Ronni Bennett

The last time Oprah Winfrey was mentioned on my blog was the occasion of the launch of her magazine O in 2005. With the exception of single, short paragraphs from Maya Angelou and Linda Ellerbee who had some wise words about growing old, the 320 pages of that first issue overflowed with stories and advertisements promoting youth and beauty reinforcing, as I wrote in 2005, “our ageist culture’s demand to put a bag over our heads when the first wrinkle appears.”  Read more >

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a story about a remarkably good book about long-term care: It Should Be This Way: The Failure of Long-Term Care. One of it's authors, Dr. Robert L. Kane, agreed to take questions from readers. I also posted the story on my blog, Time Goes By. Here are his answers:  Read more >

My issue, my main interest, my reason to be in the blogosphere is the topic of aging. If I can’t relate a post to aging, I don’t write it – at least not for Time Goes By and BlogHer. But a second strong interest, as a member of fairly long standing, is blogging itself and I try to keep up. It was on Monday that I first learned of the Kathy Sierra issue from a listserv at BlogHer. That evening there were few opinions, just links to Kathy’s post wherein she explains her reasons for canceling a speaking engagement and dropping out of the blogosphere: “I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs...” There have since been what must be a millions of words from bloggers with, I have no doubt, at least an equal amount in the works (including this post). Most I have read are in support of Kathy, rightly deploring the atmosphere of fear, hate and misogyny the threats create. But before the commentary buries the original issue, I’d like to explain my initial reaction to Kathy’s post.  Read more >

I am 5 feet 2 and for decades I weighed 110-115 pounds. My body (as opposed to me) has always wanted to weigh more and for forty years following puberty, I counted every forkful that went into my mouth to maintain my svelte figure. Inevitably, the number on the bathroom scale would creep up (I like to cook and I’m good at it). The panic point was 125 at which time I redoubled my exercise efforts, filled the refrigerator with gallons of V8 juice and pared off the excess. It’s not fun to lose weight. I know; I’ve done it dozens of times. But it’s not hard either. Well, it’s not hard until menopause after which, weight loss requires super-human effort. It is exhausting and, I suspect for many in addition to me, a (non)losing battle. So one day about ten years ago, I wondered what would happen if I stopped thinking about my body size and ate anything I wanted.  Read more >

French women of a certain region in their country have the longest life expectancy of anyone on Earth except the Japanese. This in spite of the fact that Cahors, in the Midi-Pyrenees area that is their home, is famous for its foie gras and red wine. The Washington Post reports: “Women in the more temperate Meditteranean countries – France, Spain and Italy – tend to live longer than those in colder northern countries. The trends are also reflected within France itself: Women from southern areas where olive oil and duck fat are more prevalent in diets have longer life spans than those from northern areas, where diets include more butter, beef and pork, according to demographers.”  Read more >