A recent headline story on the Drudge Report front page claims that a researcher named Aubrey de Grey made an incredible statement. His organization, Studies at Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), says medical advances to create long lifespans are almost here — and could actually include some of today’s newborns.
Hey, Aubrey, it isn’t news. According to Genesis, didn’t an ancient guy named Methuselah almost make it by lasting 969 years? Pondering the report, my first response to the new prediction would be to show my utter disbelief by creating another pseudoscience lab called nonSENS.
OK, just maybe some kind of long-living undead Frankenstein creature could be created. It wouldn’t make any difference in mankind’s future. The studious lab nerds should realize that we are permanently infected with a never-ending urge to destroy ourselves by war, and constantly doing it by creating increasingly newer and more powerful weapons?
Therefore, it isn’t likely that the potential 1,000-year-old man or anyone else on this troubled planet will ever live past the ultimate nuclear explosion.
And we all know it will inevitably be detonated by some radical religious freak anticipating his postmortem reward of 72 Kardashians.
Despite my negative attitude about the predictions of 10-century-old humans, it does create interesting scenarios this almost-90-year-old scribbler is pondering. First, it brings back fond memories of the great comedy routines of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, titled “The Two Thousand-Year-Old Man.”
My favorite is Mel’s old-guy sad lament that over the centuries he has begat hundreds of children, but not one of them ever picks up the phone to call their loving dad. While I couldn’t match Mel’s creativity in considerably more than 2,000 years, here are several attempts in the form of questions:
Will Justin Bieber still be squawking teenage love songs at age 21 x 10? Or Madonna at age whatever X 1o?
Must you be 650 to qualify for Social Security?
Is it OK for a 120-year-old Boy Scout to help a little 999-year-old lady cross the street?
Will kids have to wait until they’re 160 to get drivers’ licences and age 180 to buy booze?
Will licenses be forbidden for drivers over age 700?
When will Hillary Clinton be considered too old to run for president?
I dare not even attempt to ask a question about Bill Clinton’s advanced age-old activities.
Ted Sherman is a contributing journalist for TheBlot Magazine. He will turn 90 on Aug. 8. He’s a U.S. Navy vet who served in World War II and the Korean War, and after a lifetime of writing for other people, he’s now sharing his opinions with the world at large for various publications and on his blog 90 Is The New Black. It’s a daily rant on current news, sports, health, travel, careers, entertainment, sports, relationships and, of course, problems of advanced age.
