How Older Parenthood Will Upend American Society - The New Republic

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">OVER THE PAST HALF CENTURY, parenthood has undergone a change so simple yet so profound we are only beginning to grasp the enormity of its implications. It is that we have our children much later than we used to. This has come to seem perfectly unremarkable; indeed, we take note of it only when celebrities push it to extremes—when Tony Randall has his first child at 77; Larry King, his fifth child by his seventh wife at 66; Elizabeth Edwards, her last child at 50. This new gerontological voyeurism—I think of it as doddering-parent porn—was at its maximally gratifying in 2008, when, in almost simultaneous and near-Biblical acts of belated fertility, two 70-year-old women in India gave birth, thanks to donor eggs and disturbingly enthusiastic doctors. One woman's husband was 72; the other's was 77.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">These, though, are the headlines. The real story is less titillating, but it tells us a great deal more about how we'll be living in the coming years: what our families and our workforce will look like, how healthy we'll be, and also—not to be too eugenicist about it—the future well-being of the human race.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">That women become mothers later than they used to will surprise no one. All you have to do is study the faces of the women pushing baby strollers, especially on the streets of coastal cities or their suburban counterparts. American first-time mothers have <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_01.pdf" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">aged about four years</a> since 1970—as of 2010, they were 25.4 as opposed to 21.5. That average, of course, obscures a lot of regional, ethnic, and educational variation. The average new mother from Massachusetts, for instance, was 28; the Mississippian was 22.9. The Asian American first-time mother was 29.1; the African American 23.1. A college-educated woman had a <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">better than one-in-three</a> chance of having her first child at 30 or older; the odds that a woman with less education would wait that long were no better than one in ten.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It badly misstates the phenomenon to associate it only with women: Fathers have been getting older at the same rate as mothers. First-time fathers have been about three years older than first-time mothers for several decades, and they still are. The average American man is between 27 and 28 when he becomes a father. Meanwhile, as the U.S. birth rate slumps due to the recession, only men and women over 40 have kept having more babies than they did in the past.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In short, the growth spurt in American parenthood is not among rich septuagenarians or famous political wives approaching or past menopause, but among roughly middle-aged couples with moderate age gaps between them, like my husband and me. OK, I'll admit it. We're on the outer edge of the demographic bulge. My husband was in his mid-forties and I was 37—two years past the age when doctors start scribbling AMA, Advanced Maternal Age, on the charts of mothers-to-be—before we called a fertility doctor. The doctor called back and told us to wait a few more months. We waited, then went in. The office occupied a brownstone basement just off the tonier stretches of New York's Madison Avenue, though its tan, sleek sofas held a large proportion of Orthodox Jewish women likely to have come from another borough. The doctor, oddly, had a collection of brightly colored porcelain dwarves on the shelf behind his desk. I thought he put them there to let you know that he had a sense of humor about the whole fertility racket.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The steps he told us we'd have to take, though, were distinctly unfunny. We'd start with a test to evaluate my fortysomething husband's sperm. If it passed muster, we'd move on to "injectables," such as follicle-stimulating and luteinizing hormones. The most popular fertility drug is clomiphene citrate, marketed as Clomid or Serophene, which would encourage my tired ovaries to push those eggs out into the world. (This was a few years back; nowadays, most people take these as pills, which are increasingly common and available, without prescription and possibly in dangerously adulterated form, over the Internet.) I was to shoot Clomid into my thigh five days a month. Had I ever injected anything, such as insulin, into myself? No, I had not. The very idea gave me the willies. I was being pushed into a world I had read about with intense dislike, in which older women endure ever more harrowing procedures in their desperation to cheat time.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">If Clomid didn't work, we'd move into alphabet-soup mode: IVF (in vitro fertilization), ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), GIFT (gamete intrafallopian transfer), even ZIFT (zygote intrafallopian transfer). All these scary-sounding reproductive technologies involved taking stuff out of my body and putting it back in. Did these procedures, or the hormones that came with them, pose risks to me or to my fetus? The doctor shrugged. There are always risks, he said, especially when you're older, but no one is quite sure whether they come from advanced maternal age itself or from the procedures.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">My husband passed his test. I started on my routines. With the help of a minor, non–IVF-related surgical intervention and Clomid, which had the mild side effects of making me feel jellyfish-like and blurring my already myopic vision, I got pregnant.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">My baby boy seemed perfect. When he was three, though, the pediatrician told me that he had a fine-motor delay; I was skeptical, but after a while began to notice him struggling to grasp pencils and tie his shoes. An investigator from the local board of education confirmed that my son needed occupational therapy. This, I discovered, was another little culture, with its own mystifying vocabulary. My son was diagnosed with a mild case of "sensory-integration disorder," a condition with symptoms that overlapped with less medical terms like "excitable" and "sensitive."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Sitting on child-sized chairs outside the little gyms in which he exercised an upper body deemed to have poor muscle tone, I realized that here was a subculture of a subculture: that of mothers who spend hours a week getting services for developmentally challenged children. It seemed to me that an unusually large proportion of these women were older, although I didn't know whether to make anything of that or dismiss it as the effect of living just outside a city—New York—where many women establish themselves in their professions before they have children.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">I also spent those 50-minute sessions wondering: What if my son's individual experience, meaningless from a statistical point of view, hinted at a collective problem? As my children grew and, happily, thrived (I managed to have my daughter by natural means), I kept meeting children of friends and acquaintances, all roughly my age, who had Asperger's, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit disorder, sensory-integration disorder. Curious as to whether there were more developmental disabilities than there used to be, I looked it up and found that, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/features/dsdev_disabilities/index.html" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">according to the Centers for Disease Control</a>, learning problems, attention-deficit disorders, autism and related disorders, and developmental delays increased about 17 percent between 1997 and 2008. One in six American children was reported as having a developmental disability between 2006 and 2008. That's about 1.8 million more children than a decade earlier.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Soon, I learned that medical researchers, sociologists, and demographers were more worried about the proliferation of older parents than my friends and I were. They talked to me at length about a vicious cycle of declining fertility, especially in the industrialized world, and also about the damage caused by assisted-reproductive technologies (ART) that are commonly used on people past their peak childbearing years. This past May, an <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1008095" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">article in the <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i></a> found that 8.3 percent of children born with the help of ART had defects, whereas, of those born without it, only 5.8 percent had defects.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A phrase I heard repeatedly during these conversations was "natural experiment." As in, we're conducting a vast empirical study upon an unthinkably large population: all the babies conceived by older parents, plus those parents, plus their grandparents, who after all have to wait a lot longer than they used to for grandchildren. It was impressed upon me that parents like us, with our aging reproductive systems and avid consumption of fertility treatments, would change the nature of family life. We might even change the course of our evolutionary future. For we are bringing fewer children into the world and producing a generation that will be subtly different—"phenotypically and biochemically different," as one study I read put it—from previous generations.</p><p class="rtecenter" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: center; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/magazine/97268/the-two-year-window" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: initial; font-size: 15.454545021057129px; line-height: 21.833332061767578px; text-align: center; "><strong>See also: "The Two Year Window: The new science of babies and brains—and how it could revolutionize the fight against poverty."</strong></a></p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">WHAT SCIENCE TELLS US about the aging parental body should alarm us more than it does. Age diminishes a woman's fertility; every woman knows that, although several surveys have shown that women—and men—consistently underestimate how sharp the drop-off can be for women after age 35. The effects of maternal age on children aren't as well-understood. As that age creeps upward, so do the chances that children will carry a chromosomal abnormality, such as a trisomy. In a trisomy, a third chromosome inserts itself into one of the 23 pairs that most of us carry, so that a child's cells carry 47 instead of 46 chromosomes. The most notorious trisomy is Down syndrome. There are two other common ones: Patau syndrome, which gives children cleft palates, mental retardation, and an 80 percent likelihood of dying in their first year; and Edwards syndrome, which features oddly shaped heads, clenched hands, and slow growth. Half of all Edwards syndrome babies die in the first week of life.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The risk that a pregnancy will yield a trisomy rises from 2–3 percent when a woman is in her twenties to 30 percent when a woman is in her forties. A fetus faces other obstacles on the way to health and well-being when born to an older mother: spontaneous abortion, premature birth, being a twin or triplet, cerebral palsy, and low birth weight. (This last leads to chronic health problems later in children's lives.)</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">We have been conditioned to think of reproductive age as a female-only concern, but it isn't. For decades, neonatologists have known about birth defects linked to older fathers: dwarfism, Apert syndrome (a bone disorder that may result in an elongated head), Marfan syndrome (a disorder of the connective tissue that results in weirdly tall, skinny bodies), and cleft palates. But the associations between parental age and birth defects were largely speculative until this year, when researchers in Iceland, using radically more powerful ways of looking at genomes, established that men pass on more de novo—that is, non-inherited and spontaneously occurring—genetic mutations to their children as they get older. <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7412/full/nature11396.html" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">In the scientists' study, published in <i>Nature</i></a>, they concluded that the number of genetic mutations that can be acquired from a father increases by two every year of his life, and doubles every 16, so that a 36-year-old man is twice as likely as a 20-year-old to bequeath de novo mutations to his children.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The <i>Nature</i> study ended by saying that the greater number of older dads could help to explain the 78 percent rise in autism cases over the past decade. Researchers have suspected links between autism and parental age for years. <a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=668208" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">One much-cited study from 2006</a> argued that the risk of bearing an autistic child jumps from six in 10,000 before a man reaches 30 to 32 in 10,000 when he's 40—a more than fivefold increase. When he reaches 50, it goes up to 52 in 10,000. It should be noted that there are many skeptics when it comes to explaining the increase of autism; one school of thought holds that it's the result of more doctors making diagnoses, better equipment and information for the doctors to make them with, and a vocal parent lobby that encourages them. But it increasingly looks as if autism cases have risen more than overdiagnosis can account for and that parental age, particularly paternal age, has something to do with that fact.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Why do older men make such unreliable sperm? Well, for one thing, unlike women, who are born with all their eggs, men start making sperm at puberty and keep doing so all their lives. Each time a gonad cell divides to make spermatozoa, that's another chance for its DNA to make a copy error. The gonads of a man who is 40 will have divided 610 times; at 50, that number goes up to 840. For another thing, as a man ages, his DNA's self-repair mechanisms work less well.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">To the danger of age-related genetic mutations, geneticists are starting to add the danger of age-related <i>epigenetic</i> mutations—that is, changes in the way genes in sperm express themselves. Epigenetics, a newish branch of genetics, studies how molecules latch onto genes or unhitch from them, directing many of the body's crucial activities. The single most important process orchestrated by epigenetic notations is the stupendously complex unfurling of the fetus. This extra-genetic music is written, in part, by life itself. Epigenetically influenced traits, such as mental functioning and body size, are affected by the food we eat, the cigarettes we smoke, the toxins we ingest—and, of course, our age. Sociologists have devoted many man-hours to demonstrating that older parents are richer, smarter, and more loving, on the whole, than younger ones. And yet the tragic irony of epigenetics is that the same wised-up, more mature parents have had longer to absorb air-borne pollution, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, and herbicides. They may have endured more stress, be it from poverty or overwork or lack of social status. All those assaults on the cells that make sperm DNA can add epimutations to regular mutations.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">At the center of research on older fathers, genetics, and neurological dysfunctions is Avi Reichenberg, a tall, wiry psychiatrist from King's College in London. He jumps up a lot as he talks, and he has an ironic awareness of how nervous his work makes people, especially men. He can identify: He had his children relatively late—mid-thirties—and fretted throughout his wife's pregnancies. Besides, he tells me, the fungibility of sperm is just plain disturbing. Reichenberg likes to tell people about all the different ways that environmental influences alter epigenetic patterns on sperm DNA. That old wives' tale about hot baths or tight underwear leading to male infertility? It's true. "Usually when you give that talk, men sitting like that"—he crossed his legs—"go like this," he said, opening them back up.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Dolores Malaspina, a short, elegantly coiffed psychiatrist who speaks in long, urgent paragraphs, has also spent her life worrying people about aging men's effects on their children's mental state—in fact, she could be said to be the dean of older-father alarmism. In 2001,<a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=481752" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">Malaspina co-authored a ground-breaking study</a> that concluded that men over 50 were three times more likely than men under 25 to father a schizophrenic child. Malaspina and her team derived that figure from a satisfyingly large population sample: 87,907 children born in Jerusalem between 1964 and 1976. (Luckily, the Israeli Ministry of Health recorded the ages of their fathers.) Malaspina argued that the odds of bearing a schizophrenic child moved up in a straight line as a man got older. Other researchers dismissed her findings, arguing that men who waited so long to have children were much more likely to be somewhat schizophrenic themselves. But Malaspina's conclusions have held up. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12860771" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">A 2003 Danish study</a> of 7,704 schizophrenics came up with results similar to Malaspina's, although it concluded that a man's chances of having a schizophrenic child jumped sharply at 55, rather than trending steadily upward after 35.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"I often hear from teachers that the children of much older fathers seem more likely to have learning or social issues," she told me. Now, she said, she'd proved that they can be. Showing that aging men have as much to worry about as aging women, she told me, is a blow for equality between the sexes. "It's a paradigm shift," she said.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">This paradigm shift may do more than just tip the balance of concern away from older mothers toward older fathers; it may also transform our definition of mental illness itself. "It's been my hypothesis, though it is only a hypothesis at this point, that most of the disorders that afflict neuropsychiatric patients—depression, schizophrenia, and autism, at least the more extreme cases—have their basis in the early processes of brain maturation," Dr. Jay Gingrich, a professor of psychobiology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and a former colleague of Malaspina's, told me. Recent mouse studies have uncovered actual architectural differences between the brains of offspring of older fathers and those of younger fathers. Gingrich and his team looked at the epigenetic markings on the genes in those older-fathered and younger-fathered brains and found disparities between them, too. "So then we said: 'Wow, that's amazing. Let's double down and see whether we can see differences in the sperm DNA of the older and younger fathers,'" Gingrich said. And they didn't just see it, he continued; they saw it "in spades—with an order of magnitude more prominent in sperm than in the brain." While more research needs to be done on how older sperm may translate into mental illness, Gingrich is confident that the link exists. "It's a fascinating smoking gun," he says.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Epigenetics is also forcing medical researchers to reopen questions about fertility treatments that had been written off as answered and done with. Fertility doctors do a lot of things to sperm and eggs that have not been rigorously tested, including keeping them in liquids ("culture media," they're called) teeming with chemicals that may or may not scramble an embryo's development—no one knows for sure. There just isn't a lot of data to work with: The fertility industry, which is notoriously under-regulated, does not give the government reports on what happens to the children it produces. As Wendy Chavkin, a professor of obstetrics and population studies at Columbia University's school of public health, says, "We keep pulling off these technological marvels without the sober tracking of data you'd want to see before these things become widespread all over the world."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Clomid, or clomiphene citrate, which has become almost as common as aspirin in women undergoing fertility treatments, came out particularly badly in the recent <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1008095" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; "><i>New England Journal of Medicine</i> study</a> that rang alarm bells about ART and birth defects. "I think it's an absolute time bomb," Michael Davies, the study's lead researcher and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Adelaide in Australia, told me. "We estimate that there may be in excess of 500 preventable major birth defects occurring annually across Australia as a direct result of this drug," he wrote in a fact sheet he sent me. Dr. Jennita Reefhuis, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control, worries that Clomid might build up in women's bodies when they take it repeatedly, rather than washing out of the body as it is supposed to. If so, the hormonal changes induced by the drug may misdirect early fetal development.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Another popular procedure coming under renewed scrutiny is ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). In ICSI, sperm or a part of a sperm is injected directly into an extracted egg. In the early '90s, when doctors first started using ICSI, they added it to in vitro fertilization only when men had low sperm counts, but today doctors perform ICSI almost routinely—<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/art/art2008/section5.htm" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">procedures more than doubled</a> between 1999 and 2008. And yet, ICSI shows up in the studies as having higher rates of birth defects than any other popular fertility procedure. Among other possible reasons, ICSI allows sperm to bypass a crucial step in the fertilization of the egg—the binding of the head of the sperm with the coat of the egg. Forcing the sperm to penetrate the coat may be nature's way of maintaining quality control.</p><div style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A REMARKABLE FEATURE of the new older parenting is how happy women seem to be about it. It's considered a feminist triumph, in part because it's the product of feminist breakthroughs: birth control, which gives women the power to pace their own fertility, and access to good jobs, which gives them reason to delay it. Women simply assume that having a serious career means having children later and that failing to follow that schedule condemns them to a lifetime of reduced opportunity—and they're not wrong about that. So each time an age limit is breached or a new ART procedure is announced, it's met with celebration. Once again, technology has given us the chance to lead our lives in the proper sequence: education, then work, then financial stability, then children.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">As a result, the twenties have turned into a lull in the life cycle, when many young men and women educate themselves and embark on careers or journeys of self-discovery, or whatever it is one does when not surrounded by diapers and toys. This is by no means a bad thing, for children or for adults. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17605519" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">Study after study has shown</a> that the children of older parents grow up in wealthier households, lead more stable lives, and do better in school. After all, their parents are grown-ups.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But the experience of being an older parent also has its emotional disadvantages. For one thing, as soon as we procrastinators manage to have kids, we also become members of the "sandwich generation." That is, we're caught between our toddlers tugging on one hand and our parents talking on the phone in the other, giving us the latest updates on their ailments. Grandparents well into their senescence provide less of the support younger grandparents offer—the babysitting, the spoiling, the special bonds between children and their elders through which family traditions are passed.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Another downside of bearing children late is that parents may not have all the children they dreamed of having, which can cause considerable pain. <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:POPU.0000021074" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">Long-term studies have shown</a> that, when people put off having children till their mid-thirties and later, they fail to reach "intended family size"—that is, they produce fewer children than they'd said they'd meant to when interviewed a decade or so earlier. A matter of lesser irritation (but still some annoyance) is the way strangers and even our children's friends confuse us with our own parents. My husband has twice been mistaken for our daughter's grandfather; he laughs it off, but when the same thing happened to a woman I know, she was stung.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">What haunts me about my children, though, is not the embarrassment they feel when their friends study my wrinkles or my husband's salt-and-pepper temples. It's the actuarial risk I run of dying before they're ready to face the world. At an American Society for Reproductive Medicine meeting last year, two psychologists and a gynecologist antagonized a room full of fertility experts by making the unpopular but fairly obvious point that older parents die earlier in their children's lives. ("We got a lot of blowback in terms of reproductive rights and all that," the gynecologist told me.) A mother who is 35 when her child is born is <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">more likely than not to have died by the time that child is 46</a>. The one who is 45 may have bowed out of her child's life when he's 37. The odds are slightly worse for fathers: The 35-year-old new father can hope to live to see his child turn 42. The 45-year-old one has until the child is 33.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">These numbers may sound humdrum, but even under the best scenarios, the death of a parent who had children late, not to mention the long period of decline that precedes it, will befall those daughters and sons when they still need their parents' help—because, let's face it, even grown-up children rely on their parents more than they used to. They need them for guidance at the start of their careers, and they could probably also use some extra cash for the rent or the cable bill, if their parents can swing it. "If you don't have children till your forties, they won't be launched until you're in your sixties," Suzanne Bianchi, a sociologist who studies families, pointed out to me. In today's bad economy, young people need education, then, if they can afford it, more education, and even internships. They may not go off the parental payroll until their mid- to late-twenties. Children also need their parents not to need <i>them</i> just when they've had children of their own.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">There's an entire body of sociological literature on how parents' deaths affect children, and it suggests that losing a parent distresses young adults more than older adults, low-income young adults more than high-income ones, and daughters more than sons. Curiously, the early death of a mother <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2096138?%20uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101454111591" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">correlates to a decline in physical health in both sexes</a>, and the early death of a father correlates to increased drinking among young men, perhaps because more men than women have drinking problems and their sons are more likely to copy them.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">All these problems will be exacerbated if we aging parents are, in fact, producing a growing subpopulation of children with neurological or other disorders who will require a lifetime of care. Schizophrenia, for instance, usually sets in during a child's late teens or early twenties. Avi Reichenberg sums up the problem bluntly. "Who is going to take care of that child?" he asked me. "Some seventy-five-year-old demented father?"</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">This question preys on the mind of every parent whose child suffers a disability, whether that parent is elderly or not. The best answer to it that I've ever heard came from a 43-year-old father I met named Patrick Spillman, whose first child, Grace, a four-and-a-half-year-old, has a mild case of cerebral palsy. (Her mother was 46 when Grace was born.) In his last job, Spillman, stocky and blunt, directed FreshDirect's coffee department. Now, he's a full-time father and advocate for his daughter. He spends his days taking Grace to doctors and therapists and orthotic-boot-makers, as well as making won't-take-no-for-an-answer phone calls to state and city agencies that might provide financial or therapeutic assistance. How does he face the prospect of disappearing from her life? A whole lot better than I would. (My lame-joke answer, when my children ask me that question, is that I plan to live forever.) "We're putting money aside now," he said. Into a trust, he adds, so that government agencies can't count it against her when she or a caregiver goes looking for Medicaid or other benefits.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Spillman also prepares Grace for the future by practicing tough love on her, refusing to do for her anything she could possibly do for herself. Her mother, he says, sometimes pleads with him to help Grace more as she stumbles over the tasks of daily life. But he won't. At her tender age, Grace already dresses and undresses herself; every morning, Spillman explained, they do a little "tag check dance" to make sure nothing's inside out. When, he says, someone makes fun of her way of walking and chewing and speaking, as he believes someone will inevitably do, "I want her to have years and years of confidence behind her." He adds, "She's going to go to college. She will be well-adjusted. She won't be able to live on a nineteenth-floor walk-up, but she will live a normal life."</p><div style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">WHEN WE LOOK BACK at this era from some point in the future, I believe we'll identify the worldwide fertility plunge as the most important legacy of old-age parenting. A half-century ago, demographers were issuing neo-Malthusian manifestoes about the overpeopling of the Earth. Nowadays, they talk about the disappearance of the young. <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldfertility2009/%20fertility_wallchart09_%20Front.pdf" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">Fertility has fallen below replacement rates</a> in the majority of the 224 countries—developing as well as developed—from which the United Nations collects such information, which means that more people die in those places than are born. Baby-making has slumped by an astonishing 45 percent around the world since 1975. By 2010, the average number of births per woman had dropped from 4.7 to 2.6. No trend that large has a simple explanation, but the biggest factor, according to population experts, is the rising age of parents—mothers, really—at the birth of their first children. That number, above all others, predicts how large a family will ultimately be.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fewer people, of course, means less demand for food, land, energy, and all the Earth's other limited resources. But the environmental benefits have to be balanced against the social costs. Countries that can't replenish their own numbers won't have younger workers to replace those who retire. Older workers will have to be retrained to cope with the new technologies that have transmogrified the workplace. Retraining the old is more expensive than allowing them to retire to make way for workers comfortable with computers, social media, and cutting-edge modes of production. And who will take care of the older generations if there aren't enough in the younger ones?</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">If you're a doctor, you see clearly what is to be done, and you're sure it will be. "People are going to change their reproductive habits," said Alan S. Brown, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the Columbia University medical school and the editor of an important anthology on the origins of schizophrenia. They will simply have to "procreate earlier," he replied. As for men worried about the effects of age on children, they will "bank sperm and freeze it."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Would-be mothers have been freezing their eggs since the mid-'80s. Potential fathers don't seem likely to rush out to bank their sperm any time soon, though. Dr. Bruce Gilbert, a urologist and fertility specialist who runs a private sperm bank on Long Island, told me he has heard of few men doing so, if any. Doctors have a hard enough time convincing men to store their sperm when they're facing cancer treatments that may poison their gonads, Gilbert said. The only time he saw an influx of men coming in to store sperm was during the first Gulf war, when soldiers were being shipped out to battlefields awash in toxic agents. Moreover, sperm banking is too expensive to undertake lightly, up to $850 for processing, then $300 to $500 a year for storage. "There needs to be a lot more at stake than concern about aging and potential for genetic alterations," Gilbert said. "It has to be something more immediate."</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">What else can be done? Partly the same old things that are already being done, though perhaps not passionately enough. Doctors will have to get out the word about how much male and female fertility wanes after 35; make it clear that fertility treatments work less well with age; warn that tinkering with reproductive material at the very earliest stages of a fetus's growth may have molecular effects we're only beginning to understand.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But I'm not convinced that medical advice alone will lead people to "procreate earlier." You don't buck decades-old, worldwide trends that easily. The problem seems particularly hard to solve in the United States, where it's difficult to imagine legislators adopting the kinds of policies it will take to stop the fertility collapse.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Demographers and sociologists agree about what those policies are. The main obstacle to be overcome is the unequal division of the opportunity cost of babies. When women enjoy the same access to education and professional advancement as men but face penalties for reproducing, then, unsurprisingly, they don't. Some experts hold that, to make up for mothers' lost incomes, we should simply hand over cash for children: direct and indirect subsidies, tax exemptions, mortgage-forgiveness programs. Cash-for-babies programs have been tried all over the world—Hungary and Russia, among other places—with mixed results; the subsidies seem to do little in the short term, but may stem the ebbing tide somewhat over the long term. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20058901?%20uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101454228111" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">One optimistic study done in 2003</a> of 18 European countries that had been giving families economic benefits long enough for them to kick in found a 25 percent increase in women's fertility for every 10 percent increase in child benefits.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">More immediately effective are policies in place in many countries in Western Europe (France, Italy, Sweden) that help women and men juggle work and child rearing. These include subsidized child care, generous parental leaves, and laws that guarantee parents' jobs when they go back to work. Programs that let parents stay in the workforce instead of dropping out allow them to earn more over the course of their lifetimes.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Sweden and France, the two showcases for such egalitarian family policies, have among <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db21.pdf" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">the highest rates of fertility in the Western half of Europe</a>. Sweden, however, ties its generous paid parental leaves to how much a parent has been making and how long she has been working, which largely leaves out all the people in their twenties who aren't working yet because they're still in school or a training program. In other words, even a country with one of the most liberal family policies in the world gives steeply reduced benefits to its most ambitious and promising citizens at the very moment when they should be starting their families.</p><p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It won't be easy to make the world more baby-friendly, but if we were to try, we'd have to restructure the professions so that the most intensely competitive stage of a career doesn't occur right at the moment when couples should be lavishing attention on infants. We'd have to stop thinking of work-life balance as a women's problem, and reframe it as a basic human right. Changes like these are going to be a long time coming, but I can't help hoping they happen before my children confront the Hobson's choices that made me wait so long to have them.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Baskerville, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; "><em style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.83333396911621px; ">Judith Shulevitz is the science editor at </em><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.83333396911621px; ">The New Republic.</span><em style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 21.83333396911621px; "> This article appeared in the December 20, 2012 issue of the magazine under the headline "The Grayest Generation."</em></p></div><a href="http://www.tnr.com/print/article/politics/magazine/110861/how-older-parenthood-will-upend-american-society">http://www.tnr.com/print/article/politics/magazine/110861/how-older-parenthood-will-upend-american-society</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

How Older Parenthood Will Upend American Society - The New Republic

OVER THE PAST HALF CENTURY, parenthood has undergone a change so simple yet so profound we are only beginning to grasp the enormity of its i...

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FOR TURKEY AS A MODEL IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AMERICA REMAINS CRUCIAL

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href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjtMJYzj9WmG2rgRrcF-FbzRgp82tRpctmSgjffF7AnM2fgvYuvAP3ZWB3Ez650rPdgEL1eFdA_yqg4MiyFD5-xlVuYDFdgP4ro7jY8g8uIuUqKkARsufaWtWlltnBAeectu86_r-S5cA/s1600/0226_mosque_460x276.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjtMJYzj9WmG2rgRrcF-FbzRgp82tRpctmSgjffF7AnM2fgvYuvAP3ZWB3Ez650rPdgEL1eFdA_yqg4MiyFD5-xlVuYDFdgP4ro7jY8g8uIuUqKkARsufaWtWlltnBAeectu86_r-S5cA/s400/0226_mosque_460x276.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">  </span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TURKEY RISKS BEING PULLED INTO THE ORBIT OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INSTEAD OF SERVING AS A MODEL THAT COMBINES ISLAM AND LIBERAL VALUES</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; letter-spacing: 0.5pt;"></span></b></span></span></div><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The TURKISH presumption to be a “model” for the MIDDLE EAST will be undermined if the UNITED STATES were to withdraw from the affairs of the region. Absent a strong U.S. involvement, TURKEY risks being pulled into the orbit of the Muslim Brotherhood instead of serving as a model that combines Islam and liberal values. That is illustrated by TURKEY’S SYRIA policy. TURKEY is a crucial partner for the U.S., but it will only be the “model” that Washington hopes and needs, if the U.S. itself remains committed to the MIDDLE EAST.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Since the end of the Cold War, developments in the BALKANS, the CAUCASUS, CENTRAL ASIA and the MIDDLE EAST have provided the ground for continued strategic cooperation between the UNITED STATES and TURKEY; concurrently, the two NATO allies have been at odds over issues such as IRAQ and most recently IRAN. However, despite the frictions that have been generated by these disagreements, the U.S. and TURKEY have succeeded in maintaining their close relation, and they have not let their points of disagreement poison the atmosphere among them. During President Barack Obama’s first term, a close working relationship evolved between him and TURKISH Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When TURKEY, then a holder of a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council, in 2010 voted against imposing sanctions on IRAN, the relationship with the UNITED STATES was adversely affected; however, when TURKEY subsequently agreed to host a radar station as part of NATO’s missile shield, it was essentially mended. Nonetheless, TURKEY is not participating fully in the common Western front against IRAN, as it has not imposed sanctions on a neighbor with whom it enjoys a relation of economic interdependence. Meanwhile, the hostile nature of the TURKISH-ISRAELI relations is also a complicating factor between TURKEY and the UNITED STATES.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"> </span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">LOOMING ENERGY ISSUES </span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Even though the Obama administration is prosecuting a Pacific pivot, the instability that reigns in the MIDDLE EAST will ensure that the region maintains a prominent place on the UNITED STATES’ foreign policy agenda. The unresolved crisis over IRAN’S nuclear ambitions, the ISRAELI-Palestinian conflict, SYRIA, IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN are all issues that have an impact on TURKISH-AMERICAN relations. In addition to the conflicts in the wider MIDDLE EAST, developments in the CAUCASUS, the CASPIAN basin and RUSSIA, with energy issues looming large, will also provide grounds for cooperation between Ankara and Washington.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">However, the IRANIAN issue, the SYRIAN crisis and TURKISH-ISRAELI tensions are going to be problematic for the two allies to handle. In addition, the approaching centennial of the ethnic cleansing of the ARMENIANS from Anatolia in 1915 is destined to cause further friction, as pressures on the U.S. Congress to pass a genocide resolution can be expected to mount.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Concerning the IRANIAN nuclear issue, there is no disagreement between TURKEY and the U.S. as to the principle that IRAN should not become a nuclear armed power; however, there is disagreement concerning how that outcome is to be prevented. Even though the Obama administration is set to pursue the attempts to persuade Tehran from withdrawing from the nuclear threshold by further tightening sanctions and by applying diplomatic pressure, it has also made clear that the military option is on the table. TURKEY, on the other hand, wants to avoid another war in its neighborhood. Since TURKEY is not even participating in the Western economic sanctions against IRAN, it is most unlikely that it would take part in a military operation against IRAN. Most probably, such a development would create tensions between TURKEY and the U.S. just as the AMERICAN invasion of IRAQ did.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">TURKISH AND AMERICAN VIEWS OF A POST-ASSAD SYRIA DO NOT CONVERGE</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUsFuX-rnBOV5iTIE2tqeE7sl7-OjAXy7WDJQ1dEyoabJCeHLQEFAgJASqAeC_PHlsQ6RYeUY9Rblm-qR-x2SRpltZSnPVL6TWqOoY0NnzKU9kqQgLtMgSGnY60eQDN-zxB1qSHXrwd5l/s1600/OB-RL765_Obama__G_20120120122842.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUsFuX-rnBOV5iTIE2tqeE7sl7-OjAXy7WDJQ1dEyoabJCeHLQEFAgJASqAeC_PHlsQ6RYeUY9Rblm-qR-x2SRpltZSnPVL6TWqOoY0NnzKU9kqQgLtMgSGnY60eQDN-zxB1qSHXrwd5l/s320/OB-RL765_Obama__G_20120120122842.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></b></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></b>In the SYRIAN crisis, Ankara and Washington are in agreement that President Bashar al-Assad must go. But the TURKISH and AMERICAN views of a post-Assad SYRIA do not converge. TURKEY has been the main backer and sponsor of the SYRIAN National Council (SNC), which aspired to be the leader of the SYRIAN opposition, although it is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which cannot claim to command anything that resembles majority support among the SYRIAN population. Indeed, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sharply criticized and disavowed the SNC, a new, supposedly more inclusive opposition body was recently set up at an opposition gathering in DOHA. TURKEY did not make its displeasure with the AMERICAN disavowal of its creation, the SNC, public; instead, Ankara encouraged the SNC to go along with the change and take its place within the new body. Indeed, the SNC in fact wields considerable and disproportionate influence within the new opposition council, which raises the question if the U.S. initiative will achieve the desired outcome of creating an opposition that is not Islamist-dominated. And the question still remains whether Ankara will help Washington to bring about a pluralistic post-Assad SYRIA. The determination of the TURKISH government to promote the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as TURKEY’S fierce opposition to KURDISH autonomy in parts of northern SYRIA has the potential to put TURKISH-AMERICAN relations to test.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">HELPING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TO POWER IN DAMASCUS IS THE MAIN MOTIVATION OF TURKEY’S SYRIAN REGIME CHANGE POLICY</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The developments in the MIDDLE EAST in the wake of the ARAB upheavals have come to illustrate the ambivalence of TURKEY: on the one hand, TURKEY aspires to present itself as a “model”, of democracy and economic development; and as it seeks to project power, it ultimately draws on its participation in a WESTERN security and economic system. It is the very fact that TURKEY historically enjoys a special relationship with the democratic West, combining Islam, democracy and market economy, that sustains whatever soft power it has to inspire potential, budding democracies in the region.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IS TURKEY GOING TO HELP BRING ABOUT A MODERATION OF THE RISING ISLAMISM IN THE REGION, OR IS THE RISE OF THE BROTHERHOOD ON THE CONTRARY GOING TO INCITE THE AKP TO REVERT TO ITS ISLAMIST ROOTS</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But on the other hand, TURKEY’S ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is encouraged by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region; helping the Brotherhood to power in Damascus has indeed been the main motivation of TURKEY’S SYRIAN regime change policy. Thus, the question becomes who will inspire whom — is TURKEY going to help bring about a moderation of the rising Islamism in the region, or is the rise of the Brotherhood on the contrary going to incite the AKP to revert to its Islamist roots, a tendency that is already visible? It can be assumed that the policies that Brotherhood governments in the MIDDLE EAST — today in EGYPT, tomorrow perhaps also in SYRIA — elect to pursue are going to have an impact on the AKP, as these Sunni movements share much common intellectual ground.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On an early stage, Erdoğan did make statements that encouraged EGYPTIANS and others to emulate Turkey’s example of “secularism”; that was not something that went down well with audiences in Cairo, and Erdoğan has not pursued this line, perhaps because he concluded that posing as the champion of secularism was not a particularly rewarding tactic, even though TURKISH “secularism” has in practice privileged Sunni Islam.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">WITHOUT A STRONG U.S. INVOLVEMENT, TURKEY RISKS BEING PULLED INTO THE ORBIT OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It is too early to predict whether Erdoğan’s TURKEY is going to inspire related, ascendant political movements in the MIDDLE EAST to reform themselves and their countries, or if it will be the other way around, with these movements providing inspiration for TURKEY. But there is reason to suspect that the Islamic movements in the region are ultimately going to remain faithful to their historic legacies, ushering in another form of authoritarianism instead of a democratic, liberal order. Indeed, the TURKISH example is itself less than reassuring on this account.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The TURKISH presumption to be a “model” will be further undermined if the UNITED STATES were to withdraw from the affairs of the MIDDLE EAST; without a strong U.S. involvement, TURKEY risks being pulled into the orbit of the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, the Syrian example, where Washington seeks to counter the influence of the Brotherhood which Ankara has privileged serves as an illustration of the importance of U.S. involvement. It can be assumed that the AMERICAN disavowal of the SNC displeased TURKEY, but it is nonetheless likely that Washington’s determination to midwife a non-Islamist SYRIA will have a sobering effect on Ankara’s calculus, just as was the case concerning IRAN; when push came to show, TURKEY joined the U.S. effort to contain Iran, by agreeing to host a crucial part of NATO’s missile shield. But absent Washington’s involvement, Ankara is certainly not going to be encouraged to abandon its sponsorship of the Brotherhood.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Even though the Obama administration is intent on reorienting U.S. strategy, giving priority to the PACIFIC region, the MIDDLE EAST is sure to retain its prominent place on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have enjoyed a close working relationship, and TURKEY will remain a crucial partner for the UNITED STATES in MIDDLE EASTERN affairs. But the issue of Iran and the crisis in SYRIA have the potential to put the U.S.-TURKISH relation — and the Obama-Erdoğan relationship — to test.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">UNITED STATES CANNOT OUTSOURCE SYRIAN REGIME CHANGE POLICIES TO TURKEY</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">If the political, diplomatic and economic pressures put in place under U.S. leadership fail to yield the desired outcome, the IRANIAN nuclear issue may cause new tensions between the UNITED STATES and TURKEY, as it is highly unlikely that Ankara will be accommodating if Washington resorts to military action against IRAN. SYRIA meanwhile, demonstrates how important it is that the U.S. remains involved in the MIDDLE EAST; Washington’s attempt to midwife a more inclusive SYRIAN opposition that is not dominated by Islamists, may have challenged Ankara — whose creation, the Muslim Brotherhood dominated SYRIAN National Council is now submerged within a broader opposition grouping — but ultimately it may have the effect of encouraging TURKEY to revise its calculus.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEVPF-Ld7RnM6WBgzvwWN79B3hhKKDtXVNlKl7HGH0DIqgxxBbEluh7zlH1CDqmrSpI7lJ60N3FCLOEx0exZL4pIADDG5CswNIAvVKy4s5z9lt8NbMzExS_jZSyLmgAvH6lulcvFOPCUnh/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEVPF-Ld7RnM6WBgzvwWN79B3hhKKDtXVNlKl7HGH0DIqgxxBbEluh7zlH1CDqmrSpI7lJ60N3FCLOEx0exZL4pIADDG5CswNIAvVKy4s5z9lt8NbMzExS_jZSyLmgAvH6lulcvFOPCUnh/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">If on the other hand the UNITED STATES were to withdraw from the MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY would likely be drawn into the orbit of the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood. What makes TURKEY special as a “model” in the MIDDLE EAST is — alongside its history — the relationship that it enjoys with the WEST; but it cannot represent the WEST alone. As the SYRIAN example clearly illustrates, the UNITED STATES cannot outsource regime change policies to TURKEY; left to its own devices, an AKP-ruled TURKEY will invariably be tempted to project power in the region in homegrown ideological terms. TURKEY is a crucial partner for the U.S., but it will only be the “model” that Washington hopes and needs, if the U.S. itself remains committed to the MIDDLE EAST.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Halil M. Karaveli </span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">who</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, and Editor of the Turkey Analyst. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And <b>. Kemal Kaya</b></span> who is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Center.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>

FOR TURKEY AS A MODEL IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AMERICA REMAINS CRUCIAL

  TURKEY RISKS BEING PULLED INTO THE ORBIT OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INSTEAD OF SERVING AS A MODEL THAT COMBINES ISLAM AND LIBERAL VALUES ...

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Healthy Choice Baked

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpSMGiSdQ7tpJh6CeUrHgynqcSTech2NfNcr-1zov5P6AJ1_QoYXsPRh5j0hOiZ4eBoQPCObLVjTZF8-7TAyNWaNYwfsMuDqQuzKA1XIYbvZMAO_IrWcQXZbQbTtilwdqjDSiS9uafEo/s1600/healthy+choice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpSMGiSdQ7tpJh6CeUrHgynqcSTech2NfNcr-1zov5P6AJ1_QoYXsPRh5j0hOiZ4eBoQPCObLVjTZF8-7TAyNWaNYwfsMuDqQuzKA1XIYbvZMAO_IrWcQXZbQbTtilwdqjDSiS9uafEo/s320/healthy+choice.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I was part of this opportunity on Crowdtap to try Healthy Choice Baked meals.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I used to eat this stuff all of the time, until I found out it's not all that great for you.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I prefer making my own food to control what goes in it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I would like to try this to see if it's any different from their other meals, but the coupon isn't printing for some reason.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />

Healthy Choice Baked

I was part of this opportunity on Crowdtap to try Healthy Choice Baked meals. I used to eat this stuff all of the time, until I found out it...

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Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 12/15/2012

<ul class="diigo-linkroll"> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/wes-deweese-questions-sons-grades_n_2301292.html">Father Of Student With Disabilities Questions Son's High Grades</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">Grade fabrication is worse than grade inflation. Which is worse - the fact that the education system is lying about a child who can't walk and can't say his parent's names -- by giving the child A's in higher level subjects like Algebra and science -- or the system that forces education to go down the road from failing to farce. Not every student is an A student. Period. We need age appropriate, fair measures. I think this article exposes a larger problem. I have a teacher friend that talked to me several years back - she was in a local public school system. The principal told her that her F's HAD to become C's and her C's needed to move up and thus on down the line. She said she wouldn't do it, that she'd give the principal her gradebook and he could lie, but she wouldn't. So, this doesn't surprise me. Honesty and character are what you do when no one is looking -- but the fact that the Gwinett County school system can't even own up when people are looking is bothersome as well. Something is rotten and it isn't in the state of Denmark... does this bother anyone else? "My goal isn't to have him do Algebra I right now. My goal is to have him walk," DeWeese told WSBTV. "I would love to hear him say 'mom' or 'dad,' but I know that's probably never going to happen." DeWeese's concerns aren't ungrounded. Teachers and administrators across subjects have crumbled under increasing pressure to demonstrate improved student performance. A report last month found that as many as one in five teachers in Kansas and neighboring states reports science grades on student report cards without actually teaching or testing students on the subject.</p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/grades">grades</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/tumblr">tumblr</a></p> </li> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2012/a-dunbar-number-for-educating/">A Dunbar Number for Educating - academhack - Thoughts on Emerging Media and Higher Education</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">Dave Parry at @academhack talks about the Dunbar number for educating. he thinks his number is 50-60 students. I am in a high school/ middle school and I am up close to 100 and feel that I have meaningful interactions with that many, however, I am around them all day long - see them at lunch, games, etc. So, I could understand how that number may be lower for a college professor. Great question worth asking and perhaps researching based upon these anecdotal conversations. Read more on his blog: "But this got me to wondering what is the Dunbar number for instruction. That is at any one time what is the number of students I can interact with, what is the cognitive limit of the number of students I can maintain and have a consistent interaction with. I think we can all agree that the fewer the students the more time I have to spend with each, and versa visa, the more students the less time I can spend with each. But I am hypothesizing about something slightly different here. What is the educational cognitive load? What is the Dunbar number for instruction? At what point do the edges start to fray and do I lose track of the students I am interacting with over the course of a semester? So here’s my guess, and this is just a starting point. I think my Dunbar number for instruction is about 45-60. That is over the course of a semester I can handle about 45-60 in classes and still interact with them, become invested in them, and try to treat each (as much as possible) as an individual who is having an educational experience in which I play a role. Keep that number under 60 and I pretty much “know” all of my students. If someone walks into my office and says “How is Steven doing this semester?” I know about his semester. How he is doing. How he is engaging the material, and probably some additional material about where he is at with in the program and what interests him. Keep that number under 60 and I think that is true of all of my students. But as that number rises over 60 I start to lose the ability to “keep all the students in my head.” That is I start to lose track of some, they disappear, fade into the background. I can keep tabs on most but I end up focusing on the ones who need challenging, or the ones who are struggling, and some in the middle get lost under the weight of too many students.</p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a></p> </li> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/weekend-reading-14/45055">Weekend Reading</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">I have to say - @profhacker ROCKS. In this week's round up (something I always try to read) he points to an article questioning what the "Dunbar number is for teaching." The Dunbar number is number that hypothetically, is the maximum number you can meaningfully have interactions - really, the number of "friends" you can have and those people be REAL friends -- or at least acquaintances. This question is an important one -- if we can find the "Dunbar number for teaching" then we could structure class sizes and course loads to not exceed that maximum - at least if we care about real teaching. It could at least give us a litmus test to determine if organizations really care about good teaching. We know that smaller class sizes are better - but if we can MEANINGFULLY interact - in these times, wouldn't we look at that upper limit as a sort of maximum number? I will link to the other article as well, but wanted to point out profhacker just because the blog ROCKS. </p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/pln">pln</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/tumblr">tumblr</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/dunbar number">dunbar number</a></p> </li> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWlAJxIz_rE&feature=youtu.be">Twitter For Your Pln - YouTube</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">I need to get my daughter to translate this very cool trailer for a project for teachers - very cool. Why don't we make trailers to start school years and projects? We could even end a project by having kids make trailers for the next participants. Cool.</p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/twitter">twitter</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/pln">pln</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/ideas">ideas</a></p> </li> </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='http://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 12/15/2012

Father Of Student With Disabilities Questions Son's High Grades Grade fabrication is worse than ...

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Matt Said, Jay Said 3.14159265359

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />Matt babbles, Jay babbles, You pretend to listen.<br /><br />Matt: Cheers!<br />Jay: Hola!<br />Matt: What do you want?<br />Jay: You<br />Matt: Sick Fuck<br />Jay: That makes you hot<br />Matt: I’m a little uncomfortable right now<br />Jay: Me too<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGjkAjFIMiojqCirE25u9u2rgPU4qsBzr1oSBFB0PqEGfVNmoHIa0NqfAwfV5bu5WU_uVCUAsZVG1Gei5Y84XUB9lMPoQMVecBmYNRk4fNUZdJyDi5YIEMRVyAe130krAYuoDYD-CDuL8/s1600/Schmoop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGjkAjFIMiojqCirE25u9u2rgPU4qsBzr1oSBFB0PqEGfVNmoHIa0NqfAwfV5bu5WU_uVCUAsZVG1Gei5Y84XUB9lMPoQMVecBmYNRk4fNUZdJyDi5YIEMRVyAe130krAYuoDYD-CDuL8/s320/Schmoop.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Jay: So how’s Schmoop?<br />Matt: Well the surgery went well<br />Jay: That’s good.  Anything else?<br />Matt: Oh yea, she DOES NOT have cancer!<br />Jay: WOOOOOOOOOO!!!<br />Matt: Yeah, that was pretty good news.<br />Jay: DAMN good news!<br />Matt: They still don’t really know what the blockage was.<br />Jay: Well, Doritos Nacho Dust can pack in there pretty tight.<br />Matt: True, or maybe some meat-like substances from Taco Bell<br />Jay: Or some of that Skyline Chili shit.<br />Matt: NOBODY knows what that stuff is.<br />Jay: Maybe nachos?<br />Matt: A tortilla chip might have gotten caught sideways in there.<br />Jay: The possibilities are endless.<br />Matt: And I’m fine with any of them as long as it isn’t cancer.<br />Jay: Damn right!<br /><br />Matt: So what are we talking about on this week’s show?<br />Jay: Well I guess we should talk about the single life<br />Matt: We are a couple of swinging bachelors currently.<br />Jay: Damn right. Wild and crazy bachelors who get sleepy by 9:30<br />Matt: Well, maybe our prime is a little behind us<br />Jay: But, we can still talk about meals for one<br />Matt: And how to enjoy being alone.<br />Jay: Pros and Cons of single life!<br />Matt: There you go!<br />Jay: This is gonna be awesome<br />Matt: It’s gonna be HUGE!<br />Jay: I’m kind of excited about it<br />Matt: I’m going to get uncomfortable again<br />Jay: I’ll tone it down<br />Matt: I don’t think you know how to<br />Jay: You’re right<br />Matt: Okay, I think we’re ready!<br />Jay: Sweet! See you on the air dude!<br />Matt: Laterz!<br /><br />Okay, there you have it kids. Schmoop is apparently cancer free and we’re going to be <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid/2012/12/16/the-bachelor-life" target="_blank">Baching It</a> this weekend on IWS! Join us for all the wild and crazy fun!<br /><div><br /></div></div>

Matt Said, Jay Said 3.14159265359

Matt babbles, Jay babbles, You pretend to listen. Matt: Cheers! Jay: Hola! Matt: What do you want? Jay: You Matt: Sick Fuck Jay: That makes ...

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ARGENTINA and BITCOIN

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font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHqPzo2r_AyorZLc0lO3PCcll_mzbgeEiQi49a1y-6i2v1Q3a1szPTwgYsERmBoF0W28Tn8vYaI_Uw-bvojo4IiirZyQ736q1v-eFcJN5SwhrxjlOaJ0fbH80Vi76zB4ijXwQgxRQqC56/s1600/BitcoinQR5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMHqPzo2r_AyorZLc0lO3PCcll_mzbgeEiQi49a1y-6i2v1Q3a1szPTwgYsERmBoF0W28Tn8vYaI_Uw-bvojo4IiirZyQ736q1v-eFcJN5SwhrxjlOaJ0fbH80Vi76zB4ijXwQgxRQqC56/s320/BitcoinQR5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BITCOIN, THE NEW ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY FOR ARGENTINA?</span></b></span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b></span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 115%;">BITCOIN, LA  NUEVA MONEDA ALTERNATIVA PARA ARGENTINA?</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"></span></b><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"><br /></span><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">En Argentina, donde la población tiene que hacer frente aconstricciones económicas  "home made"  impuestas por las autoridades locales, BITCOIN, una moneda alternativa en línea está experimentando una popularidad creciente.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: blue;"><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />El nuevo sistema de pago está descentralizada en una red peer-to-peer - al igual que el sistema de descargas BITORRENT. Los argentinos están luchando actualmente con alta inflación, la moneda extranjera - las soluciones para frenar la inflación, es difícil de conseguir en estos días. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="color: blue;"><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"><span style="font-size: large;">Así los argentinos empresariales han comenzado a utilizar BITCOIN con el fin de enviar dinero fuera del país,  obtener dólares  o euros. Todas las transacciones son anónimas. Las autoridades no tienen ninguna posibilidad de controlar esas transacciones.</span></span></span><br /><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"></span></span><span lang="ES-AR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: ES-AR;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #666666;"></span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BITCOIN, THE NEW ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY FOR ARGENTINA?</span></b></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Argentina, where the population has to cope with “home made” economic constrictions imposed by local authorities, BITCOIN, an alternative online currency is experiencing increasing popularity.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The new payment system is decentralized in a peer-to-peer network – just like the download system BITORRENT. Argentineans are currently struggling with high inflation, foreign currency - the solutions to curb in inflation, is hard to get these days. Thus entrepreneurial Argentineans have started to use BITCOIN in order to get money out of the country or purchase Dollars or Euros. All transactions are anonymous. Authorities have no chance to control such transactions.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>BITCOINS, THE ONLINE-ONLY CURRENCY</b>. </span></span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdv44EDtP12BwRPpAIteKLfxCEZW8yNObX7RpFXxiPqjN9sYzJV7BaA_jjuicnwPA0jGyj3kheNWgmTPJaZShaL9KOIVTF5YR_gvAGGO5uIA4Gz_OsjJBCVlIFy8O97qnYqphMeJBWhyphenhyphen8w/s1600/bitcoin530.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdv44EDtP12BwRPpAIteKLfxCEZW8yNObX7RpFXxiPqjN9sYzJV7BaA_jjuicnwPA0jGyj3kheNWgmTPJaZShaL9KOIVTF5YR_gvAGGO5uIA4Gz_OsjJBCVlIFy8O97qnYqphMeJBWhyphenhyphen8w/s320/bitcoin530.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"></span>Created in 2009 by a mysterious programmer named Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoins behave a lot like any currency. Their value is determined by demand, and they can be used to buy stuff. Bitcoin transactions are encrypted and handled by a decentralized global network of tens of thousands of personal computers. Merchants around the world accept the currency, from a bakery in San Francisco to a dentist in Finland. Individuals who own bitcoins and wish to exchange them for physical currencies like euros or dollars can use exchange sites such as localbitcoins.com, a Finland-based site founded by Jeremias Kangas. “I believe that bitcoin is, or will be in the future, a very effective tool for individuals who want to avoid sanctions, currency restrictions, and high inflation in countries such as Iran,” Kangas wrote in an e-mail. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>THE ADVANTAGE FOR COUNTRIES WITH RESTRICTIVE FOREIGN CURRENCY POLICIES IS THAT BITCOINS CAN BE SWAPPED FOR DOLLARS THAT CAN THEN BE KEPT OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY</b>. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Another plus: Regulators can’t easily track the transactions, since bitcoins aren’t issued from a central server. Bitcoin users can conduct business on virtual private networks, which hide customers’ identities.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">Many entrepreneurs and visionaries wish the culture of using digital money will spread all over the world, because it does not have any dependency on anything like politics.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="266" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Um63OQz3bjo?feature=player_embedded" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="320"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>HOW IT WORKS</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The project was started in 2009 by an enigmatic programmer known as Satoshi Nakamoto. He always communicated electronically, never answered personal questions, and disappeared from online forums in December. The conspiracy-minded speculate that Nakamoto was actually a group of people, or a government cryptographer, or a pseudonym for Gavin Andresen, the Amherst (Mass.) programmer who took over the project after Nakamoto vanished. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Digital transactions normally require a trusted intermediary such as PayPal to credit and debit accounts properly and prevent cheating</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">. With BITCOINS, "there is no middleman, says Andresen or," more accurately, there's a distributed middleman. Individual transactions are encrypted, logged by a decentralized network running on thousands of home computers, and recorded in a public ledger. The system works similarly to peer-to-peer music-sharing networks in that files are shared among swarms of users, rather than downloaded from a central server. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Suppose you're in the market for alpaca socks, one of the few consumer items you can buy with BITCOINS. Step one: Get some BTC—that's the symbol—at a currency exchange site such as Mt.Gox. Then download a desktop app from bitcoin.org, which will store your lucre (some use an online service such as Instawallet.org instead) and connect you to the decentralized BITCOIN network. Next, find the alpaca farms BITCOIN address, a string of characters also known as a public key. Click the send coins button. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">THE BITCOIN NETWORK HAS HANDLED AS MANY AS 87 QUADRILLION CALCULATIONS PER SECOND, 35 TIMES MORE THAN THE TOP SUPERCOMPUTER. </span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The purchase is unconfirmed until a miner certifies it. Miners are power users who crunch numbers on behalf of the network, and some have racks of computers dedicated to the task. They're called miners because, just as gold miners increase the supply of gold, they create new BITCOINS, at an algorithmically controlled rate. The greater their computing power, the more they generate for themselves. Once a miner's computer has processed a transaction, the alpaca farm gets BITCOINS and you get socks. It's complex but fast: The BITCOIN network has handled as many as 87 quadrillion calculations per second, 35 times more than the top supercomputer. </span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BITCOIN, ONLY FOR “MATURE” COUNTRIES? </span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BITCOINS have all the advantages of cash—free to use, very hard to trace—as well as its disadvantages. That digital wallet is a file on a hard drive or online, and if it's lost or stolen there's no recourse. The currency is backed only by the faith and credit of its participants and outside the scope of any banker, politician, or the Federal Reserve. To a certain breed of libertarian nerd who grew up on cyberpunk, it's the Digital Rapture. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidMfnSLZx_53PDkSD3Jq7apvNaGL55CwKGr_eaRIM8TsVKPFjGE-lt-WEfaocEjkDDexxXhullYiyQvfVgfddEoI0RD43AAvNE8mycaa-nwQlcLeISZfTJJa4zf6-nyo6z7AeOOBnT1gcM/s1600/bitcoin_accepted_sign1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidMfnSLZx_53PDkSD3Jq7apvNaGL55CwKGr_eaRIM8TsVKPFjGE-lt-WEfaocEjkDDexxXhullYiyQvfVgfddEoI0RD43AAvNE8mycaa-nwQlcLeISZfTJJa4zf6-nyo6z7AeOOBnT1gcM/s320/bitcoin_accepted_sign1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span>BITCOIN also resonates with those who have something to hide. "Any anarchist cyberscheme like BITCOIN will rapidly attract the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: Mafia, drug dealers, terrorists, and child pornography," says author and futurist Bruce Sterling. The hacker group LulzSec, which has claimed credit for breaking into websites at Sony (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=SNE"><span style="color: blue;">SNE</span></a>) and the U.S. Senate, says a donor recently sent in $7,000 worth of BITCOINS. Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) urged federal law enforcement to shut down Silk Road, an online catalog for drugs, and spotlighted BITCOIN'S role as the only method of payment for these illegal purchases. Among the legit merchandise you can buy with BITCOIN: organic gardening services, a BITCOIN merit badge from NerdMeritBadge.com, and a smattering of tech products. </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="266" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yYTqvYqXRbY?feature=player_embedded" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="320"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">BITCOIN: WILL THE ONLINE CURRENCY INFLUENCE GEOPOLITICS AND STRATEGIES?</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Merit badges and gardening are not the stuff revolutions are made of, but BITCOIN'S ascent has created a virtuous cycle: As early adopters see the value of their stakes rise, they have an incentive to entice new users and merchants. The number of people on the BITCOIN network at any given moment has climbed from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands since the start of the year, says Andresen. There are dedicated BITCOIN currency exchanges, escrow accounts, and smartphone apps. In the planning stages are options exchanges, cash registers, and high-frequency trading programs. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">IF THERE'S ONE INDUSTRY THAT TAKES THE MOST CREAM OFF THE TOP AND PROVIDES THE LEAST VALUE, ITS FINANCE</span></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Mark Suppes, a Web developer (who freelances for Bloomberg LP, parent of this magazine), bought a used ATM on EBay (<a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?symbol=EBAY"><span style="color: blue;">EBAY</span></a>) for about $400. In a Brooklyn warehouse, he's reprogramming it to accept BITCOIN transfers from a smartphone and dispense U.S. dollars. Suppes is motivated by self-interest—"I own enough BITCOINS that I'll be set if this works out," he says—and a desire to stick it to what he considers economic parasites. "If there's one industry that takes the most cream off the top and provides the least value, its finance," he says. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Bankers needn't worry at this point. The most common reason to hold BITCOINS is as a speculative investment. "Any given day, it can move 20, 30, 40, even 50 percent," says Adam Cohen, a developer at startup Seatgeek who wrote a critical post about BITCOIN on the Q&A site Quora. "That's scary. I wouldn't want to have a lot of my wealth tied up in it right now." Sterling calls BITCOINS "a cousin project to WikiLeaks." For a glimpse of its future, he says, "find the half-dozen zealots who were core activists of WikiLeaks and ask them how their plan for massive planetary liberation has been going." </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The skeptics are why Andresen evangelizes. After his last haircut, he persuaded his barber to accept payment in BITCOIN. "I had to promise I would buy it back from him if it dropped in value," he says. "I insured his downside risk." </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The bottom line:</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> BITCOINS, a two-year-old virtual currency, have exploded in value since December as tech-minded speculators snap them up.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>

ARGENTINA and BITCOIN

BITCOIN, THE NEW ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY FOR ARGENTINA?   BITCOIN, LA  NUEVA MONEDA ALTERNATIVA PARA ARGENTINA? En Argentina, donde la poblac...

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