Grandma is Not a Safety Threat!

Since 1997, accident rates among seniors has seen a big decline.

Ten years ago safety researchers feared traffic accidents would increase as the nation’s aging population swelled the number of older drivers on the road. Now they’ve been proved wrong.

Today’s drivers 70 and older are less likely to be involved in crashes than previous generations and are less likely to be killed or seriously injured of they do crash. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports vehicles are getting safer and seniors are generally getting healthier.

From 1997 to 2012, fatal crashes rates per licensed driver fell 42 percent for older drivers, and 30 percent for middle-aged drivers. The greatest rate of decline was among drivers 80 and over, nearly twice that of middle-aged drivers and those aged 70 to 74.

At the same time, older drivers are putting more miles on the odometer than they used to, although they’re still driving fewer miles a year than middle-aged drivers. That’s especially true for drivers 75 and older who lifted their average annual mileage by more than 50 percent from 1995 to 2008.

Perhaps with age comes wisdom, caution and good judgment behind the steering wheel.

Protect The Monarch

Chalk one up for the lowly monarch butterfly.

It won some love in high places recently at a summit meeting of the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada. The plunging decline of the monarch has alerted all three nations. President Nieto of Mexico stated, “We have agreed to establish a working group to conserve the monarch butterfly as an emblematic symbol of North America which unites our three countries.”

The extraordinary 3,000-mile migration of the monarch butterflies each year from the grasslands of Canada and the United States to the volcanic mountain slopes of central Mexico where they completely cover fir trees has awed human beings for centuries. But the population of monarchs hibernating in Mexico from December to March has plummeted from a high of 1.1 billion in 1996 to a pitiful 33 million in 2013. Experts once thought the decrease was due to extreme climate conditions. Now they believe the butterfly is starving.

The relentless spraying of herbicides in North America is wiping out once-plentiful milkweed, the only plant that monarch caterpillars can eat. Small scale illegal logging also is destroying the fir forest canopy in Mexico where the butterflies winter.

More than 100 scientists, Nobel Prize winners and environmentalists are calling for the massive planting of milkweed along roadsides and toxin-free buffer zones in the three nations.

Let's Talk, Baby

The sooner you start explaining the world to your child, the better.

Researchers say early exposure to language helps children learn. New evidence shows that how much and how well parents talk with babies and toddlers helps to tune the youngsters’ brains in ways that build crucial language and vocabulary skills – a key to fighting the infamous word gap that puts poor children at a disadvantage.

The idea is to connect words and meaning, so that the brain becomes primed to learn through context. That doesn’t mean pointing out objects: “Here’s an apple. That’s a bowl.” Instead say, “Let’s put the apple in the bowl with the orange.” That method builds intelligence through language. It makes nets of learning that will help the child learn new words.

Important tips for talking to babies and toddlers include:

• Talk to your infant part of every day. Its brain is absorbing vital information well before it’s able to respond.
• The high-pitched, sing-song voice that many people use with babies does get their attention. But don’t dumb it down. Use rich, varied language and longer sentences.
• Don’t just make observations, make connections. “See how fuzzy the teddy bear feels. He’s much softer than the plastic doll.”
• What matters most is speech directed to babies and toddlers, not what they overhear.
• Turn off the TV. Television does not help the brain learn language. Babies and toddlers require personal interaction to learn.

The time to start talking to your baby is while it is still in the womb.

The March King

I love military marches. They stir the blood, raise the heart rate and cause the feet to move. 

If you’ve ever been a member of a marching band or attended a parade, you’ve heard the brass band music of composer/conductor John Phillip Sousa.

Born in 1854, Sousa was thirteen when he decided he wanted to join the circus and play in the circus band. When his father accidently learned this, he took John to the headquarters of the U. S. Marine Corp in Washington, D.C. The commandant of the Marine Corp appointed young Sousa an apprentice musician in the band. In 1880, Sousa became the leader of this band, called the President’s Band because it plays at occasions attended by the President.

Sousa wrote Semper Fidelis in 1888 and dedicated it to the officers and men of the Marine Corp Later he wrote The Washington Post which became identified with a new dance called the two- step.
On board an ocean liner, the music to The Stars and Stripes Forever filled his heart and head. His composition was an immediate success and he included it in every concert until his death a quarter of a century later.

Sousa, along with George Washington Carver and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was appointed to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. At the ceremony, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York stated, “As a conductor and bandmaster, Sousa elevated band music and the study of brass, woodwind and percussion instruments to new heights in America.”

In 1987 came Susa’s greatest posthumous award: the U. S. Congress mandated The Stars and Stripes Forever be known as the National March of the United States. The White House stated the March had become an “integral part of the celebration of American Life.”

Thankfully, John Phillip Sousa never did join the circus.