"The Alzheimer's Project"

You don't always know what you're in for when you tune in to a "dull" airplane movie... I happened to turn on "The Alzheimer's Project" heading home from a family summer vacation was glued to my seat for the next few hours.

I'd really recommend it to anyone interested at all in the illness' profound effects. "The Alzheimer's Project" is a four-part series broadcast on HBO that gives a realistic look into the the lives of various individuals suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and it sheds light on family members forced to cope. Two installments of the film won Creative Arts Emmy Awards in 2009. If you're interested in watching a show or two, click this link for a free view.

One particular portion is narrated by Maria Shriver, whose father Sargent Shriver suffers from the illness and inspired her to co-executive produce the series. She narrates "Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?" which is targeted for a younger population of children and teenagers.

It's critical that such political figures continue to take active stances in the fight for more disease research and enhanced public awareness. Although this film may not have painted the prettiest picture of the disease's impacts, it certainly gave me chills - a true education.

"The Play's the Thing": Stanford's Bing Nursery School

It is one of the top pre-school programs in the nation, with its highly educated teachers, indoor and outdoor learning spaces, and play-based curriculum. For the toddlers that attend, Bing Nursery School is a place that allows and encourages dramatic play as a means for exploring and learning about their big, wide world. Each classroom is supplied with blocks, clay, paint, sand, and water as the five everyday materials. These materials serve to help children express themselves and develop motor skills, acting as ‘pre-requisites’ to more complex learning. Through the simple act of playing, children learn to enact different social roles, accomplish varied tasks, and resolve conflicts. They come into a world for toddlers, but learn the acts and skills of adults. In a tour of the school, one may see children constructing blocks like engineers, bathing baby dolls like mothers, or measuring water quantities like scientists. But it is this process of learning different roles that makes a child a child. However, recent issues threaten to disrupt the peaceful play zone of these toddlers: “Government initiatives such as “No Child Left Behind” have made grade schools increasingly assessment-focused and pushed academics down into kindergarten. Preschools are now feeling pressured to abandon their play-based curricula for more.” Despite this, the researchers at the school believe that play is the best preparation for later academic success. Play covers physical, emotional, and cognitive development in a social setting – the perfect blend for learning. Thus the Bing Nursery School serves as a model for successful play-based curriculums. As institutions encourage the implementation of more formal, structured learning for toddlers, they may be taking away the means of which children become creative, imaginative, and flexible thinkers.

Chromosome Research Suggests Exercise Fights Aging: The Immortality Enzyme

A new study on chromosomes takes a look at prolonging life and slowing aging, explaining it on a cellular level.

Telomeres are structures at the end of chromosomes, which shrink over time. As one of these DNA protein complexes shortens, the rate of human cell death decreases, ultimately weakening the body, leading to death. In other words, we could say short telomeres equal shorter lives. If this nebulous concept seems frightening, fret not.

We've all heard before that exercise makes us healthier. We are encouraged to "maintain an active lifestyle." But what does that mean biologically? The study by Dr. Dean Ornish showed that strenuous exercise was related to the maintenance of telomere length, if it is carried out over a long term. By running or exercising strenuously and regularly in the years to come, if you don't enjoy it, you may feel pain and exhaustion. But on the bright side, your body would be releasing an enzyme called telomerase which prevents the shortening of telomeres and improves the health of your cells. Hence this enzyme has been appropriately named the "immortality enzyme," whose discoverers won the Nobel Prize in medicine. So if you are willing to make this “comprehensive lifestyle change,” you will reap the rewards of a longer, healthier life.

From Miley to Meryl: How the Media's Role in Society Shapes Views on Age and Aging in Pop Culture

September 2005. As studios gear up for the launch of their fall movie campaigns, two movies face off, released on back-to-back weekends. One stars Jessica Alba, 24-year-old Hollywood actress, ubiquitous tabloid magnet, and perennial member of the list of the top ten most googled celebrities. The other is a star vehicle for a then 43-year-old Jodie Foster. It’s a perfect matchup of the generations, as each female lead goes head to head at the box office to see who can draw the largest crowds. The answer seems obvious— the hot young star is sure to draw more theatergoers from our youth-obsessed culture than some middle-aged actress past her prime. Yet when the box office figures are released, the money, as always, gets the final word. Foster’s Flightplan garners nearly $90 million in ticket sales among American audiences, more than four times the paltry $18.8 million Alba’s Into the Blue reels in. Any American super-market shopper can remember the omnipresent and now infamous shot of Alba clad in her blue bikini plastered on the cover of numerous magazines as part of the movie’s aggressive marketing campaign. So how is it that Foster—with no stellar bikini shot backing her up—was able to lure more than four times the audience of the actress nearly half her age?

We have entered a new era of American culture, one that reveals an interesting contradiction in our attitudes and beliefs about age in the entertainment industry. We have heard the endless Hollywood horror stories about actresses hitting thirty and getting caught with the first stretch mark or wrinkle that pops up screaming, “Expiration date is fast approaching!” The perpetual image of young stars on magazine covers and blogs adds to this impression that youth is the driving force of the American media. Analysis of economic data—from salaries, to box office figures and record sales—tells a different story, however, one that suggests that older celebrities truly succeed in bringing in the audiences and the cash.

Before exploring perceptions of age in American media, we first must examine the broad reasons why Americans are perpetually accused of being a youth-obsessed culture. Throughout the past several decades, however, this youth obsession has appeared in American culture to varying degrees. In order to fully grasp the factors that influence the changes in American fascination with youth, we must scrutinize each generation’s relationship with the media. As the media’s form, as well as its role in American society, evolves throughout the decades, so too do the ages of its most prominently featured figures. Yet while attitudes about age may change from generation to generation, our culture’s obsession with youth will always remain inherently rooted into our national identity, manifesting in different ways overtime.

The Terminal Perpetuation of Masculinity

                                                                 Doug Vogt / ABC

The press praised his struggle against terminal lung cancer–his “uphill struggle,” his “aggressive chemotherapy”–as the battle of a legendary hero (“Peter Jennings”). They stood, misty-eyed, in awe of his “realism, courage and firm hope” because he lived his last months with the same strength and independence that had made him famous. In the press’s eyes, ABC news anchor Peter Jennings was a man to salute. He was tough, a fighter to the bitter end. His knowledge was his arsenal, his assurance an indestructible shield. And in farewell tribute to a man of all men, the world knelt its respect to an exemplar, a fallen hero. Peter Jennings: a true man unto death.

The media glorified Jennings’ masculinity, chiseling his life’s legacy in stone. They defined his life heroic by his adherence to masculinity’s norms: winning, emotional control, dominance, self-reliance, the primacy of work (Kahn 143). However, his terminal prognosis seemed a direct refutation of this masculine tradition. Terminality implied that he could no longer dominate, that his strength was to no avail. It stripped him of his ability to work and his power to control, forcing him to depend on others for his care. Finally, it damned him with the knowledge that he would lose the fight for his life. And the world celebrated Peter Jennings. They celebrated him because he fought. They celebrated him because he stood strong. They celebrated him because he kept the dignity of an untouchably, unfailingly masculine man.

Peter Jennings’ media coverage illustrates that popular culture honors perpetual masculinity. Media and literature hail such a controlled, strong and dominant man as a paradigm of the real-man tradition. If he deviates from this masculinity at any time, the public identifies the deviation as a loss: he has moved away from the man he once was. Thus, masculinity is to keep its dominant status through a terminal prognosis.

Even as terminal illness strips men of their traditional dominance and control, media and literature pigeonholes their terminally ill subjects into the masculine norms of healthy men. Its viewers take the popular images as the norm to emulate, and when the terminal prognosis comes, these norms of emotional control, dominance and self-reliance can hinder a man’s end-of-life closure and care. The gay man’s emotional openness about terminal illness offers a counterpoint to terminal masculinity, a different point of view that may help ease the last journey.

Beyond Party Lines: Millennials Revolutionize American Politics

                                 www.stltoday.com

The Millennial Generation. The first generation to grow up with the Internet, widespread cell phone usage, and Facebook. A truly "plugged-in" generation. Some people claim that Millennials (b.1982-2003) think of nothing but themselves and how many text messages they have received in the past five minutes. As unimpressed psychologist Jean Twenge puts it, "Millennials are the most narcissistic generation in history." Surely, today's self-obsessed youth, with their ipods and compulsively updated Twitter accounts, have nothing in common with their civically-focused grandparents and great-grandparents, those people who gracefully saw the nation through the Great Depression and World War II--right?

Wrong. In fact, striking parallels exist between the Millennials and the G.I. (a.k.a. the World War II or "Greatest") Generation. Not only do they both come of age during economic upheaval, but they also face global violence of epic proportions. In place of Nazis, we face Islamic extremists. A potentially nuclear Iran replaces the silent threat of the Soviet Union. As a result of this constant encounter with crisis during youth, both generations place a high value on active participation in government and take their civic responsibilities seriously. The civic spirit of the G.I.s drove the nation through the Great Depression and then propelled it through the Second World War. Hopefully,, the Millennials will handle the current economic crisis with such grace. So what does another civic generation mean for America's political future?

Before making such ambitious political predictions, the Millennials' place in the broader generational cycle of American politics demands analysis in order to properly frame this discussion. What does "civic" mean in a generational context? And if generations such as the Millennials and G.I.s embody civic responsibility, how do other generations fit into the historical picture? William Strauss and Neil Howe's Generations: The History of America's Political Future, 1584-2069 (1991)provides an excellent foundation for the examination of political cycles through a generational lens. These political scholars present a compelling interpretation of America's past, present, and--most importantly--future. They detail a four-part generational cycle where a distinct identity--Idealist, Reactive, Civic, or Adaptive-characterizes each stage. This cycle, they argue, has recurred (with the defining generational identities in the same order) with only minor exception since the British settling of North America.

Consequently, this generational cycle dictates a remarkably consistent political pattern in American history. Idealists come of age during a "spiritual awakening"--most recently manifested in the form of hippies, Vietnam protests, the Women's Liberation Movement, and John Lennon--during which they passionately challenge societal and cultural norms (Generations 35). Inevitably, a social upheaval follows this "awakening," and it is during this time of societal turmoil that Reactives are born and growing up. A few decades later, Strauss and Howe explain, Civics come of age during some sort of secular crisis--think "war on terrorism" and the current economic crisis--while Adaptives are being born. Strauss and Howe, then, refer to Idealist and Civic generations as "dominant" in the public sphere: Idealists reshape the moral and cultural worlds, while their civic counterparts rebuild institutions and develop new technology (Generations 35). Millennials clearly fit into the "civic" category. Growing up during a secular crisis? Check. Rebuilding (and more importantly developing) technology and institutions? Check, and hopefully even more so in the furture. Currently, America is in the middle of the Millennial Cycle, with the Baby Boomers labeled as the idealists, Generation Xers as the Reactives, and the Millennials as the civics. Because the G.I. was the last civic generation (during the Great Powers Cycle), the examination of that generation can potentially predict the behavior of the Millennials. What about the "Greatest" Generation made them great? How did they collectively persevere in the face of extreme crises? How will the Millennials' response mirror that of their generational predecessor?

A genuine concern for the state of the nation will spur Millennials to actively participate in government. Inevitably, the first step in active participation is education: knowledge of current affairs and policy issues. Unlike the politically disillusioned and cynical Generation X preceding it (Generations 333-334), the current generation of young people has an overall faith in the positive potential of politics. Fortunately, the advent of the Internet, along with its technological progeny (e.g. the I-phone) makes political awareness and knowledge all the more accessible and convenient.

Many political scholars believe that increasing awareness of issues (often facilitated by the Internet) will lead to a depolarization of sorts. As successful businessman and philanthropist Eric Greenberg explains in Generation We, Millennials will see beyond traditional partisan politics as usual. After extensive research, one will conclude that, rather than moving specifically to the political left or right, the Millennial Generation will affect U.S. politics in an entirely different realm together: issues, rather than party loyalties, will primarily determine how someone votes in a given election. Party ideologies will become secondary to a pragmatic interpretation of specific policy issues, and thus party affiliation will no longer serve as the crucial factor in predicting voting behavior. The Millennial "pragmatic policy voter" will dominate American politics. This voter will educate himself politically, prioritize issues on the basis of magnitude of immediate relevance, and then vote on the basis of which party purposes the most practical, logically sound solution to the given problem. For instance, in the 2008 presidential election such a voter would have voted primarily on the economy. Therefore, the two parties will still powerfully exist but with a severely weakened ideological base. A new breed of "independents" will come to fully dominate the American political scene--a truly revolutionary political phenomenon.

A Toast to Stanford

Sinking into himself, the overzealous Stanford freshmen fought to raise his head in response to his Resident Advisor (RA). “I’m here to help you,” the diction sounded angelic, “let’s get you home buddy.” Sidestepping through hundreds of raving college students, grimacing from the thumping base system at the fraternity, this RA had found his student. It didn’t matter where or how the eighteen year old became intoxicated. It didn’t matter what punishment the RA would award for the staggering display. Here, where the rolling foothills rise up towards mountains higher, a Resident Advisor journeyed simply to pick up his drunken freshman and get him home safe.

That’s how we learn in America…right? We set a national minimum drinking age limit, expecting experimentation to garner safe drinkers. We say 21, knowing that 81% of students on college campuses drink. Education? O’ that comes with trial and error! In this country, 21 does not mean you’re mature enough to drink, it simply means that you’ve struck an arbitrary age by which you can drink legally.

Explicitly, the national minimum drinking age in the United States has been 21 for the last twenty-five years, but over this time society has tacitly consented to underage drinking. Parents have sent students off to college knowing that their child will soon experience the acclaimed social lubricant – if they haven’t already. Universities, fighting to uphold national policies, have adopted strict “zero tolerance” policies – even though they inadvertently drive students into unsafe, unhealthy drinking practices. Alcohol in America has become more than a drug. Today, it is both an antidepressant and an icebreaker. Today, it is the chief celebrant and the hidden healer. Today, students, from both Harvard and Hillsbrough Community College, from both Phoenix and Philidelphia, are forced to face the ubiquitous social experience labeled underage drinking. Entering college, students quickly realize that drinking and getting drunk are synonymous. Few people are taught how to drink, and social drinking is simply not an option. Each shot must be lesson, each beer, a quiz; and if your head stays out of the orifices of a toilet bowl, you’re except from a final, hungover exam. Universities use strict Resident Advisor practices and scare tactics to discourage students from drinking, but the numbers have not gone down. Binge drinking (drinking in excess of four standard drinks) is the new norm, and policy makers are so busy trying to punish the various outcomes of drinking, that they often forget about educating youth to prevent its misuse.

Breaking away from this inefficient system, Leland Stanford Junior University has developed an alcohol policy to harness the education that students find in downing shots and chugging beers. The policy at Stanford is especially unique because of the “Fundamental Standard” – a touchstone that governs interaction between the administration and students. The Standard is a social, and ethical contract to uphold the law and policy, and implicit within it is the understanding that students are responsible for making their own decisions and accepting the consequences of those decisions. The Standard states unequivocally: “The letter and the spirit of the Fundamental Standard – trust, individual responsibility and good citizenship – is the core of the Stanford Alcohol Policy and the administration can deal with watching over and educating the students rather than punishing them” (University Policy). The Standard has been especially effective as the driving force behind the alcohol policy because it approaches student conduct issues from a perspective that places emphasis on individual responsibility and development: “What really matters is what students decide to do,” the Standard states, “It’s their health, after all, and their safety that they’re most responsible for” (University Policy). Resident fellows, resident advisors, and school administrators are all set up to look out for students and to educate them, but it’s up to students themselves to create a policy that makes sense. At Stanford students learn how to drink. Administrators know they drink. They see students drink. But, finally, a university has decided to teach underage drinkers the right way to drink, instead of punishing them for the action.

In what follows, I will contrast the coordinated ineffectiveness of the national minimum drinking age and many universities’ “zero tolerance” policies with the success of Stanford’s alcohol policy. Through tracing the history of alcohol policies in the United States and presenting further statistical backing, the inefficiencies of the national policy will become glaring. The debate on lowering the minimum drinking age will then arise from the ashes of this inept national policy, and will be further ignited when examining the ineffective policies on college campuses across the country. Extrapolating on unsuccessful university policies, student opinions from various universities will be presented as a call for change in the national drinking policy. In conclusion, Stanford’s policy will be unpacked to demonstrate how permissiveness to alcohol consumption can add to the overall flexibility and oversight that a school has over its student body. The character of Stanford’s policy is very pragmatic in its ability to educate and it will be readily apparent that a similar strategy could be applicable on a national scale. In a toast to Stanford, the mission of this essay is to validate Stanford’s sobering syllabus as a best practice and to expose the prolific affect a lower drinking age would have on the perilous drinking culture in the United States.

As I sat there, looking up at my RA with glossy eyes, I knew I needed help. For me, there were no guidelines. I had misused alcohol. I had fallen down the same path a many other underage college students. I cannot prove that Stanford’s alcohol policy is the perfect solution. I cannot show that students drink less because of our environment. But, because I live here, because I have learned here, I have changed – and become more intelligent and responsible in how I consume alcohol.

Little Bam Bam is a youtube sensation because of his unbelievably quick hands. At 6 years old, Bam Bam is a world renowned boxer who has been on both Good Morning American and ESPN. Born in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio - the greatest city in the world - Bam Bam began boxing at the age of 2. "He was sitting by the tv watching a boxing commercial, and all of the sudden he took of his shoes, put them on his hands and began boxing the tv," said his part-time trainer and part-time father in an interview on ESPN.

Though some may rush to condemn Bam Bam's parents for throwing him into the boxing world at an early age, I think that it was the perfect escape from the rough streets of his inner-city hometown. Boxing requires a tremendous amount of focus and training, and if Bam Bam sticks with it, he could learn many valuable lessons.

According to various interviews, Bam Bam can do 100 push-ups in a row, and 20 pull-ups. Watching the video, there is no question that his tiny arms carry a heavy punch (even though his boxing gloves may be half the size of his body). His trainer/dad has even said that a miss-punch once knocked his tooth out while they were training.

Condemn what you will, but I truly believe that Bam Bam's boxing career is the perfect escape for the child. And, furthermore, I think a vast majority of the 2,137,433 people who have watched his video on youtube agree with me.

The Enlightenment: To Be Asian or Not To Be Asian...Or To Be Both

Who am I? I’d like to say that I’m a mature, independent, altruistic adult unabashed of my Asian heritage. But when I share a friendly glance and smile with a neighbor who quickly averts her gazes, is it wrong to become insecure? And when I spend time with people of various ethnicities other than mine, is it incorrect to succumb to their stereotypes of my varied ethnic makeup—Japanese, Chinese, Native Hawaiian—in order to fit in? How can I proudly participate in cultural activities in the safety of my home while feeling dismayed and somewhat shameful of my slanted eyes, round face, yellow-hued skin, and short stature in the public sphere? Does that make me a hypocrite? Can I have two identities simultaneously?

Many scholars assert their astute opinion as to the process in which an Asian individual develops their bicultural identity: the ability to draw values from or associate with an ethnic population to constitute one’s identity. Regardless of their stance on this circumstance, the experts conclude that one’s family and its ethnic values influence her identity. A discussion of their argument shows three familial nurturing modes that a budding youth falls into at the end of their development. The first model assumes that an individual in search of her core of beliefs becomes acerbically overwhelmed of her stringent, band-aid like family and their conservative values that she escapes her prison and never returns. That individual seems incapable of possessing a bicultural identity. Since she cannot manage to meld her two worlds together, she succumbs to the most appealing one. On the other hand, there exists nurturing, understanding, fresh-baked apple pie families that rear their children through humble example rather than through stark discipline; those adolescents understand their role and significance in their family. Those families have allotted their children the autonomy to explore the diversity around them but, by example, revealed the importance of their ethnic heritage. That type of rearing enables the “rearees” the freedom to identify with both worlds—two separate, exotic spheres. Finally, the conciliation of the previous models asserts that a young adult can leave her family in frustration to the alluring surprises of American society but become disenchanted when she realizes that she remains unfulfilled. She then rapidly retreats home much like the Prodigal Son: who returns home into the warm, familiar embrace of his father. Those disenchanted individuals—after realizing the pros of the opposing worlds—boil down their accrued values into one swirling, melting pot identity. However, can all young adults stringently fall into one model like coins sorted into moneybags? Is it possible for a young adult to challenge any neat fit within a certain mode of acculturation by dabbling in an assortment of rearing models much like how an assortment of coins of various values can constitute the same one-dollar bill?

The author Mei Ng in her semi-autobiographical novel Eating Chinese Food Naked paints an interpretive masterpiece of the archetypal story of the Chinese immigrant youth’s ‘coming-of-age’ experience—of children rebelling from the overbearing familial unit in favor of independence only to realize how profoundly their Chinese values constitute their identity. The protagonist’s family emigrates from the “Middle Nation” to the poor, immigrant-ridden Chinatown in New York City where they open a Laundromat and raise three children. Franklin and Bell try to raise their children—Van, Ruby, and Lily—according to Chinese familial values in the fact of American pop culture. While Ruby initially embodies this Prodigal Son model, her brother Van personifies the opposite by hastily running away from his family without one final remark or afterthought. Eating Chinese Food Naked portrays the rainbow-like spectrum of responses to this stringent structure of Chinese value development suggesting that immigrant children can epitomize overarching bridges connecting Chinese and American society. Ruby’s struggle to formulate her identity when barraged with the seductive American culture opens her eyes to the three models of acculturation and receptive to her familial values. Mei Ng focuses on the protagonist’s liberal, sex-starved promiscuity typically denied in her conservative parents’ ascetic discipline to embody the true Chinese immigrant child: one who builds bridges between two worlds.

I want to be Forever Young

In his new album, The Blueprint 3, rap icon Jay Z frames the desire to preserve adolescence in his song "Young Forever." This song really hits home for me because, as a freshmen in college, I constantly feel as though my life is getting serious and I need to buckle down and get to work. Thanks to the shuffle tool on my Itunes, however, I was exposed to Jay Z's timeless message.

"Fear not when, fear not why,
fear not much while we're alive
life is for living, not living up tight
see ya somewhere, up in the sky"

In life we have to enjoy the moments. Man is a product of his experiences, and we must cherish the time we have on this earth. Yes, it may seem like I'm getting way to philosophical, but for some reason music always has the ability to drown out the worries of life and put everything into perspective. So today, as I lay in bed and rock out to Jay Z, I hope you realize that "there is no tomorrow, just a picture perfect day." Stop worrying about how difficult an exam will be. Don't worry about what career the path of life will take you to. Just enjoy the day. Work hard, and love life.

Enslaved by the Mind

Rom Houben was involved in a tragic car accident in 1983. He was 20. Doctors said he fell into a coma and then entered a vegetative state. For 23 years Rom laid on his hospital bed while his family contemplated "pulling the plug." For 23 years Rom was enslaved inside his own mind.

Though doctors believed he was in a vegetative state, Rom's family knew there was more. They sensed that he was alive; they felt his emotions. Though the accident left Rom unable to speak and move, his brain was still and he still was able to hear doctors, nurses, and family members. He was able to listen as doctors urged his family to end his misery. He was able to mourn as his mother confessed the loss of his father. But Rom Houben could not act. He could not visibly show he understood.

Finally, in 2006, 23 years after his diagnosis, doctors reexamined Rom's brain with the latest technology to find that he actually was conscious. Re-diagnosed with the "locked-in syndrome" it was determined that although Rom could not speak or move, he could think and reason. Newly developed technology allowed Rom to express some of his emotions and in his first sentence in 23 years Rom said that he felt as if he had been reborn.

Other than extremely creeping me out, this story made me wonder what it would be like to watch the world go by without participating in it. To be able to sit and watch other age, watch nations battle, cities crumble, generations age. What would it be like to age inside the mind? What would you talk to yourself about for 23 years? Even scarier...

Doctors now believe that over 40% of those diagnosed as vegetative may in fact be like Rom....

Lingering Sexism: Teenage Girls and Contemporary Female Portrayal in Gossip Girl

Blair plans a huge party in hopes of impressing her new boyfriend – who just so happens to be a duke. She goes about this by giving orders, gathering the support of the community, and doesn’t fail to be the center of attention at the actual event. But is Blair’s intention to seek power and dominance, or to be loved and protected? As Gossip Girl narrates, “On the Upper East Side, all the world’s a stage and the men and women merely players.”

In the most recently completed season of the CW’s teen drama Gossip Girl, we witness socialite teenagers from the Upper East Side of Manhattan take on outsized roles – consequently developing into models for adolescent girls. The female protagonists Blair and Serena portray a range of gendered behavior: feminine conventions and stereotypes, divergences and scandals. Gossip Girl is put under a controversial spotlight for its explicit sexuality, but a more insidious aspect of the show is its ability to tear apart gender stereotypes, but subtly put them back in place. Presentations of gender by the media, as we will see, cultivate adolescents’ attitudes about how they should behave as females. Even though television shows allow female characters to take on less traditional roles – breaking the girl stereotype by being agentic, assertive, and authoritative – they trap them in residual conventions of femininity, as seen through Gossip Girl.

Learning how to behave as an adolescent in society can be tricky. How are we to act? Who do we emulate? What is our role? Albert Bandura’s social learning theory in psychology argues that we learn behavior from models in our surroundings – actors on the metaphorical stage of life. Models can be real or fictional, old or young, male or female, have a positive or negative impact, or no impact at all. Most often, we model after those within close proximity such as a family member or friend; yet a noteworthy, often forgotten, and incredibly influential part of our environment is our media. Television provides characters as models which attract teenagers and help scaffold their attitude towards gender, giving them a sense of what is customary in society. With adolescents in the United States watching a daily average of three-hours of television (qtd in Walsh and Ward 134), teen dramas are sly vehicles that provide teenage girls with female models of behavior that they are consciously – or unconsciously – aware of.

Centenarians: Beyond Ageism and Beyond Horizons

She wakes every morning on the small island of Okinawa, Japan at 6 A.M. to make her breakfast vegetable miso soup: steaming aromas of revitalization, hardiness, and soy. Taking a stroll or working for a couple of hours in her garden, she spends her early mornings with habitual vitality. At noon, she greets her family with arms waving over her head as she shouts, “Genki, genki deska?” (happy, are you happy?). She has lunch with her daughter and she dances to Japanese folk music with her granddaughters in her navy blue kimono. Sometimes she works at a local market selling oranges to tourists. Other times she gossips and drinks tea with her friends and family. By nightfall, she prepares a vegetarian dinner complemented with a fine cup of mugwort sake before going to bed. This is Ushi Okushima’s daily routine at 107 years of age.

We have all heard the phrase, “life is short, so make the most of it” but does life really have to be as short as people expect it to be? In Ushi Okushima’s situation, life is the least bit short or boring. Throughout history, people’s fear of the vulnerability of life marked the endless search for the fountain of youth. However, today, the search has shifted to the search for longevity. Since the 1970s researchers, journalists, and doctors worldwide have mused on the longevity of the Okinawan centenarians. Through studies and interviews, researchers have connected centenarian longevity to healthy diet, daily exercise, positive attitude, and cultural roots to the land. When the mystery of the centenarian secrets to longevity finally had been uncovered, popular media, such as BBC, Time Magazine and the New York Times took great interest in sharing to the public the possibilities of living to 100 years. Article headlines such as “Forever Young,” “Secrets of the Wellderly,” and “The Okinawan Way,” and images of Okinawan centenarians engaged in unexpected activities for the elderly—farming in their rice fields, running, dancing, and singing karaoke— have captured the concept of aging and old age in an unprecedented, over-idealized way.

The images, articles, and stories of the extremely old challenge our preconceived stereotypes of the elderly population. The American people in particular have developed an ageist culture where the youth population views elderly people as functionally and cognitively incompetent, dependent, and depressed. Although these negative stereotypes about the elderly population still abound among America’s youth, the publicity of centenarian longevity has begun to break down these ageist barriers. Based off of centenarian studies, journalists apply the success stories of centenarian longevity, through images of health, landscape, and youth, to counterbalance the negative stereotypes of aging. Although popular media romanticizes the aging process of the centenarians, it has commenced a new discussion surrounding the larger importance of longevity versus our negative views and biases of old age. Seen through the Okinawan centenarian model, aging now holds potential for an actual future rather than a timer counting down to one’s death.

Confronting Reality: Goodbye to Elderly Depression

Imagine being on a never-ending quest for happiness, causing your life-long goals and ambitions to turn astray. What if somewhere in your quest for happiness, you began to feel vulnerable, helpless, or sad? You constantly wonder why nobody else seems to feel the agonizing feeling of being abandoned by loved ones, the reality of being trapped in an isolated state with no one to comfort your pain, sorrow, and misery? Some would explain that you might feel that everything was dark, fearing you were living in a nightmare. Others would describe the feeling of being locked inside your head, battling for sanity. To you, the world looks bleak and your thoughts reflect that of hopelessness and helplessness. You constantly have negative and self-critical thoughts; they will never leave. Sometimes, not knowing your own value, you feel worthless and unlovable. The terrifying thought of being sent to the mental hospital runs like crazy through your head every day. What would they think and say of me? Plus, I'm not crazy, why would I need to go there anyways?

These are typical emotions that seniors experience. Sadly, depression affects approximately 6 million people aged 65 and up; too few of these people receive proper treatment. In today's society, pharmaceutical companies are doing everything they can to satisfy their obsession with money, causing physicians' relationship with their elderly patients to change significantly. Since physicians are giving in to the bribes of pharmaceutical companies, patients should not trust their doctor this day and age. Doctors are influenced a bit too much from these companies and the reason for this influence is simply for profit. Due to denial and resistance in taking medication to cure depression, they are under medicated for this mental health condition. Why is that that companies are so insistent in advertising all other medications to the elderly, but are refusing to advertise medication to treat their depression?

Alzheimer’s Disease: Mitigating Educational Loopholes Perpetuated by Denial

Unlike numerous illnesses—from the sniffles to the deadliest of all cancers—that force affected individuals to confront symptoms, the unique nature of Alzheimer’s disease enables those affected to evade reality. Despite the emotional outlet that denial often provides, family caregivers and patients have a critical responsibility to actively educate themselves regarding the disease. Disease education, in order to be effective, must address the fundamental causes and prevalence of ignorance among families.

A vast amount of educational resources—a worldwide web, academic journals, magazines, newspapers, television, radio—lie at the fingertips of patients and family members, providing information to bolster their foundation of support. Often ignorant of the disease’s presence, however, family caregivers and patients remain passive in their initial search for information. By the time patients decide to address concerns regarding their health with a physician, tensions have often already extended roots throughout the family dynamic. Brushing denial aside, the mesh of loopholes within the disease’s extensive educational realm begins to emerge, exacerbated by inaccurate portrayals of the disease throughout popular media. Employing certain educational strategies can effectively minimize the impact of flaws in Alzheimer’s disease awareness. Although a medical cure for the disease currently lies out of our reach, patients and caregivers must continue to expect and demand the hope that a quality education offers.