Non-old Americans do not typically believe in euthanasia for everybody over 65 or 70, but a great many would agree with Pudd'nhead Wilson that "it is better to be a young Junebug than an old bird of paradise." The American worship of youthfulness, which has made big industries of facelift surgery and the hair dye trade, may seem vain but essentially harmless. Yet it has a seamier side. One outgrowth of the nation's aversion to aging has been a tendency to look askance at, and often down on, people in the later years of...
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