I’ve tried to warn you about the evils of gambling. It gets in your blood and spoils your life. It uses the most powerful psychological tool known, called “intermittent positive reinforcement.” If you took a psychology class, ever, you know that negative reinforcement is punishment, and positive is reward. And you learned that consistent rewards will produce the target behavior, but when the reward stops, so will the behavior. But is the reward comes irregularly. If you get a cookie, or a jackpot, every third or fifth or seventh try, the behavior may never go away, even when no more rewards are produced.
So why is this seniority issue? As you know, I read the news, so you don’t have to. In Connecticut, home of Foxwoods, the worlds largest casino, there were these two older adult sisters. They always went to the casino together to play bingo and cards. Then in 1995 one of them won a big jackpot, $160,000 bucks! They had an agreement to share winnings, and they did. They even wrote up a little contract, and had it notarized. Now you may not know it, but most gambling contracts are not valid. A legal agreement to do something illegal can’t be enforced. But the two sisters had a falling out. Now they are 83 and 87 years old. And big sister won a half million dollars in the powerball lottery.
Even though they hadn’t talked for a few years, little sister saw the news and wants big sister to cut her in for half! And guess how far the case has gone? All the way to the State Supreme Court. And they seem to be on little sister’s side. It was illegal to gamble when that exception was devised, and the lottery is legal, so then should be the contract.
And aside from the jackpot, you know who wins? Of course they both have lawyers, and they’ll get paid, collections fee for $250,000 is going to buy someone a new pool, you betcha!

Pick a little, talk a little.

There is a letter to the editor in today’s Pasadena Star News asking why people talk during the performances at concerts. The writer, from San Gabriel may have been at the concerts at the park here in Temple City or at Arcadia or one of the many other town concert series held during the summer. “It seems disrespectful to the performers and the audience” says the writer.
I go to these concerts, and I don’t go for the music. It’s usually mildly entertaining, but the chance to catch up with neighbors I might only see there or at the polls on Election Day encourages visiting and talking. Some of the people that I only see there are Ken Picas kids. They’ve got lives away from Temple City and come home to see their Mom in the summer, and come to the park to see the rest of us.
We buy raffle tickets, and discuss the politics of the city- it’s really interesting this year. We buy snacks from the boy scouts and sister city organization. The concert is just an excuse to show up. There may be a shift in focus, I notice Westwind Productions isn’t on our calendar this year, and the Hula dancing, fire eatin’ group is one of my favorites.
The music is certainly loud enough to hear over a nearby conversation. So mind the stage, lady, this is a private conversation!

Today is the anniversary of the Stonewall Riot in New York that perhaps began the gay rights movement in 1969. That movement continues today in the effort here in California to overturn Prop 8, the ban on equal rights for all citizens. One of the issues that the groups that voted for 8 don't seem to get is that the people that started the ban on same sex marriage are coming for you too. They will eventually use the momentum to redefine birth control as abortion, outlaw your choice about using fertility technology to help infertile couples and make taking a contraceptive a felon homicide. They are coming for you. If you don't stand for freedom of groups that you aren't a member of, no one will be left to stand for your rights.
One way to arrest the momentum is to ask President Obama to overturn DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton was bullied into signing a few years ago. Another is to support the campaign to invalidate Prop 8 in California. You can talk to your friends about the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry. The lies that were used to promote prop 8 (teaching gay sex in schools, forcing all churches to marry queers, etc)
Never forget, they are coming for YOU!

Today was the ceremony to recognize the Temple City Older American of the year. I was invited to the ceremony because of a small involvement in the process, I had nominated Joey Carey for the honor. You might remember her from my piece on exercise, she taught me the use of walking sticks. She has also been teaching square-foot-gardening and computers and photography at the senior center here in TC and in Arcadia. For a lady in her seventies, she sure doesn't let any grass grow.
She was given recognition by four levels of government today; The City of Temple City by Mayor Judy Wong, The County of Los Angeles in Supervisor Mike Antonovich, State Senator Carol Liu and Representative Anthony Portantino.
It was really quite nice, Joey gave a little pitch for home gardening and there was a delicious cake. She'll be riding in the Camellia Parade in February. I don't know if there are any other duties.

As I said, Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Wear purple, show your support. At oday's Older Adult System of Care meeting I will remind the agencies involved to carry on the struggle for this population which is going to become a central issue in our society over the next thirty years. Boom this.

Well, I have finished my role in the older adult system of care and am going into correctional treatment. I don't know if I will continue to have a voice about senior issues and post, or if this space will go dormant. I hope to continue to do some reviews, and I will update the wedding post when I get something new there. For now, faithful reader, goodnight!

Glow Bracelets

I think a lot about safety issues, for seniors as well as adults and kids. One of the things that most threatens seniors is falls, and dark is one of the big causes of falls. I wanted to explore the possible use of glow in the dark items for safety- like the necklaces and stuff they give at concerts. So I found a site on the web called: glow bracelets and went to the safety link. they have tape, gloves and all sorts of stuff that could be used for either marking a door or stairway, or for identifying people in the dark. There are vests, hats and other kinds of glow in the dark wearables.
A lot of these things like the jewelry and wands are made for and used by younger people for dance parties, and they are particularly fascinating if you've taken ecstasy, a hallucinatory stimulant. I don't condone using it, but I do recommend checking out glow bracelets for the paraphernalia. The potential cardio-toxic effects of X to older adults would not be safe. Despite the fact that people have always found a way to get high, and the better technology we develop, the more ways there are,I think most older adults prefer to stick to a nice cocktail. Please read my 2007 marijuana blogs for details.
But the folks at glow bracelets also have some items like home decorations, and party packs that can be delivered next day to your door! I might promote those on my wedding blog too, since bachelorette parties might order there! They have drinking glasses to, kind of ties in the bachelorettes and older adults.
Another part of the web site is the gift ideas. They have glowing wrapping paper, lava lamps, light sabers, phones and other cool stuff that again, can be delivered right to your door. Sounds like I'm adverstising for them, I know. I am doing a review, but they can't buy my opinion, just the attention to form one. Be sure to adjust the order to US Dollars, it came up as british pounds for me.
Stay safe!

Well it looks like I will be leaving the world of older adult services at the end of next month. After nine years of alter cockers I am going to work in a new assignment. I don't know what will happen here yet. Should I continue to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong? Or should I close shop altogether? Since the passing of Dana last year, my writing has been less structured, I have spent more time on the novel than on this blog. Since I am not published in print, I don't have a sense of feedback. Does anyone read these? I don't know. I tried to turn a buck by selling out and writing a paid review- anyone got their Peloop? The advertising isn't getting a lot of attention either. That won't pay my bills. I tried to expand to more general issues, I don't get cited on other blogs anymore. I won't even have a booth at the heath fair next month. What's a curmudgeon to do? Watch this space for important future notices!

I was at a Sierra Club meeting this week at which a pharmacy professor and a Native American healer presented information on native and imported plants used for healing. One of the more interesting threads came from the use of local flora to treat TB at Dr Briggs clinic up in La Crescenta. In the day of drug resistant strains, there are unexplored treatments that were never developed because the expense of testing to meet FDA requirements didn't look like it would pay off.
We certainly need regulation of medical devices and drugs since it is still so common that imported herbs have Viagra ground in them and pills sold on the Internet have no active ingredient at all. I just wonder if restructure of the health care system could bring about a more rational process of finding out what works. It makes me suspicious that there are more people employed in finding a cure for cancer than there are people with cancer.

You're A Twit.

I am starting a new network, in response to myspace, face book and twitter. As above, it will be called you're a twit, and it will be the first Anti-social Network. In YAT we will not poke, tweet or tag. We will not not bother each other at all. If we need to get a message to another YAT member we could maybe write a letter. Mostly we will just wait until we run into each other at the liquor store. We won't post videos on you tube or text pictures to our cell phones. If you want to know what I looked like in high school, come over to the house and we can look at my yearbook and drink a beer. If you like, we can skip the yearbook. Now that I think about it, don't come over at all.
I have resisted a life long impulse to make of solitude a religion. But I can make of it a club.

WORLD ELDER ABUSE AWARENESS DAY

June 15th 2009

Well, I’ve written a few pieces here on older adults and sexual behavior in the past, but this time will be a first. I was asked to review a product web site for a device to improve the male sex organs. Now first you might ask, “Can the male sex organs even be improved? Can you build upon perfection? I can only answer in the words of one of my best friends, a card carrying lesbian- (she showed me the card once) “Ewww!”
The site is found by looking for penis enlargement - URL http://www.peloop.com/.
And there you will find the most curious add I’m ever likely to send you to. It’s a very scientific description of the device a man wraps around his business and it has magnets and some other stuff in it that emits growth rays and air vitamins to not only stop the inevitable shrinkage that age visits upon our junk, but also this nearly magical device can make the whole thing work better too! Penis enlargement - URL http://www.peloop.com/ is one of those best sellers on the internet, you can sell just about anything that suggests it can make a penis bigger, or look bigger, or work better, will sell. Some people are a little shy on the computer so they might do a search for male enhancement instead of GIANT FUNCTIONING PENIS but would still find their way to the same Male enhancemment - URL: http://www.peloop.com/.
So what about the product itself? Well if they send me a free one I will give it a try and report back to you faithful reader. In the meantime I can only tell you this: The only scientific proof I know of for a device that makes your penis bigger is a vacuum pump. They sell in the backs of diabetic magazines and if you use one to draw a lot of blood into the corpus cavernosa and then restrict it from leaving with a cock ring, you’ll have a big , usable , possibly painful boner. If you have tried the peloop let me know how it worked!

A senior doctor at University of Edinburgh had an article published yesterday that warns about the menace of medicine to today's elders. The push, somewhat driven by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe preventative treatment may make the majority of healthy older adults into patients, taking drugs and suffering side effects and the risks of monitoring- blood tests, etc.
The dilemma we have to work with is how to apply the technical knowledge we have developed with values of self determination and freedom. It takes a court decision to ensure people with strong, but non-standard religious beliefs can follow them. Christian Science Practice and blood transfusions for Jehovah's Witnesses for example. What about a person who doesn't like the sexual side effects of her anti-depressants? What if she can't communicate her wishes to her caregivers? Ethics is by far the hardest part of medicine. It used to be about who gets the very limited resources of care. Now it's just as often about who gets to say "No."

I'm not sure exactly what the topic is here today. The things swimming in my head are the story of the 83 year old female burglar arrested in Hungary this week. She was charged with burglary since she had a long history of the crime, enough to be known as "the flying thief." She was called that because of her usual escape method using an airline flight. She rides the rails now to travel because it's free for pensioners in Hungary.
The other story on my mind is unpublished. A woman rang my doorbell this week and asked if we had a blanket we could give her. She was not aged but did have grey hair, maybe sixty or so.
She said she was being allowed to sleep in a church, and had a mattress but it was cold. I gave her a blanket but that's not all that went with her. Thoughts about the great depression, the attempts that my department and many others have made to reach out to the homeless in Los Angeles, all followed her back to her shelter.
Jails in LA are no place to take shelter. They are rough and crowded. But then so are the homeless shelters. Older adults tend to avoid the shelters because it's hard to defend yourself there. The older homeless tend to be more isolated because it's safer. they may be more entrenched in the lifestyle and have a harder time adjusting to living indoors. I have a note hanging in my office from an 80 something year old man thanking me because he had a room and a bed and he felt like I had a hand in getting him those things. I have kept the card long after the man lost his placement because the culture of violent crime he lived in took him back.
The word Hobo is having a resurgence. I hear my daughters and their friends use it. I wonder if we are having a return to the behaviors that went with the word- giving a sandwich to a man at the door, just because he asked, and I have.
I hope that the values of kindness, of paying forward, of helping first and asking questions later are not lost in the new age of need.

I spoke this morning to a group called the Pasadena Fiduciary Round Table at the University Club next to Fuller Seminary. I let the group of over 100 professionals know from the start that in Psychology we have found that peoples' number one fear is public speaking. The second most reported fear is death. Therefore most people would prefer death to what I was about to do. I then led them on something of a journey through the world of comparative neuro anatomy and behavioral consquences. One important point was that all behavior has a purpose, and in the right circumstances, it has survival value. If it wouldn't improve the species, we wouldn't do it. As I drove away from the venue, I heard a newspiece on the radio about how many people are donating money and goods for the eight babies recently born to a unmarried mother of six. I haven't heard of one person that approves of the behavior of having fourteen kids and no means of support. I am glad to know that at least some folks don't take out the sins of the parent on the children. It improves the species to take care of those who can't care of themselves. And it improves the culture to regulate behavior like having that many invitro implants. There definitely oughta be a law.

I have done presentations on the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren in the past, to groups like the LA City Attorneys Elder Abuse Task Force. I work with the authors of Bet Tzedeks Kinship Care guide. It's an issue that I've had a long involvement with as an advocate of older adults. My stance has always been that it is good for the older adult to provide care, even as the sole caregiver for kids. It may be expensive, and painful, and thankless at times, but they live longer, report better health and are involved in activities known to preserve cognitive skills. It is good for the grandparent.
Now there is a study out of Johns Hopkins school of public health that gives it a whole new flavor. Grandparents who provide care have a better safety record than any other group. Any group. There are half as many injuries to kids with grandparents looking after tham than with day care, preschool, stay at home moms, anyone. Grandparents rule. If injuries seems like a small measure to base it on, you should know that injuries are the leading cause of death for toddlers. With immunizations (don't get me started on that!), kids die less often from infectious disease and they don't have heart disease and such in large numbers. Letting your kids grandparents take care of them may just save two lives. ( For some Moms it may save three!)