Boomer rock critics need to tend to eyesight

About 3.3 million Americans 40 and over are blind or have low vision,
newspaper rock critics among them.

Some causes of blindness and vision impairment, such as cataracts, which are common in rock critics over 40, are easily treated with surgery and medications, including vitamins. Jim Dooley, a rock
critic at the Cleveland Daily Crapper said steady doses of ascorbic acid, a regimen advocated by Linus Pauling, had kept him from going blind.

"The fire was still in my belly to see exciting MTV and Fuse rock videos," said Dooley. "Obviously, if I just sat on my fat ass and let cataracts steal my vision, the Crapper would have been right to
shitcan me."

"If we live long enough, we're all going to get cataracts," agrees
Freddy Foont, rock critic for USA Today. "Now, you're not going to
be able to go to shows where there are kids with that. They'll see
your white, cloudy eyes and when they read your by-line on Nick Lachey or Jessica Simpson, they'll just drop that newspaper and never pick
it up again because they know you couldn't possibly have seen what they
did."

USA Today's health plan pays for the cost of cataract surgery, added
Foont.

Others think there is little cause for alarm.

"I don't necessarily think it's true that newspapers are skewing toward only young people with 20/20 vision," says Harry Klam,
a Washington Post critic who was quitting to cover the Paris
teenpop scene for the International Herald Tribune. "That said, however, I think that newspapers are paying more attention
to the eyesight of their writers. There's pressure to be
competitive and that means having the fittest employees, vision
included. And not just with other newspapers but also everything from the Billboard charts to television news media, to entertainment magazines.

"No one likes to see people with those big black
oversized anti-glare glasses or even mere coke bottles. It casts the impression you're infirm, possibly in need of rubber pants. It's a reader turn-off."

You're going blind if you let it sit; but would
you mind mind if you were an idiot? -- Hey! Hey!