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>           Human Values in Aging UPDATE
>                  Dec. 5, 2001
>
>    From the International Longevity Center-USA
>=====================================================
>
>                IN THIS ISSUE
>
>    - On the Death of George Harrison
>    - Human Cloning: An Ethical Issue for Aging
>    - Science Fiction and Life Extension
>    - Thomas Merton's Prayer
>    - Responses to Impact of Sept. 11
>    - Sites on Assisted Suicide
>    - On Aging Gracefully, by William Zinke
>    - Calendar of Events
>
>=====================================================
>
>                 FROM THE EDITOR
>         On the Death of George Harrison
>
>    September 11 and now the death of George Harrison,
>the "quiet Beatle."  Both get filed away in my mind
>among events that weren't supposed to happen.  So we
>look for explanations: we always feel more satisfied
>to find explanations.
>
>    News stories about Harrison's death carried a
>footnote that he died of throat cancer and was a
>lifelong smoker.  That explanation reminded me of a
>colleague a couple of years back who died of lung
>cancer.  Soon afterward I began to get calls from
>acquaintances who started the conversation by saying
>"He was a smoker, wasn't he?"  As it happens, my
>colleague was not.  He never smoked a day in his life.
> He just had the bad luck to get lung cancer.  Yes,
>bad things do happen to good people, and we don't
>always have explanations.
>
>    The oldest Baby Boomer (Bill Clinton?) will be
>eligible to collect Social Security in just seven
>years.  As Robert Butler put it, soon 76 million Baby
>Boomers will be looking to the time when they reach
>Golden Pond.  They're busying themselves with getting
>things under control:  401-K plans, anti-oxidants,
>maybe cosmetic surgery.  We aging Boomers want our own
>aging to be under control. Gerontologists even measure
>a variable called "locus-of-control" and confirm that
>control is positively related to life satisfaction.
>We hear from laboratory scientists that primates do
>better under stress when they can predict or control
>the timing of events.
>
>    But September 11 was a message that many things
>are clearly not in our control: not anthrax, not
>airline security, not the stock market. Gradually, we
>recover a sense of control: send in the Marines, get
>better intelligence, find out what cave the Taliban
>are hiding in.  Prediction and control is what we're
>good at: "Give us the tools and we'll do the job."
>
>    The problem is that unpredictable events keep
>coming up to disturb the shape of things to come.
>George Harrison's death, even when we end up
>"explaining" it, doesn't cease to be disturbing.
>First John, now George: at last we know the Beatles
>will never get back together and that adds a note of
>finality to our own lives.
>
>    The poet Louise Bogan once said, "At first we want
>life to be romantic; later on, to be bearable;
>finally, to be understandable."  Aging Boomers today
>are working hard to make life bearable.  Maybe the
>next step is to make it understandable.
>
>-----------------------<<< >>>------------------------
>
>     HUMAN CLONING: An Ethical Issue for Aging
>
>    Is Dolly the sheep a sign of things to come?  Last
>month's claim of cloning human embryos provoked new
>attention to the far-reaching implications of cloning
>and human aging.
>
>   "Human therapeutic cloning could be used for a host
>of age-related diseases," said Michael West, chief
>executive officer of Advanced Cell Technology Inc.,
>the Worcester, Massachusetts company, which announced
>a cloning breakthrough.  West cited Parkinson s and
>Alzheimer s as examples of diseases where cloning
>could be beneficial.
>
>    "If the human cells behave as animal cells have in
>previous studies, we may have found a means of
>rebuilding the lifespan of cells at the same time.
>This would allow us to supply young cells of any kind,
>identical to the patient, that could be used to
>address the tidal wave of age-related disease that
>will accompany the aging of the population," said
>West.
>
>(For Advanced Cell Technology's statement, see
>http://www.advancedcell.com/pr_11-25-2001.html)
>
>    Others have very different views about cloning.
>The Bush Administration last summer moved to ban many
>varieties of embryonic stem cell research, and
>legislators from both parties have taken a strong
>stand against human cloning for any purpose.
>
>    The Alliance for Aging Research has opposed the
>cloning of a human being, but argues that cell nuclear
>transfer techniques-- called therapeutic cloning-- can
>be an essential tool of regenerative medicine with
>potential to treat and even cure serious and
>life-threatening diseases, such as neurogenerative
>diseases associated with age.
>
>For details, see
>http://www.agingresearch.org/news/062101cloningrelease.html
>For more on biomedical research in aging, visit the
>site for the American Federation for Aging Research
>(AFAR): http://www.afar.org/
>
>For divergent opinions on this controversial subject,
>listen to real audio interviews with Michael Fossel
>(REVERSING HUMAN AGING), Steven Austad (WHY WE AGE),
>and Thomas Perls (LIVING TO 100) at:
>http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2001/Aug/hour1_083101.html
>
>For a critical approach to unproven claims of
>anti-aging medicine, visit: www.ilcusa.org
>
>----------------------<<< >>>------------------------
>
>          SCIENCE FICTION and LIFE EXTENSION
>
>   Recent developments in cloning bring to mind
>science fiction versions of life extension, for
>example:
>
>    Bruce Sterling's novel HOLY FIRE (1996) has as its
>heroine a wealthy 94-year old woman, Mia Ziemann, who
>gets total cellular rejuvenation based on new genetic
>material added to chromosomes in her body. But Mia
>Ziemann has a problem.  Her biological clock has been
>reset and now she must learn once again how to become
>a twenty-year old woman.  HOLY FIRE is set in late
>twenty-first century earth, after plague and other
>disasters. The heroine is part of a gerontocracy
>supported by new life-extension technologies offering
>youth and beauty. The novel gives a glimpse of the
>biological immortality promised by current claims of
>anti-aging medicine. For a review of HOLY FIRE, see
>http://home.golden.net/~csp/reviews/holyfire.htm
>
>    The granddaddy in literature on life extension is
>Karel Capek's play THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET (1923),
>later made into an opera by Janacek.  Both play and
>opera tell the tale of Elina Makropulos, on whom her
>father, court physician to a sixteenth-century
>emperor, experimented with the elixir of life. But now
>for Elina, aged 342, unending life has come utter
>boredom. "In the end it is the same," she says,
>"singing and silence."  So Elina refuses to take the
>elixir once more and dies, and the secret formula is
>deliberately destroyed.
>
>Capek's story inspired reflections by British
>philosopher Bernard Williams in "The Makropulos Case:
>Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality."
>For the full text of Williams' article, visit:
>http://www.wfu.edu/~crossaa/361/articles/bw1.htm
>
>----------------------<<< >>>-------------------------
>
>           THOMAS MERTON'S PRAYER
>
>    Early in the 20th century W.B. Yeats, in his poem
>"The Second Coming," described the condition around
>him in these words: "The best lack all conviction
>while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
>
>    After the Sept. 11 disaster, Yeats' words are more
>prophetic than ever.  It is refreshing to read this
>remarkable prayer from Thomas Merton, in its own way
>an contemporary version of the 23rd Psalm:
>
>    "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I
>do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for
>certain where it will end. Nor do I really know
>myself, and the fact that I think that I am following
>your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
>
>    But I believe that the desire to please you does
>in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in
>all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do
>anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I
>do this you will lead me by the right road though I
>may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you
>always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow
>of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
>and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."
>
> -Thomas Merton
> Thoughts In Solitude
>
>For more on Thomas Merton and his life, visit the
>Merton website sponsored by Bellarmine College at:
>http://www.merton.org/
>
>For an overview of Merton's books and the continuing
>work of the Thomas Merton Foundation visit:
>http://www.thomasmertonbooks.com/  and also
>http://www.mertonfoundation.org
>
>Note that ELDERHOSTEL is offering "A Week with Thomas
>Merton" at Bellarmine University (Apr. 21-26, 2002),
>featuring in-depth study and, as a highlight, a trip
>to the Abbey of Gethsemani where participants can
>visit with those who lived and worked with Merton and
>view his gravesite.  For registration information,
>contact: www.Elderhostel.org
>
>--------------------<<< >>>---------------------------
>
>         RESPONSES TO THE IMPACT OF SEPT. 11
>
>    Last month's annual meeting of the Gerontological
>Society of America featured a special session on
>"Impact of Sept. 11 Events on the Field of Aging."
>For those interested in public survey data on American
>responses to this event, see the "National Tragedy
>Study" conducted by the National Opinion Research
>Center with findings available at:
>http://www.norc.org/projects/reaction/index.asp
>
>----------------------<<< >>>------------------------
>
>            SITES ON ASSISTED SUICIDE
>
>   U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has tried to
>stop it; Oregon voters have twice approved it.  But
>the issue of physician-assisted suicide won't go away.
> Now Longwood College has produced a website covering
>all aspects of this controversial issue, including
>literature in the field; links to journal and
>newspaper articles (many available on the web);
>websites dealing with suicide and death; radio and TV
>programs; and a comprehensive chronology of the issue
>of physician-assisted suicide.  Visit the website at:
>http://web.lwc.edu/administrative/library/suic.htm
>
>For a similar website from an ecumenical religious
>standpoint see also:
>http://www.religioustolerance.org/euthanas.htm
>
>----------------------<<< >>>-------------------------
>
>              ON AGING GRACEFULLY
>              by William K. Zinke
>
>    "In a response to the piece by Margaret Gullette
>'On Dying Young,' (Human Values in Aging UPDATE, Nov.
>20) I would like to quote my favorite saying:
>
> Learn as if to live forever.
> Live as if to die tomorrow.
>
>    Instead of concern about 'staying young,' shedding
>the wrinkles and hiding the years, it is time for
>people to age with grace and dignity; to recognize
>that with the years come greater experience and
>expertise, maturity and seasoned judgment, and perhaps
>even some accumulated wisdom that enable them to add
>more value than younger people.  A positive attitude
>is critical in aging gracefully, and older Americans
>need to see the glass as half full.
>
>    We tend to glamorize physical youth in this
>country, implying that without it there is no
>compelling attraction, while the wise realize that the
>real key to life is in aging successfully.  It is
>during the aging process that we begin to realize that
>'youth' is often not the key to happiness; for many,
>it s found in later years along with fulfillment,
>contentment, and many opportunities to add value in a
>diversity of productive activities."
>
>   William Zinke, age 75, is an international
>management consultant specializing in human resources
>and productive aging.  He can be reached at:
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>-----------------------<<< >>>------------------------
>
>    With this issue of the Human Values in Aging
>UPDATE, we have now registered more than one thousand
>subscribers.  I thank you all for your engagement and
>for continuing to send in items of interest to other
>subscribers.  We have clearly identified a community
>of common concern and can all be grateful to live at a
>time in history when the Internet permits such
>worldwide communication. (HRM)
>
>-----------------------<<< >>>------------------------
>
>               CALENDAR OF EVENTS
>
>SPIRITUAL MATURITY: Open Audio Conference (Wednesday,
>December 12th at 3:00 PM, Eastern Time). Are
>contemporary American values antithetical to a
>positive experience of aging?  The National Interfaith
>Coalition on Aging, in co-sponsorship with Catholic
>Charities USA Aging Section, invites participation in
>a national audio conference to explore this question.
>Dr. Stephen Sapp is speaking on "Filling the Vessel:
>Achieving Spiritual Maturity as We Age."   To join the
>audio conference, dial 1-712-257-0401, with the
>passcode "AGING"
>
>SPIRITUALITY and HEALING IN MEDICINE: Practical Usage
>in Contemporary Healthcare Conference (Dec. 15-17,
>2001, Boston, MA). Sponsored by Harvard Medical School
>Mind/Body Institute.  Featuring Christina Puchalski,
>MD, Herbert Benson, MD, and others.  Topics include:
>1) New research developments in mind/body medicine and
>spirituality and health.
>2) Spirituality in healthcare practices of indigenous
>people today.
>3) Spiritual support groups outside traditional
>religious orientations (e.g. 12-step programs).
>4) Multidisciplinary healthcare teams (including
>physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains and
>clergy) and each of their roles in spiritual care.
>5) Lay ministry in healthcare.
>6) Spiritual issues of caregivers.
>
>For conference registration information contact
>Harvard Medical School at 617-384-8600; or e-mail at:
>[log in to unmask]
>
>MINISTRY WITH THE AGING. (Jan. 6-11, 2002, Cupertino,
>CA).  Sponsored by Sunny View Lutheran Retirement
>Community.  A 6-day practicum for seminary students
>and others serving older adults. Course includes
>understanding aging, confusion, depression, caring,
>multi-cultural concerns, and pastoral care.
>Instructors are Robert Andersen and Ron Zielske.
>For information on fees and housing, call Joan Randall
>408-253-4300, ext. 35 or email:
>[log in to unmask]
>
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>
>
>"Life is a very narrow bridge between two
>eternities--do not be afraid."
>
>                      -Rabbi Nachman
>
>
>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>This monthly electronic newsletter, edited by Harry
>(Rick) Moody, is published by the Institute for Human
>Values in Aging at the International Longevity
>Center-USA, and co-sponsored by the Institute for
>Medical Humanities, Galveston, Texas. The UPDATE
>contains items of interest about humanistic
>gerontology; it does not publish original writing but
>is limited to brief and timely announcements. To
>submit items of interest or request subscription
>changes, contact [log in to unmask]
>
>The Institute for Human Values in Aging is affiliated
>with the Brookdale Center on Aging of Hunter College
>with support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
>of Princeton, New Jersey.  For additional information,
>see  http://www.HRMoody.Com
>
>(c) Copyright 2001; all rights reserved.
>
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