Friday Flames: Let's build a better AARP

When you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. And other news about Garbage Ladies, time travel, unelected power, and how beavers avoid dementia.

On Wednesday, we expressed our confusion about AARP in Episode 70 of the podcast (see below). What does AARP do, and for whom do they do it? Anyone over 18 can join, but it’s hard to pinpoint any service that AARP is providing for anyone younger than its core 70-plus-year-old demographic. And even then: what services are those?

We’ve received some interesting responses from listeners. One pointed out that a few days ago AARP sent out an email asking members to sign a petition to keep Social Security. (We didn’t notice it, because most emails with “petition” in them get sent to Promotions.) We all know that petitions rarely accomplish much of anything, so why isn’t AARP asking for more calls to Congressional offices? These actually are effective, especially because talking to constituents eats into all that fundraising time.

Another listener said that her parents refused to join when they retired 30 years ago, so AARP’s messaging has a decades-long record of ineffectiveness.

So here are the questions: What is AARP’s reason for being? And why accumulate a huge group of people who are paying you to advocate for them and then fail to create any kind of support structures they need?

In our view, any association for people in midlife must almost entirely be built on using volume to build those support structures that existed 60 years ago. With 40,000 members at $20 a year, an organization could provide information we could really use and build support for navigating eldercare, maintaining our homes and property, understanding our health, guiding relationships with older children, finding our people, and designing the second half of our lives.

It feels like the next steps are to write a book about this, and to partner with influencers to help recruit new members. Who's got thoughts about this?

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Embers in the News

Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle:

• Less dangerous pain relief Researchers have developed a compound that relieves pain by mimicking cannabis without opioids’ dangerous side effects.

• ”Tooth-in-eye” surgery Osteo-odonto keratoprosthesis uses teeth, which contain the body’s strongest natural substance, to treat severe corneal blindness.

• You don’t see a lot of beavers with dementia Chewing on wood could actually boost brainpower by increasing levels of a brain antioxidant called glutathione.

• Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage A group of women aged 64 and up put on wetsuits and clean trash out of Cape Cod’s 900 freshwater ponds.

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Recently on the podcast

AARP doesn't have an age limit to join, but its core demographic is a lot older than we midlifers are. Since we’ll never be able to retire, we could use some advocacy, too.

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Currently reading

Magda is reading Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow, a sweet, delightful book about New York CIty and New Yorkers that somehow involves time travel and mending a relationship with an elderly father.

Doug is reading the absolutely fascinating (and remarkably bulky) The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert Caro. It’s easy to think that New York City’s iconic architecture has always just been there, and it’s staggering to ponder how much was built through the power of a guy who was never elected to anything.

Currently watching

One of Doug’s important revelations about the second season of Severance is that he remembered little about the first season of Severance. We’re getting more answers, but each answer conjures more questions. So if you felt burned by how The X-Files or Lost ended, you’ll be forgiven for worrying whether Severance has a similar fate.

With every day, Magda and Mike draw closer to the end of the extant seasons of Top Chef hosted by Padma Lakshmi, and they look forward to its liberation by new host Kristen Kish. The Kish-helmed season starts next week on Peacock.

Currently cooking

Mike and Magda have been cooking without recipes all week—crispy-skinned salmon, tender chicken legs, miso beans. Magda keeps revving up her sourdough starter to bake something and then forgetting to start anything. It's a delicious but unsatisfying fever dream.

At our son’s request, Doug is eagerly planning an African-ish menu for when the kid comes home this weekend for Spring Break. Meals on the docket include Saudi Arabian chicken kabsa, South African bobotie, and Egyptian koshari.

Thanks for reading and Demi got robbed,

Magda and Doug