David Brooks – Caring for Loved Ones with Alzheimers!!

Dear Common Colleagues,

David Brooks has a most touching column today on caring for loved ones with Alzheimers.  Here is the lead-in.

“Last fall I asked readers over 70 to send me “Life Reports” — essays evaluating their own lives. Charles Darwin Snelling responded with a remarkable 5,000-word reflection.

Snelling was a successful entrepreneur who spent decades serving his community. He was redeemed, he reported, six years ago when his beloved wife, Adrienne, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “She took care of me in every possible way she could for 55 years. The last six years have been my turn,” Snelling wrote.

“We continue to make a life together, living together in the full sense of the word; going about our life, hand in hand, with everyone lending a hand, as though nothing was wrong at all,” he continued.

He believed that caring for his wife made him a richer, fuller human being: “It’s not noble, it’s not sacrificial and it’s not painful. It’s just right in the scheme of things. … Sixty-one years ago, a partner to our marriage who knew how to nurture, nurtured a partner who needed nurturing. Now, 61 years later, a partner who is learning how to nurture is nurturing a partner who needs nurturing.”

On March 29, less than four months after we published his essay online, Snelling killed his wife and then himself. “

Anyone who has had to take care of relative with Alzheimers can relate to this story.  Read the entire column to get the full experience.  It is an important life lesson.

Tony

 

 

New Book Claims O.J. Simpson’s Son Murdered Nicole Smith and Ronald Goldman!

Dear Commons Community,

It’s often said that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. But you can add “rehashing of the O.J. Simpson case” to that list — at least for the last 18 years.  So it should come as no surprise that a new book has been published about the 1994 murders of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.  The Huffington Post has an article that reviews some of the claims in this new book O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It by private investigator William C. Dear.

“In the investigation into the murders of Brown and Goldman, Jason Simpson was never considered a suspect or a person of interest. The 41-year-old lives in Miami, where he reportedly works as a chef…

But Dear said he has spent nearly two decades looking into the case and assembled a mountain of circumstantial evidence, which, he said, suggests that O.J. Simpson had nothing to do with the murders of Brown and Goldman.

“I flew out two weeks after the murders,” he said. “I climbed over the back gate and walked the walkway to the front door, and that’s when I realized O.J. could not have done it. But he was there. He was either there at the time or there afterwards [and] became part of the crime.”

In his book, Dear claims that he has the knife used in the murders, along with photos and other evidence that suggest the true killer was Jason Simpson, O.J.’s son with his first wife.

“When I tell you we have the weapon — we found the weapon in Jason’s storage facility that he failed to make payments on. We know he carried it — his initials were carved in the leather sheath,” Dear said.

“We have emails from his former roommates that were in college with him. We have our suspect’s diaries. We have his forged time card, and we have the vehicle he was driving on the night of the murders,” said Dear.

The private investigator also claims to have photos of Jason Simpson wearing the knit cap that was found at the murder scene.

But why? Why would Jason Simpson kill Brown and Goldman?

During O.J. Simpson’s trial, prosecutors alleged that the defendant was obsessed with his ex-wife, that he was prone to jealous rages and that he would stalk her.

Dear contends that Jason Simpson has his own demons and suffers from “intermittent rage disorder.”

“Our suspect at the time was 5’11” and 235 pounds,” Dear said. “He was 24 years old, and he was on probation for assaulting his previous employer with a knife. In addition to that, he’s had three attempted suicides and has been in a psychiatric unit.”

Sound interesting and I am sure it is going to make the bestseller lists.

Tony

Young New Yorkers Balance Jobs and High School!

Felicia Pravata, 18, a senior at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens, lives with her aunt and helps pay for their bills and food, as well as for her own expenses and activities like prom.

Credit: Emily Berl for The New York Times

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Dear Commons Community,

For those of us fortunate  to teach at CUNY, we have come to respect the way most of our students  have to balance their studies with jobs and family responsibilities.  What some of us do not know is that their work/study habits began in high school.

The New York Times has a sample of the work of  Emily Berl, a photographer based in Brooklyn, who focused her lens on several teenagers leading such multiple lives. Ms. Berl met teenagers with parents who do not have jobs, and others who support families back in their native countries.

Worth a look!

Tony