Quick takes for the AARP set

Carol Goss, 55, right, has retooled her image and landed a job with an architectural firm in Portland.

Journalists like to think in "threes" so here is a trio of items relating to work, romance and, health. Coincidentally, these pieces are all linked by their focus on issues facing people in their 50s.

-- Older workers tend to fare better than younger ones during a recession, the old adage goes, because their experience, skills and seniority give them an advantage when employers are considering layoffs. By another measure, older workers have a more difficult challenge when they find themselves out of work. Age discrimination, though illegal, can be hard to prove; plus, a person's physical appearance (thinning hair, a gut) or how she or he dresses (pleated pants) can be a negative in the eyes of a much younger interviewer.

Paige Parker of The Oregonian took a look at some of the issues facing older workers in a piece that ran earlier this week: "To find a job, older workers might want to look in the mirror..." Nationally, she noted, Nationally, unemployment among workers 45 and older is at its highest in the 61 years the Department of Labor has tracked it.

-- Looking for love? The Rev. Christine Shiber, 57, a Methodist minister in California, was the subject of a New York Times piece, that explored the issues facing women who find themselves single and dating again in their 50s. After divorcing her husband of 30 years, Shiber, below, switched jobs, joined a prayer group, started working out (losing 25 pounds), jumped into social networking, went to dance clubs and reconnected with friends at class reunions -- all to no avail.

"If it feels as if the remarriage odds are bad for a woman in her 50s, they are," reporter Michael Winerip writes. "According to 2001 census data, 41 percent of women 50 and over who’ve been divorced have remarried, while 58.4 percent of divorced men that age are remarried." Why the difference? Men often choose someone younger, less educated and making less money when they remarry.

-- Health care reform. In an earlier post, "Health care for all: Now!" I referenced a newspaper article by T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent, that discussed five myths about health care around the world. The piece was based on reporting he did for a book, "The Healing of America," that recently earned a favorable review in The New York Times.

In the book, Reid describes his experiences in different countries when seeking diagnosis and treatment for a chronically stiff shoulder. Reviewer Abigail Zuger, a doctor herself, says, "The Healing of America” blends subjective and objective into a seamless indictment of our own disastrous system, an eloquent rebuttal against the arguments used to defend it, and appealing alternatives for fixing it. Sounds like a good read.

Photo of Carol Goss by Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian. Photo of Christine Shiber by Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times.