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| Hannalee |
Here's a link to today's (Saturday's) Times. I'll see what else I can dig up.
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| Talya Peachfeather |
Gosh, no fatty foods either!!!! LOL!!!!! |
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| Jen D |
from a spoof piece in Private Eye -
www.private-eye.co.uk/diary
Keith Richards, guitarist:
Mick? Mick? In’t he the one ’oo died? What a drag.
60? What you mean, 60? Now you’re doin’ my head in, maaan. It’s later than ’60. Must be ’69 by now. Like, Altamont was last year, yeah?
You want my memories of Mick? Right.Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. My memories of Mick, maaan? If it’s the cat I’m thinkin’ of, ’e used to come on stage and like sing and move and kick shit and that stuff. Is that what he still does now? Is ’e still in the band? How should I fuckin’ know, maaan? I don’t bother to look, do I?
’Appy Fuckin’ Christmas, Mick.
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| mandrack |
Sky News is reporting about Mick's birthday all day.
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30500-12385161,00.html |
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| Jen D |
Mick parties in Prague at 60 -femail.co.uk (Daily Mail) |
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| Sue |
Mick at 60: A new age of aging?
Sexagenarians, drugs, rock 'n' roll
Boomers healthier, but are their kids?
CHRISTIAN COTRONEO
STAFF REPORTER
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Don't set your watch by Mick Jagger's biological clock.
The senior statesman of sin turns 60 today, and where once he defied the establishment, he now defies our popular image of aging. Jagger may not represent the average 60-year-old, but he is an unlikely poster-senior for a new kind of old age. "The new old age, you might say, is a hell of a lot healthier," says Dr. Robert Butler, a doctor of medicine and geriatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Does that mean we can declare 60 the new 40?
"In the broadest sense, yes."
In the 1970s, Swedish researcher Dr. Alvar Svanborg first observed differences in generations of seniors. He found they were staying healthy and more active longer than previous generations. Recent research in the United States, France and Japan rang in the same happy conclusion: We're getting younger in our old age.
Mick Jagger is as tough and sinewy as a whipcord, although the rock 'n' roll lifestyle isn't exactly considered a youth-enhancing formula. That's where being famous comes in handy.
The constant glare of celebrity can be a heady stimulant — a kind of Botox for the soul. In that sense, the Rolling Stones — Jagger, drummer Charlie Watts, 62, Keith Richards, 59 and Ron Wood, 56 — will be flush with celebrity balm when they appear in front of 430,000 fans for Wednesday's SARS-benefit concert in Toronto.
"They have people looking up to them. That's a huge thing for making you healthy," says Trevor Smith, a professor in the University of Waterloo's health studies and gerontology department.
Jagger may have also wrested time to his side with sheer physicality. "The fact that he's physically active on the stage probably helps him," Butler says. "In order to stay viable as film and stage personalities, they have to keep in good shape."
Daily exercise keeps performers like Jagger, 64-year-old Tina Turner and 61-year-old Paul McCartney as slim as Roman candles, and millions of screaming fans light the fuse. After making regular appearances in the 1960s with a cigarette dangling, Jagger seems to have long kicked the habit, calling nicotine "one of the most boring drugs there are on top of being terrible for you."
But celebrity is an imperfect barometer of how well we're aging. "Mick Jagger is a very unusual human being," says David Foot, a professor at the University of Toronto and author of Boom, Bust and Echo. "Most people are not dancing like he's dancing at age 60. In fact, hardly anyone is dancing like he dances at age 60. He's more an icon. He's an icon because he is different."
Stardom, on the other hand, can be a guiding light for a society that's still largely in the dark about what it means to grow old. As baby boomers — Canadians born between 1947 and 1966 — approach retirement age, they bring all the trappings of the Me Generation with them, from spa culture to sun block to bottled water. In addition, the boomers are finding the ultimate antioxidant in an active mind.
"Mostly we're not hewers of wood and drawers of coal anymore," says Lillian Zimmerman, a social policy researcher at Simon Fraser University's Gerontology Research Centre in British Columbia. "We're smarter, we're better educated. We're working as professionals."
"Our social practices are really out of synch with these new realities. We're still thinking of people as being old and wonky."
But consider others who've passed the 60 mark. Paul McCartney is 61, as is Martha Stewart, Harrison Ford, Barbra Streisand, David Crosby, Paul Anka and Aretha Franklin. Tom Jones is — whoa, whoa, whoa — 63. So is Lily Tomlin. Gordon Lightfoot is 64.
With an eye to the upcoming provincial election, Premier Ernie Eves has keyed into the senior bloc, promising to do away with mandatory retirement. The legislation, called Bill 68, has yet to become law — despite a June 2001 recommendation from the Ontario Human Rights Commission to make it so.
"Mandatory retirement really is the epitome of age discrimination," Zimmerman says. "Someone's telling you at 65 to go out and find a pasture and don't bug me any more."
Beginning about five years from now and stretching to about 2050, 10 million Canadians will reach retirement age. These boomers, which represent nearly a third of the country's population, will also be sticking around a lot longer than previous generations.
The last century has added nearly 30 years to life expectancy in Canada and the U.S.
"In 1900, life expectancy was less than 50," Butler says. "By the end of the century, it was just over 75. The 30-year gain is greater than had been attained during the preceding 5,000 years of human history."
While advances in medical science have inflated life expectancy by reducing infant fatalities and developing new treatments for diseases that have classically plagued the elderly, Smith points to less obvious factors. "There's actually quite a bit of evidence that the biggest determinants of health are actually outside of the health-care system," he says.
Like education, clean water, the role of family and social organizations. We're much more aware of the environment than our parents were, ensuring that we don't look the sun too long in the eye and avoid buying a home near the nuclear-power plant.
If the rich have all the tools to live longer, people at the other end of the scale are singing a much sadder refrain: Only the poor die young. "More and more, there's overwhelming evidence that the countries that are healthiest are more egalitarian," Smith says.
Long-toothed nations like Sweden, the Netherlands and Japan have less extreme divisions between rich and poor.
"The chances of you smoking decreases progressively as your social status increases," Smith says. "Same thing with your risk for heart disease."
Still, there's little doubt that most North Americans will reach ages undreamt of by past generations, even if it turns out to be a historical blip — a chance encounter between healthy lifestyles and technological advances.
When it comes to forecasting how long our children will live, Butler is less assured. "We may lose what we have won," he says, citing soaring rates of child obesity and the pervasiveness of fast-food marketing.
"They are risking diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, sleep apnea, you name it. In the United States, we're seeing old-age diabetes in children as young as 10 years of age."
"The marketplace pushes super-sized food," Butler explains. "It's also the sedentary life. People are not as physically active."
Time will tell how those super-sized fries, soft drinks and McExtra pounds will affect future generations. For now, advertisers still largely target the smaller youth market, leaving bands like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Everly Brothers tapping into old faithful.
"What Mick Jagger is doing is showing there's still a big market," Foot says. "And fortunately for him, because he's had hits in four decades now, he has got both the boomers and their kids. So he's got both the 48-year-old and the 18-year-old to go to the concert." When icons turn 60, especially the stars who shone in the eyes of baby boomers, they remind their oldest fans that they too must grow old, but also dangle the possibility that it may not really matter at all.
"I think what we're missing here is that age is irrelevant," says PJ Wade, president of the Catalyst, a communications firm trying to change public attitudes toward aging. "We need to just let the numbers go and embrace the degree of vitality people have and what they're doing."
"What possible relevance can it have to someone who doesn't know you? It's a silly, silly thing. It's time for us to smarten up."
Well, not exactly, says Foot.
"Numbers do matter," he says. "The numbers give you about two-thirds of all the trends going on around us. It's just that you do different things at different parts of your life. That's why age matters. There is a life cycle."
For newly minted seniors like Mick Jagger, it's just not as obvious.
[email protected]
Additional articles by Christian Cotroneo
[Edited by Sue] |
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| FM |
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2003341549,00.html |
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| FM |
On the other side of the pond............
http://www.rollingstone.com/features/featuregen.asp?pid=1880 |
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| Boomy |
I consider myself to be healthy. |
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| Jen D |
Focus: Sympathy for the Old Devil Independent |
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| Jen D |
quote:
mandrack wrote:
Sky News is reporting about Mick's birthday all day.
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30500-12385161,00.html
They've now got a poll asking if he should retire - reuslts are currently 51.41% YES 48.58% NO
http://www.sky.com/skynews/showbiz |
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| Monkey Woman |
Let's stand by our Mick! Vote 'No'!!!
Let's reverse the tide, folks...
http://www.sky.com/skynews/showbiz |
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| Jen D |
Not strictly British press -
Mick Jagger Turns 60 - Reuters Video report(realplayer/window media player needed). |
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| Gazza |
All the press reports and articles Ive read in the press in the last few days have been very favourable to Mick. Its been quite to see him getting some credit for his longevity in such a fickle age obsessed industry
as for the Sky poll....on the two occasions I saw him featured on the news yesterday the results were both about 66 - 34 in Mick's favour. Complacency must have set in! |
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| Hannalee |
Here's the BBC on the birthday boy in Prague
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