Our Crowd: In the Arena and in the News
Research Confirms It: Nobody Is Normal
Every day, millions of people around the world ask Google some variation of the question, “Am I normal?” Burdened by shame, we turn to the internet to figure out if our behavior, our bodies, and our deepest emotions mark us as outside the mainstream. The very fact that so many of us are typing “Is it […]
Bernadette Peters: Young and Cute, Forever and Never
In December of 1976, a twenty-eight year old Bernadette Peters sat at a vanity in a pink silk robe with a mass of strawberry blonde hair piled on top of her head. Her body is turned away from the mirror and she stares out beyond the darkness into the firmament. Barely moving, she never bothers […]
Here’s How Cycling Can Slow Down the Aging Process
It might not grant eternal youth, but cycling, scientists have found, can slow the aging process and keep your muscles and immune system healthy well into your golden years. Aging, it turns out, can do a number on your muscles. Humans typically lose muscle mass as they get older. Fat and connective tissue also start […]
Sendak: “I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.”
I went to see Maurice Sendak last year at his home in Connecticut. The eighty-three-year-old was promoting his latest book, Bumble-Ardy, about an orphaned pig whose ninth-birthday festivities are gate-crashed by teenage swine. He came to the door with his dog, Herman (after Melville), and for the next two hours was everything one might expect […]
How Dan Rather became Facebook’s favorite news anchor
Before his acrimonious departure in 2006, Dan Rather spent 44 years at CBS News. For more than two decades he was the face of the network, anchor of the CBS Evening News, watched by millions of viewers every night. But it was never the right fit. He felt constrained by the anchor desk, unable to […]
Stephen Hawking: symbol of “Mind over matter”
The image of Stephen Hawking – who has died aged 76 – in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination, as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter. As with the Delphic oracle of ancient Greece, physical […]
Helen Mirren Hits The Road
Half a century into an illustrious career, with its queens and detectives and other kaleidoscopic women, one thing still eluded Helen Mirren. “I’ve always wanted to be in an Italian movie,” she said recently, recalling her lack of fascination with the American films she saw growing up in Essex, England. “What alerted to me the […]
Are You Leaving Your Children An Inheritance?
We recently wrote about how retirement is different if you don’t have children. But we also asked readers to tell us if they are leaving an inheritance for their children and how their decisions have affected their finances and family. Their stories have been condensed and edited for clarity. “There is no reason I should […]
99-Year Old Swimmer Smashes World Record
A 99-year-old Australian swimmer appears to have smashed a world record for his age group in the 50m freestyle. George Corones clocked 56.12 seconds at an official event in Queensland – a new benchmark for the 100-104 age category. He eclipsed the previous mark, set in 2014, by 35 seconds. It will now be verified […]
Warren Buffett gained $29 billion in 2017 from Trump’s tax reforms
Every year, the world’s third-richest man pens a much-anticipated letter (pdf) to shareholders of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. This year, that letter opened with news that 2017 had proven far from normal. Warren Buffett wrote that his multinational conglomerate could report $65.3 billion in gains of its net worth for the year. It’s a number […]
A Quiet, Ancestral Farm Life in Western France
Over the course of several recent months, Reuters photographer Stéphane Mahé visited and photographed a farmer named Jean-Bernard Huon on his farm in western France. Huon, now 70, grew up here, and deliberately lives a traditional, non-mechanized farm life, favoring ox teams over tractors. From a Reuters article: “When farm machinery revolutionized French agriculture in […]
Words to Live By
It is Christmas Eve, 2013, and I am dressed like a bauble in a black and gold sequined pencil skirt, chainmail gold necklace, and black patent heels with gold buckles as I head off to my local North London hospital for a PET scan. “You’re not going to the hospital like that, are you?” says […]
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92-year-old WW2 veteran flies Spitfire again
A 92 year old female pilot, Joy Lofthouse, spent part of her VE celebration in the cockpit of a Spitfire – one of several planes she used to fly during World War II.
She was excited as donned her helmet, and goggles…and then climbed into the rear cockpit of her favorite “iconic plane.” The BBC followed her that day.