NightBlogger

Authorities in southern Germany have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, or about $1.60. Police spokesman Peter Hieber says the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region. Hieber said on Saturday that the mother told police the Internet ad was only a joke. Authorities have begun an investigation into possible child trafficking against the parents. Read more

Photo courtesy of Robert Miller

The Peace Corps is no longer just dispatching Americans abroad to teach English or help in the fields. It is tackling more complex issues, like HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation, which creates an impetus for the Peace Corps to professionalize. Now debate is brewing over how the agency can attract greater numbers of older, technically skilled volunteers. Those skilled volunteers may come from the droves of retiring baby boomers.
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Photo by Zack

…the question everyone’s asking is “what’s in that cream?” HealthWatchBarbara Blair says this new gel she’s been using makes her face look a lot younger than the Retin-A and vitamin C creams she’s been using. “It’s really tightened my skin. Firmed it. The little lines are much better. The texture is very appreciably different.” What Blair probably doesn’t know is that a key ingredient in the cream is the foreskin of a circumcised baby.
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Photo courtesy of visualpanic

Boomers grew up in the era when well-marbled meat dominated the plate. Now experts suggest we fill two-thirds of our plate with colorful fruits, vegetables and whole grains, leaving only one-third for a smaller portion of lean protein. Here’s a plan for filling your plate with some of the foods Baby Boomers need most. Based on a growing body of scientific evidence, these foods are among the top sources of nutrients that have the best potential to improve health and slow the aging process.
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Photo courtesy of aussigall
LAS VEGAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BOOMj, Inc. (OTCBB: BOMJ)(www.boomj.com), a leading Web-based niche social network and e-commerce site serving more than 78 million Baby Boomers and adults over 35, today named the “Top 10 Green Baby Boomers,” in honor of Earth Day 2008. These individuals are leading the pack in environmentally friendly products and practices, and are encouraging the rest of the world to live “green” lives.
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Photo courtesy of Luza

You may never have heard of bisphenol-A (BPA), but it’s probably in your body. It was in 93 percent of 2,517 Americans age 6 and over, tested by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. BPA is in baby bottles, pacifiers, sippy cups, food containers, water bottles, dental sealants, the liners of food cans, and hundreds of household goods. Six million pounds of BPA are produced in the U.S. each year.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a report stating that BPA may be a toxic chemical. And The U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program expressed “concern” about BPA, even though research links BPA to a host of illnesses in rats. Despite this, the FDA has still not established any restrictions on the use of (BPA) in baby bottles.

Wal-mart reported that instead of removing baby bottles made with BPA, they will phase them out. U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York, has stated he will introduce a bill on Monday calling for a ban on all products containing BPA in the U.S. Read more

Photo stefanlucut

Or..How to Profit From a Financially Strapped Generation’s Buying Power

This from Forbes.com:

Conventional wisdom says that the emerging economies of China and India are the biggest opportunities for global consumer companies. But a much bigger opportunity is emerging here in the United States–the 24 million middle-class American households approaching retirement with lofty lifestyle aspirations, a thirst for new products and brands, and limited financial resources. The cohort of financially unprepared yet undaunted and uncompromising baby boomers–”u-boomers” for short–will account for almost 25% of total U.S. consumption by 2015.
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Photo Peter Duhon
Martha Stewart, who financed the creation of Martha Stewart Center for Living, a health care facility for older adults, testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging this afternoon. Reading a sensitive and moving prepared statement, she voiced her concern about “whether our country and our overstretched medical system can possibly meet the demands of 76 million baby boomers who will start turning 65 in the next two years.” Her concern reflected the same warnings by the Institute of Medicine report that came out earlier this week.
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Ordinarily, I don’t post on events surrounding the lives of sports figures, but I found this Herschel Walker story so fascinating, I’m posting a YouTube interview where Walker, an All-American, Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL running back, “talks to WNYC’s Leonard Lopate about his struggles with dissociative identity disorder, which nearly drove him to suicide.” In his recent autobiography, “Breaking Free”, Walker divulged that he can’t remember the season he won the Heisman Trophy, that he held a gun to his ex-wive’s head, and has played Russian Roulette several times.

Here is the ABC News Nightline clip

Top 10 baby boomer myths

Everybody knows baby boomers are wealthy and retiring early, right? Wrong, according to a new study from the AARP, whose Mark Kitchens visits TODAY to shatter those and other boomer myths.

Photo by PixelFixer

1. Mean Reversion in US Wealth Growth:

“…wealth reversion has now arrived, and will be with us for far longer than most anyone expects. First, wealth has already contracted by $500 billion in 2007. Second, wealth contraction will continue to occur until mid-2009 when house prices reach their trough. And third, wealth growth will probably be sluggish up to and beyond 2020, running at about 3%. One reason why is that most baby boomers have their money in their houses–not in traditional defined benefit pension plans. Accordingly, the only way they will be able to retire in the style they expect is to sell their houses to one another. Next joke.”

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As the first of the nation’s 78 million baby boomers reach 65 in 2011, “they will face a health care work force unprepared to meet their specific health needs,” the Institute of Medicine says.

“We face an impending crisis as the growing number of older patients, who are living longer with more complex health needs, increasingly outpaces the number of health care providers with the knowledge and skills to care for them capably…”, said committee chair John W. Rowe. Read more

Photo Courtesy of Sam Spullara

I stumbled across another interesting article written by Tom Kisken, for Scripps Howard News Service, titled, “Role reversal: Dealing with aging parents’ issues struggle for baby boomers”. Tom’s piece deals with the difficulty of baby boomers communicating to their parents about aging, and he cites a commissioned study that asks boomers nationwide what they struggle to talk about with their parents. Issues listed were erratic driving, hygiene, possible dementia, and their parents’ finances.

“The people surveyed,” writes Tom, “said the most difficult topic was whether their parents could live alone safely.” Seniors understandably fear the notion of losing their independence and many are very defensive about being challenged.

I remember a time my 85-year-old aunt drove us to the supermarket. I clutched the passenger seat in disbelief as she rounded a corner burning rubber at 25 miles an hour. I saw the street coming up on my left, but I never dreamed she would attempt to make a turn. What a jolt! Afterwards, I casually glanced her way to gage her reaction but there was none. She was dead calm as if nothing happened. What can you do? You can’t say, “Aunt Mable, do you have any idea how fast you went around that corner?”

I worked in a nursing home in my early twenties and it wasn’t pretty. The nurses referred to the aging residents as “going through their second childhood”. Not all of our parents debilitate with age or do they? We won’t know until they grow older. So we’re left with the harrowing specter of being forced to watch those who lovingly raised us wither away like a bad dream.

“The roles have been reversed,” said 84-year-old Shiphrah Maller, in Tom’s article, “My daughter is my mother now. In order to keep peace, I go along with most of what she says or I just listen and do what I want.” As Betty Davis once said, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”

Read Tom’s full article here