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On the Road in Albuquerque: Promoting Healthy Aging

Our country is entering a new era; each day 9,000 people celebrate their 65^th birthday in the United States. As our population ages and becomes more diverse, health, community, and long-term care providers will be called upon to serve older adults in a way that is respectful and culturally appropriate.

Communities are confronting this challenge head-on, coming together, determined to provide our nation’s older adults the resources they need to age gracefully in their homes and communities.

I witnessed this collaboration last week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when I was invited to participate in a community forum hosted by Equality New Mexico and the Senior Citizens Law Office. We discussed the unique barriers lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults encounter in gaining access to housing, health care, long-term care and other needed services.

 The President's health care law gives hard working, middle-class families the security they deserve.  The Affordable Care Act forces insurance companies to play by the rules, prohibiting them from dropping your coverage if you get sick, billing you into bankruptcy through annual or lifetime limits, and, soon, discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing condition.  

Public Engagement Through Social Media

Ed note: This post has been cross-posted from GSA.gov.

On Friday, March 16th, the White House Office of Public Engagement and the General Services Administration brought together over 300 regional community leaders and 13 federal agencies in Columbus, Ohio at the third White House Community Partnership Summit. Joined by Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, attendees shared their thoughts and ideas with Administration officials. The conversations reached more than just the people in the room; participants made their voices heard far and wide by using social media.

The White House Community Partnership Summits are dynamic meetings that empower participants to set the agenda through a process called Open Space. Open Space builds on the principles found in social media interactions: you can start a conversation, participate at will, observe and listen or move on to a new discussion. Attendees pitched 45 Open Space discussions on various topics. Through these conversations, concerned citizens connected with government representatives and each other to discuss important issues and solutions for problems affecting their communities

Participants engaged on Twitter using #WHSummit. You can read some of the day’s tweets below or on Storify.

A to Zydeco: Saving the Diversity of American English

After 50 years of research and editing, the Dictionary of American Regional English has reached the letter Z. Volume V, containing entries from slab through zydeco, was published today by Harvard University Press. This extraordinary record of the diversity of American English is the longest continuously-funded project of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Dictionary, known as DARE, records American speech as it varies from place to place and as it has changed over more than three centuries. Not only has DARE proved essential to teachers, writers, and historians, it has also been used to solve crimes, diagnose illnesses, bolster court cases, answer congressional inquiries, and train actors. DARE’s almost 60,000 entries provide an astonishingly varied record of American regionalisms. There are 174 different words for the “dust bunnies” that collect under the bed. The dictionary shows the geographical breakdown of “soda” vs. “pop.” It differentiates “pot luck” from “pitch-in” regions, draws a line between “frying pan” and “skillet” territory, and puts forth a remarkable array of monikers for the dragonfly.