The letters WWJD, popular among many religionists across America, now has a new meaning. “What Would Julia Do?” is a question anyone interested in preparing a good meal can profitably ask.
(For further information, see the fine film “Julie and Julia.”)
On a day in early July, Edward Downes and his wife Joan lay down on adjoining beds, drank a lethal cocktail of barbiturates, and died peacefully soon afterward.
As John Burns reported in the New York Times, the couple had flown from London to Zurich where a Swiss clinic, Dignitas, had arranged for them to end their lives in this way.
A neighborhood walking tour took us, on a hot late August morning, to the three Cambridge homes of William Dean Howells. Now relegated to some obscurity, Howells was a literary lion in the America of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Besides being Atlantic Monthly editor, he wrote several novels, formerly read.
1) hospice services; 2) palliative care; 3) counseling on end-of-life issues. Three ideal benefits for older Americans and others in need of medical help. Any national health care reform ought to include these features at least.
To have such features portrayed as a neo-Nazi plot amounts to a national disgrace. And to have senators say that number 3 will be withdrawn almost rates as a national tragedy.
How can our nation give way to vested political and commercial interests of this sleazy sort?
Who would have expected most older Americans to be so devoted to prayer?
Some three out of four people over age 65, it turns out, pray every day. Of those over age 75, fully 80 percent do so. And each day they spend more than an hour praying.
These findings come from a major survey, published last month by the Pew Research Center. Entitled “Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality,” this study offers a bonanza of information. It focuses mainly on those of us in later life, but also details some of younger people’s attitudes toward us.
Given the choice, how long do you want to live? At what age would you want to die?
When asked, people opt for an average age of 89. For what it’s worth, when the same question was posed in 2002, people responded with 92.
Does that mean living longer has become less attractive over a seven-year period? I doubt it, but the drop does make one think. And it invites us to speculate on reasons people might have for wanting to live somewhat shorter lives.
“The manner of his doing all these things, things she had done every day for months, suggested courtesy rather than kindness, as if it were a tribute to his father's age rather than a concession to it. And she could see how her father was soothed by these attentions, as if pain were an appetite for comforting of just this kind.”