The Library

[Babi]

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us. We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not). Let the book talk begin here!

*Suggestion Box for Future Discussions
*SeniorLearn's Archives 
 

Ah, SHEILA, I totally understand the relief of paying off a mortgage.
And would be equally relieved to know that all my children are also
financially safe...at least from all but major disasters.

[MaryPage]

And I understand purchasing those wonderful university courses from The Teaching Company!  I have thousands of dollars worth of those myself!

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/

[pedln]

Sheila, I'm not one to give advice on financial matters, but have  you ever thought of putting your assets in a trust as opposed to leaving them for probate?  I don't have a large estate -- it won't be affected by taxes -- but I opted for a revocable trust because of privacy issues.  We had an unfortunate situation several years ago when my aunt died.

She had been in a nursing home, and really liked the male aide who was assigned to her.  He was really good to her, and every time anyone visited it was "Kevin this and Kevin that, etc. etc. etc." My brother and I did not live close, so we appreciated the attention he gave her, and he also kept my brother and SIL informed about her.  She told us that she wanted to leave a small bequest to him because she knew he wanted to go to nursing school.  So she did leave a very small bequest. SHE DID NOT TELL HIM THAT SHE DID SO.

After she died, the nursing home sent someone to read the probate papers -- all public information. (Standard practice, I guess) When they saw the bequest to Kevin they fired him, said he had solicited her -- which was definitely not the case.  My brother and another family member were so irate.  They found a pro bono lawyer for him, but the nursing home refused to take him back.  Cut of their nose to spite their face.  When my brother said, "If she'd had a trust, this never would have happened, " is when I decided to set one up.  Maybe I'm being naive, but if I die today, the kids can have it tomorrow.

[CallieOK]

I'm a huge fan of revocable trusts!   So much easier to transfer things without going through probate.  Every major thing I own - house, car, investments - is in the name of the trust.  Since I'm the trustee, I can manage things just as if they were not in the trust.  My sons are successor trustees if I become unable to act in that capacity.

On topic:   I've just finished "We Are All Welcome Here" by Elizabeth Berg.   Good story and the note at the front telling how she got the idea is interesting.  

[bellemere]

some college development departments will let you make a donation and use it to set up an annuit with the college as final beneficiary' [ayments going to you as long as you live.  That way, you get some income from you money, and get totake a big tax deduction for the year you  donate.  Every college has a Planned Giving program, and it is the best way to endow a scholarship or a special gift.
No i never did it. I do donate to my undergraduate college, my Master's degree college and I once even sent a small donation to Harvard when son was there, so I could get my name in the same book as Jackie Onassis. But on a different page.
College is becoming less and less affordable for the middle class. I hate to see stuents dropping out for lack of funds to continue; it is really a tragedy.

[BarbStAubrey]

Not just the cost but the outright war going on from right wing business leaders and average business owners with email after email and showing the disadvantage economically of sending your child to collage - I wrote back to a few to no avail - I am shocked - once college education was tied to job advancement and security educating the person flew out the window and now that concept is lost in the economics of comparing the overall income of a college educated job holder at various age levels to the non-college educated at similar age levels. Every time I get one of these email - which averages once a week - at first I got angry - then a shiver went down my back and now I am at the stage of wanting to cry.

[Frybabe]

Here is another interesting website for books, "moving images", live music, audio and more. There also links to lots of other sites. Check out the IA section and the Projects section for more information about who they are and their mission as well as lots of links to other sites. http://www.archive.org/

[serenesheila]

Thanks for more info about wills vs trusts.  I am in the process of making an irrevocable trust.  I do like the idea of setting up a couple of scholarships at the nearby college.  Thanks for that suggestion.

Sheila

[Tomereader1]

Revocable trust - Irrevocable Trust = two different things!

[JeanneP]

Yes, I am thinking of Talking to someone about Trusts.  Now I was thinking that Revocable was a trust you could change at any time but Irevocable you couldn't.  I need to learn more.

[CallieOK]

Jeanne, you're correct.  An Irevocable Trust cannot be changed - even if you want to.  My attorney advised a Revocable one so I could make adjustments as time went on.

[ginny]

On trusts: we have a trust. My understanding is that  for the trust to work you have to put the assets IN it, otherwise there's nothing for it to govern. True or false?

[rosemarykaye]

True!  And in this country, if you put the assets in it, but still retain control over it, I would imagine that the tax people would say that did not amount to giving them away viz-a-viz inheritance tax.  You wold definitely need to take advice.

Rosemary

[Steph]

My husband and I bought had trusts. They were revocable. When He died, his become irrevocable , although language was inserted that I could do with the assets whatever I wanted. Mine is still revocable. I do not keep cars or houses in it, since it complicates selling, etc. It is a simple handover but I do know that when I die, the trust both collapse and the boys receive half each. Very uncomplicated indeed. I had my husbands trust changed in one afternoon with my broker. The trust stays in his name with me as trustee. Each month, the brokerage transfers over the income from his into mine, so I dont have to write checks on two accounts.. Do take advice.. And find an attorney that will listen to what you want. I just redid my will some months ago. Found a young female attor ney and we sat down and planned carefully. She also updated my living will, medical durable power of attorney, etc etc. A big relief for me. Besides she has a young baby who comes to the office to and it was great fun to watch the baby watching us all.

[LarryHanna]

Several years before my folks became ill they set up a trust with my sister as the trustee as she lived closer and was in good health.  I was with them at the attorney's office and he went over everything.  I think it cost them about $600 in attorney fees and he told us it would save close to $20,000 in probate fees.  It worked beautifully and they put all of their assets into the trust.  When my father became to ill to manage his affairs he was able to sign a document and my sister took charge of the trust.  It worked beautifully and there were no problems with it and after mother passed away last my sister was able to close out the estate within 90 days.  We had already sold the home and the household goods before either of them passed on as knew they could never return home.  We are told that in Georgia probate is not an expensive thing and that trusts are not needed.  However, I am thinking it would be a good thing to explore.

[MaryPage]

Wish I had been a trust fund baby!  Sigh!

[bellemere]

A propos of nothing, I am reading This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgeral.  It is autobiographical, I am pretty sure.  Little Scott has grown from a smart snobby little boy into a smarty snobby Princeton student.  He sounds like an ancestor of Holoden Caulfiend.  But the Princeton scene is terrific!  You can glimse the class-obsessed writer he will become later. 
It is part of the 81 Essential Classics I downloaded onto my Nook.  I also donwloaded "the Imperfectionists" a novel taking place inRome - I like that.

[BarbStAubrey]

Bellemere if you get to it first let me know your impression it is on my next month's list from Amazon - "The Imperfectionists" - sounds like what we all need to know and written from the perspective of a writer - wow will that be a walk in the woods.

I haven't read David Foster Wallace but I have ordered his new book, The Pale King,  that contains all his unfinished work - after I read the first sentence of the first unfinished story I had to have the book - I could care less if the story is so unfinished it does not even make sense - just reading how he strings words together that are an allusion to the perfect picture - here is the first paragraph...

"Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat; shattercane, lamb's-quarters, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother's soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starling's fired from the windbreak thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and shist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembles, shapeless. We are all brothers."

Have you ever read anything so wonderingly beautiful - every page offered by Amazon to preview on line goes on and on like this - glued when I came too my head slowly rose in awe - crazy childhood sing song quotes recited in class come pouring out of me when I stopped reading - like My soul doth magnify the lord - And of a sheen so wonder-fair, The sun seem'd of a nobler kin - Brought forth the word, from thy glory - The stars sing in tune

[serenesheila]

OOOOPPPPPs.  I goofed!  The trust I am setting up, IS revocable.  It is costing $4500.00.  That seems a bit much to me, but when LARRY says probate can cost $20, 000, it doesn't seem that unreasonable.  My attorney told me that as long as I am alive I will be the "owner" of this trust, so I can make changes.

MARY PAGE, thank you for the url for Great Courses.  I logged onto it, and ended up ordering a set of lectures on the 100 best American novels.  I love to read, and to learn, and haven't ever read many of the books on this list.  It is on sale for $199 right now.

I also ordered a set of Philosophical Lectures, 2 sets on the History of Western Civilization, a set of Economics lectures, and a set of the History of Hitler's Empire.  Unless I live for 20 more years, I doubt that I will be able to finish all of them. LOL  But, one of my grandsons loves to read, and majored in History.  So, he will inheirit all of these.

Sheila

[kiwilady]

I put my home into a family trust 16 years ago. It cost me $2600 all those years ago in duties and legal fees. I did it because I knew of three women who lost their homes when they remarried and the men left them exactly three years after marrying them which is the legal time for a person to claim half of any assets the other person has. Unless you do a prenup this is what happens here. Even if you don't marry and live together the same law applies. Three years is nothing for an unscrupulous person to wait and then take half their partners assets even if they have contributed nothing to the relationship. This law sucks big time and that is why I have my home in a trust.

Carolyn

[Steph]

It is wise when you are doing your will and if you do a trust, to also set up durable power of attorney for medical reasons, a living will, etc. Your lawyer will know the package which differs from state to state.
A real trust fund baby.. they are almost a thing of the past, but to avoid probate.. That is worth every penny,. plus it is instant.. probate takes at least six months and generally a year.

[rosemarykaye]

Steph - we last year  finished one from 1976!  Not our fault, thankfully, but as you say, probate is rarely quick.

Rosemary

[Babi]

 Actually, BELLEMERE, mentioning a book is entirely a propos for 'The
Library'.  

 Hmm,...while Wallace does write some beautiful prose, BARB, I was not
all that enchanted with his listing evey known wild plant that could
possibly be in that field. Definitely overkill.  Reminded me a bit of
Poe's "bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells".  At some point
there I could not resist inserting a 'hell's bells!'
  That said, I also would like to read some of his work. I'll have to
see what I can find. Thanks for introducing him.

 Just as a matter of curiosity, SHEILA, why did you order two sets of
"The History of Western Civilization"?

1976?!!!  Ye gods, Dickens is alive and well!

[bellemere]

Barb St. A. on college value  Get the New York
Times for Sunday last, June 26, with a WONDERFUL article on salaries of college graduates over a lifetime.  Even a dishwaher with a college degree makes more than a dishwasher without one.  Same for sales clerks, and health aides and all kinds of blue collar jobs that college graduates are fordced to take in today's economy, hopefully only tempoorarily!
Re David foster Wallace.  I have to get up my courage to tackle one of his full length books. I did read a hilarious piece about the  Porn movie industry
s annual awards!  His guide to the event, in Las Vegas, where else" was named Dick Filth.  Awards were made for best at this or best at that, jaw dropping to hear the winners thanking theri parents IN THE AUDIENCE!
The passage you posed riminds me of young James Joyce. 
I will start The Imperfectionists as soon as I get Scott on his way to Paris and immortality.
I also downloaded the Honor code, a nonfiction work that detail how "moral revolutions" take place, on practices such as foot binding inChina and how it fell out of favor.  Holds out hope for practices such as honor killings and female circumcision. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Do we really need another Mao Arab style to stop honor killings and female circumcision  

[mabel1015j]

If you missed the Newsweek issue of Mar 6th w/ Hillary Clinton on the cover, it's very informative about 150 women who are changing the world, many of them working on girl's education or ending sex slavery or child marriage and mutilation. The cover story about Hillary's addressing these issues on every visit to foreign leaders is impressive. Here's a link to the story on Hillary Clinton if you wish to read it, or skim it:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2685627/posts

[mabel1015j]

David McCollough has a new book, here is a review from the History News Network. It's about Americans in Paris in the nineteenth century.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/140161.html

Also from the HNN, - this month is the 200th anniversary of Harriet Beecher Stowe's birth. There was a conference at Bowdoin College in Maine focused on HBS and a column came from that. Here is two paragraphs that you might find interesting:

 "It should not be surprising, then, that the novel supposedly responsible for starting the Civil War was so far from a call to arms.  It was instead a battle cry for literature.  For Stowe, reading a book and being moved by it was just as, if not more, significant than fighting in a war.  While some, like Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Bowdoin Class of 1852 and future hero of Gettysburg) called Stowe a “genius,” there were others like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Bowdoin Class of 1824) who felt her novel was “a pathetic and droll book on slavery.”  Though Longfellow, like Chamberlain, was opposed to slavery he, like many literary men of his time, did not view it as an appropriate subject for literature.  But the popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin changed his view not only of the novel but also of literature.  Stowe’s novel made slavery a suitable subject of literature.

When slavery ended and Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Stowe left slavery behind. She turned her attention to other more salient subjects like marriage and women’s rights.  But none of her later novels would receive the attention of her first.  While Stowe’s “genius” may be the source of the novel’s power, its ongoing popularity has more to do with its readers than with its author.  Stowe may have been the first to transform the facts of slavery into fiction but she was certainly not the last.  As witnessed by a plethora of novels written in the twentieth century—from Gone with the Wind to Beloved—slavery remains as popular a subject of literature today as it did when Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852.  Perhaps this is because slavery—at least the end of it—remains the one idea around which Americans today can unite."

[BarbStAubrey]

I am anxious to read the new David McCulloch book after seeing his interview with Charlie Rose last week - our connections to France are so much more than we are aware -

Next month we are discussing what or who is behind a mystery, centered around a French bookstore that stocks only 'Good Books' The  challenge is to figure out who is the culprit or culprits that arrange; an auto accident that lands a published author in the hospital, abducts into the forest another well respected author, a known alcholic who they force on him a bottle of liquer so that he ends up in a hospital and a couple of brutes stalk a third author, causing him during his daily walk to lay on the trail of the side of a mountain quacking with fear and the next day to run home as the brutes shout at him and taunt him. After the bookstore opens there are more outrageous attacks -

While reading this book we are treated to the author's many memorable quotes about reading - one gem after the other - The story centers on the opening of a bookstore and we are privy to all the decisions made by those creating a start-up business in Paris. (Steph didn't you own a bookstore - we need you - please...)

Won't your join us - July 1, when Mercie and I start the discussion of "The Novel Bookstore" by Laurence Cossé

Not sure I know how to do this but here is the URL for the pre-discussion -
http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=2267.0

We found so many bits and pieces in French sites about this book I am excited - The English reviews seem to have only copied from each other and missed so much that Laurence Cossé brings to our attention in one of the two videos that will be linked to the discussion where an interpreter sits by her side while our author explains her intent - this will be an adventure reading a literary style we have seldom explored. Come on over and enjoy the adventure.

[serenesheila]

So, I am a trust fund baby, at age 77!  It is totally unexpected.  Neither of my parents ever discussed their finances with me. That is why I took my adult children with me, to set up my revocable trust.  I wanted each of them to know what is in my trust, and what their share will be.

BABI, I ordered two of the Foundations of Western Civilization, because one of the sets begins with the later stages of the agricultural revolution, and ends with the age of discovery.  The second set begins where the first set leaves off.  The first set is taught by a professor of history, at Notre Dame University.  I would have liked to attend ND, but didn't, so this is the next best thing.  LOL

STEPH, I am getting all of the things you mentioned, in addition to the trust.  I want the whole package.

CAROLYN, thanks for all of that infortmation.  There is no special gentleman in my life, at the moment, but who knows what the future holds.  I do not think I would ever remarry, and he would have to be quite special to live with me!  I like my quiet life, and making my own decisions.  I once dated a man, who got upset with me, when I bought my first computer, and something else.  He told me that I should be more frugal with my money!  That was the end of him. LOL

Sheila

[Steph]

Sheila,, good for you. You are forging ahead with such joy and showing yourself how to do it.
I have taken both of my sons at different times with me to my broker. That way he knows them and they know him..I try not to keep secrets from them on money. My husband saw no reason for them to know, but I think it is fair for them to know what they will inherit and where assets are.
Probate.. sigh.. had to probate my Mothers estate and it took over  a year and she truly had very little to inherit.. Just sheer busy lawyer stuff.. Bah..

[Babi]

 Ah, I see, SHEILA. Not the same books, but a continuation. You do have
your work cut out for you, tho'.

  Starting Aug. 1, JoanP and I will be opening a discussion of Ivan Doig's
"Dancing at the Rascal Fair".   I read it a few months ago, and highly
recommend it. "Dancing at the Rascal Fair" is an engrossing tale of two Irish lads who immigrate from a small fishing village in Ireland to the harsh, but magnificent, Two Medicine country of Montana.  It offers the rigors of pioneering, humor,  harsh realities and the ups and downs of
love and friendship.  I hope you will want to join us.

[JoanP]

Babi, those two guys were Scottish.  There's a difference - my husband of the McGregor clan will be the first let you know   The area they settled was known as SCOTCH HEAVEN.
It is indeed a wonderful saga -  voted on by a majority of SeniorLearners for our August Book Club Online discussion.  Coming soon!

[bellemere]

Now I am intrigued by Harriet Beecher Stowe, must get down to see her house in Hartford.
anecdote:
I was coiming home from New York on the pokey Amtrak train, winter night, late, overheated railcar, and the conductor on the public address system called outk"Hartford next!  Welcome to Hartford Connecticut, home of Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott."
Alcott? I thougth.  No way.  then with the mike still on, he said to somone "What?  She wasn't?  then who arote Uncle Tom's Cabin?"
Voices from the passengers: HARRIET BEECHER STOWE!" 
Silence .  A few minutes later" Welcome to Hartford, the home of Mark Twain and HARRIET BEECHER STOWE!"

[rosemarykaye]

 

[BarbStAubrey]

local report -

All counties in the State of Texas qualify to file for agriculture assistance, according to an announcement by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

There are 213 counties designated as disaster-struck. Along with their contiguous counties, that brings the total 254 counties in the state into the qualification area because of drought, excessive heat, high winds and wildfires.

I'm thinking it may be time to get a copy of The Wind by Dorothy Scarborough - it is supposed to be about the loneliness of life in a small Texas town during the 1920's.The heroine goes mad from the incessant wind and drought - the realism was so great that many in Texas were up in arms saying the book was published to shed a bad light on living conditions on the land around Sweetwater in the late 1800s - The upshot is the book was made into a early black and white movie - I never have read the book and its time has come. While many of you have had too much rain we have had blustering winds and according to my grand boys up in Lubbock and other family in South Texas the wind has been hurricane force for months now.

I wonder Babi does the book we are doing in August include a time of drought and wind - it takes place in the West as I recall but I think the setting for the story is way up North someplace.

[mabel1015j]

If you want some FACTS about why we're having droughts and fires and floods, read Newsweek's article here, notice the tilte of the article is "are you ready for more":

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/05/29/are-you-ready-for-more.html

I capitalize "facts" in regard to those people who say there is no problem w/ climate change!?!

[MaryPage]

"I was not all that enchanted with his listing every known wild plant that could possibly be in that field. Definitely overkill." 

I had precisely the same reaction, Babi!

I am an avid long-time subscriber to and devourer of NEWSWEEK, and I agree those were great articles.

[kiwilady]

BelleMere I have a copy of Uncle Toms Cabin. Wanted my grandchildren to know about slavery. There is even today slavery in Africa ( children mainly- sold to plantation owners) and sex slavery all over the world. The sex slaves mainly come from Asia or ex iron curtain countries.

Quakers were big players in the fight against slavery both in the US and in England. My great grandmother was a Quaker and they certainly believe in equality for all mankind.

[Steph]

 Iam a Quaker, and we do believe in equality for all.. And of course, my big hot button... no war.. ever, no matter what.. And being fair to all.. and marching for everyones freedom.. Oh me.. lets just say that many Quaker are activists.

[kiwilady]

My great grandmother became a Quaker after a beloved son died in WW1. We believe he was executed for desertion. He was shell shocked and ran home to his mum from camp. He was a sensitive nervous boy and totally unsuited for warfare. I am also anti war although I believe in protecting our shores if invaded. My great Uncle was only 19 when he died. His mum still wept when she told his story so many years later when I was a teenager. My grandpa a brave soldier in WW1 begged me on his deathbed to bring my son up to be a pacifist.

Steph I am also a social activist. I email and lobby govt. write to newspapers so I guess I am an armchair activist.


Carolyn