Perhaps having a conversation with Voltaire, or attending a recital by Mozart, or even listening to a humorous performance by Mark Twain.

But bloggers wouldn’t need to blog anymore, because we’d all be telepathic. ;-)

–Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA Contest

These goals may be laudable, but surely the ethics of ‘radically’ increasing healthy human lifespans will be fertile ground for discussion.

Might I suggest that on our pilgrimage to ‘drink’ from the real Holy Grail–the fountain of eternal Life, that we stop along the way to consider more immediate strategies to obtain longer, healthier lives:

1)reduce our per capita consumption of animal protein

2)eliminate saturated-, polyunsaturated-, and trans- fats from our diets

3)make a conscious effort to exercise more, even in ways as prosaic as parking farther from the mall entrance

These simple measures alone would be a great boon to the quality of life for so many people in the United States, and might even result in a per capita increase in the length of their chromosomal telomeres, ensuring a longer, healthier life for almost anyone willing to make the effort.

All this could be done without the ‘benefit’ of dealing with the ethical consequences of perhaps too-long human lives. Besides, if Social Security is headed for a train wreck on its present course, what the hell will we do if the rich are living to be 150?

I have no doubt that a sesquicentenarian George W. Bush would call for lowering their taxes.