Yes, Costa Rica is top of the pops in the world of wellbeing as measured by both the Happy Planet Index (HPI) and the Happiness Adjusted Life Years (HALY) index developed by the Erasmus University at Rotterdam. (The great Renaissance humanist would no doubt approve of this effort.)
Copyright Photo © 2008 courtesy: Live in Costa Rica.
Citizens of the small but nicely located Central American state report the highest general satisfaction with life in the world with a score of 8.5 out of 10, beating even the famously contented Scandinavians (Denmark 8.3) and well ahead of their American neighbours (7.4).
When longevity is correlated with the satisfaction index, Costa Ricans take the HALY first prize with an average of 66.7 happy life years compared with the US average of 58 and the mere 12.5 years of happiness that the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe (in the last place) can expect.
What is it about Costa Rica that makes life there so good? It can’t be wealth since is still a developing country with between 16 per cent and 24 per cent of the people living in poverty. True, it is developing rather well, with a booming tourist industry based on its natural endowments. Indeed, the economic incentive to maintain its natural environment is one reason that life there is pleasant and the main reason that Costa Rica tops the Happy Planet Index. It has an ecological footprint less than one-quarter the size of the US (in 114th place) and comes very close to the HPI standard of consuming only its fair share of the Earth’s resources.
Having a small eco footprint is not much comfort to the poor, of course, but not all Costa Ricans below the poverty line are miserable. Mexican researcher Mariano Rojas found that only 24 per cent of them rated their life satisfaction as low, compared with 18 per cent of people in the non-poor category. Professor Rojas points out that a person can be satisfied with his life even if his income is low, as long as he is moderately satisfied in other areas such as family, self esteem, health and having a job. Mexico, by the way, is in the top 10 of nations measured by happiness, despite its struggle with poverty and other serious social problems.
So there is a lot more to happiness than meets the eye, or that can be measured by GDP. Economists have been onto this for a while and now politicians -- goaded by the threat of climate change, the financial crash and rumblings of discontent within their own populations, among other things -- are catching on. French President Nicolas Sarkozy seized the initiative and commissioned a report measuring economic progress against social indicators affecting human wellbeing, which has been discussed at an OECD forum held in Busan, South Korea, during the past few days. (Korea: HALY rating 46.9.)
While the rich nations mull over their ratings post-Busan, contradictory reports are circulating about the happiness of their people. Most of them loyally report being happy enough -- 86 per cent of New Zealanders, for example, ticked the “satisfied” or “very satisfied” boxes in the country’s first general social survey, even though 54 per cent of couples with children reported major problems with housing.
Elsewhere women are said to be less than thrilled with their liberated lives. Having a child is guaranteed to increase their misery, according to some experts, although at least one researcher finds that it increases parental happiness -- under certain conditions.
University of Pennsylvania economist Justin Wolfers, a co-author of a research paper called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness", said in a recent Time Magazine dossier that this phenomenon -- paradoxical because of all their gains in freedom, education and economic power -- was universal among American women. "We looked across all sectors — young vs. old, kids or no kids, married or not married, education, no education, working or not working — and it stayed the same,” he said. Women were less happy than three or four decades ago -- and less happy than men! And this is happening in other developed countries as well.
No-one is sure exactly how to interpret the data but everyone has his or her own opinion. The standard explanation is the “second shift” that women do at home after their day job at the office. Former Gallup researcher Marcus Buckingham, who has a new book out called Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, disputes this on the ground that the trend is towards more parity between men and women in household tasks; he puts women’s discontent down to the stress of making choices from the array of roles available to them today. Women are being “driven to distraction” by it, says Buckingham. (That a male would dare offer an opinion on a “women’s issue”, let alone write a book about it, is an indication in itself that some kind of crisis is upon us.)
Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton University and the other author of the "Paradox" paper mentioned above, maintains that, “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” although she acknowledges that very few people would say as much or even feel it.
In fact, when asked about the most important things in their lives, most people place their children near or even at the top of their list. If at the same time they report less happiness than before they had a child/children, this probably has more to do with other variables in their lives. A new study by Luis Angeles from the University of Glasgow, based on the British household survey, found that marital status had a decisive influence on whether the addition of a child brought its parents more or less happiness. Dr Angeles says that for married individuals of all ages and married women in particular, children increase life satisfaction and life satisfaction goes up with the number of children in the household.
Factors such as age, education and income count also, and one can well understand that today’s mortgaged-to-the-hilt and job-insecure couples are scared of the effects of a baby on their finances, if nothing else. Still, Angeles findings suggest that the creep of non-marrying culture could be affecting mood change among women, as well as the small family trend.
Costa Ricans, by the way, have more children on average (2.14) than Americans and the other most developed countries and a younger population (median age 27.5). That should help keep them cheerful.
What moral can one draw from these admittedly very partial facts? Probably, as the man who wrote the book about women indicated, happiness boils down to making choices. It is all very well to have a lot of things to choose from but, in the end, you have to choose some things and not others.
Now, when governments are opening the door to quality of life values, is the time for those who know what they want in the way of family life to make themselves heard. Otherwise they might find that the eco-footprint minimalists are walking all over them. [rc]
Carolyn Moynihan, deputy editor of MercatorNet, is an Auckland journalist with a special interest in family issues. She also edits the international family issues newsletter, Family Edge.
E-mail: carolyn@mercatornet.com
New Media Foundation Ltd © 2004
October 31, 2009
COSTA RICA: Here’s to happy life years
.
CARLTON, Victoria, Australia / MercatorNet / October 31, 2009
Why are Costa Ricans so happy and the world’s women so glum?
By Carolyn Moynihan
Whoever has been doing badly during the recession, it is not the happiness industry. The global glee club keeps pumping out studies from every point on the spectrum of human feeling, from the discontents of the liberated American woman to the sunny satisfaction of the average Costa Rican.
Yes, Costa Rica is top of the pops in the world of wellbeing as measured by both the Happy Planet Index (HPI) and the Happiness Adjusted Life Years (HALY) index developed by the Erasmus University at Rotterdam. (The great Renaissance humanist would no doubt approve of this effort.)
Copyright Photo © 2008 courtesy: Live in Costa Rica.
Citizens of the small but nicely located Central American state report the highest general satisfaction with life in the world with a score of 8.5 out of 10, beating even the famously contented Scandinavians (Denmark 8.3) and well ahead of their American neighbours (7.4).
When longevity is correlated with the satisfaction index, Costa Ricans take the HALY first prize with an average of 66.7 happy life years compared with the US average of 58 and the mere 12.5 years of happiness that the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe (in the last place) can expect.
What is it about Costa Rica that makes life there so good? It can’t be wealth since is still a developing country with between 16 per cent and 24 per cent of the people living in poverty. True, it is developing rather well, with a booming tourist industry based on its natural endowments. Indeed, the economic incentive to maintain its natural environment is one reason that life there is pleasant and the main reason that Costa Rica tops the Happy Planet Index. It has an ecological footprint less than one-quarter the size of the US (in 114th place) and comes very close to the HPI standard of consuming only its fair share of the Earth’s resources.
Having a small eco footprint is not much comfort to the poor, of course, but not all Costa Ricans below the poverty line are miserable. Mexican researcher Mariano Rojas found that only 24 per cent of them rated their life satisfaction as low, compared with 18 per cent of people in the non-poor category. Professor Rojas points out that a person can be satisfied with his life even if his income is low, as long as he is moderately satisfied in other areas such as family, self esteem, health and having a job. Mexico, by the way, is in the top 10 of nations measured by happiness, despite its struggle with poverty and other serious social problems.
So there is a lot more to happiness than meets the eye, or that can be measured by GDP. Economists have been onto this for a while and now politicians -- goaded by the threat of climate change, the financial crash and rumblings of discontent within their own populations, among other things -- are catching on. French President Nicolas Sarkozy seized the initiative and commissioned a report measuring economic progress against social indicators affecting human wellbeing, which has been discussed at an OECD forum held in Busan, South Korea, during the past few days. (Korea: HALY rating 46.9.)
While the rich nations mull over their ratings post-Busan, contradictory reports are circulating about the happiness of their people. Most of them loyally report being happy enough -- 86 per cent of New Zealanders, for example, ticked the “satisfied” or “very satisfied” boxes in the country’s first general social survey, even though 54 per cent of couples with children reported major problems with housing.
Elsewhere women are said to be less than thrilled with their liberated lives. Having a child is guaranteed to increase their misery, according to some experts, although at least one researcher finds that it increases parental happiness -- under certain conditions.
University of Pennsylvania economist Justin Wolfers, a co-author of a research paper called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness", said in a recent Time Magazine dossier that this phenomenon -- paradoxical because of all their gains in freedom, education and economic power -- was universal among American women. "We looked across all sectors — young vs. old, kids or no kids, married or not married, education, no education, working or not working — and it stayed the same,” he said. Women were less happy than three or four decades ago -- and less happy than men! And this is happening in other developed countries as well.
No-one is sure exactly how to interpret the data but everyone has his or her own opinion. The standard explanation is the “second shift” that women do at home after their day job at the office. Former Gallup researcher Marcus Buckingham, who has a new book out called Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, disputes this on the ground that the trend is towards more parity between men and women in household tasks; he puts women’s discontent down to the stress of making choices from the array of roles available to them today. Women are being “driven to distraction” by it, says Buckingham. (That a male would dare offer an opinion on a “women’s issue”, let alone write a book about it, is an indication in itself that some kind of crisis is upon us.)
Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton University and the other author of the "Paradox" paper mentioned above, maintains that, “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” although she acknowledges that very few people would say as much or even feel it.
In fact, when asked about the most important things in their lives, most people place their children near or even at the top of their list. If at the same time they report less happiness than before they had a child/children, this probably has more to do with other variables in their lives. A new study by Luis Angeles from the University of Glasgow, based on the British household survey, found that marital status had a decisive influence on whether the addition of a child brought its parents more or less happiness. Dr Angeles says that for married individuals of all ages and married women in particular, children increase life satisfaction and life satisfaction goes up with the number of children in the household.
Factors such as age, education and income count also, and one can well understand that today’s mortgaged-to-the-hilt and job-insecure couples are scared of the effects of a baby on their finances, if nothing else. Still, Angeles findings suggest that the creep of non-marrying culture could be affecting mood change among women, as well as the small family trend.
Costa Ricans, by the way, have more children on average (2.14) than Americans and the other most developed countries and a younger population (median age 27.5). That should help keep them cheerful.
What moral can one draw from these admittedly very partial facts? Probably, as the man who wrote the book about women indicated, happiness boils down to making choices. It is all very well to have a lot of things to choose from but, in the end, you have to choose some things and not others.
Now, when governments are opening the door to quality of life values, is the time for those who know what they want in the way of family life to make themselves heard. Otherwise they might find that the eco-footprint minimalists are walking all over them. [rc]
Carolyn Moynihan, deputy editor of MercatorNet, is an Auckland journalist with a special interest in family issues. She also edits the international family issues newsletter, Family Edge.
E-mail: carolyn@mercatornet.com
New Media Foundation Ltd © 2004
Yes, Costa Rica is top of the pops in the world of wellbeing as measured by both the Happy Planet Index (HPI) and the Happiness Adjusted Life Years (HALY) index developed by the Erasmus University at Rotterdam. (The great Renaissance humanist would no doubt approve of this effort.)
Copyright Photo © 2008 courtesy: Live in Costa Rica.
Citizens of the small but nicely located Central American state report the highest general satisfaction with life in the world with a score of 8.5 out of 10, beating even the famously contented Scandinavians (Denmark 8.3) and well ahead of their American neighbours (7.4).
When longevity is correlated with the satisfaction index, Costa Ricans take the HALY first prize with an average of 66.7 happy life years compared with the US average of 58 and the mere 12.5 years of happiness that the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe (in the last place) can expect.
What is it about Costa Rica that makes life there so good? It can’t be wealth since is still a developing country with between 16 per cent and 24 per cent of the people living in poverty. True, it is developing rather well, with a booming tourist industry based on its natural endowments. Indeed, the economic incentive to maintain its natural environment is one reason that life there is pleasant and the main reason that Costa Rica tops the Happy Planet Index. It has an ecological footprint less than one-quarter the size of the US (in 114th place) and comes very close to the HPI standard of consuming only its fair share of the Earth’s resources.
Having a small eco footprint is not much comfort to the poor, of course, but not all Costa Ricans below the poverty line are miserable. Mexican researcher Mariano Rojas found that only 24 per cent of them rated their life satisfaction as low, compared with 18 per cent of people in the non-poor category. Professor Rojas points out that a person can be satisfied with his life even if his income is low, as long as he is moderately satisfied in other areas such as family, self esteem, health and having a job. Mexico, by the way, is in the top 10 of nations measured by happiness, despite its struggle with poverty and other serious social problems.
So there is a lot more to happiness than meets the eye, or that can be measured by GDP. Economists have been onto this for a while and now politicians -- goaded by the threat of climate change, the financial crash and rumblings of discontent within their own populations, among other things -- are catching on. French President Nicolas Sarkozy seized the initiative and commissioned a report measuring economic progress against social indicators affecting human wellbeing, which has been discussed at an OECD forum held in Busan, South Korea, during the past few days. (Korea: HALY rating 46.9.)
While the rich nations mull over their ratings post-Busan, contradictory reports are circulating about the happiness of their people. Most of them loyally report being happy enough -- 86 per cent of New Zealanders, for example, ticked the “satisfied” or “very satisfied” boxes in the country’s first general social survey, even though 54 per cent of couples with children reported major problems with housing.
Elsewhere women are said to be less than thrilled with their liberated lives. Having a child is guaranteed to increase their misery, according to some experts, although at least one researcher finds that it increases parental happiness -- under certain conditions.
University of Pennsylvania economist Justin Wolfers, a co-author of a research paper called "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness", said in a recent Time Magazine dossier that this phenomenon -- paradoxical because of all their gains in freedom, education and economic power -- was universal among American women. "We looked across all sectors — young vs. old, kids or no kids, married or not married, education, no education, working or not working — and it stayed the same,” he said. Women were less happy than three or four decades ago -- and less happy than men! And this is happening in other developed countries as well.
No-one is sure exactly how to interpret the data but everyone has his or her own opinion. The standard explanation is the “second shift” that women do at home after their day job at the office. Former Gallup researcher Marcus Buckingham, who has a new book out called Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, disputes this on the ground that the trend is towards more parity between men and women in household tasks; he puts women’s discontent down to the stress of making choices from the array of roles available to them today. Women are being “driven to distraction” by it, says Buckingham. (That a male would dare offer an opinion on a “women’s issue”, let alone write a book about it, is an indication in itself that some kind of crisis is upon us.)
Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton University and the other author of the "Paradox" paper mentioned above, maintains that, “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” although she acknowledges that very few people would say as much or even feel it.
In fact, when asked about the most important things in their lives, most people place their children near or even at the top of their list. If at the same time they report less happiness than before they had a child/children, this probably has more to do with other variables in their lives. A new study by Luis Angeles from the University of Glasgow, based on the British household survey, found that marital status had a decisive influence on whether the addition of a child brought its parents more or less happiness. Dr Angeles says that for married individuals of all ages and married women in particular, children increase life satisfaction and life satisfaction goes up with the number of children in the household.
Factors such as age, education and income count also, and one can well understand that today’s mortgaged-to-the-hilt and job-insecure couples are scared of the effects of a baby on their finances, if nothing else. Still, Angeles findings suggest that the creep of non-marrying culture could be affecting mood change among women, as well as the small family trend.
Costa Ricans, by the way, have more children on average (2.14) than Americans and the other most developed countries and a younger population (median age 27.5). That should help keep them cheerful.
What moral can one draw from these admittedly very partial facts? Probably, as the man who wrote the book about women indicated, happiness boils down to making choices. It is all very well to have a lot of things to choose from but, in the end, you have to choose some things and not others.
Now, when governments are opening the door to quality of life values, is the time for those who know what they want in the way of family life to make themselves heard. Otherwise they might find that the eco-footprint minimalists are walking all over them. [rc]
Carolyn Moynihan, deputy editor of MercatorNet, is an Auckland journalist with a special interest in family issues. She also edits the international family issues newsletter, Family Edge.
E-mail: carolyn@mercatornet.com
New Media Foundation Ltd © 2004
UK: Patient locked inside ambulance by forgetful driver
.
LONDON, England / EarthTimes / Aging / October 31, 2009
A 65-year-old patient in the English city of Manchester was locked inside an ambulance for five hours when his driver forgot about him after finishing his workday, it was reported Saturday. The elderly man was trapped inside the vehicle - a non-emergency ambulance used for ferrying patients to appointments - at an ambulance station in the Manchester area on Tuesday evening until nearly 1 am the following day.
The driver, who was supposed to return him to his care home after a hospital appointment, is thought to have forgotten about the man after dropping off three other patients who were inside the ambulance.
The senior, a dialysis patient, was in good condition after the incident and was reported to called the event "just one of those things."
The ambulance driver has been suspended. [rc]
Copyright DPA
A 65-year-old patient in the English city of Manchester was locked inside an ambulance for five hours when his driver forgot about him after finishing his workday, it was reported Saturday. The elderly man was trapped inside the vehicle - a non-emergency ambulance used for ferrying patients to appointments - at an ambulance station in the Manchester area on Tuesday evening until nearly 1 am the following day.
The driver, who was supposed to return him to his care home after a hospital appointment, is thought to have forgotten about the man after dropping off three other patients who were inside the ambulance.
The senior, a dialysis patient, was in good condition after the incident and was reported to called the event "just one of those things."
The ambulance driver has been suspended. [rc]
Copyright DPA
INDIA: Everyday is a party for these senior citizens
.
SURAT, Gujarat / The Times of India / October 31, 2009
By Himanshu Bhatt, Times News Network
SURAT: For these senior citizens, life begins at 60. They have started living life king size after retirement. They have formed a mandal and meet in a garden every day for party and to gossip. They ask, "Why should young have all the fun?" They follow the principles of social dating and never miss their date.
Swami Vivekananda Garden is a small but beautiful garden with a circular walking track, in Bhatar area of Surat.
A group of women sing bhajan's loudly and offer prasad of chocolates to every one around. Some elderly people make it a point to visit the Swami Vivekananda Garden on Bhatar Road just to have the sweets. Someone from a group of about 50 men and women bring snacks from home and it is party every day. They share food, laugh and pray together although they don't even know everyone in the group by name.
Shashikant Jariwala, 71, a retired businessman living in Sant Tukaram Society, says, "We have our men's party twice or three times a month. We arrange for drinks and enjoy." He adds, "I think government should relax prohibition for us."
Bhupendra Prajapati, 76, another retired businessman of Jamnanagar, says, "We enjoy our parties and share the expenses."
Retired policemen Kashinath Kalal, 79, and Maniram Pendale, 74, who draw a monthly pension of nearly Rs 5,000, add, "For us, these three hours are wonderful. We forget all our worries."
Kala Patel, 65, a former school teacher, who has been a regular visitor to the garden since last 10 years, says, " This place is like heaven for us as there is no one to disturb us here. We can sing our bhajans and even party."
Savita Patel, 62, another retired school teacher, says, "We come here daily as we can't pass time sitting home." When asked of problems at home, most of them say they have no major problems. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
Swami Vivekananda Garden is a small but beautiful garden with a circular walking track, in Bhatar area of Surat.
A group of women sing bhajan's loudly and offer prasad of chocolates to every one around. Some elderly people make it a point to visit the Swami Vivekananda Garden on Bhatar Road just to have the sweets. Someone from a group of about 50 men and women bring snacks from home and it is party every day. They share food, laugh and pray together although they don't even know everyone in the group by name.
Shashikant Jariwala, 71, a retired businessman living in Sant Tukaram Society, says, "We have our men's party twice or three times a month. We arrange for drinks and enjoy." He adds, "I think government should relax prohibition for us."
Bhupendra Prajapati, 76, another retired businessman of Jamnanagar, says, "We enjoy our parties and share the expenses."
Retired policemen Kashinath Kalal, 79, and Maniram Pendale, 74, who draw a monthly pension of nearly Rs 5,000, add, "For us, these three hours are wonderful. We forget all our worries."
Kala Patel, 65, a former school teacher, who has been a regular visitor to the garden since last 10 years, says, " This place is like heaven for us as there is no one to disturb us here. We can sing our bhajans and even party."
Savita Patel, 62, another retired school teacher, says, "We come here daily as we can't pass time sitting home." When asked of problems at home, most of them say they have no major problems. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.
USA: Brother Patrick Corr, 95, keeps 'plowing along'
.
LOS ANGELES, California / The Tidings / October 31, 2009
"Raising money is not a pleasant job. It's much more difficult than taking care of people"
AT WORK - Brother Patrick Corr still works out of his compact office on the first floor of St. John of God Skilled Nursing Care Center five days a week. Photo by R. W. Dellinger
The 95-year-old Irish religious is referring to nothing less than the development of an entire ministry.
By R.W. Dellinger
Opened in 1942 as a nursing home with 12 beds for men with long-term illnesses and incurable diseases, today the seven-acre urban oasis at Adams Boulevard and Western Avenue offers continuum care to the sick and elderly via separate Mediterranean-style buildings for skilled nursing, assisted living and independent living. And in 2007, a separate residence for Alzheimer's patients and other memory impaired seniors opened largely through the fund-raising prowess of Brother Patrick, as he's known, whose grin and chuckle come about as often as cloudy days and winter rains do to his homeland.
All together, 252 men and women call St. John of God Retirement and Care Center their home today....
About being 95, the president of the Hospitaller Foundation, which he founded in 1965, says he still gets excited every morning leaving the room he shares with an elderly resident in the skilled nursing care center, thinking about how to keep improving St. John of God Retirement and Care Center. He works four to five hours every weekday, making calls and meeting with steadfast supporters and, of course, potential new donors.
"I have great energy, thanks be to God," he says. "I used to complain about having to walk four miles home from school every day. But that made me strong and healthy. And I still walk a lot. I have no trouble with my diet. I still like corn beef and cabbage, but I don't get too much of it today.
"And I'm still working harder than ever," he notes with a nod. "I think this place has been a tremendous grace when you think of it. It's unique in the city - to take care of the sick and elderly all these years. I never dreamed that it would become what it's become." [rc]
Extracted short version. Read full report here.
Copyright The Tidings Corporation © 2004
AT WORK - Brother Patrick Corr still works out of his compact office on the first floor of St. John of God Skilled Nursing Care Center five days a week. Photo by R. W. Dellinger
The 95-year-old Irish religious is referring to nothing less than the development of an entire ministry.
By R.W. Dellinger
Opened in 1942 as a nursing home with 12 beds for men with long-term illnesses and incurable diseases, today the seven-acre urban oasis at Adams Boulevard and Western Avenue offers continuum care to the sick and elderly via separate Mediterranean-style buildings for skilled nursing, assisted living and independent living. And in 2007, a separate residence for Alzheimer's patients and other memory impaired seniors opened largely through the fund-raising prowess of Brother Patrick, as he's known, whose grin and chuckle come about as often as cloudy days and winter rains do to his homeland.
All together, 252 men and women call St. John of God Retirement and Care Center their home today....
About being 95, the president of the Hospitaller Foundation, which he founded in 1965, says he still gets excited every morning leaving the room he shares with an elderly resident in the skilled nursing care center, thinking about how to keep improving St. John of God Retirement and Care Center. He works four to five hours every weekday, making calls and meeting with steadfast supporters and, of course, potential new donors.
"I have great energy, thanks be to God," he says. "I used to complain about having to walk four miles home from school every day. But that made me strong and healthy. And I still walk a lot. I have no trouble with my diet. I still like corn beef and cabbage, but I don't get too much of it today.
"And I'm still working harder than ever," he notes with a nod. "I think this place has been a tremendous grace when you think of it. It's unique in the city - to take care of the sick and elderly all these years. I never dreamed that it would become what it's become." [rc]
Extracted short version. Read full report here.
Copyright The Tidings Corporation © 2004
INDIA: Insurance regulator asked to relax life cover norms for senior citizens
.
MUMBAI, Maharashtra / The Economic Times / Personal Finance / Insurance / October 31, 2009
By Preeti Kulkarni, Economic Times Bureau
The ministry of social justice and empowerment has asked the insurance regulator to direct non-life companies to relax entry barriers for senior citizens seeking to buy health insurance and overseas mediclaim policies.
At a recent meeting of the National Council for Older Persons (NCOP), where an IRDA representative was present, IRDA was asked to facilitate health covers for older people. NCOP comes under the ministry of social justice and this meeting was attended by Mukul Wasnik, the Union minister in charge of the portfolio.
Currently, the IRDA guidelines prohibit health insurers from denying fresh mediclaim policies to individuals above 65-year-old. NCOP wants this age limit to be increased. The committee comprises the Union as well as state ministers for social justice and empowerment, senior ministry officials, representatives of state governments and some non-official members.
In addition to health insurance, the committee meeting focused on problems faced by senior citizens over 80-year-old in getting overseas mediclaim insurance, while travelling abroad. At present, many insurance companies are reluctant to provide this cover to senior citizens.
Photo courtesy: The Times of South Mumbai
"The council also recommended providing insurance cover to senior citizens travelling overseas, irrespective of their age," informed Mathew Cherian, chief executive of HelpAge India.
The council also sought a status update from IRDA on the steps being taken to address the issues relating to senior citizens’ health polices. Widespread complaints from senior citizens on non-renewals and disproportionate hiking of premiums had prompted IRDA to tweak the rules on renewability in March this year.
The insurance regulator had asked insurers to ensure that renewals were not turned down, except on the grounds of fraud, moral hazard or misrepresentation. Furthermore, the companies had been asked to furnish a note explaining the reasons for increasing the premiums and also, how the rise was in line with the charge structure mentioned in the policy’s prospectus.
Another circular issued in May had directed insurance companies to specify in writing the reasons for denying health insurance to senior citizens. “Such reasons should stand scrutiny of reasonableness and fairness,” it stated.
In addition, the insurance regulator had instructed insurers to ensure that the premium charged to senior citizens was ‘fair, justified, transparent and duly disclosed upfront’. Despite IRDA’s measures, however, many senior citizens continue to complain of health insurers rejecting renewal requests and charging unreasonable premiums. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
In addition to health insurance, the committee meeting focused on problems faced by senior citizens over 80-year-old in getting overseas mediclaim insurance, while travelling abroad. At present, many insurance companies are reluctant to provide this cover to senior citizens.
Photo courtesy: The Times of South Mumbai
"The council also recommended providing insurance cover to senior citizens travelling overseas, irrespective of their age," informed Mathew Cherian, chief executive of HelpAge India.
The council also sought a status update from IRDA on the steps being taken to address the issues relating to senior citizens’ health polices. Widespread complaints from senior citizens on non-renewals and disproportionate hiking of premiums had prompted IRDA to tweak the rules on renewability in March this year.
The insurance regulator had asked insurers to ensure that renewals were not turned down, except on the grounds of fraud, moral hazard or misrepresentation. Furthermore, the companies had been asked to furnish a note explaining the reasons for increasing the premiums and also, how the rise was in line with the charge structure mentioned in the policy’s prospectus.
Another circular issued in May had directed insurance companies to specify in writing the reasons for denying health insurance to senior citizens. “Such reasons should stand scrutiny of reasonableness and fairness,” it stated.
In addition, the insurance regulator had instructed insurers to ensure that the premium charged to senior citizens was ‘fair, justified, transparent and duly disclosed upfront’. Despite IRDA’s measures, however, many senior citizens continue to complain of health insurers rejecting renewal requests and charging unreasonable premiums. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
NEW ZEALAND: Insurance pitfalls -: Are you really covered?
.
WELLINGTON / Sunday Star Times / October 31, 2009
By Emma Page
INSURANCE CUSTOMERS who fail to tell their insurer about speeding tickets, minor criminal convictions or even modifications to their vehicle could miss out on payouts because of laws that the industry watchdog has described as "draconian" and "scary".
Under New Zealand law, policy holders are obliged to tell their insurance company about any "relevant" facts, no matter how small.
Failure to do so – even where the insurance company does not specifically ask for a particular piece of information – can lead to claims being denied and policies voided, effectively leaving the policy holder without cover, even though they have been paying their premiums.
Insurance Ombudsman Karen Stevens told the Sunday Star-Times the ramifications of non-disclosure are huge. She says although insurers do provide reminders and warnings about disclosure, these should be made stronger. "The law is scary and the consequences are really scary. I don't know if consumers are being sufficiently scared up front to understand exactly what's likely to happen if they fail to disclose."
For health and life insurance, all disclosures need to be made when the policy is first signed. But for general insurance such as house, contents and vehicle polices, declarations must be done at the time the insurance is taken out – and then updated at least once a year. And any "change in circumstance" is considered relevant – for example, a conviction for shoplifting could affect a car insurance claim.
Problems arise because many consumers don't understand their responsibility to tell the insurance company anything it might need to know. Either they forget to include details, or presume that a change of circumstance isn't relevant.
Disclosure of information need not prevent a customer remaining insured. Stevens would like to see law changes that bring New Zealand policy in line with Australian legislation, which uses the "reasonable person" test, which she says is fairer. It is based around the question: "What would the reasonable person in the circumstances understand an insurer would want to know?"
In New Zealand, the law uses the "prudent underwriter test" meaning consumers have to work out what the insurer would like to know, and provide that information.
Stevens said: "The law is draconian... Insurance companies can take very, very harsh measures if anybody fails to disclose, even if it is an innocent non-disclosure. It doesn't matter."
The Law Commission has made proposals as far back as 1998 for changes to insurance law, but Stevens says any change is on the backburner.
Aucklander Peter Lomas has experienced the perils of non-disclosure first hand. Earlier this year his car was stolen and written off. He submitted his claim to insurer AMI and was shocked to find it turned down and his policy voided, on the grounds that he had failed to disclose his criminal convictions. He said he had no idea he was obligated to declare the convictions.
Ad Feedback Not having the car replaced has left him without a vehicle he had been using for work and he said the situation left him financially and mentally stressed.
He took out his insurance policy in 2002. Since then he has received six convictions, the first in 2004. The convictions include common assault, breaching a trespass order and contravening a protection order, which he says occurred after a marriage break-up. He didn't realise the charges would be relevant to his car insurance as they didn't relate to driving.
AMI products executive manager Alan Perry said the convictions would have excluded Lomas from cover if AMI had known about them. A customer advocate review within AMI upheld the decision, as did a report by the insurance ombudsman.
After taking out the policy in 2002, Lomas paid around $7000 in premiums, but had received around $11,000 in previous claims.
Perry said declining a claim or policy on the grounds of non-disclosure was a rare occurrence among the tens of thousands of claims processed every day.
He said whether a conviction or fine would affect cover depended on the situation. One speeding ticket was unlikely to change anything, but seven high-speed fines by the owner of a sports car could affect premiums and excess charges. Dishonesty convictions were considered seriously because they indicated the moral character of the applicant. [rc]
Emma Page
emma.page@star-times.co.nz
© 2009 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
Insurance Ombudsman Karen Stevens told the Sunday Star-Times the ramifications of non-disclosure are huge. She says although insurers do provide reminders and warnings about disclosure, these should be made stronger. "The law is scary and the consequences are really scary. I don't know if consumers are being sufficiently scared up front to understand exactly what's likely to happen if they fail to disclose."
For health and life insurance, all disclosures need to be made when the policy is first signed. But for general insurance such as house, contents and vehicle polices, declarations must be done at the time the insurance is taken out – and then updated at least once a year. And any "change in circumstance" is considered relevant – for example, a conviction for shoplifting could affect a car insurance claim.
Problems arise because many consumers don't understand their responsibility to tell the insurance company anything it might need to know. Either they forget to include details, or presume that a change of circumstance isn't relevant.
Disclosure of information need not prevent a customer remaining insured. Stevens would like to see law changes that bring New Zealand policy in line with Australian legislation, which uses the "reasonable person" test, which she says is fairer. It is based around the question: "What would the reasonable person in the circumstances understand an insurer would want to know?"
In New Zealand, the law uses the "prudent underwriter test" meaning consumers have to work out what the insurer would like to know, and provide that information.
Stevens said: "The law is draconian... Insurance companies can take very, very harsh measures if anybody fails to disclose, even if it is an innocent non-disclosure. It doesn't matter."
The Law Commission has made proposals as far back as 1998 for changes to insurance law, but Stevens says any change is on the backburner.
Aucklander Peter Lomas has experienced the perils of non-disclosure first hand. Earlier this year his car was stolen and written off. He submitted his claim to insurer AMI and was shocked to find it turned down and his policy voided, on the grounds that he had failed to disclose his criminal convictions. He said he had no idea he was obligated to declare the convictions.
Ad Feedback Not having the car replaced has left him without a vehicle he had been using for work and he said the situation left him financially and mentally stressed.
He took out his insurance policy in 2002. Since then he has received six convictions, the first in 2004. The convictions include common assault, breaching a trespass order and contravening a protection order, which he says occurred after a marriage break-up. He didn't realise the charges would be relevant to his car insurance as they didn't relate to driving.
AMI products executive manager Alan Perry said the convictions would have excluded Lomas from cover if AMI had known about them. A customer advocate review within AMI upheld the decision, as did a report by the insurance ombudsman.
After taking out the policy in 2002, Lomas paid around $7000 in premiums, but had received around $11,000 in previous claims.
Perry said declining a claim or policy on the grounds of non-disclosure was a rare occurrence among the tens of thousands of claims processed every day.
He said whether a conviction or fine would affect cover depended on the situation. One speeding ticket was unlikely to change anything, but seven high-speed fines by the owner of a sports car could affect premiums and excess charges. Dishonesty convictions were considered seriously because they indicated the moral character of the applicant. [rc]
Emma Page
emma.page@star-times.co.nz
© 2009 Fairfax New Zealand Limited
October 30, 2009
USA: Of sex, death, loneliness, old age
.
LONDON, England / New Statesman / Culture / Books / November 2, 2009 issue
The Humbling
By Philip Roth
Reviewed by Jason Cowley
Sex, death, loneliness, old age: yes, it’s another Roth novel. But this time, is the great American author merely repeating himself?
The obsessor of desire
With its strap-on dildos, cat-o'-nine-tails, transsexuals, hysterical lesbians and three-in-a-bed romps, the latest product to roll out of the Philip Roth fiction factory is an old man's masturbatory fantasy which, wrapped in a smart dust jacket, the equivalent of the pornographer's brown paper bag, purports to be a novella of late-middle-aged existential crisis - at least during its more serious moments. (In its less serious moments - and I still can't decide whether these are intentional or not - it has all the aesthetic surprise of the latest upload on YouPorn.)
The Humbling shares most of the preoccupations of Roth's recent fiction: the sorrows and loneliness of old age, illness, the poignancy of lingering sexual desire, and so on. It clearly wants to be read as a companion piece to his impressive late works about the inescapable senselessness of death. Yet it is at times so ridiculous, so stylistically careless and shabbily executed, the characters so thin and artificial, that you think, at first, the whole thing must be an elaborate joke or parody, or else an exercise in character assassination - a novel written by one of Philip Roth's avenging doubles, hypothetical selves or alter egos, whose sole mission is to besmirch the reputation of the celebrated American author we know as "Philip Roth".
The central character, the well-named Simon Axler, is a once-successful theatre and film actor. At the age of 65, he has lost all confidence in his abilities and can no longer perform on stage, though he can still perform in the bedroom. "He'd lost his magic," we are told. "His impulse was spent." Humbled by this loss, Axler retreats from the world, like Nathan Zuckerman in previous Roth novels, and we first encounter him living alone in rural isolation, in upstate New York. Abandoned by his wife, he inhabits a strange, sad twilight of yearning and regret. He has recently had a short stay at a psychiatric hospital and he thinks continuously of suicide, as did Mickey Sabbath, another broken-down and dispossessed old man of the theatre created by Roth.
Most of what we know about Axler is told or asserted rather than shown or animated. He is recognisably a Roth Man, not least in his penchant for anal sex, but he has scarcely any backstory, no Newark boyhood to recall fondly, no overbearing Jewish father, no sense of the textures of a long life lived purposefully. The novel is fast-paced, hectic, erratically and gratuitously plotted, with characters being hurried on to the set to perform affectlessly before being packed away, like so many props.
There is none of the thick layering of information for which even Roth's short novels are renowned. Nor is there even much of interest on the craft of acting, as one would have expected from Roth, who is usually nothing if not fastidious in his detailing. Axler does not even think like an actor; he does not have an actor's consciousness, as Zuckerman has the consciousness of a writer. Because we do not know Axler before his humbling or see scenes from his life as an actor even in retrospect, because we do not hear others describing his memorable performances, we cannot feel the pathos of his fall. The novel is told from his point of view and so we have only his word that he was once good. That's not enough.
Roth has long been a writer of extremes, with a boisterous stand-up comedian's inclination to taunt and outrage. He knows no limits, which is part of the fun of reading him. He is also a kind of ventriloquist who loves doing all the voices. This is why there is so much dialogue in his novels: John Updike used to complain of Roth's "blocks of talk", of the monologues that spilled across many pages, of the life histories that were regurgitated as characters unburdened themselves. In this novel, there is also a lot of talk, but the characters tend to sound the same - even the women speak in the same punched, exclamatory, staccato rhythms as Axler.
For Roth, in his fiction, sex is an act both of supreme self-assertion and rebellion - of rebellion against bourgeois convention, against death itself. Sex simultaneously offers a release from and heightening of the self, a way to the truth. His lead men invariably seek to find a woman who is their equal in appetite in what Iago called "preposterous desires". This ideal woman is often subliterate or anti-intellectual, an immigrant such as the Croat Drenka Balich, from Sabbath's Theatre, on whose grave men would return long after her death to masturbate in memory of her astounding sexual capacities. She is the young Cuban beauty Consuela Castillo, a "masterpiece of volupté" who has an affair with the aged libertine David Kepesh in the affecting The Dying Animal. And, in The Humbling, she is Pegeen Stapleford, a full-figured, 40-year-old lesbian who begins an affair with Axler in defiance of her sexuality and her parents, old friends of the actor. The subplot is that Pegeen's long-time lesbian lover has decided to become a man. You'd never believe it.
It is Pegeen who introduces the dildos and whips into her sex life with Axler; he, in turn, introduces her to the penis. "It fills you up," she says, "the way dildos and fingers don't. It's alive. It's a living thing." Their sexual fantasies inevitably darken and deepen, and before too long they have picked up a woman named Tracy and hurried her into bed. Axler looks on as Pegeen straps on a dildo and violates Tracy, who has all the complexity of a piece of meat, in what is supposed to be a frenzy of need. How mechanically Roth manipulates his characters at this point, and how contemptuously! Even he seems conscious of this, because he belatedly allows Axler a moment of fellow feeling as he clunkingly "wondered what was going on in Tracy's mind". It's like asking what's going on in the mind of a character in a computer game, because Tracy is no more or less credible than that.
The Big Threesome is meant to illustrate how Pegeen's arrival has reawakened in Axler the desire once more to act, to become a player, if not on the stage, then at least in the world. He starts to dream of becoming a father, and one day takes a trip to a fertility expert in New York. You know nothing good will come of all this, nor does it.
Like the other lead men of Roth's late fiction, Axler is beguiled into believing that redemption is possible, even as his personal clock prepares to strike midnight. Fleetingly, sex and desire lift him from despond and offer the hope of one last, late flourishing, only for that hope to be extinguished by Pegeen's sudden departure. The Big Threesome has had a different effect on her: it has reminded her of what she's been missing.
Girls will be girls. So the wheel turns full circle and this feeble novel ends as it began, in an ecstasy of despair, with Axler, alone in his attic, staring down the barrel of a gun. Oh, go on, pull the trigger. [rc]
Jason Cowley is editor of the New Statesman.
The Humbling
Philip Roth
Jonathan Cape, 140pp, £12.99
© New Statesman 1913 – 2009
The obsessor of desire
With its strap-on dildos, cat-o'-nine-tails, transsexuals, hysterical lesbians and three-in-a-bed romps, the latest product to roll out of the Philip Roth fiction factory is an old man's masturbatory fantasy which, wrapped in a smart dust jacket, the equivalent of the pornographer's brown paper bag, purports to be a novella of late-middle-aged existential crisis - at least during its more serious moments. (In its less serious moments - and I still can't decide whether these are intentional or not - it has all the aesthetic surprise of the latest upload on YouPorn.)
The Humbling shares most of the preoccupations of Roth's recent fiction: the sorrows and loneliness of old age, illness, the poignancy of lingering sexual desire, and so on. It clearly wants to be read as a companion piece to his impressive late works about the inescapable senselessness of death. Yet it is at times so ridiculous, so stylistically careless and shabbily executed, the characters so thin and artificial, that you think, at first, the whole thing must be an elaborate joke or parody, or else an exercise in character assassination - a novel written by one of Philip Roth's avenging doubles, hypothetical selves or alter egos, whose sole mission is to besmirch the reputation of the celebrated American author we know as "Philip Roth".
The central character, the well-named Simon Axler, is a once-successful theatre and film actor. At the age of 65, he has lost all confidence in his abilities and can no longer perform on stage, though he can still perform in the bedroom. "He'd lost his magic," we are told. "His impulse was spent." Humbled by this loss, Axler retreats from the world, like Nathan Zuckerman in previous Roth novels, and we first encounter him living alone in rural isolation, in upstate New York. Abandoned by his wife, he inhabits a strange, sad twilight of yearning and regret. He has recently had a short stay at a psychiatric hospital and he thinks continuously of suicide, as did Mickey Sabbath, another broken-down and dispossessed old man of the theatre created by Roth.
Most of what we know about Axler is told or asserted rather than shown or animated. He is recognisably a Roth Man, not least in his penchant for anal sex, but he has scarcely any backstory, no Newark boyhood to recall fondly, no overbearing Jewish father, no sense of the textures of a long life lived purposefully. The novel is fast-paced, hectic, erratically and gratuitously plotted, with characters being hurried on to the set to perform affectlessly before being packed away, like so many props.
There is none of the thick layering of information for which even Roth's short novels are renowned. Nor is there even much of interest on the craft of acting, as one would have expected from Roth, who is usually nothing if not fastidious in his detailing. Axler does not even think like an actor; he does not have an actor's consciousness, as Zuckerman has the consciousness of a writer. Because we do not know Axler before his humbling or see scenes from his life as an actor even in retrospect, because we do not hear others describing his memorable performances, we cannot feel the pathos of his fall. The novel is told from his point of view and so we have only his word that he was once good. That's not enough.
Roth has long been a writer of extremes, with a boisterous stand-up comedian's inclination to taunt and outrage. He knows no limits, which is part of the fun of reading him. He is also a kind of ventriloquist who loves doing all the voices. This is why there is so much dialogue in his novels: John Updike used to complain of Roth's "blocks of talk", of the monologues that spilled across many pages, of the life histories that were regurgitated as characters unburdened themselves. In this novel, there is also a lot of talk, but the characters tend to sound the same - even the women speak in the same punched, exclamatory, staccato rhythms as Axler.
For Roth, in his fiction, sex is an act both of supreme self-assertion and rebellion - of rebellion against bourgeois convention, against death itself. Sex simultaneously offers a release from and heightening of the self, a way to the truth. His lead men invariably seek to find a woman who is their equal in appetite in what Iago called "preposterous desires". This ideal woman is often subliterate or anti-intellectual, an immigrant such as the Croat Drenka Balich, from Sabbath's Theatre, on whose grave men would return long after her death to masturbate in memory of her astounding sexual capacities. She is the young Cuban beauty Consuela Castillo, a "masterpiece of volupté" who has an affair with the aged libertine David Kepesh in the affecting The Dying Animal. And, in The Humbling, she is Pegeen Stapleford, a full-figured, 40-year-old lesbian who begins an affair with Axler in defiance of her sexuality and her parents, old friends of the actor. The subplot is that Pegeen's long-time lesbian lover has decided to become a man. You'd never believe it.
It is Pegeen who introduces the dildos and whips into her sex life with Axler; he, in turn, introduces her to the penis. "It fills you up," she says, "the way dildos and fingers don't. It's alive. It's a living thing." Their sexual fantasies inevitably darken and deepen, and before too long they have picked up a woman named Tracy and hurried her into bed. Axler looks on as Pegeen straps on a dildo and violates Tracy, who has all the complexity of a piece of meat, in what is supposed to be a frenzy of need. How mechanically Roth manipulates his characters at this point, and how contemptuously! Even he seems conscious of this, because he belatedly allows Axler a moment of fellow feeling as he clunkingly "wondered what was going on in Tracy's mind". It's like asking what's going on in the mind of a character in a computer game, because Tracy is no more or less credible than that.
The Big Threesome is meant to illustrate how Pegeen's arrival has reawakened in Axler the desire once more to act, to become a player, if not on the stage, then at least in the world. He starts to dream of becoming a father, and one day takes a trip to a fertility expert in New York. You know nothing good will come of all this, nor does it.
Like the other lead men of Roth's late fiction, Axler is beguiled into believing that redemption is possible, even as his personal clock prepares to strike midnight. Fleetingly, sex and desire lift him from despond and offer the hope of one last, late flourishing, only for that hope to be extinguished by Pegeen's sudden departure. The Big Threesome has had a different effect on her: it has reminded her of what she's been missing.
Girls will be girls. So the wheel turns full circle and this feeble novel ends as it began, in an ecstasy of despair, with Axler, alone in his attic, staring down the barrel of a gun. Oh, go on, pull the trigger. [rc]
Jason Cowley is editor of the New Statesman.
The Humbling
Philip Roth
Jonathan Cape, 140pp, £12.99
© New Statesman 1913 – 2009
USA: Planning For Retirement at Any Age
.
NEW YORK, NY / TIME Magazine October 30, 2009
SPECIAL PACKAGE
The New Rules of Retirement
The market crashed, then recovered.
Feeling safer?
To battle the uncertainty, check out TIME's five-part series on how to plan for retirement now. [rc]
TIME Photograph by Ronnie Kaufman / Corbis
Copyright 2009 Time Inc.
The New Rules of Retirement
The market crashed, then recovered.
Feeling safer?
To battle the uncertainty, check out TIME's five-part series on how to plan for retirement now. [rc]
TIME Photograph by Ronnie Kaufman / Corbis
Copyright 2009 Time Inc.
NIGERIA: Mental health and Nigerian society today
.
LAGOS, Nigeria / Nigeria Guardian News / October 30, 2009
"Misfortunes in life, premature deaths and even some deaths in old age may be attributed to the evil machination of wicked enemies...., recently said Prof. Layi Erinosho, formerly professor of Sociology, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, at Ogun State College of Health Technology, Ilese-Ijebu, Ogun State.
Mental health is one of the key components of health. Mental illness which is the opposite of mental health is about incapacitating conditions that necessitate short and/or lifelong care and support, he added.
Professor Layi Erinosho. Photo by Andy S. Chang
Prof. Layi Erinosho specialised in the area of sociology of mental health in hisdoctorate degree in Toronto. He says he has moved into other areas like health planning and systems including implementation research. He still retains primordial interest in the study of mental health and ill-health.
The theme of his address was: What has mental health got to do with Nigerian society? [rc]
To read the full report, click here
© 2003 - 2009 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited
Mental health is one of the key components of health. Mental illness which is the opposite of mental health is about incapacitating conditions that necessitate short and/or lifelong care and support, he added.
Professor Layi Erinosho. Photo by Andy S. Chang
Prof. Layi Erinosho specialised in the area of sociology of mental health in hisdoctorate degree in Toronto. He says he has moved into other areas like health planning and systems including implementation research. He still retains primordial interest in the study of mental health and ill-health.
The theme of his address was: What has mental health got to do with Nigerian society? [rc]
To read the full report, click here
© 2003 - 2009 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited
October 29, 2009
PHILIPPINES: More Senior Citizens Benefit From One-Shot Grant of P500
.
QUEZON CITY, Philippines / Philippines Information Service / Social Welfare / October 29, 2009
More senior citizens benefit from Katas ng Vat: Para kay Lolo at Lola
By Leah T. Quintana, DSWD-Caraga
BUTUAN CITY - More senior citizens have benefited from the government’s Katas ng Vat: Para kay Lolo at Lola implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The Department has continued the one-shot provision of P500 to senior citizens taken from the collection of the oil value added tax.
Implemented nationwide, the program requires that beneficiaries must be 70 years old and above, dependent or belonging to a family whose income is within or below the poverty threshold per are and not covered by any private and/or government agency retirement benefit like SSS, GSIS, PVAO. The guideline also provides that a ratio of one beneficiary per family shall be followed.
The claimant, according to DSWD Caraga Director Mercedita P. Jabagat, shall present a valid identification card (OSCA ID, etc.) that indicates the birth date of the senior citizen, for validation purposes or a certification from the barangay captain as to the age of the senior citizen. In case the claimant is an authorized representative of the senior citizen, Jabagat said, he/she shall present the valid ID of the claimant and authorization letter attested by the senior citizen beneficiary.
Last year, a total of 9,632 senior citizens received the P500. For this year, DSWD Caraga has distributed this October to 2,612 senior citizens from Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte and Agusan del Sur. Another 2,312 beneficiaries from Butuan City will get the P500 on November 4, 2009.
As of this report, a total of P6,122,000.00 has been released by DSWD to senior citizens. [rc]
Copyright © 2005 Philippine Information Agency
Implemented nationwide, the program requires that beneficiaries must be 70 years old and above, dependent or belonging to a family whose income is within or below the poverty threshold per are and not covered by any private and/or government agency retirement benefit like SSS, GSIS, PVAO. The guideline also provides that a ratio of one beneficiary per family shall be followed.
The claimant, according to DSWD Caraga Director Mercedita P. Jabagat, shall present a valid identification card (OSCA ID, etc.) that indicates the birth date of the senior citizen, for validation purposes or a certification from the barangay captain as to the age of the senior citizen. In case the claimant is an authorized representative of the senior citizen, Jabagat said, he/she shall present the valid ID of the claimant and authorization letter attested by the senior citizen beneficiary.
Last year, a total of 9,632 senior citizens received the P500. For this year, DSWD Caraga has distributed this October to 2,612 senior citizens from Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte and Agusan del Sur. Another 2,312 beneficiaries from Butuan City will get the P500 on November 4, 2009.
As of this report, a total of P6,122,000.00 has been released by DSWD to senior citizens. [rc]
Copyright © 2005 Philippine Information Agency
USA: Cancer didn't beat Swayze, his wife says
.
SYDNEY, NSW, Australia / The Sydney Morning Herald / People / Reuters / October 29, 2009
Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze's widow, Lisa Niemi, said that even though her husband's battle with cancer lasted nearly two years, that did not prepare her for his death in September.
"This is all new to me, and I thought during the 22 months of my husband's illness that it gave me all this time to get used to the idea of losing him," Niemi said, in her first public appearance since Swayze's death.
Patrick Swayze and wife Lisa Niemi on December 13, 2006. Photo: Getty Images
"I found for myself that when I actually got to that point, I said, `No, no, no.' It wasn't the same at all. The actual loss is an animal of its own," she said at a panel discussion on grief at the Women's Conference in Long Beach, California.
Niemi was joined by California first lady Maria Shriver, actress and activist Susan Saint James and Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, who has herself battled cancer.
"Cancer may have taken Patrick, but it didn't beat him," Niemi said. The Dirty Dancing star died on September 14 at the age of 57.
Niemi will talk more about loving and losing her husband of 34 years to pancreatic cancer, in an interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey due to air on Friday. [rc]
Copyright © 2009. Fairfax Digital
Patrick Swayze and wife Lisa Niemi on December 13, 2006. Photo: Getty Images
"I found for myself that when I actually got to that point, I said, `No, no, no.' It wasn't the same at all. The actual loss is an animal of its own," she said at a panel discussion on grief at the Women's Conference in Long Beach, California.
Niemi was joined by California first lady Maria Shriver, actress and activist Susan Saint James and Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, who has herself battled cancer.
"Cancer may have taken Patrick, but it didn't beat him," Niemi said. The Dirty Dancing star died on September 14 at the age of 57.
Niemi will talk more about loving and losing her husband of 34 years to pancreatic cancer, in an interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey due to air on Friday. [rc]
Copyright © 2009. Fairfax Digital
CUBA: Cuba's ex-leader Castro 'strong'
.
LONDON, England / BBC News / Americas / October 28, 2009
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public for three years. This BBC photograph was taken in 2007.
By Michael Voss, BBC News, Havana
Cuba's ex-leader Fidel Castro is looking strong and remains on top of developments at home and abroad, says a world health chief.
Dr Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, was granted an audience with Mr Castro this week.
Mr Castro has not been seen in public for more than three years, since a series of major intestinal operations.
The only updates on his health come from visiting dignitaries who have been able to meet him.
Exactly what he suffers from, and where he is recuperating, remain state secrets.
"I have to say Mr Fidel Castro's understanding of the importance of health, particularly public health, is impressive, " said Dr Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization.
Dr Chan spent more than two-and-a-half hours with Mr Castro on Tuesday evening, when she had a "long talk" with him.
"He walked me out of the house, that's quite a distance, so pretty strong. And don't forget, I'm younger than him," she said, without discussing specific health issues.
Topics ranged from swine flu preparations to the possible health impact of climate change.
Speaking at a news conference in Havana, Dr Chan said that Cuba's 83-year-old former leader remained well informed and as demanding as ever.
"I have to say Mr Fidel Castro's understanding of the importance of health, particularly public health, is impressive.
"Any one of you, especially the doctors, if you don't know your subject well, don't talk to him. He knows more about the subject than you do." [rc]
© BBC MMIX
Seniors World Chronicle adds
Also read related report Primary Health Care in Cuba from periodico.26.cu of Las Tunas, Cuba.
Margaret Chan, upon her arrival at the tropical medicine institute, greets minister José Ramón Balaguer. to her left, professor Gustavo Kourí, director of the center.
Report by José A. de la Osa
Fidel Castro has not been seen in public for three years. This BBC photograph was taken in 2007.
By Michael Voss, BBC News, Havana
Cuba's ex-leader Fidel Castro is looking strong and remains on top of developments at home and abroad, says a world health chief.
Dr Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, was granted an audience with Mr Castro this week.
Mr Castro has not been seen in public for more than three years, since a series of major intestinal operations.
The only updates on his health come from visiting dignitaries who have been able to meet him.
Exactly what he suffers from, and where he is recuperating, remain state secrets.
"I have to say Mr Fidel Castro's understanding of the importance of health, particularly public health, is impressive, " said Dr Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization.
Dr Chan spent more than two-and-a-half hours with Mr Castro on Tuesday evening, when she had a "long talk" with him.
"He walked me out of the house, that's quite a distance, so pretty strong. And don't forget, I'm younger than him," she said, without discussing specific health issues.
Topics ranged from swine flu preparations to the possible health impact of climate change.
Speaking at a news conference in Havana, Dr Chan said that Cuba's 83-year-old former leader remained well informed and as demanding as ever.
"I have to say Mr Fidel Castro's understanding of the importance of health, particularly public health, is impressive.
"Any one of you, especially the doctors, if you don't know your subject well, don't talk to him. He knows more about the subject than you do." [rc]
© BBC MMIX
Seniors World Chronicle adds
Also read related report Primary Health Care in Cuba from periodico.26.cu of Las Tunas, Cuba.
Margaret Chan, upon her arrival at the tropical medicine institute, greets minister José Ramón Balaguer. to her left, professor Gustavo Kourí, director of the center.
Report by José A. de la Osa
October 28, 2009
UK: Turmeric extract 'curcumin' can kill off cancer cells, say scientists
.
Dr Sharon McKenna and Dr Geraldine O’Sullivan-Coyne, scientists at the Cork Research Centre, University College Cork, Ireland, report that their lab research shows an extract from turmeric has the potential to kill oesophageal cancer cells.
See UCC report
LONDON, England / BBC News / Health / October 28, 2009
An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.
This chicken tikka curry has a spice that kills cancer cells: The yellow spice gives curries their bright colour
The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.
Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.
Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.
'Natural' remedy
The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.
Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value."
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.
"Rates of oesophageal cancer have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too."
Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths. [rc]
© BBC MMIX
Dr Sharon McKenna and Dr Geraldine O’Sullivan-Coyne, scientists at the Cork Research Centre, University College Cork, Ireland, report that their lab research shows an extract from turmeric has the potential to kill oesophageal cancer cells.
See UCC report
LONDON, England / BBC News / Health / October 28, 2009
An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.
This chicken tikka curry has a spice that kills cancer cells: The yellow spice gives curries their bright colour
The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.
Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.
Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.
'Natural' remedy
The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.
Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value."
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.
"Rates of oesophageal cancer have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too."
Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths. [rc]
© BBC MMIX
CANADA: Being the boss can take a toll on health
.
MANAMA, Bahrain / TradeArabia / News / Reuters / October 28, 2009
Being the boss might mean more money and challenging work but it can also take a toll on physical and mental well-being, according to a Canadian study.
For years studies have shown people in lower-status jobs generally have higher rates of heart disease and other illnesses and die earlier than those in higher-status positions while job authority has shown no association with workers' health.
But University of Toronto researchers, using data from 1,800 US workers, found the health of people in higher positions is affected by work as they are more likely to report conflicts with co-workers and say work intruded on their home life.
However the positive aspects of having a power position at work, such as higher status, more pay and greater independence, seemed to cancel out the negative aspects when it came to people's physical and psychological health.
'Were it not for their greater exposure to interpersonal conflict at work and work-to-home interference, individuals with higher levels of authority would tend to report fewer physical symptoms, symptoms of psychological distress, and less anger,' researcher Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology, told Reuters Health.
'This isn't to suggest that having authority is 'bad' -- in fact, we show it has benefits ... but it is important to identify the downsides and deal with them.'
These latest findings, reported in the journal Social Science & Medicine, suggest that the pros and cons of authority positions essentially cancel each other out, giving the general impression that job authority has no health effects.
For the study, the researchers surveyed participants about various aspects of their work life and well-being. Job authority was gauged based on whether a person managed other employees and had power over hiring, firing and pay.
Physical health complaints included problems like headaches, body aches, heartburn and fatigue, psychological complaints included sleep problems, difficulty concentrating and feelings of sadness, worry and anxiety.
Schieman said conflicts with co-workers or intrusion of work into home life may chip away at physical and mental well-being by creating chronic stress.
'These are key stressors that can tax individuals' capacity to function effectively,' Schieman said. He said while research has typically focused on the negative health effects of lower-status work, it was also important to recognize the 'stress of higher status.' [rc]
Copyright (c) 2009, Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group
Being the boss might mean more money and challenging work but it can also take a toll on physical and mental well-being, according to a Canadian study.
For years studies have shown people in lower-status jobs generally have higher rates of heart disease and other illnesses and die earlier than those in higher-status positions while job authority has shown no association with workers' health.
But University of Toronto researchers, using data from 1,800 US workers, found the health of people in higher positions is affected by work as they are more likely to report conflicts with co-workers and say work intruded on their home life.
However the positive aspects of having a power position at work, such as higher status, more pay and greater independence, seemed to cancel out the negative aspects when it came to people's physical and psychological health.
'Were it not for their greater exposure to interpersonal conflict at work and work-to-home interference, individuals with higher levels of authority would tend to report fewer physical symptoms, symptoms of psychological distress, and less anger,' researcher Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology, told Reuters Health.
'This isn't to suggest that having authority is 'bad' -- in fact, we show it has benefits ... but it is important to identify the downsides and deal with them.'
These latest findings, reported in the journal Social Science & Medicine, suggest that the pros and cons of authority positions essentially cancel each other out, giving the general impression that job authority has no health effects.
For the study, the researchers surveyed participants about various aspects of their work life and well-being. Job authority was gauged based on whether a person managed other employees and had power over hiring, firing and pay.
Physical health complaints included problems like headaches, body aches, heartburn and fatigue, psychological complaints included sleep problems, difficulty concentrating and feelings of sadness, worry and anxiety.
Schieman said conflicts with co-workers or intrusion of work into home life may chip away at physical and mental well-being by creating chronic stress.
'These are key stressors that can tax individuals' capacity to function effectively,' Schieman said. He said while research has typically focused on the negative health effects of lower-status work, it was also important to recognize the 'stress of higher status.' [rc]
Copyright (c) 2009, Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group
CHINA: Yueju is alive and well in the countryside
.
BEIJING, China / China Daily / Entertainment / October 28, 2009
SHOWBIZ - Theater & Arts
Alive and well in the countryside
Yueju, or Cantonese Opera, is one of a dozen folk operas popular in South China's Guangdong province.
The name Yueju is also associated with another, better known, opera tradition of East China's Zhejiang province. This 100-year-old opera is defined by its all-women cast.
Cantonese Opera is popular in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, Macao and western Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
Dating back to Emperor Jiajing (1507-66) from the Ming Dynasty, Yueju is referred to as "Big Opera" (Daxi) by its lovers. With people in Guangdong began moving overseas some 500 years ago, it is often said that where there are Chinese immigrants, there is Yueju.
Despite its decline in urban areas in recent years, Yueju continues to enjoy popularity in the countryside with the elderly and migrant workers forming the bulk of the fan base.
Troupes are often invited to perform during festivals and to mark the birth of deities.
Yueju has absorbed many of the elements of other traditional Chinese operas. Nearly all the acrobatic fighting comes from Peking Opera, and the singing can be traced to Kunqu, an opera originating in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Among the most famous original plays in Yueju are The Snow-white Cup (Yipengxue), When Plum Blooms Again (Erdumei), The Long Night (Jiugengtian) and Eighteen Warlords (Shibalu Zhuhou).
The most famous actress is Hong Xiannu (stage name for Kuang Jianlian), who has starred in more than 100 operas and films, such as Wang Zhaojun (Zhaojun Chusai).
Wang Mingquan, a famous Hong Kong star and president of the Hong Kong Cantonese performers' association, Bahe Huiguan, is planning to launch a middle school specializing in Cantonese Opera. [rc]
Copyright 1995 - 2009 China Daily Information Co (CDIC).
Yueju, or Cantonese Opera, is one of a dozen folk operas popular in South China's Guangdong province.
The name Yueju is also associated with another, better known, opera tradition of East China's Zhejiang province. This 100-year-old opera is defined by its all-women cast.
Cantonese Opera is popular in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, Macao and western Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
Dating back to Emperor Jiajing (1507-66) from the Ming Dynasty, Yueju is referred to as "Big Opera" (Daxi) by its lovers. With people in Guangdong began moving overseas some 500 years ago, it is often said that where there are Chinese immigrants, there is Yueju.
Despite its decline in urban areas in recent years, Yueju continues to enjoy popularity in the countryside with the elderly and migrant workers forming the bulk of the fan base.
Troupes are often invited to perform during festivals and to mark the birth of deities.
Yueju has absorbed many of the elements of other traditional Chinese operas. Nearly all the acrobatic fighting comes from Peking Opera, and the singing can be traced to Kunqu, an opera originating in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Among the most famous original plays in Yueju are The Snow-white Cup (Yipengxue), When Plum Blooms Again (Erdumei), The Long Night (Jiugengtian) and Eighteen Warlords (Shibalu Zhuhou).
The most famous actress is Hong Xiannu (stage name for Kuang Jianlian), who has starred in more than 100 operas and films, such as Wang Zhaojun (Zhaojun Chusai).
Wang Mingquan, a famous Hong Kong star and president of the Hong Kong Cantonese performers' association, Bahe Huiguan, is planning to launch a middle school specializing in Cantonese Opera. [rc]
Copyright 1995 - 2009 China Daily Information Co (CDIC).
October 27, 2009
USA: Confessions of a Grandma - A First Person Story
.
PORTLAND, Maine / Time Goes By / The Elder Storytelling Place / October 27, 2009
Confessions of a Grandma:
'A grandma is just an antique little girl'...unknown"
By Olga Hebert
To My Mom
It started with Ed McMahon and Publishers' Clearing House. I'm not blaming Ed McMahon, may he rest in peace. I'm just looking back and thinking that was an early clue, although I may not have fully realized it at the time.
I had arrived at my mother's mid-Saturday morning as was my custom in those days. We would have coffee and maybe a donut, then go out to do grocery shopping. After returning to her apartment, I would do the laundry and help with any other Saturday chores.
This particular morning, though, something was a bit different. My mother was sitting in her chair. She had a smile that extended from the tip of her head right on down to her toes. Glee seemed to radiate off her in a shimmering yellow glow. "Well, it certainly looks like a good day!" I had to remark. "What's going on?"
"I won!" Words and giggles bursting from her. "Wait til you see! I won! I'm rich! Look at this!"
She thrust the envelope from Publishers' Clearing House, the one with Ed McMahon's picture on the front, the one with MILLION DOLLARS in very big letters and an invitation to enter in very small letters, the same one I had gotten myself in yesterday's mail.
"No, Mom," I tried to explain, but it was quickly clear that she was not inclined to believe me. I'm sure she was telling herself I was just being a killjoy consumed with jealousy, so I let it drop.
She smiled right through the grocery store trip and completion of laundry and every once in a while I noticed she could not contain a little shiver of happiness. "Congratulations," was all I could say when I left.
The next day, when our whole family gathered at her place for Sunday dinner, there was no mention of her millionaire status. I was tempted into believing she had just been teasing me the day before.
That day she was joking about her homemade rolls that had turned out to be more like crackers. She said at some point in the assembly process the recipe book had flipped a few pages and when she noticed, she got confused, and just carried on with the second recipe. She thumped her head lightly. "My head is so thick, sometimes," was her comment.
It wasn't over, of course, and it wasn't innocent teasing. For every time I found her ecstatically believing she'd won a major jackpot, I was just as likely to find her in an agitated funk. "Oh, look at these bills," she'd moan." I don't have the money to pay these."
She would have unearthed a stash of old bills from the early 70's. She would not be soothed with my pointing out the dates and assurance that they had been paid long ago. In desperation, I started sneaking stacks of old, useless paperwork into my bag when she wasn't looking and tossing them at home.
Eventually, she stopped reading her mail or understanding any written material. Cue cards we'd set up to get her through simple daily routines no longer worked. She could entertain herself by watching the preview channel on TV.
Over time, my visits became more frequent. Mom wasn't able to handle shopping in a grocery store, dealing with money or even finding her way home from the church across the street. My brother took the burners out of the stove and eventually unplugged it altogether after a serious fire incident.
He fixed her breakfast on weekdays and Meals-On-Wheels brought her a lunch. We hired some one to sit with her during the day. I would bring her prepared meals in the evenings and through the weekends. Her head thumping became more distressed and distressing.
My mother, whose ultimate expression of love for her family was through her wonderful cooking, could no longer even manage to make her own toast and coffee in the morning. She tried, though.
One morning, I found her in the kitchen. There was a pair of shoes placed side by side on the counter and she was stuffing two slices of bread into the openings. Another time, while I was doing laundry, she took the vacuum cleaner out the front door. She was irritated that my brother hadn't mowed the lawn in far too long so was going to take care of it herself. We put a large black mat outside the front door so she would not wander outside after a neighbor called to let me know she had wandered into his house, convinced that that was her home.
One Saturday, I was able to gather very little laundry after searching in the freezer, the oven, under the bed and in all the dresser drawers. That's when it became clear to me that she was putting on a new outfit each day but without removing her attire from the previous day.
Getting her out of her day dress into pajamas became another nightly task for me. Perhaps the hardest task of all, though, was bath time. She liked having her hair washed at the kitchen sink. I could soak her hands and feet and give her a manicure and pedicure any old time. But strip her down to get in the tub or shower? Now there was a battle complete with screaming and cries of "HELP! HELP! She's trying to murder me."
On good days, she recognized me at least as a benevolent person who brought her food. On bad days, she accused me of being there to steal her money. I'd try to clean and organize. It appeared she spent her days shuffling stuff around and shredding her meals into crumbs that could lead her from one room to the next.
Opening cupboards and closets would likely get her upset, though, and I would be stung by her accusations of my intent to rob her. On the other hand, my sister, who was farther away and busy with young children so never had the opportunity to experience bath time, was greeted like an honored guest when she would visit.
All this happened gradually, bit by bit over the course of ten years. Inevitably, there came the time when I was both physically and emotionally exhausted, not to mention consumed with the guilt of not being able to do enough. I did not feel badly that my mother went into the Birchwood Nursing Home, November, 2000. It was the time to admit I could not continue to care for her and maintain my own sanity.
When I visited, as I did often on my way home from work or on the weekends, I was always glad to realize that she was safe, clean and well fed. She seemed content, something that was not a hallmark of most of her adult life. She enjoyed the music programs and exercise that were provided.
She started greeting me like an honored guest even though she really didn't fully know who I was most of the time. She really seemed to enjoy when I could take her out for a walk down to the park. I never asked about how bath time went, not wanting to know, but I did find out that she was sometimes in trouble for trying to steal ice cream. (My mother, stealing!!)
I said what I knew would be my final farewell to my mother on the morning of August 1, 2005, just shy of her 92nd birthday. Alzheimer's Disease can be devastating, but in the end I believe my mother was at peace. Music and dancing and ice cream - that is what carried her out and beyond. That seems not such a bad way to go. I hope I said it at the time, "I love you , Mom." [rc]
© 2009 Ronni Bennett.
By Olga Hebert
To My Mom
It started with Ed McMahon and Publishers' Clearing House. I'm not blaming Ed McMahon, may he rest in peace. I'm just looking back and thinking that was an early clue, although I may not have fully realized it at the time.
I had arrived at my mother's mid-Saturday morning as was my custom in those days. We would have coffee and maybe a donut, then go out to do grocery shopping. After returning to her apartment, I would do the laundry and help with any other Saturday chores.
This particular morning, though, something was a bit different. My mother was sitting in her chair. She had a smile that extended from the tip of her head right on down to her toes. Glee seemed to radiate off her in a shimmering yellow glow. "Well, it certainly looks like a good day!" I had to remark. "What's going on?"
"I won!" Words and giggles bursting from her. "Wait til you see! I won! I'm rich! Look at this!"
She thrust the envelope from Publishers' Clearing House, the one with Ed McMahon's picture on the front, the one with MILLION DOLLARS in very big letters and an invitation to enter in very small letters, the same one I had gotten myself in yesterday's mail.
"No, Mom," I tried to explain, but it was quickly clear that she was not inclined to believe me. I'm sure she was telling herself I was just being a killjoy consumed with jealousy, so I let it drop.
She smiled right through the grocery store trip and completion of laundry and every once in a while I noticed she could not contain a little shiver of happiness. "Congratulations," was all I could say when I left.
The next day, when our whole family gathered at her place for Sunday dinner, there was no mention of her millionaire status. I was tempted into believing she had just been teasing me the day before.
That day she was joking about her homemade rolls that had turned out to be more like crackers. She said at some point in the assembly process the recipe book had flipped a few pages and when she noticed, she got confused, and just carried on with the second recipe. She thumped her head lightly. "My head is so thick, sometimes," was her comment.
It wasn't over, of course, and it wasn't innocent teasing. For every time I found her ecstatically believing she'd won a major jackpot, I was just as likely to find her in an agitated funk. "Oh, look at these bills," she'd moan." I don't have the money to pay these."
She would have unearthed a stash of old bills from the early 70's. She would not be soothed with my pointing out the dates and assurance that they had been paid long ago. In desperation, I started sneaking stacks of old, useless paperwork into my bag when she wasn't looking and tossing them at home.
Eventually, she stopped reading her mail or understanding any written material. Cue cards we'd set up to get her through simple daily routines no longer worked. She could entertain herself by watching the preview channel on TV.
Over time, my visits became more frequent. Mom wasn't able to handle shopping in a grocery store, dealing with money or even finding her way home from the church across the street. My brother took the burners out of the stove and eventually unplugged it altogether after a serious fire incident.
He fixed her breakfast on weekdays and Meals-On-Wheels brought her a lunch. We hired some one to sit with her during the day. I would bring her prepared meals in the evenings and through the weekends. Her head thumping became more distressed and distressing.
My mother, whose ultimate expression of love for her family was through her wonderful cooking, could no longer even manage to make her own toast and coffee in the morning. She tried, though.
One morning, I found her in the kitchen. There was a pair of shoes placed side by side on the counter and she was stuffing two slices of bread into the openings. Another time, while I was doing laundry, she took the vacuum cleaner out the front door. She was irritated that my brother hadn't mowed the lawn in far too long so was going to take care of it herself. We put a large black mat outside the front door so she would not wander outside after a neighbor called to let me know she had wandered into his house, convinced that that was her home.
One Saturday, I was able to gather very little laundry after searching in the freezer, the oven, under the bed and in all the dresser drawers. That's when it became clear to me that she was putting on a new outfit each day but without removing her attire from the previous day.
Getting her out of her day dress into pajamas became another nightly task for me. Perhaps the hardest task of all, though, was bath time. She liked having her hair washed at the kitchen sink. I could soak her hands and feet and give her a manicure and pedicure any old time. But strip her down to get in the tub or shower? Now there was a battle complete with screaming and cries of "HELP! HELP! She's trying to murder me."
On good days, she recognized me at least as a benevolent person who brought her food. On bad days, she accused me of being there to steal her money. I'd try to clean and organize. It appeared she spent her days shuffling stuff around and shredding her meals into crumbs that could lead her from one room to the next.
Opening cupboards and closets would likely get her upset, though, and I would be stung by her accusations of my intent to rob her. On the other hand, my sister, who was farther away and busy with young children so never had the opportunity to experience bath time, was greeted like an honored guest when she would visit.
All this happened gradually, bit by bit over the course of ten years. Inevitably, there came the time when I was both physically and emotionally exhausted, not to mention consumed with the guilt of not being able to do enough. I did not feel badly that my mother went into the Birchwood Nursing Home, November, 2000. It was the time to admit I could not continue to care for her and maintain my own sanity.
When I visited, as I did often on my way home from work or on the weekends, I was always glad to realize that she was safe, clean and well fed. She seemed content, something that was not a hallmark of most of her adult life. She enjoyed the music programs and exercise that were provided.
She started greeting me like an honored guest even though she really didn't fully know who I was most of the time. She really seemed to enjoy when I could take her out for a walk down to the park. I never asked about how bath time went, not wanting to know, but I did find out that she was sometimes in trouble for trying to steal ice cream. (My mother, stealing!!)
I said what I knew would be my final farewell to my mother on the morning of August 1, 2005, just shy of her 92nd birthday. Alzheimer's Disease can be devastating, but in the end I believe my mother was at peace. Music and dancing and ice cream - that is what carried her out and beyond. That seems not such a bad way to go. I hope I said it at the time, "I love you , Mom." [rc]
© 2009 Ronni Bennett.
USA: Bill Cosby - A night of love and laughs at Twain Prize
.
WASHINGTON, DC / USA Today / Life / People / October 27, 2009
By Cindy Clark, USA TODAY
It was a mini-Cosby Show reunion Monday night as stars from the sitcom joined friends and family at the Kennedy Center to honor Bill Cosby with the 12th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Phylicia Rashad and Malcolm-Jamal Warner were among a bevy of stars — including Jerry Seinfeld, Sinbad, Chris Rock and Willie Nelson — who gathered to celebrate the life and achievements of the beloved comedian.
"I'm happy," Cosby, 72, said before the show, his mind more focused on his attire. "Do you like my tie? Usually I like to wear one that drives the girls wild, but this one … Mrs. Cosby picked it out."
At Cosby's request, Rashad flew in from London, where she is performing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
"I'm happy":
A star-studded lineup, including Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld, saluted Bill Cosby at the Kennedy Center Monday night.
By Brendan Hoffman, Getty Images
"We were just so happy to be together," Rashad said of working on The Cosby Show. "It was so much fun. It really was golden."
Warner said he remains close with his TV dad.
"He's been a very integral part of my life," Warner said, calling the long-running sitcom a "testament to his (Cosby's) genius. He always said he wanted the show to be relevant and timeless, and it is."
"He's a force of nature," noted Carl Reiner, a previous Mark Twain Prize recipient who said it was his son who brought Cosby to his attention. "I saw him and said we have got to get him on Dick Van Dyke (show)."
The evening's program included a retrospective of Cosby's career, along with personal anecdotes from the star-studded lineup.
Seinfeld and Rock opened the show, and they joked about having performance anxiety because of Cosby's presence in the audience. "We're not funny," Seinfeld said. "Not compared to Bill Cosby," Rock added.
Nelson and Wynton Marsalis performed a duet for the music-loving comedian.
Seinfeld recalled buying Cosby's 1965 comedy album Why Is There Air? when he was 11 years old. "I listened to this album and completely lost my mind," he said. "It really was the single most powerful event of my childhood."
At the conclusion of the tribute, Cosby addressed the crowd, reminiscing at length about his career and giving thanks.
"Tonight is a great, great night for me and my family … But it is also for all the people who bought the albums and saw the shows," he said. "Each and every time I plant my feet (on the stage) it is to perform to you." [rc]
Copyright 2009 USA TODAY
"I'm happy":
A star-studded lineup, including Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld, saluted Bill Cosby at the Kennedy Center Monday night.
By Brendan Hoffman, Getty Images
"We were just so happy to be together," Rashad said of working on The Cosby Show. "It was so much fun. It really was golden."
Warner said he remains close with his TV dad.
"He's been a very integral part of my life," Warner said, calling the long-running sitcom a "testament to his (Cosby's) genius. He always said he wanted the show to be relevant and timeless, and it is."
"He's a force of nature," noted Carl Reiner, a previous Mark Twain Prize recipient who said it was his son who brought Cosby to his attention. "I saw him and said we have got to get him on Dick Van Dyke (show)."
The evening's program included a retrospective of Cosby's career, along with personal anecdotes from the star-studded lineup.
Seinfeld and Rock opened the show, and they joked about having performance anxiety because of Cosby's presence in the audience. "We're not funny," Seinfeld said. "Not compared to Bill Cosby," Rock added.
Nelson and Wynton Marsalis performed a duet for the music-loving comedian.
Seinfeld recalled buying Cosby's 1965 comedy album Why Is There Air? when he was 11 years old. "I listened to this album and completely lost my mind," he said. "It really was the single most powerful event of my childhood."
At the conclusion of the tribute, Cosby addressed the crowd, reminiscing at length about his career and giving thanks.
"Tonight is a great, great night for me and my family … But it is also for all the people who bought the albums and saw the shows," he said. "Each and every time I plant my feet (on the stage) it is to perform to you." [rc]
Copyright 2009 USA TODAY
October 26, 2009
USA: Senior exercising - 'It's never too late to start'
.
CHICAGO, Illinois / Chicago Tribune / Health / Preventive Medicine / October 26, 2009
Silver Sneakers class member Josephine Ewasiuk, right, exercises at the YMCA in La Grange. She and her husband, Stanley, decided about 12 years ago to exercise more. Tribune photo by Alex Garcia.
By Judith Graham
He's an 84-year-old diabetic with one lung that doesn't work.
She's his 84-year-old wife, a survivor of a nearly fatal aortic aneurysm.
About a dozen years ago, they stared old age in the face and made a decision. Instead of letting themselves go, they would get themselves going.
So, Stanley and Josephine Ewasiuk of Clearing started attending exercise classes and walking in the park across the street from their house. Bit by bit, they got stronger.
Stanley couldn't climb three steps without breathing heavily before he started working out. "Today, I can climb a couple of dozen stairs, no problem," he said.
After the surgery that saved her life, Josephine had to learn how to raise her right arm and maintain a sense of balance. "If you do something every day, it's going to help," she said, referring to her exercises.
Every Friday, they go to yoga; Tuesday and Thursday, they're off to a 45-minute exercise class at the Brookfield YMCA. In between are long walks in Hale Park at least twice a week.
"It helps my breathing, it keeps my blood sugar down, and I'm not taking as much medication," said Stanley, whose diabetes has stabilized. "I can still work all day, when I want to. I feel like a kid yet."
What's aided the Ewasiuks can help anyone 65 or older, no matter how frail they may appear to be.
"All of the studies done so far indicate that it's never too late to start exercising, and any amount of exercise is beneficial," said Kelvin Davies, associate dean of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California.
"We do lose strength and capacity as we age," Davies said. "But by and large, the biggest losses are those that you see from people being inactive."
Of course, the activity will depend on a senior's circumstances.
"When you're in your 60s, you may want to go out for a vigorous 30-minute walk, while when you're in your 90s, you might try to lift your legs in a wheelchair," said Dr. Cheryl Phillips, president of the American Geriatrics Society.
"Start with something that's fun," she said. "If you really don't like what you're doing, it's not going to be sustainable no matter how good it is for you."
Exercise isn't the only way that seniors can stay healthier.
Even if a person has smoked for decades, he or she will realize benefits within months of giving up the habit.
Lung damage won't be undone, but smoking's impact on the heart will start to reverse, said Dr. William Dale, chief of geriatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
"Eat fewer calories, eat more fruits and vegetables, and eat more slowly," said Dr. Robert Butler, president of the International Longevity Center in New York. "And throw in vitamin D, take your calcium and drink alcohol only in moderation."
More advice: Don't let yourself become isolated. Staying connected to other people is part of staying healthy, at any age. Women may live longer because they typically have stronger social networks than their similarly aged husbands and brothers, Butler said.
"So speak up, guys, get loose, get more intimate, talk about things," he said. [rc]
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Silver Sneakers class member Josephine Ewasiuk, right, exercises at the YMCA in La Grange. She and her husband, Stanley, decided about 12 years ago to exercise more. Tribune photo by Alex Garcia.
By Judith Graham
He's an 84-year-old diabetic with one lung that doesn't work.
She's his 84-year-old wife, a survivor of a nearly fatal aortic aneurysm.
About a dozen years ago, they stared old age in the face and made a decision. Instead of letting themselves go, they would get themselves going.
So, Stanley and Josephine Ewasiuk of Clearing started attending exercise classes and walking in the park across the street from their house. Bit by bit, they got stronger.
Stanley couldn't climb three steps without breathing heavily before he started working out. "Today, I can climb a couple of dozen stairs, no problem," he said.
After the surgery that saved her life, Josephine had to learn how to raise her right arm and maintain a sense of balance. "If you do something every day, it's going to help," she said, referring to her exercises.
Every Friday, they go to yoga; Tuesday and Thursday, they're off to a 45-minute exercise class at the Brookfield YMCA. In between are long walks in Hale Park at least twice a week.
"It helps my breathing, it keeps my blood sugar down, and I'm not taking as much medication," said Stanley, whose diabetes has stabilized. "I can still work all day, when I want to. I feel like a kid yet."
What's aided the Ewasiuks can help anyone 65 or older, no matter how frail they may appear to be.
"All of the studies done so far indicate that it's never too late to start exercising, and any amount of exercise is beneficial," said Kelvin Davies, associate dean of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California.
"We do lose strength and capacity as we age," Davies said. "But by and large, the biggest losses are those that you see from people being inactive."
Of course, the activity will depend on a senior's circumstances.
"When you're in your 60s, you may want to go out for a vigorous 30-minute walk, while when you're in your 90s, you might try to lift your legs in a wheelchair," said Dr. Cheryl Phillips, president of the American Geriatrics Society.
"Start with something that's fun," she said. "If you really don't like what you're doing, it's not going to be sustainable no matter how good it is for you."
Exercise isn't the only way that seniors can stay healthier.
Even if a person has smoked for decades, he or she will realize benefits within months of giving up the habit.
Lung damage won't be undone, but smoking's impact on the heart will start to reverse, said Dr. William Dale, chief of geriatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
"Eat fewer calories, eat more fruits and vegetables, and eat more slowly," said Dr. Robert Butler, president of the International Longevity Center in New York. "And throw in vitamin D, take your calcium and drink alcohol only in moderation."
More advice: Don't let yourself become isolated. Staying connected to other people is part of staying healthy, at any age. Women may live longer because they typically have stronger social networks than their similarly aged husbands and brothers, Butler said.
"So speak up, guys, get loose, get more intimate, talk about things," he said. [rc]
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
USA: Simple steps to a healthy and happy retirement
.
LEXINGTON, Nebraska / Lexington Clipper-Herald / October 26, 2009
BOOKS
Senior Living
Simple steps to a healthy and happy retirement
Retired 80-year-olds can often have double the social interaction of their 50-year-old counterparts. This supports research that happiness increases with age because social interaction stimulates your brain to release "feel good" chemicals like norepinephrine, which leads to contentment.
Informative nuggets like this, in addition to assessments and anecdotes from people who have chosen continuing care retirement community living, are packed into the book "Old Is the New Young: Erickson's Secrets to Healthy Living." The book empowers people over 50 to live happier, healthier, more active lives through a series of simple tips backed by the latest research.
"Society dictates what we do for the first 60 or so years of our lives - we go to school, we join the workforce, we raise a family - but people are living longer and healthier than ever before; and the later years are, for many people, a big question mark," says Mark Erickson, co-author, chief operating officer, and son of John Erickson, founder of Erickson - a network of retirement communities around the country. "There's a real opportunity right now to help people see all the possibilities that are out there and realize how they can make the most of this valuable time in their lives."
As one of the leading national developers of full-service retirement communities for 25 years with 19 locations, Erickson is at the forefront of senior living, aging issues, health care, and innovation. The book's four co-authors - Dr. Matt Narrett, Mark Erickson, Jacquelyn Kung and Lisa Davila - have broad backgrounds in aging and wellness.
Assess yourself
Take a few minutes to test your social health using one of several self-assessments featured in the book. Adapted from research conducted by British gerontologist Kevin Morgan and his colleagues, the following measures levels of social engagement.
Answer yes or no to the questions below:
1. Do you read a newspaper or magazine on a regular basis?
2. Did you vote in the last election (local or national)?
3. Do you attend religious services or events?
4. Have you had a personal telephone conversation in the past week or so?
5. Do you browse or read books or materials from a library or bookstore?
6. Have you read or written a personal note (letter or e-mail) in the past week or so?
7. Have you attended a meeting or event of a club, group, or society in the past month?
8. Do you have a reliable mode of transportation to go shopping?
9. Do you have a full-time, part-time, or volunteer job?
10. Have you been away for vacation in the past year or so?
11. Are you planning to go on a vacation in the next year or so?
12. Do you interact with friends/family as much as you would like?
13. Do you have at least one friend or family member living within easy driving distance?
14. Can you leave your home and walk independently outside (with or without a cane or walker)?
15. Do you get out and do things as much as you would like?
16. Do you have at least one friend or neighbor who you could ask for urgent help if needed?
How did you do? Give yourself one point for each "yes" answer: 14 to 16 points means your social health is excellent; 12 to 13 points means your social health is fair; and 12 or fewer points means you need to work on improving your social network. [rc]
Click here for more about "Old Is the New Young"
Courtesy of ARAcontent
Copyright © 2009 - Lexington Clipper-Herald
Senior Living
Simple steps to a healthy and happy retirement
Retired 80-year-olds can often have double the social interaction of their 50-year-old counterparts. This supports research that happiness increases with age because social interaction stimulates your brain to release "feel good" chemicals like norepinephrine, which leads to contentment.
Informative nuggets like this, in addition to assessments and anecdotes from people who have chosen continuing care retirement community living, are packed into the book "Old Is the New Young: Erickson's Secrets to Healthy Living." The book empowers people over 50 to live happier, healthier, more active lives through a series of simple tips backed by the latest research.
"Society dictates what we do for the first 60 or so years of our lives - we go to school, we join the workforce, we raise a family - but people are living longer and healthier than ever before; and the later years are, for many people, a big question mark," says Mark Erickson, co-author, chief operating officer, and son of John Erickson, founder of Erickson - a network of retirement communities around the country. "There's a real opportunity right now to help people see all the possibilities that are out there and realize how they can make the most of this valuable time in their lives."
As one of the leading national developers of full-service retirement communities for 25 years with 19 locations, Erickson is at the forefront of senior living, aging issues, health care, and innovation. The book's four co-authors - Dr. Matt Narrett, Mark Erickson, Jacquelyn Kung and Lisa Davila - have broad backgrounds in aging and wellness.
Assess yourself
Take a few minutes to test your social health using one of several self-assessments featured in the book. Adapted from research conducted by British gerontologist Kevin Morgan and his colleagues, the following measures levels of social engagement.
Answer yes or no to the questions below:
1. Do you read a newspaper or magazine on a regular basis?
2. Did you vote in the last election (local or national)?
3. Do you attend religious services or events?
4. Have you had a personal telephone conversation in the past week or so?
5. Do you browse or read books or materials from a library or bookstore?
6. Have you read or written a personal note (letter or e-mail) in the past week or so?
7. Have you attended a meeting or event of a club, group, or society in the past month?
8. Do you have a reliable mode of transportation to go shopping?
9. Do you have a full-time, part-time, or volunteer job?
10. Have you been away for vacation in the past year or so?
11. Are you planning to go on a vacation in the next year or so?
12. Do you interact with friends/family as much as you would like?
13. Do you have at least one friend or family member living within easy driving distance?
14. Can you leave your home and walk independently outside (with or without a cane or walker)?
15. Do you get out and do things as much as you would like?
16. Do you have at least one friend or neighbor who you could ask for urgent help if needed?
How did you do? Give yourself one point for each "yes" answer: 14 to 16 points means your social health is excellent; 12 to 13 points means your social health is fair; and 12 or fewer points means you need to work on improving your social network. [rc]
Click here for more about "Old Is the New Young"
Courtesy of ARAcontent
Copyright © 2009 - Lexington Clipper-Herald
USA: 6 loans in 6 years: How one woman lost her home
.
SEATTLE, Washington / The Seattle Times / Business & Technology / October 26, 2009
Barbara Simonson, 90, had to sell her million-dollar home after a series of WaMu loans stripped much of its equity.
By David Health, Seattle Times staff reporter
For more than half a century, Barbara Simonson lived on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound in Seattle's Blue Ridge neighborhood.
Her late husband, a noted architect, designed the house. She liked to sit in the living room and watch the boats going by. She had hoped to live there the rest of her life.
Simonson, 90, didn't get her wish.
Barbara Simonson now lives in a tiny apartment off Aurora Avenue in Seattle.
Washington Mutual "should be ashamed of themselves for doing what they did to me," she says.
Erika Shultz/The Seattle Times
She was forced to sell after six Washington Mutual mortgage loans in six years stripped much of the equity from her nearly million-dollar home. She got them all from the same loan officer at WaMu's home-loan center at Northgate, loans that were far too complex for a stroke survivor to understand.
In fact, not until going over her loan documents with a reporter did she realize that interest rates were adjustable. "I have to tell you, math was not one of my better subjects in school," she said.
Barbara Simonson lost her Blue Ridge house, designed by her husband, after repeatedly refinancing with WaMu. Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times
For years, Simonson had kept all of her money at Washington Mutual. She trusted the bank. Her monthly Social Security check, now roughly $1,270, was deposited there directly.
Things began going wrong for Simonson when she borrowed more than $500,000 against her house to lend to her son. A contractor now in Iraq, he made payments for a while, then stopped.
Worried about draining her savings to meet the payments, she visited WaMu's Northgate loan center and talked to a loan officer, Patricia Collins, about getting a loan with a lower interest rate and smaller payments.
The loan officer drew up papers for a $551,000 loan in 2001. The loan application listed Simonson's monthly income at $10,300. Simonson says she has no idea where that figure came from. Collins didn't return calls seeking comment about the wildly inflated income.
When it came time for Simonson to sign the papers for the adjustable-rate loan, she said, "I was told what to do and I did it."
The next year, when her payments went up, she complained to WaMu and refinanced into a larger loan.
In October 2003, the bank qualified her for a $680,000 option ARM. If she had been asking for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, Simonson wouldn't have come close to qualifying for it, even using the inflated monthly income figure.
With the option ARM, Simonson started out making minimum payments that didn't cover interest or principal, piling up more debt. The bank had "qualified" her for the loan on her ability to pay the minimum amount. In other words, Simonson was put into a loan that she could not repay once the loan reset in five years, when the minimum payment was replaced by payments on full interest and principal.
The loan cost more than $11,000 in fees, which were rolled into her mortgage.
Her minimum payment was $2,266, nearly twice her retirement check.
The loan officer used the bigger new mortgage to pay off Simonson's old mortgage and put the remainder in an account that made automatic monthly payments on the loan.
Simonson, who did not understand the loan, was upset when her monthly payment went up in December 2004 by $200, and called the bank to complain.
Collins refinanced her into a larger option ARM, but one that dropped the monthly payment back to where it had been. The new loan cost Simonson $3,350 in fees and put her in the same predicament as before: A year later, her payments shot up, and the process was repeated, this time costing Simonson $3,743 in fees.
By summer 2007, with her savings depleted and the loan resetting into much higher amounts due, Simonson couldn't make payments.
In September 2007, WaMu sent Simonson a notice that it was foreclosing on her home. She hired a lawyer, Melissa Huelsman, who filed a lawsuit against WaMu. Huelsman tried unsuccessfully to work it out so Simonson could stay in her home. But the bank's lawyers, according to Huelsman, said WaMu had done nothing wrong and that refinancing the loans each year actually benefited Simonson because she was able to stay in her home. The parties eventually settled.
The WaMu lawyer, now at JP Morgan Chase, said the bank will not comment.
"They should be ashamed of themselves for doing what they did to me," Simonson said.
"What Mrs. Simonson experienced was unconscionable," said Helen Howell, the former director of the state's Department of Financial Institutions. "She was victimized by the raw pursuit of profit without regard for the impact on her as a customer."
David Seaver, who prosecutes bank fraud for the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, said his office can go after lenders accused of stripping away home equity under false pretenses. But such cases can be difficult to prove, and in Simonson's case, the statute of limitations may have expired.
Today, Simonson looks out a window from a tiny apartment in a commercial neighborhood off Aurora Avenue. She says she hates the noise of the big trucks going by. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
Barbara Simonson now lives in a tiny apartment off Aurora Avenue in Seattle.
Washington Mutual "should be ashamed of themselves for doing what they did to me," she says.
Erika Shultz/The Seattle Times
She was forced to sell after six Washington Mutual mortgage loans in six years stripped much of the equity from her nearly million-dollar home. She got them all from the same loan officer at WaMu's home-loan center at Northgate, loans that were far too complex for a stroke survivor to understand.
In fact, not until going over her loan documents with a reporter did she realize that interest rates were adjustable. "I have to tell you, math was not one of my better subjects in school," she said.
Barbara Simonson lost her Blue Ridge house, designed by her husband, after repeatedly refinancing with WaMu. Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times
For years, Simonson had kept all of her money at Washington Mutual. She trusted the bank. Her monthly Social Security check, now roughly $1,270, was deposited there directly.
Things began going wrong for Simonson when she borrowed more than $500,000 against her house to lend to her son. A contractor now in Iraq, he made payments for a while, then stopped.
Worried about draining her savings to meet the payments, she visited WaMu's Northgate loan center and talked to a loan officer, Patricia Collins, about getting a loan with a lower interest rate and smaller payments.
The loan officer drew up papers for a $551,000 loan in 2001. The loan application listed Simonson's monthly income at $10,300. Simonson says she has no idea where that figure came from. Collins didn't return calls seeking comment about the wildly inflated income.
When it came time for Simonson to sign the papers for the adjustable-rate loan, she said, "I was told what to do and I did it."
The next year, when her payments went up, she complained to WaMu and refinanced into a larger loan.
In October 2003, the bank qualified her for a $680,000 option ARM. If she had been asking for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, Simonson wouldn't have come close to qualifying for it, even using the inflated monthly income figure.
With the option ARM, Simonson started out making minimum payments that didn't cover interest or principal, piling up more debt. The bank had "qualified" her for the loan on her ability to pay the minimum amount. In other words, Simonson was put into a loan that she could not repay once the loan reset in five years, when the minimum payment was replaced by payments on full interest and principal.
The loan cost more than $11,000 in fees, which were rolled into her mortgage.
Her minimum payment was $2,266, nearly twice her retirement check.
The loan officer used the bigger new mortgage to pay off Simonson's old mortgage and put the remainder in an account that made automatic monthly payments on the loan.
Simonson, who did not understand the loan, was upset when her monthly payment went up in December 2004 by $200, and called the bank to complain.
Collins refinanced her into a larger option ARM, but one that dropped the monthly payment back to where it had been. The new loan cost Simonson $3,350 in fees and put her in the same predicament as before: A year later, her payments shot up, and the process was repeated, this time costing Simonson $3,743 in fees.
By summer 2007, with her savings depleted and the loan resetting into much higher amounts due, Simonson couldn't make payments.
In September 2007, WaMu sent Simonson a notice that it was foreclosing on her home. She hired a lawyer, Melissa Huelsman, who filed a lawsuit against WaMu. Huelsman tried unsuccessfully to work it out so Simonson could stay in her home. But the bank's lawyers, according to Huelsman, said WaMu had done nothing wrong and that refinancing the loans each year actually benefited Simonson because she was able to stay in her home. The parties eventually settled.
The WaMu lawyer, now at JP Morgan Chase, said the bank will not comment.
"They should be ashamed of themselves for doing what they did to me," Simonson said.
"What Mrs. Simonson experienced was unconscionable," said Helen Howell, the former director of the state's Department of Financial Institutions. "She was victimized by the raw pursuit of profit without regard for the impact on her as a customer."
David Seaver, who prosecutes bank fraud for the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, said his office can go after lenders accused of stripping away home equity under false pretenses. But such cases can be difficult to prove, and in Simonson's case, the statute of limitations may have expired.
Today, Simonson looks out a window from a tiny apartment in a commercial neighborhood off Aurora Avenue. She says she hates the noise of the big trucks going by. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
October 25, 2009
WORLD: Potential Side Effects of Prescription Sleep Drugs
.
NEW YORK, NY / TIME Daily News / Health.com / Sleep / October 25, 2009
Sleeping Pill Side Effects
Prescription sleep medications are safe when used correctly, but watch out for headaches, strange behaviors, and other common problems
Click here for slide show and relevant notes
Yes, You Can Have a Better Night's Sleep
Chronic difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep can drive people crazy and affect so many aspects of daily life. Although the symptoms vary (snoring, insomnia, or the creepy agony of restless legs syndrome, to name just three afflictions), there are things that everyone who’s looking for a good seven or eight hours should know. Read more...
[rc]
Copyright © 2009 Time Inc
Prescription sleep medications are safe when used correctly, but watch out for headaches, strange behaviors, and other common problems
Click here for slide show and relevant notes
Yes, You Can Have a Better Night's Sleep
Chronic difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep can drive people crazy and affect so many aspects of daily life. Although the symptoms vary (snoring, insomnia, or the creepy agony of restless legs syndrome, to name just three afflictions), there are things that everyone who’s looking for a good seven or eight hours should know. Read more...
[rc]
Copyright © 2009 Time Inc
USA: For more than 20 years, he's trying to unlock the secrets to long life
.
AMES, Iowa / Ames Tribune / October 25, 2009
Neva Morris, 114, of Ames, talks to her son-in-law
Tom Wickersham at Northcrest Community Health
Center in Ames. Morris is the fourth-oldest person
in the world. By Nirmalendu Majumdar/The Tribune
Iowa researcher searches for the recipe for long life
By James Pusey, Staff Writer
Wrapped in an afghan in the health center wing of Northcrest Community Health Center sits 114-year-old Neva Morris, dozing in a recliner after lunch.
“We’ll see how alert she is today, but I can’t promise she’ll be awake,” said 90-year-old Tom Wickersham, Morris’s son-in-law, as he approaches the frail lady and kneels beside her. He leans in close, his face just inches from hers, and speaks in a clear, firm voice.
“Hi, grandma. It’s Tom. How are you today?”
Morris moves her head slightly, her eyes still closed tight.
“Who did you say you were?” she asked.
Tom introduces himself again, louder, and Morris noticeably lights up. The two proceed to talk about her lunch, the flowers at her old house and they even sing her favorite song together, “You Are My Sunshine.”
All of the activity in the room draws a crowd of several nurses and aids, who are glad to see Morris in such high spirits. For several brief moments in the conversation, Morris opens her eyelids wide, revealing glassy pupils that have seen the world through three centuries.
“She’s in good form today,” Wickersham said. “She came here in 1998. Who would have ever thought she’d still be here 10 years later?”
Morris is the oldest person in the state of Iowa, and is currently the fourth-oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group. There are only about 80 people worldwide who are over the age of 110, a group of people referred to as “supercentenarians.”
Peter Martin, an Iowa State University professor of human development and family studies, has been doing research on centenarians and supercentenarians for more than 20 years, trying to unlock the secrets to long life.
Martin’s research has identified several factors that play a role in increased longevity, but despite all of his efforts he has not located any one recipe for long life.
"It’s more like a recipe book,” Martin said.
Some of the major factors contributing to longevity are genetics, environmental support and nutrition, but Martin suspects that one of the most important factors is personality.
He said most centenarians have what can be described as robust and resilient personalities. They are generally hard-working and determined people, but they are easy-going when it comes to facing life’s challenges.
“They don’t get uptight about things, not anxious,” he said. “There’s probably truth to the saying that you shouldn’t worry yourself to death.”
Wickersham said Morris was always very personable and hard-working. He said after her husband died in the 1960s, she assumed responsibility for keeping up the family’s house at 2519 Hoover Ave., in Ames.
She lived in that house alone for more than 30 years, until she was well into her nineties, Wickersham said. He said even in her old age she was willing to be adventurous, taking trips to Florida and the Pacific Northwest, and even buying a new Mercury car at the age of 92.
“I tried to talk her into getting a lesser horsepower engine, but no sir, she wanted the big one,” Wickersham said, laughing. “And she really liked to drive pretty fast.”
Martin said despite having a generally positive outlook on life, centenarians show unusually high levels of depression. However, their depression scores are not due to sadness, Martin said, they are due mostly to fatigue. He said that due to their lack of energy, they find it hard to get motivated to take on new projects.
“And who would blame them? If you are 100 you are not going to start a whole lot of new projects today and tomorrow,” Martin said.
One of the hardest things for centenarians to cope with is outliving their friends and family members, Martin said. About half of all centenarians have lost at least one of their children, and Martin said many of them feel like their time is way past due.
Only Walter, the youngest of Morris’ three children is still living, and he is now 81, Wickersham said. He said Morris has never been one to dwell on her old age, but she’s aware that she’s lived a long time.
“On occasion she’s made some comment that maybe she’s lived too long or she wished God would take her, that kind of thing,” Wickersham said.
Martin said centenarians are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. Today there are about 70,000 in America, but that number could grow to more than 800,000 by the year 2050.
He said it is important that society prepares to for people to live much longer lives – especially in a long-lived state like Iowa, which is home to more centenarians than any state besides South Dakota.
“I’m talking with my 20-year-old students in my class about the fact that they should expect to live well into their 90s, if not their 100s,” Martin said.
Wickersham said he walks a couple of miles a day, tries to eat right and even though his vision is failing, he’s taken up listening to books on compact disc. As Wickersham ages, he said his mother-in-law’s experience has taught him that aging is all about attitude.
“There are some people who can not see the good side of life,” Wickersham said. “I wish I had better vision, but I don’t. You just have to accept that and make the best out of life.” [rc]
Copyright © 2009 - Ames Tribune
Neva Morris, 114, of Ames, talks to her son-in-law
Tom Wickersham at Northcrest Community Health
Center in Ames. Morris is the fourth-oldest person
in the world. By Nirmalendu Majumdar/The Tribune
Iowa researcher searches for the recipe for long life
By James Pusey, Staff Writer
Wrapped in an afghan in the health center wing of Northcrest Community Health Center sits 114-year-old Neva Morris, dozing in a recliner after lunch.
“We’ll see how alert she is today, but I can’t promise she’ll be awake,” said 90-year-old Tom Wickersham, Morris’s son-in-law, as he approaches the frail lady and kneels beside her. He leans in close, his face just inches from hers, and speaks in a clear, firm voice.
“Hi, grandma. It’s Tom. How are you today?”
Morris moves her head slightly, her eyes still closed tight.
“Who did you say you were?” she asked.
Tom introduces himself again, louder, and Morris noticeably lights up. The two proceed to talk about her lunch, the flowers at her old house and they even sing her favorite song together, “You Are My Sunshine.”
All of the activity in the room draws a crowd of several nurses and aids, who are glad to see Morris in such high spirits. For several brief moments in the conversation, Morris opens her eyelids wide, revealing glassy pupils that have seen the world through three centuries.
“She’s in good form today,” Wickersham said. “She came here in 1998. Who would have ever thought she’d still be here 10 years later?”
Morris is the oldest person in the state of Iowa, and is currently the fourth-oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group. There are only about 80 people worldwide who are over the age of 110, a group of people referred to as “supercentenarians.”
Peter Martin, an Iowa State University professor of human development and family studies, has been doing research on centenarians and supercentenarians for more than 20 years, trying to unlock the secrets to long life.
Martin’s research has identified several factors that play a role in increased longevity, but despite all of his efforts he has not located any one recipe for long life.
"It’s more like a recipe book,” Martin said.
Some of the major factors contributing to longevity are genetics, environmental support and nutrition, but Martin suspects that one of the most important factors is personality.
He said most centenarians have what can be described as robust and resilient personalities. They are generally hard-working and determined people, but they are easy-going when it comes to facing life’s challenges.
“They don’t get uptight about things, not anxious,” he said. “There’s probably truth to the saying that you shouldn’t worry yourself to death.”
Wickersham said Morris was always very personable and hard-working. He said after her husband died in the 1960s, she assumed responsibility for keeping up the family’s house at 2519 Hoover Ave., in Ames.
She lived in that house alone for more than 30 years, until she was well into her nineties, Wickersham said. He said even in her old age she was willing to be adventurous, taking trips to Florida and the Pacific Northwest, and even buying a new Mercury car at the age of 92.
“I tried to talk her into getting a lesser horsepower engine, but no sir, she wanted the big one,” Wickersham said, laughing. “And she really liked to drive pretty fast.”
Martin said despite having a generally positive outlook on life, centenarians show unusually high levels of depression. However, their depression scores are not due to sadness, Martin said, they are due mostly to fatigue. He said that due to their lack of energy, they find it hard to get motivated to take on new projects.
“And who would blame them? If you are 100 you are not going to start a whole lot of new projects today and tomorrow,” Martin said.
One of the hardest things for centenarians to cope with is outliving their friends and family members, Martin said. About half of all centenarians have lost at least one of their children, and Martin said many of them feel like their time is way past due.
Only Walter, the youngest of Morris’ three children is still living, and he is now 81, Wickersham said. He said Morris has never been one to dwell on her old age, but she’s aware that she’s lived a long time.
“On occasion she’s made some comment that maybe she’s lived too long or she wished God would take her, that kind of thing,” Wickersham said.
Martin said centenarians are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. Today there are about 70,000 in America, but that number could grow to more than 800,000 by the year 2050.
He said it is important that society prepares to for people to live much longer lives – especially in a long-lived state like Iowa, which is home to more centenarians than any state besides South Dakota.
“I’m talking with my 20-year-old students in my class about the fact that they should expect to live well into their 90s, if not their 100s,” Martin said.
Wickersham said he walks a couple of miles a day, tries to eat right and even though his vision is failing, he’s taken up listening to books on compact disc. As Wickersham ages, he said his mother-in-law’s experience has taught him that aging is all about attitude.
“There are some people who can not see the good side of life,” Wickersham said. “I wish I had better vision, but I don’t. You just have to accept that and make the best out of life.” [rc]
Copyright © 2009 - Ames Tribune
USA: Gene therapy transforms eyesight of 12 born with rare defect
. LOS ANGELES, California / The Los Angeles Times / Nation / October 25, 2009 Gene therapy transforms eyesight of 12 born with rare defect A single injection in a patient's eye brings 'astounding' results. The findings may offer hope for those with macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. By Thomas H. Maugh II 
Corey Haas, foreground, has significant improvement in his vision after receiving gene therapy. With him are his parents, Ethan and Nancy, and two research leaders: Dr. Katherine High, left, and Dr. Jean Bennett, right (Daniel Burke Photography) Pennsylvania researchers using gene therapy have made significant improvements in vision in 12 patients with a rare inherited visual defect, a finding that suggests it may be possible to produce similar improvements in a much larger number of patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. The team last year reported success with three adult patients, an achievement that was hailed as a major accomplishment for gene therapy. They have now treated an additional nine patients, including five children, and find that the best results are achieved in the youngest patients, whose defective retinal cells have not had time to die off. The youngest patient, 9-year-old Corey Haas, was considered legally blind before the treatment began. He was confined largely to his house and driveway when playing, had immense difficulties in navigating an obstacle course and required special enlarging equipment for books and help in the classroom. Today, after a single injection of a gene-therapy product in one eye, he rides his bike around the neighborhood, needs no assistance in the classroom, navigates the obstacle course quickly and has even played his first game of softball. The results are "astounding," said Stephen Rose, chief scientific officer of Foundation Fighting Blindness, which supported the work but was not involved directly. "The big take-home message from this is that every individual in the group had improvement . . . and there were no safety issues at all." The study "holds great promise for the future" and "is appealing because of its simplicity," wrote researchers from the Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands in an editorial accompanying the report, which was published online Saturday by the journal Lancet. The 12 patients had Leber's congenital amaurosis, which affects about 3,000 people in the United States and perhaps 130,000 worldwide. Victims are born with severely impaired vision that deteriorates until they are totally blind, usually in childhood or adolescence. There is no treatment. Leber's is a good candidate for gene therapy because most of the visual apparatus is intact, particularly at birth and in childhood. Mistakes in 13 different genes are known to cause it, but all 12 of the patients suffered a defect in a gene called RPE65. This gene produces a vitamin A derivative that is crucial for detecting light. About five children are born each year in the United States with that defect, which was chosen because researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine had cloned the gene, making copies available for use. The study, led by Dr. Katherine A. High, Dr. Albert M. Maguire and Dr. Jean Bennett of those two institutions, enrolled five people in the United States, five from Italy and two from Belgium. Five were children, and the oldest was 44. The good copy of the RPE65 gene was inserted into a defanged version of a human adenovirus. The engineered virus then invaded retinal cells and inserted the gene into the cells' DNA. Maguire used a long, thin needle to insert the preparation into the retina of the worst eye in each of the patients. Within two weeks, the treated eyes began to become more sensitive to light, and within a few more weeks, vision began to improve. The younger the patients were, the better they responded. That was expected, Bennett said, because similar results had been observed in dogs and rodents. By both objective and subjective measures, vision improved for all the patients. They were able to navigate obstacle courses, read eye charts and perform most of the tasks of daily living. The improvement has now persisted for as long as two years. The children who were treated "are now able to walk and play just like any normally sighted child," Maguire said. Bennett noted that the oldest patient in the trial, a mother, had not been able to walk down the street to meet her children at school. "Now she can. She also achieved her primary goal, which was to see her daughter hit a home run." There are clear limitations to the study. The patients' vision was not corrected to normal because of the damage that had already been done to the retina, and only one eye was treated. "The big elephant in the room is: Can you treat the other eye?" Rose said. The foundation will put more funding into the research "to make sure that if you go back and treat the other eye, it won't ablate the positive results in the first eye due to an immune reaction or something else." Researchers also have not optimized the dosage of the adenovirus used to carry the gene into the eye. Those issues will be studied in Phase 2, a larger clinical trial that they hope to begin soon. Meanwhile, the team has begun treating some patients at the University of Iowa. Researchers also hope they will be able to translate the results to other congenital conditions using different genes. Leber's is one form of retinitis pigmentosa, which affects an estimated 100,000 Americans. The findings might be applicable to macular degeneration, which affects an estimated 1.25 million Americans and is the major cause of visual impairment in the elderly. [rc] Thomas H. Maugh II E-mail: thomas.maugh@latimes.com Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
Corey Haas, foreground, has significant improvement in his vision after receiving gene therapy. With him are his parents, Ethan and Nancy, and two research leaders: Dr. Katherine High, left, and Dr. Jean Bennett, right (Daniel Burke Photography) Pennsylvania researchers using gene therapy have made significant improvements in vision in 12 patients with a rare inherited visual defect, a finding that suggests it may be possible to produce similar improvements in a much larger number of patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. The team last year reported success with three adult patients, an achievement that was hailed as a major accomplishment for gene therapy. They have now treated an additional nine patients, including five children, and find that the best results are achieved in the youngest patients, whose defective retinal cells have not had time to die off. The youngest patient, 9-year-old Corey Haas, was considered legally blind before the treatment began. He was confined largely to his house and driveway when playing, had immense difficulties in navigating an obstacle course and required special enlarging equipment for books and help in the classroom. Today, after a single injection of a gene-therapy product in one eye, he rides his bike around the neighborhood, needs no assistance in the classroom, navigates the obstacle course quickly and has even played his first game of softball. The results are "astounding," said Stephen Rose, chief scientific officer of Foundation Fighting Blindness, which supported the work but was not involved directly. "The big take-home message from this is that every individual in the group had improvement . . . and there were no safety issues at all." The study "holds great promise for the future" and "is appealing because of its simplicity," wrote researchers from the Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands in an editorial accompanying the report, which was published online Saturday by the journal Lancet. The 12 patients had Leber's congenital amaurosis, which affects about 3,000 people in the United States and perhaps 130,000 worldwide. Victims are born with severely impaired vision that deteriorates until they are totally blind, usually in childhood or adolescence. There is no treatment. Leber's is a good candidate for gene therapy because most of the visual apparatus is intact, particularly at birth and in childhood. Mistakes in 13 different genes are known to cause it, but all 12 of the patients suffered a defect in a gene called RPE65. This gene produces a vitamin A derivative that is crucial for detecting light. About five children are born each year in the United States with that defect, which was chosen because researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine had cloned the gene, making copies available for use. The study, led by Dr. Katherine A. High, Dr. Albert M. Maguire and Dr. Jean Bennett of those two institutions, enrolled five people in the United States, five from Italy and two from Belgium. Five were children, and the oldest was 44. The good copy of the RPE65 gene was inserted into a defanged version of a human adenovirus. The engineered virus then invaded retinal cells and inserted the gene into the cells' DNA. Maguire used a long, thin needle to insert the preparation into the retina of the worst eye in each of the patients. Within two weeks, the treated eyes began to become more sensitive to light, and within a few more weeks, vision began to improve. The younger the patients were, the better they responded. That was expected, Bennett said, because similar results had been observed in dogs and rodents. By both objective and subjective measures, vision improved for all the patients. They were able to navigate obstacle courses, read eye charts and perform most of the tasks of daily living. The improvement has now persisted for as long as two years. The children who were treated "are now able to walk and play just like any normally sighted child," Maguire said. Bennett noted that the oldest patient in the trial, a mother, had not been able to walk down the street to meet her children at school. "Now she can. She also achieved her primary goal, which was to see her daughter hit a home run." There are clear limitations to the study. The patients' vision was not corrected to normal because of the damage that had already been done to the retina, and only one eye was treated. "The big elephant in the room is: Can you treat the other eye?" Rose said. The foundation will put more funding into the research "to make sure that if you go back and treat the other eye, it won't ablate the positive results in the first eye due to an immune reaction or something else." Researchers also have not optimized the dosage of the adenovirus used to carry the gene into the eye. Those issues will be studied in Phase 2, a larger clinical trial that they hope to begin soon. Meanwhile, the team has begun treating some patients at the University of Iowa. Researchers also hope they will be able to translate the results to other congenital conditions using different genes. Leber's is one form of retinitis pigmentosa, which affects an estimated 100,000 Americans. The findings might be applicable to macular degeneration, which affects an estimated 1.25 million Americans and is the major cause of visual impairment in the elderly. [rc] Thomas H. Maugh II E-mail: thomas.maugh@latimes.com Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
CHINA: Senior Citizens' Day celebrations at Double Ninth Festival on October 26
.
BEIJING, China / Chinaview.com / Xinhua / October 25, 2009
Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu has called for attention on the ageing problem, noting this is a major issue that concerns "people's livelihood and the nation's lasting peace and stability."
Hui's call came several days ahead of the country's traditional "Senior Citizen's Day," or Double Ninth Festival, which falls on the ninth day of the ninth month in the lunar calendar, or Monday.
Hui, also director of China National Working Commission on Ageing, said at a recent meeting on the aging problem held in Beijing that the elderly were "valuable wealth of the Party and the country," and researchers should provide solid scientific foundation for the government to make strategies for the well-being of the ageing population.
Photo courtesy: ShanghaiDaily
Statistics from the commission show more than 8.3 percent of the 1.3-billion Chinese population are above 65, and in most cities, more than 50 percent of the elderly people live without the company of their children.
Hui said efforts should be made to deal with new conditions concerning ageing, such as unbalanced distribution of the aged between urban and rural areas. [rc]
Editor: Li Xianzhi
Hui's call came several days ahead of the country's traditional "Senior Citizen's Day," or Double Ninth Festival, which falls on the ninth day of the ninth month in the lunar calendar, or Monday.
Hui, also director of China National Working Commission on Ageing, said at a recent meeting on the aging problem held in Beijing that the elderly were "valuable wealth of the Party and the country," and researchers should provide solid scientific foundation for the government to make strategies for the well-being of the ageing population.
Photo courtesy: ShanghaiDaily
Statistics from the commission show more than 8.3 percent of the 1.3-billion Chinese population are above 65, and in most cities, more than 50 percent of the elderly people live without the company of their children.
Hui said efforts should be made to deal with new conditions concerning ageing, such as unbalanced distribution of the aged between urban and rural areas. [rc]
Editor: Li Xianzhi
USA: Celebration of centenarians a tribute to hospital's service
.
HONOLULU, Hawaii / Honolulu Star Bulletin / October 25, 2009
By Helen Altonn
Leahi Hospital will honor three centenarians as part of an observance of its own 100-plus years since it was established at 3675 Kilauea Avenue in Kaimuki.
Nursing home residents Ralph Aloiau, who turned 100 Oct. 22, Taka Sato, who was 101 on April 1, and Shizuyo Moriyama, 103 on Sept. 25, will be recognized in a ceremony at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
"This is a chance for us to celebrate a real and sometimes overlooked milestone," Leahi Chief Executive Officer Vincent Lee said in a news release.
Leahi Hospital, shown here in 1904, was originally developed to replace Victoria Hospital, a facility in downtown Honolulu for people suffering from incurable diseases, except leprosy.
"Our staff recognizes the importance of caring for these individuals who impacted so many lives, even at a nursing home setting. ...
..."We also want to ensure not only the older Hawaii residents can live independent lives and age in their homes -- like all three had -- but also that they have the option to enter nursing homes if they need to."
The hospital moved to its present site in 1902.
It began providing long-term care services in 1960 and has been operated as a nursing home since 1996.
Leahi has 188 beds -- 179 for skilled nursing and intermediate care patients and nine acute beds used for tuberculosis patients. No TB beds are occupied now, said Hawaii Health Systems Corporation spokesman Miles Takaaze.
The oldest residents, he said, are:
» Aloiau, born in Kapaa, Kauai. He married Violet Loui and they had five children. He worked 13 years as an office manager for servicing appliances for W.A. Ramsey and for 23 years at Sears, retiring in 1972.
He and his wife traveled extensively and after she died in 1988 he lived independently for many years. He was admitted to Leahi in August 2005 after several strokes, falls and hospitalization.
» Sato, who was born in Hokkaido, Japan, married in her mid-20s and had two daughters. She worked at her parents' grocery store until retiring in the mid-1960s. In the late 1980s her daughter, Atsuko, invited her to Hawaii. She relocated and obtained green card status in 1990. She weakened in her mid-90s and was admitted to Leahi in May 2004.
» Moriyama, who was born in Haleiwa and married Toshihiro Moriyama at age 21. They moved to Palama to care for his parents and had two daughters. She had several jobs and eventually became an office nurse for a family physician. After her husband died in 1959, she helped to baby-sit her grandchildren, traveled extensively and worked in the garden at her home in upper Liliha.
She continued her daily routine despite a mild stroke in 1985 but by age 102 became weaker, with more frequent falls. She has been at Leahi since last November.
Leahi was originally developed to replace Victoria Hospital, a facility in downtown Honolulu for people suffering from incurable diseases, except leprosy, Takaaze said.
He said the hospital was having funding problems, and, according to a historical account, "Within the burst of the new Americanism, there was criticism of the hospital's British-sounding name.
"As a result, the name and concept for 'Honolulu Home for the Incurables' was born." A charter for the home was signed in 1901.
Illustration Photo. Courtesy: Bluewaveted.com
A temporary hospital was set up for "homeless incurables" after the 1900 Chinatown fire to get rid of the bubonic plague, and some people asked that a new hospital be built in a drier, cooler place than downtown Honolulu, Takaaze recounted.
The buildings that became Leahi Hospital were erected in Kaimuki in 1902. It initially took patients with all types of chronic and incurable diseases, then in the early 1950s began accepting only diagnosed and suspected cases of tuberculosis.
Leahi is one of 12 public health facilities managed by the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, a semi-autonomous state agency.
The hospital has been expanded and modernized over the years with skilled nursing, rehabilitative services and outpatient services, including an adult day health program, geriatric clinic and elder-law counseling for elderly residents in the community. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 starbulletin.com
Nursing home residents Ralph Aloiau, who turned 100 Oct. 22, Taka Sato, who was 101 on April 1, and Shizuyo Moriyama, 103 on Sept. 25, will be recognized in a ceremony at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
"This is a chance for us to celebrate a real and sometimes overlooked milestone," Leahi Chief Executive Officer Vincent Lee said in a news release.
Leahi Hospital, shown here in 1904, was originally developed to replace Victoria Hospital, a facility in downtown Honolulu for people suffering from incurable diseases, except leprosy.
"Our staff recognizes the importance of caring for these individuals who impacted so many lives, even at a nursing home setting. ...
..."We also want to ensure not only the older Hawaii residents can live independent lives and age in their homes -- like all three had -- but also that they have the option to enter nursing homes if they need to."
The hospital moved to its present site in 1902.
It began providing long-term care services in 1960 and has been operated as a nursing home since 1996.
Leahi has 188 beds -- 179 for skilled nursing and intermediate care patients and nine acute beds used for tuberculosis patients. No TB beds are occupied now, said Hawaii Health Systems Corporation spokesman Miles Takaaze.
The oldest residents, he said, are:
» Aloiau, born in Kapaa, Kauai. He married Violet Loui and they had five children. He worked 13 years as an office manager for servicing appliances for W.A. Ramsey and for 23 years at Sears, retiring in 1972.
He and his wife traveled extensively and after she died in 1988 he lived independently for many years. He was admitted to Leahi in August 2005 after several strokes, falls and hospitalization.
» Sato, who was born in Hokkaido, Japan, married in her mid-20s and had two daughters. She worked at her parents' grocery store until retiring in the mid-1960s. In the late 1980s her daughter, Atsuko, invited her to Hawaii. She relocated and obtained green card status in 1990. She weakened in her mid-90s and was admitted to Leahi in May 2004.
» Moriyama, who was born in Haleiwa and married Toshihiro Moriyama at age 21. They moved to Palama to care for his parents and had two daughters. She had several jobs and eventually became an office nurse for a family physician. After her husband died in 1959, she helped to baby-sit her grandchildren, traveled extensively and worked in the garden at her home in upper Liliha.
She continued her daily routine despite a mild stroke in 1985 but by age 102 became weaker, with more frequent falls. She has been at Leahi since last November.
Leahi was originally developed to replace Victoria Hospital, a facility in downtown Honolulu for people suffering from incurable diseases, except leprosy, Takaaze said.
He said the hospital was having funding problems, and, according to a historical account, "Within the burst of the new Americanism, there was criticism of the hospital's British-sounding name.
"As a result, the name and concept for 'Honolulu Home for the Incurables' was born." A charter for the home was signed in 1901.
Illustration Photo. Courtesy: Bluewaveted.com
A temporary hospital was set up for "homeless incurables" after the 1900 Chinatown fire to get rid of the bubonic plague, and some people asked that a new hospital be built in a drier, cooler place than downtown Honolulu, Takaaze recounted.
The buildings that became Leahi Hospital were erected in Kaimuki in 1902. It initially took patients with all types of chronic and incurable diseases, then in the early 1950s began accepting only diagnosed and suspected cases of tuberculosis.
Leahi is one of 12 public health facilities managed by the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, a semi-autonomous state agency.
The hospital has been expanded and modernized over the years with skilled nursing, rehabilitative services and outpatient services, including an adult day health program, geriatric clinic and elder-law counseling for elderly residents in the community. [rc]
Copyright © 2009 starbulletin.com
October 24, 2009
DENMARK: How Samso Became Self-Sustainable
.
BERLIN, Germany / Spiegel Online International / October 23, 2009
An Ecotopia for Climate Protection
Samso Island Is Face of Danish Green Revolution
By Clemens Höges
The Danish island of Samso is a mecca for climate protection experts, because its residents generate more energy than they consume -- with wind turbines, solar panels, straw combustion and heat exchangers that extract heat from cow's milk. The small ecotopia will be held up as a model at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Six years ago, Paul Erik Wedelgaard decided it was high time to set a new course for his future, even though he was already 70 at the time. The sun, the cold and the sea have carved deep furrows into his face. His wooden fishing cutter, the "Kyholm," is plowing southward through the Baltic Sea, to the place where the symbols of this future -- wind turbines -- stand off the coast of Samso.
Even today, Wedelgaard is almost as agile on deck as he was at 14, when he began fishing. But his catch of cod has declined sharply in recent years, and the small salmon farm he was operating with a partner wasn't sufficiently profitable. And then along came those young men who had decided to start something of a revolution -- on Samso, of all places. They had ideas, and they had an ambitious plan.
Clemens HögesWind turbine owner Paul Erik Wedelgaard and other residents of the Danish island of Samso invested their own money in sustainable energy technologies. Today they generate more energy than they consume and sell the excess to Danish utilities at a profit. Denmark is hoping to showcase Samso as a model for sustainable energies in the run-up to the international climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. Photograph: Clemens Höges
They were concerned about the world and the climate. Most of all, however, they were interested in Samso and all the money they hoped could be made there. For people like Wedelgaard, it seemed like a relatively safe bet.
Part of their plan included erecting 10 giant wind turbines in the Paludan flats, at a cost of 24 million kroner, or about €3 million ($4.4 million), each. The machines were to be owned by the Samsingers, as the island's residents are called.
'We Have to Do Something for the Children'
Wedelgaard knew, of course, that the Paludan flats are located in a particularly windy area. It could work, he thought to himself. He sold his half of the salmon farm, took out a bank loan and invested 3.5 million kroner in one of the turbines, unit No. 6. Wedelgaard will have recouped his investment in four years. "We have to do something for the children," he says. He is referring to his four children and the others on the island.
Samso is a laboratory where the Danish government launched a social and technological experiment 12 years ago. Before that, heating oil was brought to the island by ship and electricity, mainly from coal-burning power plants, was transmitted through cables. For each Samsinger, 11 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide were pumped into the atmosphere each year. The goal was to reduce those 11 tons to zero within 10 years, without special subsidies.
The Samsingers joined forces, erecting the wind turbines and attaching solar panels to their roofs. They built central straw burners, and they installed machines to harness geothermal energy and the heat from cow's milk to heat houses, and to extract rapeseed oil from plants grown on the island to produce fuel for their tractors.
A Climate-Neutral Island
Eight years later, they were already producing more energy than they consumed, which made them climate-neutral, and today they produce 40 percent more energy than they consume. Only two questions remain. Can the approach used on the island, which comprises 22 villages, 4,000 residents and a small cannery, work elsewhere? And does the rest of the world even want to emulate the Samsingers?
These are the sorts of questions that will be asked on December 7, when politicians from around the world gather in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Their goal is to prevent worldwide temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). This is only achievable if emissions of carbon dioxide and the consumption of coal, oil and gas are drastically reduced. Experts are already at odds over just how drastically.
"It's important to negotiate, but then they have to go home and do something," says the man who organized the small miracle on Samso Island. "We don't wake up every morning thinking about how we're going to save the polar bears. No, people think about themselves." But this isn't a problem for Soren Hermansen; it's the solution.
A Climate Change Guru
Hermansen has become a guru of sorts for climate experts and politicians. Last fall, his name appeared on the cover of Time, together with the names of other "Heroes of the Environment." The cover image featured circles of different sizes to indicate the relative importance of each name. Hermansen's circle was about four times the size of that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California.
Soren Hermansen, 50, was one of the first to be convinced of the merits of the project to bring sustainable enegy to Samso. He went from house to house on the island to persuade the 4,000 residents to realize the dream of an "eco-energy island," where energy is extracted from the sun, wind, wood, straw and even cow's milk. Photograph: Clemens Höges
It isn't easy catching Hermansen on his island. He spends a lot of time flying around the world. He has just returned from Copenhagen, where he appeared before the Danish parliament, and before that he was in Japan, Korea, Italy and Brussels. José Barroso, the head of the European Commission, was at the Brussels meeting, where the Russian energy minister quarreled with his Ukrainian counterpart on the sidelines. And Hermansen, a former farmer from the village of Kolby Kaas on Samso, sharply criticized them for not making a sufficiently serious attempt to do what his fellow islanders have accomplished.
Hermansen, 50, his short hair slightly graying, has the physique of an athlete and is quick to flash his big smile. Now he is sitting in a building that, with its shiny metal skin, looks a little like the Starship Enterprise -- in the middle of a rural village. Hermansen plays the role of Captain Kirk, as director of this "energy academy" in Ballen, an old fishing village. Visitors from around the world come to Ballen to examine the equipment the Samsingers use and the infrastructure they have developed. Of course, the building itself is also a model, with its solar panels and a computer that occasionally opens and closes ventilation flaps in the roof.
Hermansen describes how the Samso concept works. In 1997, the Danish Energy Ministry announced a contest. A region was to be selected to test how effective renewable energy can be in a real environment. It was a clever contest, requiring the winning region to achieve a carbon footprint of zero with existing technology and without special assistance or subsidies from Copenhagen. This would make the results more readily transferable to other places, and the whole project wouldn't cost the government a single kroner.
An engineer in the city of Aarhus, across the water from Samso, hit upon the idea to write a plan for Samso. He analyzed how much electricity and oil the Samsingers consumed, how much biomass grows there each year, how strong the wind blows and how long the sun shines. Then he wrote his plan -- and won the contest.
Samso was dubbed an "eco-energy island," a title not unlike a brass medal -- well-intentioned, but almost worthless. It helped in obtaining the necessary permits for the new equipment, but the Samsingers themselves had little use for the designation at first. When TV reporters came to the island to interview the mayor, he was at a loss for words and had to consult the concept before answering their questions.
The engineer advised a few people on Samso to establish an association, or else, he said, the plan would never materialize. Fifty Samsingers attended the first meeting in Tranebjerg. But the island's remaining 3,950 stayed home. They were simply unable to see the engineer's concept as a profitable enterprise.
'Everyone Can Do What We Are Doing'
Hermansen saw it right away. He had already had a wind turbine installed on his father's farm in 1984. He is a good talker, and he loves to persuade people. Pumpkins make poor conversationalists, which was reason enough for Hermansen not to spend his life working as a farmer. He was looking for a project, and this was it. The 50 islanders at the Tranebjerg meeting quickly agreed that Hermansen was to be their representative.
He went from house to house to promote the plan, drinking vast amounts of coffee in the process. Then he bought a cider press. Almost everyone on Samso has apple trees, he reasoned, and offering them fresh apple juice was the perfect way to get them to listen to his pitch and calmly discuss the project. "The question was: How can we all continue living on Samso? In the year before, the slaughterhouse had closed down, putting hundreds out of work. It was our Great Depression," he recalls. The plan is better than the slaughterhouse, he said, and soon his argument began having the desired effect.
Three heating plants were built between villages in the southern part of the island, and pipes were laid into the houses. Now the farmers bring the straw that they used to burn in the fields to the plant, where it is burned to generate heat. The farmers are paid for their hay, building the three plants created short-term construction jobs, the villagers are saving money -- and their money stays on the island.
'Everything Has to Belong to the People'
They also built a solar heating plant on the northern part of the island, as well as the wind turbines. Eleven were to be built on land and 10 on the Paludan flats. Big companies were not to be permitted to own any of the windmills, says Hermansen. That was his most important selling point, he says. "You can't do anything from top to bottom. Everything has to belong to the people. It has to become their project."
One of the first islanders to understand the concept was Jörgen Tranberg, a man with an angular head and bushy eyebrows. He owns 150 black-and-white Holstein cattle, which makes him a major dairy farmer on Samso. He is a smart man. His cows crowd onto two ramps to his left and right, as the milking machines click uniformly. He earns less than 22 cents per liter, he says -- in other words, not much.
But Danish law requires electric utilities to buy wind energy at prices significantly higher than production costs. This turns wind turbines into significant moneymakers, an insight that didn't escape the attention of Tranberg's bank. He invested €2.5 million.
He built a turbine on the hill behind his silage tank and invested in half of Turbine No. 8 on the Paludan flats. The community now owns five of the offshore generators, using part of the proceeds to fund the Energy Academy. About 400 Samsingers own the remaining offshore wind turbines and the turbines on land, of which Tranberg owns a very large share. "I think the weather here is always good," he says. "When the wind blows, the rotors turn. When it rains, the feed for my cows grows. And when the sun shines, I take my boat out for a spin." He laughs and calls his dog Vaks. Vaks means shrewd in Danish.
The wind turbines provide Tranberg with about €3,000 in gross daily revenues, while his cows earn only about €1,000 a day -- and have to be milked twice.
Extracting Heat from Cow's Milk
Even the cows do their part to save the world's climate, and they contribute to Tranberg's bottom line in more ways than one. A cow's body temperature is 38.5 degrees Celsius (101.3 degrees Fahrenheit), and the milk has to be cooled down to 3 degrees Celsius. Tranberg, like other farmers, has installed a heat exchanger near the milk tank. The device is as large and angular as a refrigerator, and it even works like one: It cools the milk, releasing heat that is used to heat the house. The wind turbine provides the electricity to run the heat exchanger.
Rows of solar panels sit in a pasture near Norby on the Danish island of Samso. Concerns about energy security may run high elsewhere in Europe, but on this windswept island the inhabitants have achieved a decade-long target of self-sufficiency in renewable power. Photo: Reuters
The only remaining net emitters of carbon dioxide are Tranberg's and the other island residents' cars. The ferry to the mainland consumes 9,000 liters of diesel fuel a day. Nevertheless, Samso's overall energy production is still CO2-free, because the island exports more electricity than it imports oil.
But Hermansen isn't finished yet. Automakers Citroën, Peugeot and Mitsubishi plan to start building electric cars next year. Hermansen is negotiating with the electric utility DONG Energy and the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas. He envisions a technology that would allow electric cars to be connected to the generators, and would include computers that charge the cars' batteries when the wind is blowing and tap electricity when it is not.
"We are completely normal people here. Everyone can do what we are doing," says Hermansen. But then he adds: "In the countryside, that is. Cities are a problem."
The Egyptian ambassador visited the island some time ago. After touring the facilities, he said that the number of people living on Samso could fit into three apartment buildings in Cairo -- buildings with no abundant source of cheap straw nearby and not surrounded by the sea. [rc]
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009
Clemens HögesWind turbine owner Paul Erik Wedelgaard and other residents of the Danish island of Samso invested their own money in sustainable energy technologies. Today they generate more energy than they consume and sell the excess to Danish utilities at a profit. Denmark is hoping to showcase Samso as a model for sustainable energies in the run-up to the international climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. Photograph: Clemens Höges
They were concerned about the world and the climate. Most of all, however, they were interested in Samso and all the money they hoped could be made there. For people like Wedelgaard, it seemed like a relatively safe bet.
Part of their plan included erecting 10 giant wind turbines in the Paludan flats, at a cost of 24 million kroner, or about €3 million ($4.4 million), each. The machines were to be owned by the Samsingers, as the island's residents are called.
'We Have to Do Something for the Children'
Wedelgaard knew, of course, that the Paludan flats are located in a particularly windy area. It could work, he thought to himself. He sold his half of the salmon farm, took out a bank loan and invested 3.5 million kroner in one of the turbines, unit No. 6. Wedelgaard will have recouped his investment in four years. "We have to do something for the children," he says. He is referring to his four children and the others on the island.
Samso is a laboratory where the Danish government launched a social and technological experiment 12 years ago. Before that, heating oil was brought to the island by ship and electricity, mainly from coal-burning power plants, was transmitted through cables. For each Samsinger, 11 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide were pumped into the atmosphere each year. The goal was to reduce those 11 tons to zero within 10 years, without special subsidies.
The Samsingers joined forces, erecting the wind turbines and attaching solar panels to their roofs. They built central straw burners, and they installed machines to harness geothermal energy and the heat from cow's milk to heat houses, and to extract rapeseed oil from plants grown on the island to produce fuel for their tractors.
A Climate-Neutral Island
Eight years later, they were already producing more energy than they consumed, which made them climate-neutral, and today they produce 40 percent more energy than they consume. Only two questions remain. Can the approach used on the island, which comprises 22 villages, 4,000 residents and a small cannery, work elsewhere? And does the rest of the world even want to emulate the Samsingers?
These are the sorts of questions that will be asked on December 7, when politicians from around the world gather in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Their goal is to prevent worldwide temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). This is only achievable if emissions of carbon dioxide and the consumption of coal, oil and gas are drastically reduced. Experts are already at odds over just how drastically.
"It's important to negotiate, but then they have to go home and do something," says the man who organized the small miracle on Samso Island. "We don't wake up every morning thinking about how we're going to save the polar bears. No, people think about themselves." But this isn't a problem for Soren Hermansen; it's the solution.
A Climate Change Guru
Hermansen has become a guru of sorts for climate experts and politicians. Last fall, his name appeared on the cover of Time, together with the names of other "Heroes of the Environment." The cover image featured circles of different sizes to indicate the relative importance of each name. Hermansen's circle was about four times the size of that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California.
Soren Hermansen, 50, was one of the first to be convinced of the merits of the project to bring sustainable enegy to Samso. He went from house to house on the island to persuade the 4,000 residents to realize the dream of an "eco-energy island," where energy is extracted from the sun, wind, wood, straw and even cow's milk. Photograph: Clemens Höges
It isn't easy catching Hermansen on his island. He spends a lot of time flying around the world. He has just returned from Copenhagen, where he appeared before the Danish parliament, and before that he was in Japan, Korea, Italy and Brussels. José Barroso, the head of the European Commission, was at the Brussels meeting, where the Russian energy minister quarreled with his Ukrainian counterpart on the sidelines. And Hermansen, a former farmer from the village of Kolby Kaas on Samso, sharply criticized them for not making a sufficiently serious attempt to do what his fellow islanders have accomplished.
Hermansen, 50, his short hair slightly graying, has the physique of an athlete and is quick to flash his big smile. Now he is sitting in a building that, with its shiny metal skin, looks a little like the Starship Enterprise -- in the middle of a rural village. Hermansen plays the role of Captain Kirk, as director of this "energy academy" in Ballen, an old fishing village. Visitors from around the world come to Ballen to examine the equipment the Samsingers use and the infrastructure they have developed. Of course, the building itself is also a model, with its solar panels and a computer that occasionally opens and closes ventilation flaps in the roof.
Hermansen describes how the Samso concept works. In 1997, the Danish Energy Ministry announced a contest. A region was to be selected to test how effective renewable energy can be in a real environment. It was a clever contest, requiring the winning region to achieve a carbon footprint of zero with existing technology and without special assistance or subsidies from Copenhagen. This would make the results more readily transferable to other places, and the whole project wouldn't cost the government a single kroner.
An engineer in the city of Aarhus, across the water from Samso, hit upon the idea to write a plan for Samso. He analyzed how much electricity and oil the Samsingers consumed, how much biomass grows there each year, how strong the wind blows and how long the sun shines. Then he wrote his plan -- and won the contest.
Samso was dubbed an "eco-energy island," a title not unlike a brass medal -- well-intentioned, but almost worthless. It helped in obtaining the necessary permits for the new equipment, but the Samsingers themselves had little use for the designation at first. When TV reporters came to the island to interview the mayor, he was at a loss for words and had to consult the concept before answering their questions.
The engineer advised a few people on Samso to establish an association, or else, he said, the plan would never materialize. Fifty Samsingers attended the first meeting in Tranebjerg. But the island's remaining 3,950 stayed home. They were simply unable to see the engineer's concept as a profitable enterprise.
'Everyone Can Do What We Are Doing'
Hermansen saw it right away. He had already had a wind turbine installed on his father's farm in 1984. He is a good talker, and he loves to persuade people. Pumpkins make poor conversationalists, which was reason enough for Hermansen not to spend his life working as a farmer. He was looking for a project, and this was it. The 50 islanders at the Tranebjerg meeting quickly agreed that Hermansen was to be their representative.
He went from house to house to promote the plan, drinking vast amounts of coffee in the process. Then he bought a cider press. Almost everyone on Samso has apple trees, he reasoned, and offering them fresh apple juice was the perfect way to get them to listen to his pitch and calmly discuss the project. "The question was: How can we all continue living on Samso? In the year before, the slaughterhouse had closed down, putting hundreds out of work. It was our Great Depression," he recalls. The plan is better than the slaughterhouse, he said, and soon his argument began having the desired effect.
Three heating plants were built between villages in the southern part of the island, and pipes were laid into the houses. Now the farmers bring the straw that they used to burn in the fields to the plant, where it is burned to generate heat. The farmers are paid for their hay, building the three plants created short-term construction jobs, the villagers are saving money -- and their money stays on the island.
'Everything Has to Belong to the People'
They also built a solar heating plant on the northern part of the island, as well as the wind turbines. Eleven were to be built on land and 10 on the Paludan flats. Big companies were not to be permitted to own any of the windmills, says Hermansen. That was his most important selling point, he says. "You can't do anything from top to bottom. Everything has to belong to the people. It has to become their project."
One of the first islanders to understand the concept was Jörgen Tranberg, a man with an angular head and bushy eyebrows. He owns 150 black-and-white Holstein cattle, which makes him a major dairy farmer on Samso. He is a smart man. His cows crowd onto two ramps to his left and right, as the milking machines click uniformly. He earns less than 22 cents per liter, he says -- in other words, not much.
But Danish law requires electric utilities to buy wind energy at prices significantly higher than production costs. This turns wind turbines into significant moneymakers, an insight that didn't escape the attention of Tranberg's bank. He invested €2.5 million.
He built a turbine on the hill behind his silage tank and invested in half of Turbine No. 8 on the Paludan flats. The community now owns five of the offshore generators, using part of the proceeds to fund the Energy Academy. About 400 Samsingers own the remaining offshore wind turbines and the turbines on land, of which Tranberg owns a very large share. "I think the weather here is always good," he says. "When the wind blows, the rotors turn. When it rains, the feed for my cows grows. And when the sun shines, I take my boat out for a spin." He laughs and calls his dog Vaks. Vaks means shrewd in Danish.
The wind turbines provide Tranberg with about €3,000 in gross daily revenues, while his cows earn only about €1,000 a day -- and have to be milked twice.
Extracting Heat from Cow's Milk
Even the cows do their part to save the world's climate, and they contribute to Tranberg's bottom line in more ways than one. A cow's body temperature is 38.5 degrees Celsius (101.3 degrees Fahrenheit), and the milk has to be cooled down to 3 degrees Celsius. Tranberg, like other farmers, has installed a heat exchanger near the milk tank. The device is as large and angular as a refrigerator, and it even works like one: It cools the milk, releasing heat that is used to heat the house. The wind turbine provides the electricity to run the heat exchanger.
Rows of solar panels sit in a pasture near Norby on the Danish island of Samso. Concerns about energy security may run high elsewhere in Europe, but on this windswept island the inhabitants have achieved a decade-long target of self-sufficiency in renewable power. Photo: Reuters
The only remaining net emitters of carbon dioxide are Tranberg's and the other island residents' cars. The ferry to the mainland consumes 9,000 liters of diesel fuel a day. Nevertheless, Samso's overall energy production is still CO2-free, because the island exports more electricity than it imports oil.
But Hermansen isn't finished yet. Automakers Citroën, Peugeot and Mitsubishi plan to start building electric cars next year. Hermansen is negotiating with the electric utility DONG Energy and the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas. He envisions a technology that would allow electric cars to be connected to the generators, and would include computers that charge the cars' batteries when the wind is blowing and tap electricity when it is not.
"We are completely normal people here. Everyone can do what we are doing," says Hermansen. But then he adds: "In the countryside, that is. Cities are a problem."
The Egyptian ambassador visited the island some time ago. After touring the facilities, he said that the number of people living on Samso could fit into three apartment buildings in Cairo -- buildings with no abundant source of cheap straw nearby and not surrounded by the sea. [rc]
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)