Senior Women Web

Author: SeniorWomenWeb

  • FactCheck and Arizona’s ‘Papers, Please’ Law

    FactCheck.org says that “We’ll leave it to others to decide whether Arizona’s new immigration law is a good thing or a bad thing — but here we try to straighten out some of the confusing factual claims. First, a quick summary. Contrary to what the law’s defenders often say, the new statute does more than merely mirror federal law. For example:

    • It’s a state crime for an illegal immigrant to apply for a job, or to solicit work publicly.
    • The law also makes it a misdemeanor for a citizen driving a vehicle to stop to hire anyone if that “impedes” traffic.
    • Citizens will be able to sue officials or agencies whose policies interfere with vigorous enforcement of federal immigration law.

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  • Do You Upload Videos? You’re Not Alone if You Answered Yes

    Women are now just as likely as men to upload and share videos, and social networking sites like Facebook are as popular as video-sharing sites like YouTube as locations for video uploading.

    Among video uploaders, there is considerable variation in terms of who they share their videos with, who they believe is watching, and concerns about how their video may be used.  One in three uploaders (31%) say they “always” place restrictions on who can access their videos, while 50% say they “never” do this.  The remaining 19% fall somewhere in the middle.

    Seven in ten adult internet users (69%) have used the internet to watch or download video. That represents 52% of all adults in the United States.

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  • A Place in the City

    by Mary Ann Sternberg

    I call it a cat-sitting gig but, in truth, the two weeks I spend in a friend’s apartment on New York’s upper west side in June, sieving the litter box and purring back at a feline, is the only way I’ve found to fulfill my lifelong fantasy of living in Manhattan.

    I’ve wanted to live in the city since the mid-1960s when, as a college girl from New Orleans, I spent four years in Poughkeepsie and took every possible opportunity to explore New York City. My plan was to live and work there happily ever after college.

    However, life, as it tends to do, unfolded differently and I returned to Louisiana. New York became a destination for business trips with my husband or the occasional holiday — always exhilarating, whirlwind visits, but never long enough. Shortly after my husband died, however, I learned that my friend Wendy needed company for her cats Happy and Eva while she and her husband spent time at a family cottage on the Maine coast. Did I want to stay in her apartment?

    Which is how the longstanding desire to live in the city, even if only for two weeks every year, came to be a reality.

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  • Older But Happier

    Arthur Stone, Professor and Vice Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook and colleagues at Columbia, Princeton, and Gallup have produced a detailed analysis of how Americans perceive well-being at various ages. They found that after age 50, life perceptions are more positive and feelings of worry or stress decline. This perception is consistent after age 50, regardless of certain life circumstances.

    Titled  “A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the US,” the study is based on a 2008 Gallup-Healthways telephone survey of more than 340,000 adults in the United States. The research findings confirm earlier reports that between the ages of 18 and 50, perceptions of global well-being tend to decline with age, while after age 50, perceptions become more positive as people grow older, creating a U-shaped curve when ratings are plotted by age.

    According to the researchers, the reasons for this pattern remain unknown. The analyses performed by Dr. Stone and colleagues indicate that changes in perception of well-being are not associated with having a partner, having children at home, or employment status.

  • Excerpt from The Hundred Year Diet by Susan Yager

    Book Excerpt

    Introduction

    Dinner is being served. Young women with beautiful, clear complexions, bright eyes, and abundant good health are waiting on “invalids” seated at long wooden tables. This scenario has the potential for communal dining at its best— convivial conversation and laughter turning casual acquaintances into friends — but if it weren’t for the sounds of eating, the opulent dining hall would be silent. Talk is difficult because everyone is chewing profusely, at least 100 times before swallowing each mouthful, and then meticulously jotting down the portion size and weight for every food choice made. This eating is serious business, and joyless. What must be accomplished is explained clearly: “Cut calories to one-half of normal number until loss of flesh has been secured,” and “Fletcherize,” which means gnashing all food to a liquid pulp before swallowing it.

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  • Shopping at Beyond Wonderland, Decades of Style Patterns and Brook Farm General Store

    Three varied sources provided shopping destinations for the home, low-cost and attractive jewelery and accessories,  as well as vintage sewing patterns.

    We found Beyond Wonderland at the Maker Faire in San Mateo (California) recently and had a hard time deciding on our choices. Headbands and hairclips were excellent picks for grandchildren and we considered the button earrings for ourselves.  Zipper pouches were another practical use put to the marvelous fabrics available at this site. There are iPhone cases, ribbon bracelets, card holders and wallets to tempt as well.

    At the same Faire, Decades of Styles Patterns have lured many a sewer, including one of our daughters, featuring “high-quality reproductions of the original sewing patterns. The eras covered are from 1900 through 1959.  And we have 9 sizes available in every style from bust size 30″ up through bust size 46! Select styles are available in 12 sizes.”

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  • Digging for Roots

    by Julia Sneden

    About 30 years ago, my husband, who is possessed of an inquisitive mind and remarkable organizational skills, was asked if he could help a relative figure out a genealogical question. It didn’t take much to set John off on a search that answered the question, and his success eventually led him to what has become his avocation. He’s this family’s go-to source for information about my family as well as his, and as the word has gotten out, about the families of a number of friends, too. He has made some surprising discoveries.

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  • Senate Armed Services Committee Votes for Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

    The House of Representatives passed (by recorded vote: 229 – 186) the reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, containing the amendment cited below; service members are urged not ‘to come out of the closet’ until a study is completed on the effects the act will have on various aspects of the Armed Services.

    The Senate Armed Services Committee first voted to repeal the US military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, Chairman Carl Levin, D- Mich., announced today. The committee voted 16-12 to approve the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011, removing a key barrier to ending the policy that prohibits military service by openly gay men and women. The amendment was authored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Levin.

    “Today’s action by the Senate Armed Services Committee is an important step to end this discriminatory policy,” Levin said. “This legislation provides for the completion of the Pentagon study of how to effectively end the ban and ensures that its repeal will not disrupt our military’s readiness, morale or cohesion. I believe that allowing gay and lesbian service members to serve openly will open the ranks to more patriotic men and women who wish to serve their country.”

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  • EWG Recommends Only 8% Of Sunscreens; What’s That About Vitamin A?

    Many in the US population now should legitimately fear the effects of the sun on their skin, regardless of age. However, most of the aging population find themselves in dermatologists’ offices with ‘things’ being burned or peeled off in one way or another nowadays. And if you think that tanning salons might prove an alternative, think again.

    The fourth annual Sunscreen Guide by Environmental Working Group (EWG) gives low marks to the current crop of sunscreen products, with a few notable exceptions. EWG researchers recommend only 39, or 8 percent, of 500 beach and sport sunscreens on the market this season.

    The reason? A surge in exaggerated SPF claims (SPFs greater than 50) and recent developments in understanding the possible hazards of some sunscreen ingredients, in particular, new government data linking a form of vitamin A used in sunscreens to accelerated growth of skin tumors and lesions.

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  • Utterly Unsuitable: Choosing a Swimsuit for an Older Woman

    by Julia SnedenActress in bathing suit

     

    The week ahead
    Holds lots of dread:
    I have to buy a bathing suit.
    I’d be a dope
    To have much hope
    Of finding fit (don’t mention cute).
    In fact if my long search is fruitless
    I may well have to dive in suitless.

    It’s an annual chore for most people, this business of buying a bathing suit. For me, it comes around every six months or so. Actually, the one I’m wearing these days has lasted longer than most, but what was once a trim, simple, black suit is now a saggy, baggy brownish body drape covered with odd spots where the color has disappeared altogether, so that dapples of flesh (mine) show through. In a mud-and-sand camouflage contest, I’d be a winner. When other people at poolside start staring and snickering, it’s time for a change.

    I don’t mind spending money on a suit if I can find one that I like. In fact, I usually buy two suits at a time, because I have a dread of needing a suit at the wrong time of year when there simply aren’t any in the stores. Besides, a good fit is rare. Alas, when I bought my current suit, it was the only one on the rack that fit me.

    With older women and men all across the country doing water aerobics and swimming laps, wouldn’t you think the bathing suit manufacturers would twig to the idea that there’s a huge market out here? Not only do we seniors buy suits; we buy suits more often than even the teenagers do, because we’re harder on them. No clean surf ‘n sand for us, no lying still on a beach blanket for hours, or languidly standing around the lifeguard’s chair. No, we are up to our clavicles in health club pools full of chemicals, stretching our suits (and our bodies) to all sorts of outrageous extremes, sweating inside them even though the water is cool.

    It’s a marketing maven’s  dream: virtually endless demand, a quick turnover, and not much need for endless re-styling.

    Which brings us to the problem. Finding a bathing suit in a style suited (!) to someone over 40 isn’t easy. For instance, all those suits cut high on the thigh are supposed to make your legs look longer, but who wants to see more cellulite, or brown age spots, or even (horrors!) a side glimpse of sagging tummy? I can’t imagine why the suit designers think that the term “boy cut” legs is appealing to women over 40, but I have learned to grit my teeth and look for the phrase. I don’t feel like anyone’s idea of a boy, but I do like the plain, old-fashioned suit that comes down to the top of my leg.

    Then there’s the plunging back. If you are proud of your love handles, you’re in business, because there’s no way to disguise them when the suit dips to the small of the back. On the other hand (or rather the other side), there’s the low-cut bra, exposing quite nicely what nature has already lowered without any help. You can always yank up on the straps, if you are willing to emerge from your swim with Grand Canyon-sized grooves in the flesh of your shoulders.

    And what about straps? Would it be possible to design straps that actually function to hold up the top of your suit and remain in place? Is it an impossible dream to have a strap that doesn’t slide off your shoulder as you do those aerobic arm-lifting moves?

    Photo: American actress Dorothy Jordan, 1932, Wikipedia Commons; Bathing edition of magazine Het Leven, 1932.