Mitch Gann’s

“Mother’s Day money advice” The Christian Science Monitor:

While greeting their college graduates back home, [Baby Boomer] mothers also assume economic responsibilities for the care of an aging parent, grandparent, or relative. A 2008 study indicated that almost 3 out of 10 baby-boomer mothers now fit the term “sandwich generation,” supporting a child under the age of 18 and a parent or grandparent.

Seventy-five percent of caregivers are women, assuming weighty financial obligations. Long-distance annual caregiver expenses were almost $9,000, with caregiver expenses for someone living nearby half that amount, according to a 2007 study by Evercare and the National Alliance for Care-giving. The majority of mothers will provide care for three or more years. And they frequently trade off a secure retirement to financially support an aging parent, taking out loans or increasing credit-card debt.

Comment: Not for the first time, I’m glad I’m a dad. But enjoy your day, Moms. If it were up to me, you would get two.

The most popular name to give a baby girl last year was Emily, for the 12th straight year. Jacob was the most popular boys’ name for the 9th straight year. (See the Social Security Administration press release.)

According to SSA data, in the prime Boomer birth year of 1952, the most popular names for girls and boys were Linda and James, respectively. Emily and Jacob did not crack the Top 100. In fact, Emily and Jacob did not make it into the Top 100 until 1973 and 1974 respectively.

Linda, #1 for girls in the early 1950s, now ranks 496th in popularity. James stayed in the Top 5 boys’ names until 1980, and is still a respectable 15th.

Mitchell has never been very popular. I am not surprised. You get a sense of that growing up. Mitchell was 157th most popular boys’ name in 1952, and is 304th today. It did make the Top 100 for boys from 1988 – 1997, for what that’s worth. But at least the name is solidly identified with males, never making the Top 1,000 names for girls. As for Mitch, it hit its peak in 1961 when it came in 397th.

Listen . . . Do you hear it? Do you hear the drum-beat?

Get out, Hillary. Get out, Hillary. Get out, Hillary.

Yeah, it’s time. The media say so, the money’s dried up, and Bill’s looking hang-dog.

Rack up one last meaningless win in West Virginia, Senator, and then exit, stage left.

See:

“Rahm Emanuel: Obama Is Our Presumptive Nominee” The Huffinton Post

“Obama Takes Lead in Superdelegate Tally” ABC News

“Obama Takes a Victory Lap” The New York Times

"Canada’s Baby Boomers are Lacking in the Bedroom" CNW Group

Obviously the topic is sex, right? Wrong! Get your mind out of the gutter, would you? We’re talking middle-aged people here. Some are close to elderly status (Not me or you, of course, but those other people over there. Yeah, you guys!)

OK, I thought it was about sex, too. Why else would I be reading a Canadian press release?

However, the real topic is sleep.   According to a survey conducted by The Better Sleep Council Canada, Canadian Boomers aren’t getting enough sleep. One reason may be their moldy old mattress.

At least, the BSCC would like us to think so; it helps sell new mattresses.

The release recommends replacing your mattress every ten years. This seems reasonable to me.  My wife and I replaced our mattress last week, retiring one that we’d slept on for at least 12 years.  It was time. The new mattress is more comfortable. Nevertheless, new mattress or not, I find myself sleeping less on an average night than in years past.  This is apparently a common trend among Boomers. According to the release, some of the common causes are stress, lack of exercise, and a spouse who snores.

Check, check and check.

OpenOffice has always been a decent replacement for MS-Office, especially given that OpenOffice costs so much less. Like, for example, nothing. (Yes, I do love the free software!) Development continues on OpenOffice, and a new beta has just been released. It promises to address that annoying problem of “.docx”:

OpenOffice.org 3.0 will support the upcoming OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 standard, and is capable of opening files created with MS-Office 2007 or MS-Office 2008 for Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.). This is in addition to read and write support for the MS-Office binary file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.).

Here’s the complete list of features in the OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta.

The beta download itself is available at http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/.

Bill Gates says that Vista is selling rapidly and doing fine, but personally I am sticking with XP. I don’t know of anything I want to do on a computer that I could do with Vista but can’t do with XP. So why bother to switch? It’s nice for Bill that he has sold 140 million units of Vista; I really mean that because the guy does great things with his money. But I can live without Vista, especially since there will be this new “Windows 7″ out in a year or two.

I am also playing around with Ubuntu Linux. If I have Ubuntu on my laptop and an old desktop computer, and the only snag I’ve hit is that I can’t get the laptop install to connect with my wireless network. It detects the network, but can’t log in. I can connect it with a cable, but who wants to have to do that for a laptop when wireless is available? I’d be using it right now to make this post if I could get over that glitch. That’s always been the story of me and Linux — one little thing it can’t do that I need it to do. Or to be fair, something that I need it to do but can’t figure out how to make it do.

Naturally, what I like most about Linux is that it is free.

“How’s your health? Study says boomer health worse than previous generation at same age” Boomer Consumer:

Poorer health, more pain, and more trouble doing everyday physical tasks was reported by Americans in their early to mid-50s than what was reported by their older peers at the same age in years past, a recent study shows.

The overall, self-reported health of people in three age groups was studied by researchers from the Health and Retirement Study: those born in (1) 1936-41, (2) 1942-47, and (3) 1948-53. More pain, chronic health conditions, and drinking and psychiatric problems were reported by the youngest group than people who were the same age 12 years earlier.

Comment: On the other hand, I’m doing better than my dad was at my age. He drank more than I ever have, and he smoked three packs a day for much of his adult life. I avoided the smoking habit altogether (yes, including the alternatives to tobacco). But like Dad, I am prone to eating more and exercising less than I ought to. He checked out at 72. I’m 55 now, and soon to tick over another year.

Somehow I’m not feeling my normal wry, bouyant self.

Also see: Senior Journal story.

“The Pastor’s Press Tour is the Week’s Big Newsmaker” Journalism.org:

Last week—as [Jeremiah] Wright re-emerged into full public view to speak to PBS’ Bill Moyers, the NAACP and the National Press Club—the controversy he generated made more news than both Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Clinton was a significant or dominant factor in 41% of the campaign stories and McCain registered in 14% of them. Meanwhile the relationship between Wright and his former parishioner Obama accounted for 42% of the week’s campaign coverage. Obama, who moved to decisively denounce Wright last week, was the significant or dominant newsmaker in 69% of the stories, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index for April 28-May 4.

These coverage numbers are strikingly similar to those from March 17-23 when Wright’s inflammatory statements about race and the U.S. triggered the first Obama damage control effort . . . .

Comment: I haven’t blogged a word about Obama and his former pastor, and I don’t plan to start now. This post isn’t about them, but the news coverage of their relationship and their split.  Obviously, it was excessive.  What the hell, Wright gave good sound bites.  By “good” I mean “juicy.” The media do love that so.  That’s another way of saying that the average news consumer loves it because Big Media pays attention to what grabs eyes and ears. That’s how it got to be Big Media.