Boomers

The pain is still fresh, but Mary Ida Vandross has to find a way to face the music. A year after burying the last of her four children, the great song stylist Luther Vandross, the Philadelphia resident can hardly bear to hear recordings of her son's famed champagne tenor. "I'm getting a little adjusted to listening," she says. "Before, I just couldn't do it. It's one day at a time." She's promoting The Ultimate Luther Vandross, a posthumous best-of collection with two previously unreleased songs.

We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us. And our children are particularly furious because they believe the crisis in Social Security, which may affect their ability to retire, can be laid at our feet like kindling for a burning at the stake. They are convinced we boomers, with our outsized appetites and sense of entitlement, are going to consume everything on our way to the cemetery, right down to the amount of ground we leave for those who die after us. But data from the Social Security Administration itself, provided by chief actuary Stephen Goss, demonstrates that boomers are not the pig-through-the-python that we have been described as being.

All baby boomers should get tested for hepatitis C, the virus that can lead to liver disease, cancer and death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . One in 30 boomers is infected and most don't know -- read about that in this Sun's story on hep C . In making the recommendation, CDC officials believe raising awareness and testing will avert more disease and deaths. It's now the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths and a leading cause of liver transplants.)

When economic times are tough and the daily headlines remind us of our nation's deficit challenge, it's easy to use misinformation and anecdotes of abuse to demonize certain entitlement programs. Unfortunately, this has the unintended effect of stereotyping whole groups of people as lazy, unmotivated or, worse yet, committing intentional fraud. First, it was those living on the edge of poverty and relying on Medicaid for health care and other critical support services who took the hit. Now it's the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

The nation's original baby boomer turned 65 on New Year's Day, representing another milestone for a generation. Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, who celebrated her birthday with family at her second home on Maryland's Eastern Shore, is the very first of more than 78 million baby boomers who will turn grayer during the next two decades. That means they can collect Social Security — and now Medicare benefits. According to the Pew Research Center, about 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 every day. All baby boomers, those who were born between 1946 and 1965, will reach that threshold by 2030.

The people who run senior centers are finding that the baby boomers who are beginning to populate them don't want bingo, they want belly dancing (see our Page 1 story). These aging boomers are less inclined than their parents were to pull up stakes and move to Florida, or even into nearby retirement housing. They want to stay right where they are, in the homes they know, and local officials have sharpened their focus on ways to help them achieve that goal. Observing the determination of this new segment of the senior population to stay put and to keep doing physical things instead of shuffling off to some warm corner to await the inevitable quietly, the cynic might say it's a result of denial: The people who came of age in the don't-trust-anyone-over-30 culture of the 1960s are vainly clinging to their youth.

We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us. And our children are particularly furious because they believe the crisis in Social Security, which may affect their ability to retire, can be laid at our feet like kindling for a burning at the stake. They are convinced we boomers, with our outsized appetites and sense of entitlement, are going to consume everything on our way to the cemetery, right down to the amount of ground we leave for those who die after us. But data from the Social Security Administration itself, provided by chief actuary Stephen Goss, demonstrates that boomers are not the pig-through-the-python that we have been described as being.

NEW YORK -- Economists like to emphasize the importance of economic policy. They are quick to give credit to sound policies in periods of prosperity and look for policy mistakes whenever things go wrong.But they tend to disregard the enormous role played by demographics. There is, for example, a heated debate in this country over which policies created the current economic boom.Yet, with all due respect for various economic ideologies, it could merely be that the baby boom generation is responsible.

It's a bummer, man. Millions of baby boomers, raised on rock 'n' roll and once the drivers of America's youth culture, have finally been tossed in with their aged parents. They're now part of the U.S. Census Bureau's "older population," meaning everyone age 55 and up. The post-World War II baby boom arrived between 1946 and 1964, and the oldest of them are turning 57 this year. That puts many of them squarely in the bureau's first category of elders, between ages 55 and 64 -- the "near old."

AMERICAN RELIGIOUS leaders have been fascinated with the Baby Boom generation -- and with good reason.First of all, Boomers make up one-third of the whole population. When they were younger, their parents flocked to churches and synagogues to provide religious education for their children.As the Boomers grew up, however, they left the church in large numbers. They were particularly responsible for the membership declines in mainline Protestant denominations since the '60s.For more than a decade, religious leaders have been looking to the Boomers to return to church.

While I am in complete agreement with Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws as to the desirability of reducing penalties for marijuana possession, I take issue with his physics ("Advocates for legal marijuana take first steps," March 20). He states that "the fulcrum on all of this [liberalization of marijuana laws] rests on the baby boomers. " I would say, more accurately, that the baby boomers are the fulcrum. We remember, of course, that a fulcrum is a stationary pivot point upon which a lever rests, and against which it exerts force to create movement.

I was born in 1946, just when the boomer wave began. Bill Clinton was born that year, too. So was George W. Bush, as was Laura Bush. And then the next year, Hillary Rodham. And soon Newt Gingrich (known as "Newty" as a boy). And, also in 1946, Cher. (Every time I begin feeling old, I remind myself she's slightly older.) Why did so many of us begin coming into the world in 1946? Demographers have given this a great deal of attention, but it's not that complicated. My father, for example, was in World War II -- as were the fathers of many other early boomers.

After a 36-year career with the Postal Service, Yverne "Pat" Moore says she's living the life she started planning two decades ago, filled with church and community service, grandchildren and a trip to the other side of the world. The recently retired Ellicott City woman is part of a wave of workers who are leaving federal employment as baby boomers age out of the workforce and managers offer buyouts to help reduce spending. Those who have waited for the economy to stabilize are also now exiting.

Aging baby boomers are increasingly turning to testosterone prescriptions in a bid to stay healthy and boost their vitality. But the therapy has some health risks for men. Recently, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have been exploring how stem cells can be used to regenerate testosterone in aging men, without their having to resort to testosterone injections. "We're trying to understand whether you can prevent [diminishing testosterone], whether you can reverse that," said Dr. Barry Zirkin, a Hopkins researchers who has co-developed a new way to activate stem cells in the testes that, in turn, form the cells that produce testosterone.

All baby boomers should get tested for hepatitis C, the virus that can lead to liver disease, cancer and death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . One in 30 boomers is infected and most don't know -- read about that in this Sun's story on hep C . In making the recommendation, CDC officials believe raising awareness and testing will avert more disease and deaths. It's now the fastest-rising cause of cancer-related deaths and a leading cause of liver transplants.)

I know we have become a nation of such short attention spans and long-term addiction to instant gratification that asking viewers to spend even an hour with a documentary that could change the way they see the world is probably a fool's errand. But this fool is asking -- no begging -- you to see "Hard Times: Lost on Long Island," an HBO documentary premiering at 9 Monday night and repeating throughout the month on HBO and HBO2. I have not seen anything on-air, online or in print that so deftly nails one of the most important and least reported stories of our economic and political lives in this presidential election year.

THE OLDEST baby boomers turn 56 this year, and for this age-defiant generation that means retirement is no longer far off. Some money experts say boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, will enjoy a financially better retirement than today's retirees. Others, noting surveys of dismal savings among boomers, are less optimistic. But one thing they do agree on: Boomers' retirement won't be their parents' retirement. "They redefined everything. It's safe to say they will redefine retirement, too," said Clare Hushbeck, a labor economist with AARP in Washington.

As older baby boomers near or enter retirement, many are so paralyzed by fears of poverty and distrust of financial advisers that they can't take the steps needed to secure their future, according to a report released Monday by a California investment adviser. Instead, they often rely on "magical thinking," where they hope that it will somehow all work out in the end, says Financial Engines, which interviewed more than 300 older boomers during the past three years. It's understandable that early boomers, the oldest of whom turn 65 this year, are worried.

When Alan Shackelford's ankles would swell up, he brushed it off as another sign of getting older — only to find out it was a symptom of something much worse. The 59-year-old Windsor Mill man was shocked when his doctor recently diagnosed him with hepatitis C. Even more disturbing to the IT specialist at Johns Hopkins University was that he had probably been living with the disease for years. "I was completely freaked out that this had happened to me and I probably had this for 35 to 40 years," Shackelford said.

Just when you thought you couldn't possibly hate CBS Sports' coverage of the Baltimore Ravens more, along come Dan Marino and Boomer Esiason with their ignorant pre-game predictions Sunday. “I love the Bengals to come of age today,” Esiason said. “I think Baltimore's going to be the fifth seed,” Marino added. “Baltimore has not been a good road team all year.  And A.J. Green is coming back for Cincinnati. That means Pittsburgh's got to beat Cleveland, which I think will happen.  They will be the No. 2 seed, and Cincinnati gets in the playoffs today.”  Right, guys.