WHEN'S TH BEST TIME TO DIE?

"Houston, we have a problem up here. Only it's taking place down there....!"

That warning didn't actually occur on the last Shuttle flight, but it very well could have. Because what those young astronauts were looking down on is a population revolution. Something no one has ever experienced before. The aging of our world so rapidly there won't be enough young people left to sustain it.

Until the 20th century, we were dying off at average ages between 35 and 45. When in 1935 Roosevelt's New Deal passed our first old-age pension plan (Social Security), most of us were still dying off in our early 60s. Well before Social Security kicked in at 65. But now in developed countries we're living longer than our pension plans calculated. Which means we're starting to outlive the funds we were courting on to live.

Our species has this astonishing way of shooting itself in the foot time and time again. We're always coming up with new was to kill each other off, pollute our planet, turn religions into rage. Now -- with supreme irony -- we've figured out how to live longer than we can afford to.

The answer to this socio-economic-philosophical crisis is clear -- we've got to more realistically manage our politicians' pension and healthcare promises . Europe has done a better job than we have, because we have this hubristic myth that as Americans we have the inalienable right to everything....! And without paying for it....! And when a president happens along to explain why that's lunacy, the critics call him crazy.

While the fully-pensioned politicians debate this mess in Washington, back here on the ranch we're already feeling the early ripple effects. Slashed pension coverage...older age requirements....fewer early if any retirements... and lots more gray-haired folks counting coupons in restaurants and stores while impatient youngsters grumble about all the old geezers in their world.

In ancient cultures, age was equated with wisdom and honor. Try sharing that thought with the young bucks on Wall Street, the gangs in city schools, the shoving crowds at Wrigley, and the bikers and joggers on Sundays. The inter-generational warfare some predicted back in the 90s hasn't broken out. Still, there is this simmering tension between geezer and gusto.

As America (much of the world as well) ages by the billions, every institution from government to education to religion needs to make serious mid-course adjustments.A few ugly years ago there was a governor in Colorado who proposed planned euthanasia for those of us becoming too costly to keep living. He probably never heard playwright Thornton Wilder's paean to age: "The highest tribute to the dead is not grief, but gratitude."

What better time to pay that tribute than while we geezers are still with you..?