and cofounder of Social Security Works, currently interviewed by Peter McDermott in the Irish Echo (Feb. 5).
- Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, gets the last word, as a journalist should. The headline on the Pulitzer Prize winner’s Feb. 10 column says it all: “What Bill Maher got wrong about spending on young vs. old: Everything.”
2. EYES ON THE PRIZE – AND OSCAR, TOO
*** Three Oscar Nominees in the Short Documentary Category (out of five) are on themes of aging and are well worth viewing. We loved Bruce Dern in Nebraska, Judi Dench in Philomena and Kate Blanchette’s midlife decline into mental illness in Blue Jasmine, but for a non-fiction reality check on later live, check out these three if you can before the March 2 Oscar-cast:
* Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall by Edgar Barens (see trailer here), who previously produced Angola Prison Hospice: Opening the Door, about end-of-life care in Louisiana, and A Sentence of Their Own, chronicling a family’s annual pilgrimage to a New Hampshire State Prison “making visible the gradual descent of a family ‘doing time’ on the outside,” says his website.
The latest film, Prison Terminal profiles the final months of a decorated war veteran over 80 in a model prison hospice program in Iowa. HBO, which supported the project, will premiere the documentary on March 31.
* Cavedigger by Jeffrey Karoff observes the ferociously independent artist Ra Paulette, who sculpts elegant caves out of New Mexico’s sandstone cliffs. The artist, 65, epitomizes both the creative drive and driven folly of the boomer generation.
* The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life by Malcolm Clarke is a rich profile of Alice Herz Sommer, age 109, a classical pianist, Holocaust survivor and joyous optimist who spends most of her days playing Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Her parents were friend of Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka, and Alice rose to the German concert stage. But her greatest life lessons came in Nazi concentration camps.
***Get Your Dander Up for the Molly (Ivins) Awards: The deadline is March 17, 2014 for The Texas Observer and The Texas Democracy Foundation’s receipt of entries for the MOLLY National Journalism Award, honoring the late and fabulous Molly Ivins. This one’s a biggie — $5,000 first prize and $1,000 each for two Honorable Mentions. This year’s prize will be awarded for an article or series (up to four related articles or columns) “telling the stories that need telling, challenging conventional wisdom, focusing on civil liberties and/or social justice, and embodying the intelligence, deep thinking and/or passionate wit that marked Molly’s work.” Hopefully you don’t have to be funnier than a George W. Bush spit-take to compete. (Oh, how we miss Ivins’ unconventional wisdom.)
Winners will be feted at an awards dinner on Tuesday, June 3, 2014, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas, with a keynote by “a special guest.” (Past keynoters have included Dan Rather, Ellen Goodman, Seymour Hersh, Gail Collins and Paul Krugman.) Check out the MOLLY Awards entry guidelines. For information on the award, , contact mollyawards@texasobserver.org, or call 512-477-0746.
*** Pacific Freelancer Awards Deadline: The Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, the San Francisco-based affiliate of The Newspaper Guild, announced that March 17 is the entry deadline for its first contest in photography, multimedia and creative writing categories both for students and professional journalists. Freelancers in California and Hawaii can submit entries published or broadcast during 2013. Awards will be presented at a reception May 10 in San Francisco. All entries must be online. Students and members of the Pacific Media Workers Guild may enter for free. Non-members will be charged a $10 fee per entry or $25 for three entries.
3. THE STORY BOARD
GBO News invites readers to submit headlines with hyperlinks for the “Story Board” department for stories on aging in any format by you or others that catch your fancy. Send them to pkleyman@newamericamedia.org. Don’t be shy!
*** David Sirota hits PBS in “The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS’s news division,” in his PandoDaily column (Feb. 12). Sirota reports that PBS’s new two-year news series, “The Pension Peril,” is being “secretly funded by former Enron trader John Arnold, a billionaire political powerbroker who is actively trying to shape the very pension policy that the series claims to be dispassionately covering.” He writes, “The series, promoting cuts to public employee pensions, is airing on hundreds of PBS outlets all over the nation. It has been presented as objective news on major PBS programs including the PBS News Hour.” But neither PBS’ primary presenting station, WNET in New York, nor PBS has in broadcast segments have revealed the potential conflict of interest.
***Floyd Norris, chief business correspondent for the New York Times, wrote about some real rules over elders’ income security in his Feb. 7 column, blandly headlined, “Ideas to Make Retirement Possible.” His lead asks, “Who killed pensions? Can they be resurrected?” Note: NYT may require free registration before providing articles.
*** Mark Miller devoted his Reuters column (Feb. 11) to “Elder poverty–however you measure it–is not going away.” He asks, “Is the war on elder poverty over?” And goes on, “Fewer seniors fall into the federal government’s official measure of poverty than younger Americans. The official poverty rate in 2010 for Americans over age 65 was 9.1 percent, much lower than the 15.1 percent rate for all Americans.” But the federal poverty rate falls far short of or reflects the true costs of what seniors to make ends meet.
Miller adds, “The National Academy of Social Insurance [www.nasi.org] projects that in 2015, Social Security will replace 35 percent of the median worker’s pre-retirement income at age 65 — down from 39 percent in 2002. And the replacement rate will fall further by 2030, to 31 percent.”
*** Mandi Woodruff (Yahoo Finance, Feb. 11) wrote, “Retired and Broke: Social Security and the struggle to make it last.” She explains, “Despite the fact that it was never meant to act as a main source of income, nearly one in five married retirees and one in two unmarried retirees say they rely on Social Security for the bulk of their income, according to the Social Security Administration.”
*** Richard Eisenberg posted “A Guide To Self-Employment Retirement Plans,” on Forbes, (Jan. 22). Eisenberg, who is also assistant managing editor the PBS Next Avenue website, leads the piece (freelancers, listen up) with this plea: “Self-employed people, I know you’re crazy busy. But please take the time and initiative to set up and fund a tax-advantaged retirement plan for yourself. By doing so, you’ll not only make your financial future more secure, you can save a boatload of taxes now — and maybe even lower your 2013 taxes.” The article offers a breakdown of the savings and investment options. Well worth checking out.
***GBO Editor Paul Kleyman shamelessly plugs his latest, “Little Help for Prisoners Released After Decades,” on New America Media (Feb 10). It’s about efforts to reduce the huge and costly U.S. prison population mean more 50+ inmates will be released. But they’ll need help beyond housing and an income.
4. THE BOOKMOBILE
***With a Little Help for Our Boomers: With what GBO News assumes to be a 50-plus-years nod to Ringo Starr, author Beth Baker is just issuing With a Little Help From Our Friends: Creating Community as We Grow Older (Vanderbilt University Press, paper, $24.95, April 2014). Baker, features editor of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and veteran freelancer for Washington Post, AARP Bulletin, Washingtonian, Ms. Magazine and others, examines alternative living arrangements among aging boomers. Some she covers are niche communities created by superannuated postal workers, gays and lesbians, as well as Zen Buddhists. The book also looks at cohousing out of Colorado, co-ops in Oregon, a senior artists colony in L.A., “Villages” mushrooming up everywhere, and multigenerational extended familiesl. Advance reading copies are available from Sue Havlish, 615-343-2446, sue.havlish@vanderbilt.edu. For Interviews, contact Baker at 301-270-8969; bethbaker@starpower.net.
An e-galley (for all e-readers, even Kindle) via Edelweiss, is available via Edelweiss. Havlish also notes, if you’re an Edelweiss user, simply request a copy online there or just click here. (Registration is free for media and publishing professionals: edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com.) If you are not a regular Edelweiss user and would like to access the e-galley, just e-mail Havlish, and she’ll send you the quick link to download.
***Literary Caring: Vanderbilt is also coming out with Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family Caregiving, billed as “the first anthology of short stories and poems about family caregivers … men and women [who] find themselves in ‘limbo,’ as they struggle to take care of a family member or friend in the uncertain world of chronic illness.” Among the represented authors and poets, living and gone, are Julie Otsuka, Rick Moody (the fiction writer, not the gerontologist), Gish Jen, Li-Young Lee, Tony Hoagland, W. S. Merwin, Robert Pinsky, Raymond Carver, Mary Gordon, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon and Alice Munro.
Especially interesting to those in the world of gerontology is that the anthology’s editor is MacArthur Fellow Carol Levine, who directs the United Hospital Fund’s Families and Health Care Project. Levine, who has written eloquently about caregiving for her quadriplegic husband following an accident, is the editor of Always On Call: When Illness Turns Families into Caregivers (2nd ed., Vanderbilt University Press, 2004).
An unfortunate aspect of Living in the Land of Limbo, however, is that a book that might have broader public appeal is priced, at least in it’s initial hardcover edition, at $49.95 for academic, institutional and library sales. Here’s the Edelweiss link for an e-copy.
*** Changing the Way We Die: Compassionate End-of-Life Care and the Hospice Movement, adds substantially to the recent stream of books and articles on end-life-care, such as Katy Butler’s bestselling Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death, and New America Media’s special multicultural website, “Palliative and Hospice Care”. The coauthors are national freelancer Fran Smith, who shared in a Pulitzer Prize while a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, and Psychology Today blogger Shelia Himmel, a long-time contributor to such media as the New York Times and Washington Post.
The book’s website includes brief excerpts and a list of upcoming events through mid-April at this point, with appearances in the NYC area and California. For media review copies and press materials contact Eileen Duhné eduhne@comcast.net. And check their publisher’s website for the book at Viva Editions. For interviews, contact the authors: Fran Smith or Sheila Himmel.
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