Beacon Broadside

A few weeks back, the New York Times had a great piece on "the greying of the Web." Older people are giving the lie to the grey-haired Luddite stereotype and taking the ‘Net with blogs and their own social networking sites where they connect, share stories, gripe, and cheer just like the younger folks do.

At Beacon, we’re happy to see the elder blogs giving some attention to 60 On Up: The Truth About Aging in America. Lillian Rubin takes a candid look at the problems and promise of longevity, and her “sharp, brazenly honest exposé” has struck a chord with many people out on the elder blogs and in the more traditional media venues.

Dogwalk Musings expressed her own worries about aging a couple of weeks ago, as part of a post reviewing 60 on Up:

65 is the end of middle age and the beginning of "new" old age. A far
cry from the criteria of not so many years ago when a man retiring at
65 might expect a mere three additional years! Now we’re looking at 90
and even 100 as the boomers move into these categories. That’s a lot of
life to live as our abilities to do so decrease. How many years can you
be satisfied just playing golf? And how many of those years will you
actually be able to do so?

Over at the Boomer Blog, Carol Orsborn looks at what the book has to say to baby boomers who don’t yet want to admit to the ravages of age:

The Beacon Press book is a morality tale for uppity boomers who think that just because we’re doing great at 50 and 60 means we’re going to soar to the finish line (or in cases of extreme denial, past it) with our botoxed foreheads unfurrowed.

Lillian Rubin is a sociologist and psychotherapist, and a senior researcher at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of twelve books. She sold her first painting at the age of 82. While Dr. Rubin doesn’t have a blog (yet, although we’d be happy to see her start one!), you can listen to an excellent interview with her at the website of KQED’s Forum with Michael Krasny.