Unique Populations

Let’s Make a Deal
October 28, 2025
I believe that saying what you think without self-censoring in order not to offend someone has never advanced a person’s sense of self. I also believe that people can respectfully disagree on important topics and remain colleagues and friends. Maybe one way to do this is to find commonality before simply discarding the other person. But, these days, that has been lost to righteously choosing a s...
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Another Neptune
May 1, 2025
It’s not an obsession, but I’m closer to the end of my life than I sometimes like to believe. Given this reality and how surreal it feels, taking care of one’s departure shouldn’t be left to our surviving families. In considering my own, I’d already ruled out the latest method – decomposing somewhere, then being planted in a forest, and quite literally pushing up daisies. And even thou...
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Ideas for Change
February 17, 2025
As Americans, we love our country, want the best for our families, a voice in deciding our future, and for elected officials to honor our needs and interests. After several stressful years, this is a bright moment when new Ideas could create the energy needed for important changes in our healthcare system. Following is the first in a series of Ideas gathered from a variety of sources. I’m...
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Rural America –Getting It Right
June 15, 2024
What’s In a Name? I hated the term “flyover country” long before I moved there and was curious about the phrase. It wasn’t meant to be the elitist slight it is now. In fact, according to Gabe Bullard writing in a 2016 National Geographic article, the term was first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1980, influenced by the early non-stop, transcontinental commercial flights 30 year...
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Out of Sight
April 15, 2024
This post is dedicated to a dear friend and an amazing woman. Several months ago, upon the recommendation of a friend, I read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It’s not an easy book to read for two reasons. One is the postmodern vision Mitchell builds within linked stories – past, present, and future. “Like a series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes,” said Michael Chabon. The other reason is t...
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Aging Is Not for Sissies
August 1, 2022
In 2006, I was hired as the Community Coordinator for a multi-year foundation grant to determine what the elderly population of a Pacific Northwest county needed in order to make their lives better. The Partnership was divided into two phases. First, the Executive Director and I held public meetings to promote the project’s goals and to gather relevant data. While it was interesting to meet stat...
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How Was Justice Served?
March 15, 2023
In 2008, I had one of those I wonder whatever happened to moments and googled my blind-from-birth, mentor and former boss, Barry Scheur. My jaw dropped when I saw the headline in Modern Healthcare, dated December 05, 2005: “HMO dreams end in court. Barry Scheur began the Oath of Louisiana with big plans; now he stands accused of fraud after the HMO’s collapse.” Barry and several members of h...
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The Paradox
April 15, 2022
When I finished reading Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, I had mixed feelings. Could a UC Berkley sociology professor really shed her liberal leanings and give her study subjects a fair hearing? Curious at reader responses, I looked on Amazon and found some of the fiercest ratings I’ve ever seen. More about that later. Hochschild picked Louisiana because it...
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Nordic Know-How
April 1, 2022
Several years ago, I spent two weeks in Iceland, the first one in Reykjavik and the second in the far north. My friend and I stayed at an all-age, downtown hostel with a great bar and café. We met a lot of locals due to the amazing café cuisine. Most had been to the US – a kind of rite of passage like going to Disney Land/World for Americans. On our second week up north, we were in a snow bliz...
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OLD – Who Gets to Decide?
July 21, 2021
Recently, I’ve noticed that we’re back to being “totally amazed” that some movie star still looks great at 70. Wow! We’re treated to her “whatevers” and fabulous, age-less face. Men seem to get a polite pass and are called distinguished. The rest of us are going about our lives, wrinkles and all. I admit to being occasionally shocked when I glance in the mirror or see a recent photo....
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Social In-Security
October 15, 2020
We all face risks to our economic security throughout our lifetime including loss of wages, outliving one’s savings in retirement, and high health care costs at any age. In the US, we claim to meet these and other personal disasters through various social insurance programs – including the Social Security Act of 1935. According to various scholars, the Act was the “foundation on which modern...
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Old
September 30, 2019
The word "Old" is so laden with negativity, we hardly ever use it. Except, of course, if you really want to go for the jugular and then it’s usually accompanied by old fart, old bag, old dog with no new tricks, and possibly “old timer” but that is kind of dear and saved for men. Women aren’t afforded the same courtesy and become “cute or sweetie.” I stumbled into the current use of the...
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Reworking the Workplace
November 15, 2019
I wish that when we talk about polarization we were only talking about how to protect polar bear habitats in the Arctic. But, alas, now the term’s most common meaning refers to the act of dividing, often people and opinions, into completely separate groups. We’ve gone binary in the U.S. This applies to today’s workplace as well and poses a significant challenge. Possibly for the first time i...
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