Baby Boomers: Egocentric Comes With A Price

By Yvonne Roberts. Published by The Guardian on 29 June 2013.

To some, it must have been a very long time coming but here it is at last. That smug, gold-plated, bloated slice of the population whose main preoccupation appears to be, on the one hand, continually bragging about their unique birthright of rock'n'roll, flower power, feminism and the sexual revolution while on the other grabbing jobs, income and bread from the mouths of their young, are running into trouble.

As newspaper headlines told us last week: "Baby boomers face a lonely future." According to Who Will Love Me When I'm 64?, a report published by the relationship charity Relate and the New Philanthropy Capital consultancy, the over-50s, unsurprisingly, rate health, financial security and strong relationships soundly – but many are ill prepared for the significant transitions that ageing brings. These include retirement, loss of income, loss of status and ill health. And these changes, in turn, have an impact on spouses and friends resulting, for some, in an isolated and difficult older age.

For my generation, as we all know, counter-culture Cupid fired his arrows in a variety of directions. Among those born between 1946 and 1964, divorce flourished for the first time; cohabitation became the norm and fidelity was for many no longer seen as an essential part of a relationship. In addition, women could earn a living and pay their own way while the stigma attached to being either a divorcee or a thirtysomething spinster evaporated. The bars on the matrimonial cage were removed, and many a canary fled.

But, according to Ruth Sutherland of Relate, that also means now, in later life, baby boomers face "a looming crisis … totally overlooked by government". They may have fewer intact relationships and a thinner financial cushion on which to look for support when they become vulnerable.

According to the Relate-NPC report, while the number of divorces is falling in every age group, the number of "silver splitters" is rising. In the late 1970s, a third of marriages ended in divorce before the 50th wedding anniversary. By 2005, that had risen to more than 45% while cohabitation has an even higher rate of attrition. One in three children will see their parents separate. "Blended families" including step-relationships add to the complication. Sons and daughters, second wives, husbands and partners – all of mature years – can still behave like children when family ties turn into Chinese knots. Add to that the inevitable loss of bereavement, and for those aged over 70, in particular, even the most gregarious, will see their circle of friends shrink.

So what is to be done? Relate offers recommendations, including a minister for ageing; health checks on relationships (depends upon who is wielding the stethoscope) and greater efforts in later life to add to the circle of friends (although one Ipsos-Mori poll shows that only 4% of the over 50s rate making new friends).

What the report irritatingly fails to point out is that an attitude of mind is crucial. Predict a pessimistic "looming crisis" and it will undoubtedly happen. A minister for ageing would have no budget, no clout and no seat in cabinet. Instead of encouraging each ministerial department – housing, health, communities to consider ageing as a natural continuum of its brief – it would allow them all to continue in their Peter Pan position and park any concerns on the secretary for senior citizens' very small and wizened desk.

What the report also omits is that the baby boomers are nothing if not inventive. The plot of 50 shades of silver grey has yet to unfold. So far, that has consisted of developing every kind of device known to man to deny that ageing is even taking place. But there is more to come.

Ageing is no longer a process tied to chronological age – the 60-year-old first-time father springs to mind. But it does trigger a physical and mental change of mind that eventually impacts on even the most ardent of age-deniers as time runs out. Because the baby boomers are "the pig in the python" according to demographers – a large group of people of similar age causing a bulge in population statistics that moves through the demographic cycle – they have left an impact in each decade through which they passed by the sheer weight of their numbers and financial clout. How they meet the challenge of ageing well – with or without a partner, in or out of love – is therefore of interest to us all.

Last year, Al and Tipper Gore divorced in the US after 40 years of marriage. Forty years is no mean feat. And still time for a second go. Why do people separate after a lifetime together? The reasons are as diverse as they are well rehearsed. Once the children are gone, silence may set in and boredom creep from the closet. Or it might be a case of: "Is that all there is?" And good enough is no longer strong enough; or one partner wants adventure and the other prefers more of the same. "It's not just about what you want to do," says Penny Mansfield of the relationship charity One Plus One. "It's also about what you are scared of changing."

In his 2003 book Aging Well, George Vaillant, an American psychiatrist, drew lessons from three longitudinal studies that followed 824 people – the parents of the baby boomers – for more than 60 years. He was fascinated by why some became "sad sick" as the years progressed and others "happy well". One of the studies selected a Harvard group for their soundness of mind. Yet a third had suffered mental illness by their 50s. "They were normal when I picked them," one researcher told Vaillant, "It must have been the psychiatrists who screwed them up." Childhood isn't decisive. How you start out, Vaillant learned, is no indicator of where you will end up.

He looked at those people, male and female, who had fared well emotionally as octogenarians and saw patterns in their 50s that gave signals. They were in a stable relationship, did not smoke, drank little, exercised, had a normal weight and had the maturity to handle emotional issues well, "and make a lemon into lemonade". Comfortable in their own skins, they would not have mouthed the words of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman: "I still feel kind of temporary about myself."

It is this "social aptitude" or emotional literacy that Vaillant discovered, not intellectual brilliance, or income or parental social class or genes that leads to successful ageing – that is being rich in well being and not alone.

Some of the wealthy in his studies died alone, prematurely and miserably just like a number of the poorest.

As you age, Vaillant advised: "Don't try to think less of yourself … try to think of yourself less." That, of course, may mean breaking the habit of a lifetime for some of the baby boomers. But it's worth a try.

Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/29/baby-boomers-old-age-lonely

Vatican newspaper compares marriage equality to communism

By Allessandro Speciale. Published by National Catholic Reporter on 14 January 2013.

Faced with recent setbacks in the United States and in Europe, the Catholic church has intensified its increasingly uphill battle against gay marriage.

The latest salvos came in December with a front-page article in the Vatican's semiofficial newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, by historian Lucetta Scaraffia and with the release of the pope's annual New Year's Day peace message. In her Dec. 17 newspaper article, Scaraffia compared proponents of gay marriage, with their championing of "marriage equality," to 20th-century communists who wooed millions with their promise of perfect social and economic equality. Scaraffia, a 64-year-old former feminist activist who later became a fervent Catholic, has often written in the Vatican newspaper on the issue. For her, the idea of gay marriage is a product of the same "egalitarian utopia that did so much damage during the 20th century ... deceiving humanity as socialism did in the past."

In November, voters approved gay marriage in three U.S. states, while Spain's Constitutional Court rejected a bid to repeal the country's same-sex marriage law. France and Britain are in the process of legalizing gay marriage.

The church has lobbied hard in all these countries. But it has also tried to present its position in a nonreligious way, as a defense of traditional family that can be embraced by believers and nonbelievers alike. Particularly in France, church leaders say that their opposition to gay marriage is winning favor outside Catholic circles.

Last month, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the government's planned introduction of gay marriage. "Our demonstration was declaredly nonconfessional," said Paris Archbishop André Vingt-Trois, who noted the participation of Jewish and Muslim groups.

In Pope Benedict XVI's yearly message on peace, released Dec. 14, he said that protecting traditional marriage from "attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types of unions" is not a faith issue. Marriage's "indispensable role in society" is "inscribed in human nature itself" and "common to all humanity," he wrote. Therefore, the church's efforts to protect it are not "confessional in character, but addressed to all people, whatever their religious affiliation."

In her L'Osservatore Romano article, Scaraffia echoed and developed Benedict's argument. To equate a traditional marriage between a man and a woman with a union between homosexuals amounts to a "negation of truth," which would undermine "one of the basic structures of human society, family," she wrote. In the long run, she concluded, societies will end up paying "a very high price" for destroying family, "as it happened in the past with the attempts to create a complete social and economical equality."

One Catholic supporter of gay marriage rejected Scaraffia's argument as "cruel." Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, agreed that "marriage and family are sacred institutions that deserve the support of both civil and religious communities." But, she added, "these institutions are not limited by the sexual orientations of their members. Love and commitment transcend gender." The Vatican's arguments against gay marriage, she said, are based on "patently false beliefs about human nature" and represent "a cruel and un-Christian attempt to incite fear and division."

In a recent interview, Scaraffia held her ground. "The idea that men have to be equal to enjoy the fullness of their rights and be happy dates back to French Revolution, when they demolished church bell towers because they were taller than other buildings," she said. While socialism tried to realize this utopia through the abolition of private property and social differences, Scaraffia is convinced that today another "difference that defines humanity" is under threat -- the one between man and woman.

Benedict returned to the theme of marriage under attack in his annual Christmas address to officials of the Roman Curia Dec. 21. He said that the family in Western society is undergoing a "crisis that threatens it to its foundations," owing to false ideas of human nature that equate freedom with selfishness and present God-given sexual identities as a matter of individual choice to the profound detriment of humanity dignity. "The question of the family is not just about a particular social construct, but about man himself -- about what he is and what it takes to be authentically human," Benedict said. As a consequence of an "increasingly widespread" refusal to make lifelong commitments to the family, the pope said, "man remains closed in on himself" and "essential elements of the experience of being human are lost."

Citing a study of same-sex marriage and parenting by Rabbi Gilles Bernheim, the chief rabbi of France, Benedict deplored what he called a "new philosophy of sexuality," epitomized by the word "gender," which teaches that "sex is no longer a given element of nature," but a "social role we choose for ourselves." "Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist," he said. "Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will." To reject the "pre-ordained duality of man and woman" is also to reject the family as a "reality established by creation," he said, with particularly degrading consequences for children: "The child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain."

Equally Blessed, a coalition of U.S. Catholic groups working for marriage equality, issued a press release Dec. 21 criticizing "these harsh statements" from the Vatican. "What we see when we look around us are heterosexual parents loving their LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] children and advocating for their dignity and equality; same-gender couples creating safe and happy homes for their children; and transgender people like those whom the pope criticizes living healthy, mature, and generous lives. "Increasingly Catholics in the United States and around the world see what we see. Catholics, following their own well-formed consciences, are voting to support equal rights for LGBT people because in their churches and communities they see a far healthier, godly and realistic vision of the human family than the one offered by the pope. We commend it to him for his consideration," the statement said.

[Catholic News Service and NCR staff contributed to this report.]
Link: http://ncronline.org/node/42686

Open Letter to the PM on forest conservation

FMT LETTER: From Lim Teck Wyn, via e-mail. Published by Free Malaysia Today on 14 September 2012.

Dear Sir,

Politics, race and religion tend to be divisive but all Malaysians can unite around our beautiful natural heritage, our green environment and lush rainforests. It is thus worth examining this year’s Merdeka theme “Janji Ditepati” (Promises Fulfilled) from the perspective of nature conservation.

To start with, we rightly celebrate that the British kept their promise to grant us our independence and we have steered the course of our own development over the last 55 years.  However, human development has not been without cost to the natural world and our growing cities, agriculture and infrastructure all have taken a toll.

Recognising the need to strike a balance, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir, pledged to keep 50% of Malaysia’s land area under forest cover. This promise was made to the leaders of the world assembled at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

Today, the official statistics suggest that we still have 56% of our forest intact.  However, independent satellite analysis reveals that this figure includes plantations and the true area of natural forest is 14,962,000 hectares, which is only 45% of our land area.

In Rio we also signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, pledging to conserve our plants, animals and their habitats. Today, however, the rhino, the banteng and the leatherback turtle are no longer found in Peninsular Malaysia.

The call of the Burung Merak (the green peacock) is no longer heard on our shores. The last remaining stands of the Pokok Damar Hitam (Shorea kuantanensis) have been cleared for a Felda plantation and this tree species has now been declared to be extinct.

Scores of other Malaysian endemics are classified as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and are thus on the verge of extinction. Even the wild population of our national mascot, the Malayan Tiger, has dwindled to less than 500 and they continue to face serious threats from rampant poaching and the continued destruction and fragmentation of their forest home.

Unfortunately, even the remaining forest constituted in “permanent” reserves is not safe from the chainsaw, the bulldozer and the expansion of the concrete jungle.  Wildlife reserves, forest reserves and state parks are routinely cleared to make way for the relentless expansion of civilisation.

On Aug 27, 2005, you officiated the launch of the Selangor State Park whereby the government promised to “conserve and nurture” the forest for future generations.  However, there is now a plan to build a highway right through this heritage park.

The Highways Authority proposes to destroy hundreds of hectares of forest in the Selangor State Park in order to build the East Klang Valley Expressway (EKVE).  The plan is for this route to be the final section of the Kuala Lumpur Outer Ring Road (KLORR), linking Cheras with Bukit Antarabangsa and hopefully alleviating jams on the MRR2.

However, the proposed alignment of the highway would cut through the Ampang Forest Reserve -ma water catchment area that was gazetted as far back as 1912 in order to protect the Ampang water intake point which is a source of fresh water for the Klang Valley.

The protection of the Selangor State Park is also important for flood mitigation.  It has been reported that the flash flood on March 8, 2012 forced hundreds of Ampang residents to evacuate their homes and caused damage exceeding RM10 million.

The proposed EKVE may lead to or exacerbate future floods which are becoming a significant problem in the Klang Valley which has already experienced eight serious floods this year. In keeping with the theme of Janji Ditepati, now is the time for the federal and state governments to make good on the pledge to conserve our forests.

Let’s act now and ensure that we keep all forest reserves covered by natural forest, put a halt to the excision of reserves and create new totally protected areas.  In particular, let us protect Ampang Forest Reserve and make sure that any highway would not damage the forest.

In our pursuit of development, let us honour the promises we have made to future generations in Malaysia and in the world. In this way we can celebrate our independence with pride.

The writer is Hon Secretary of the Malaysian Nature Society.

Link: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2012/09/14/open-letter-to-the-pm-on-forest-conservation/

More British women aborting their children over financial worries, say UK doctors

BY HILARY WHITE, 

ROME CORRESPONDENT.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/more-british-women-aborting-their-children-over-financial-worries-say-uk-do

LONDON, August 14, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A survey by a market research firm has found that the global economic crisis may be influencing more British women to abort their children. The research by Insight Research Group found that about one-fifth of GPs are reporting more women requesting abortion for financial concerns.

Seventeen percent of GPs surveyed felt there was an increase in patients who “were specifically requesting terminations due to financial concerns.” Fifty-four percent of those GPs said they believed the biggest increase was among women ages 26-35. Another twenty-three percent believed the biggest increase was among single women with no previous children, while twenty-one percent said they believed it was among single women living with a “partner” with 1 to 3 previous children.

Thirty-four percent of all the GPs surveyed said that they are seeing women putting off having children “until their financial security improved.”

The findings echo those of Russian demographers who fear that recent gains in the country’s abysmally low fertility rate will be lost as more women turn to abortion to ease financial worries http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/international-life-and-family-roundup1 . 

Although pro-life observers say that they have no argument with the study’s findings, they question the reaction of GPs who endorse abortion for financial reasons.

Anthony Ozimic, the communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said that for authority figures like doctors to affirm with their actions that an abortion is an acceptable solution to financial anxiety sends a profoundly negative message to the culture at large.

“Whatever the merits or otherwise of this study, Western society will continue in its moral and demographic declines as long as the message goes out that women should abort their children or significantly postpone conceiving because of financial concerns,” Ozimic said.

The UK should follow the lead of other EU countries who are offering financial, tax and other incentives to increase the financial security of families and encourage couples to marry earlier and have children, Ozimic said. Instead, the myth is being promulgated that there is such a thing as a “perfect” economic condition in which to have children, when the reality is that such conditions will not exist while the European fertility rate continues to decline.

“While prudence in planning a family is necessary, optimal economic conditions for raising children are illusory.”

Ozimic confirmed that the law does not technically allow for abortions for financial or “social” reasons, but said that doctors have been granted enormous latitude in deciding what factors in a woman’s life constitute a threat to her “mental health”.

This is acknowledged even by the courts to be the case, despite voluminous research demonstrating that abortion has a serious, long-term negative impact on women’s mental health and increasing skepticism http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-study-says-pregnancy-is-safe-even-beneficial-for-women-recovering-from/  among the psychiatric community of the existence of any mental health benefits of abortion.

Occupy Balok-Gebeng 24 Jam

Abandon My Baby? No Way, Says Unwed Mum

Published by Free Malaysia Today, 20 August 2010. By Stephanie Sta Maria.

PETALING JAYA: September is set to be a bittersweet month for Dina*. The shy 20-year-old will be delivering her firstborn -- and then handing him over to his adoptive parents.

Dina's eyes turned misty as she contemplated this not-so-distant future. She is already besotted with her unborn son but raising him is out of the question for she is an unwed mother.

“I was raped by a family friend old enough to be my father,” she said softly. “When I found out I was pregnant, it was too late for an abortion. My father cried when I told him and it was a long time before my mother could look me in the eye.”

Despite offering emotional support, her parents struggled to conceal their pain and Dina eventually moved out. Her anxious search for refuge led her to OrphanCARE, a non-profit organisation that finds homes for orphans and abandoned babies.

The organisation works closely with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and the Welfare Department and has found homes for 14 babies since its launch last April. Dina, however, is its first live-in unwed mother.

“Housing unwed mothers is not one of our services because of space and financial constraints,” explained its deputy president, Noraini Hashim (picture). “But we couldn't turn Dina away. Not when she wanted to take care of a baby that she could have easily abandoned.”

Noraini's words ring truer today than ever before.

Baby dumping, which has long been among the social ills in Malaysia, is finally having its turn in the spotlight and is dubbed the latest “phenomenon” to arrest the attention of politicians, social workers and the media.

Deep compassion

According to the Federal CID director commissioner Mohd Bakri Zinin, the number of cases has risen to 472 since 2005, which makes the probability of Dina's son being another statistic frighteningly high. Until you consider that Dina herself isn't interested in being a statistic.

“I used to curse my baby for ruining my life,” she admitted, placing a gentle hand on her rounded belly. “But abandoning him never crossed my mind. How can I when a part of me lives in him? I've grown to love him and I would keep him if I could give him the life that he deserves.”

But Dina is far from taking a holier-than-thou stance. She's fully aware that her situation would be very different had she been rejected by her family and OrphanCARE. And this has left her with a deep compassion for unwed mothers who abandoned their babies.

“They must have faced terrible circumstances to be driven to do that,” she emphatised. “No mother would carry her child for nine months and then willingly abandon it. These mothers would have had no other choice.”

Noraini agreed. In many situations, she said, that choice fell into the hands of the father or a male family member and was made easier when the new mothers were too exhausted or terrified to fight for their baby's life.

“In one case, the father snatched up the newborn, stuffed it in a plastic bag and threw it into a river,” she recalled. “It is the fastest route to getting rid of the stigma and responsibility. Having said that, we've also met many young fathers who accompany the mothers to hand their baby over to us. These are the people who give us hope.”

Baby hatch still unused

OrphanCARE also introduced the country's first baby hatch in May this year in a move to reduce the number of abandoned babies. The office is a house tucked in the corner of a quiet street in a residential area that shield unwed mothers and couples from curious eyes.

The hatch is a vault-like structure built into the house exterior. Inside is a makeshift cot, a night light, an air-conditioning unit and a CCTV which is trained only on the baby. When a baby is placed into the hatch and the door is shut, an alarm is triggered in the caretaker's room.

After checking the CCTV to ensure that it isn't a prank, the caretaker allows the parents time to leave the premises before collecting the baby from the hatch. The baby is then matched with one of the 300 couples who have registered with OrphanCARE to be adoptive parents.

The attraction of a baby hatch is the anonymity it guarantees but to Noraini's surprise, the babies continue to be brought in by their parents.

“Like Dina said, given a choice, these mothers don't want to abandon their babies,” Noraini said. “But they don't want to face being judged any further either. So we're glad that they view us as a neutral party to which they can entrust their baby's welfare.”

Dina can vouch for that. She has found a safe haven in OrphanCARE and implicitly trusts that it will fulfil her hopes for her son. When asked what hopes she harbours for herself, she hesitated and then replied that she simply wanted to move on.

“I will never forget my baby but he will belong to someone else. So I have to continue with life. I don't know if I will ever marry because I'm afraid of men now.”

“But if I do meet someone, I won't tell him about my past. Regardless of the circumstances, being an unwed mother is a stigma that can never be erased. The only solace I cling to is that I did the right thing for my son.”

*Name has been changed to protect identity.

Good News! Ladies Can Start Stabbing

I have been very concerned for a while after reading a male chauvinist's article entitled, “Sex Work” from www.

Loyarburok.com (where else?) Note: the fact that I am addicted to this site does not mean that I approve of all their nonsense.

Being concerned is to put it mildly, the truth is I was shocked. Not because the discussion was on prostitution.

Shocked because the author has put forward that-

1) sex is, according to the author, nothing more than "a biological drive manufactured by your brain to get you to reproduce and keep the species thriving", and

2) any attempt on the suppression of this biological drive will unleash the rapist and/or molester from within a person.

Where did the author get these findings from? The advanced theory of evolution? Even Charles Darwin did not propose them (see The Origin Of Species). Darwin was a smart man, knew that a man should not make this kind of senseless and baseless statements where his wife could read them. Now, this is the kind of man to command my respect. Obviously, the author is the other kind of man.

Anyway, I am not going to condemn the author to the deepest hell. In fact, he may receive my sympathy. He was conceived, as he thought, due to his parents' biological urge. Nothing more, nothing less. I will be depressed if I were him.

My parents fell in love and married. My mother gave birth to me because my parents were taught and agree till today that children are descendants. Not quite the author's sense of "keep the species thriving" but children are the product of the love and commitment of a man and a woman. The evidence of the couples' existence and a legacy to leave behind.

Having sex without having a commitment to love and cherish each other is having "pleasure without conscience" (see my posting, Eight Blunders of the World).

The truth is the truth. It does not matter if it comes from a donkey's mouth. A religious and self-righteous man may have sinned against God and another person, but that does not change/alter the truth. Hating the deed of such man does not mean we can do as we please.

I believe in a Creator and human beings are created instead of evolved from a pool of primordial soup. My life is not the product of a series of accidents. This entails a sense of value in life. However, I agree with Darwin in relation to natural selection (micro-evolution). All organisms are constantly evolving to compete for survival after creation. In my belief, since we are so wonderfully created, hence, all of us must be precious in the Creator's eyes. The argument to put the entire human race at the same level of animals or even beasts is not only simplistic but insulting.

My point is: How can we advocate for human rights, justice and equality for all when we use each other to satisfy our "biological drive"? Even in consensual sex other than in marriage, are we not using each other for own selfish desires? Where is the human dignity?

Today, I found hope when I read an article and that lifted my spirit, see “Angry Chinese Rally Behind ‘No. 1 Heroine’”. It states that, "Hotel pedicurist Deng Yujiao, accused of fatally stabbing a government official who allegedly tried to rape her, has become China’s latest folk hero — triggering what some commentators say is one of the country’s largest civil rights movements in recent years."

Well, since men cannot be depend on to have self-control, women now have another option. This is what I call justice and equality for all. Ladies, get your weapons ready.