We just got back from a weekend trip to West Palm Beach. My folks needed some traveling support as they visited my aunt, whose dementia keeps getting worse. I’m a little groggy from traveling, but I thought I would get back up speed this morning with some newsletter-links.
I like Ezra Klein’s list of books in 2023 that best explain 2023.
Our Eldercare system in this country is seriously screwed up. My aunt in Florida lives in an $8K-per-month memory care facility. Luckily, my uncle put some money aside for her, before he passed away, because the Medicaid/Medicare options for dementia are not great.
More good results for the Science of Reading in California. Jill Barshay on the “Right-To-Read Settlement in California.
How can anyone support Hamas? How can these college kids ignore these crimes? The violent sexual crimes done on the poor girls at the music concert on Oct. 7th are horrific, beyond anything that I could have ever imagined.
There’s a movement to strip Harry and Meghan of their royal titles.
Question of the Day: What’s the right age for a kid to get a cellphone? If you had a do-over, would you have stricter Internet rules for your kids?
Picture: Palm Trees in Palm Gardens, this weekend.
Apt. 11d 
The memory care options are relatively cheap compared to the next level of care (nursing care once you can’t feed yourself or something).
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Wow. I’m getting a crash course on all this. My folks are still in relatively good shape for their mid-80s.
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I’m busy repressing it/hoping it doesn’t start over with my wife’s parents. I should probably buy long-term care insurance for myself but I’m told that it is difficult to know if a company will survive longer than me.
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It’s all terrifying.
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It is scary. We priced assisted living for our mom at one point and the only place we felt comfortable with required about $120K to move in plus quite a lot per month.
A guy in my community theater is related through marriage to Vivian Silver, the peace activist who was killed during the attack by Hamas. He says it’s so hard to talk about what’s happening there because people have no idea that Palestinians and Jews in Israel aren’t homogeneous groups. His family is grieving and Silver’s son hopes to continue her work. I have no words myself that are adequate – I’ve never experienced anything like what this family is and I’m too ignorant of all the history of this part of the world. Both WAPO and NYTimes covered this.
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