If you want to read this exceedingly long New Yorker opinion, put article title in your search bar and read from a different source. Lots of poor grammer.

The writer saw what he wanted to see. Did he invesigate the numerous support groups here, the charitable clubs, The Villages symphony, jazz and other musical groups? Politics was way over-emphasized.

Here is the article copied to an open web site, minus the photos. Please read it, and judge for yourself.

The ‘Disney’ for Boomers Puts Hedonism on Full Display

Opinion | The ‘Disney’ for Boomers Puts Hedonism on Full Display - News-Universe

Fully concur.

I have hit my FREE limit. No money from me.

Excellent summary.

Ya know, the liberals think "THEY" are center spectrum, so it would appear to be a well-balanced article. To them.

The rest of us that know better, realize they sit at about 3 on a 1-10 scale where Stalin was a 1, Bernie Sanders is a 2, and Milton Friedman was a 10.

the Times and anyone else can write whatever they wish to about The Villages....they're only interested in a story

I happen to enjoy living here

Spoken by a FOX News lover. LoL

Which poster? There are so many.

Agreed!
 

Nor will they get my email and password!

spoken like an over the hill 'woke' CNN lover ...lol

You mean grammar?

It’s attached as a PDF in post number 7.

The New York Times deserves to be sued for stating Villagers get STD’s. It’s outrageous, arrogant, despicable and untrue.

I'm flattered!
 

I don't remember talking to the NYT but they (and this comment) describe me exactly
Thank you. . .

I found the article to be very politically charged. I for one feel very safe here and can go and do what I want without the fear that I feel in my northern home.. I’m “Senager”…a senior who is older but still views life as I did as a teenager.. trying not to be afraid of what lies ahead….

Read the article and found that the author is like so many people who complain - too many white people, too many Republicans, too many drunks, not diverse enough. He sprinkles in people are nice and friendly, but is quick to add they'll give you the finger. I don't know the purpose of the article at all. I moved here for a reason. If everything here was the same as my old "home", I wouldn't have left everything and everyone and moved. It has what I want and I love it. When someone thinks they have the right to tell me where I should live and who I should live by, I get angry. If you live here and don't like the community makeup, go live where you want, in a place that has what you want. If I don't want to live by you, I won't buy a home there. If you don't want to live by me or people like me, don't buy a home here. If you want more diversity, go somewhere else. If you want kids surrounding you, go somewhere else. If you want to look at sofas in your front yard or cars up on cement bricks, there are lots of places to go. This is a 55+ community full of people who want to live the life we live, not an experiment in anything goes. Oh, and thanks for the compliment on our yards and the landscaping in The Villages.

Not really - since all the people who are "woke" (do people even know what that means or do they just spew the term like vomitus force-fed to them by their master) will congregate and turn it into a box-office smash.

The point of the article is that this community is still occupied by the baby boomers, who came here wanting very specific things, looking for very specific nostalgia, and willing to isolate themselves from anything in the outside world that threatened their vision of their idea of paradise in retirement.

And - that the baby boomers are starting to be replaced by the next generation, which has a different idea of nostalgia (see the whines in other threads on music choices in the squares). Which has an interest in different things (see the whines in other threads about white crosses on lawns and maintaining conservative "christianity" at all costs).. and different idea of paradise (see whines about apartments being built).

Like it or not, the older half of the boomer generation is already in assisted living communities or on their way, if not already dead. The younger half of the generation were at the ground level of new trends, new interests, new perceptions of the world.

I'm in that second half. I was born in 1961, one of the youngest and last years of the boomer generation. I am for diversity, differences, culture, the Arts, progressive political discourse that results in improvements rather than regression to the "good ole days" when women who were raped would either be forced to give birth to their rapist's spawn, or die in a back alley trying to stop the pregnancy, and white men could torture and beat a black boy to death and the police wouldn't even TRY to investigate it until two months later.

My half of the generation loves 50s music too. But we don't love 50's politics. We don't love 50s propaganda. We don't love 50s post-war struggles. We don't love 50s lily white facade of perfection and starched shirts. And we're taking over, and there's really nothing the older half can do about it since as I said - they're already in assisted living, heading there, or dead.

Typical biased based opinion piece by NYT. Instead of spreading article research around to get a broader understanding author focused on one area that supported original brainless thoughts. Even used baseless aged articles (STDs) to support hedonistic headline.

Only good thing about this article is that it may keep left-wingers from moving here!

reading that drivel is several minutes of my life I'd like to have back

I read The NY Times daily, but I usually don’t read the author of this opinion piece because I disagree with her left wing politics and get annoyed. In general, however, this piece is pretty accurate. If you read it with an open mind and actually live here, you would probably think the same. Here are a couple thought-provoking paragraphs:

“But the parades and games and clubs, most definitely the political ones, also give people a sense of belonging and purpose — of still being able to make a difference. Whatever their ideological persuasion, residents are constantly reminded that civic engagement matters. That they matter. Like at all retirement communities, the social life at the Villages tackles head-on the scourges of isolation, despair and loneliness that are eating away at so many Americans as the nation’s social fabric frays. In a culture that can feel as though it is leaving seniors behind, the Villages is designed to bring people together. And despite the at times harrowing political warfare, the community largely succeeds in doing so — even if it isn’t always easy.”

“Surrounded by people at a similar life stage, many with similar values, Villagers can maintain a distance from the demographic and cultural changes reshaping the nation and from many of its more intractable problems. Crime, inequality, homelessness, climate change, racial strife, the high cost of child care and college — these are challenges for other communities to grapple with. Other generations even. Big Government is eyed with skepticism, even as the aging populace commands an increasingly larger chunk of the federal budget for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. So long as taxes stay low and the golf courses stay open, Villagers can stay focused on living the dream. They have earned this retreat, dammit. The escapism is the point. And escapism, by definition, means separating oneself from unsettling trends and people.”

These are reasons I love it here.

You nailed it.

Very true. Typical nyt article.

Fair and balanced is not part of their vocabulary

I thought the article was basically true. Most of the author’s observations, good & bad, I have seen myself. The summary was not political. It was that we want the opportunity to enjoy the time we have left.

As another post noted, the STD bit should not have been included. That would be my main criticism

Seriously? Virtually every paragraph has a political reference. Try reading it again.

Exactly. People come here to enjoy the end of their lives in a comfortable, stress free non-confrontational environment. They all have been through enough of that by this time in their lives. Call it wax nostalgic or going back to a time in America now vanquished and to many of us were this countries best years but no one should be shamed for wanting it

Thanks for posting!
 

Thank you for allowing us to actually read the article!

ditto.

We can't opt out of world problems. Because when we decide to vote, that has an influence on the direction of the world. People CAN ignore world problems, but that will not make them go away.

Those were the best years. The US had a large middle class - good years for the middle class. Today we have good years for the upper, upper, upper class. How and why did that change. The Village is a great place to ask and answer that question. Maybe there should be more articles about The Village, not less. It would be nice if social scientists from different Universities would come and study the people here. It might answer where and when America was great and how to best return to that overall (not perfect) time period when the middle class was dominate.

Wow that wasn't my takeaway at all. But if the shoe fits...

LOL! S/he "swooped" right down into that one! :1rotfl:

I think the board may have been lost to the political crazies………….

OK, let's see:

The reporter hung out at City Fire and interviewed the president of the Democratic Club----hardly a complete picture. He cites 4 instances of apparent voter fraud that may be the only 4 Republicans to defraud the system, EVER, as opposed to the thousands of dead people who manage to vote every election for you know who.

He cites the wacko woman who yelled "white power", but no mention of the total nut job who has been arrested multiple times for stalking a Trump supporter

He referred to TV as a "MAGA circus"

Here's another excerpt:
"Even seniors who have no business driving anymore zip around like teenage joy riders, say
residents. Crashes are not uncommon, and visitors are warned to watch out for bad drivers — and drunk ones. One afternoon during my
visit, Marsha Shearer, a board member for the Democratic club, emails that a friend and fellow board member had witnessed a doozy of a
wreck by what appeared to be a highly intoxicated driver. “She was also an anti-vaxxer and a very belligerent Trumper who kept
screaming over and over again ‘I’m not vaccinated’” and cursing President Biden, the friend, Sue Dubman, reported. The police
eventually came to deal with the mess."

And this one:
"And for years, the community has fought its reputation (based in
part on a 2008 book) as a den of sexual iniquity, where seniors get jiggy in golf carts and S.T.D.s run rampant."

Or this:
"Here, baby boomers still reign supreme, in a place that caters to some of their most self-absorbed, self-indulgent impulses. "

He even managed to work in the myth of "climate change" into his article

Now, please tell me how this article was not biased again.

What the previous post?:1rotfl:

Viking, you and I are totally on the same page on this. Wow, we want to get away from the woke hellholes in the North, what a shock.

Let me add one thing for you. I am Mexican, and I am so annoyed with all the Lilly white liberal woke reporters who have to mention the lack of racial diversity. WHO THE HECK CARES? I have several black and hispanic friends in TV, and they and I say the same thing - there is less prejudice in TV than anywhere else. For some reason, not a lot of Minorites have chosen TV, nobody is keeping them out. Not a lot of Minorities live in a lot of places, they don't want to.

It is amazing how they never write articles about places like Milwaukee where you are looked down on if you are NOT a woke liberal democrat, and crime runs rampant. Not a lot of diversity there either where in about a 10 square mile area there are no White people. The most segregated city in the USA in fact - run by liberals for 100 years - an eyesore and a hellhole except for the 3rd and 5th ward that have been gentrified.

As far as I am concerned, the less wokeness the better.

Thank God for The Villages.

Did the article hit on the negative stereotypes? Sure it did but one thing to remember, stereotypes are usually based on some reality. Many of the responses in this thread support the stereotypes.

Is the article biased? Perhaps, but it was not intended as a fair-and-balanced article, it is an opinion piece. The content was certainly chosen to support the headline, that's how opinion pieces work.

Was any of it incorrect or was it just uncomfortably close to home? Nothing in the article was news to me, I have either read about the items in the local papers or in this forum or I have experienced them myself. I read it through again and still didn't notice any false statements.

Did the article paint a fair picture of the Villages? It did a good job of covering the first impressions that most would have. There is more to the Villages than just what was in the article but you need to spend some time here to see that.