I know that joyful, but it's all a part of being healthy. If we live long enough we will all probably have cancer. I found this article very interesting. Man, Environment And Life Expectancy By Edward Grimsley In the beginning, the air and all the rivers, lakes, and oceans were clean and pure. And darkness was upon the face of the deep much of the time. Man spent most of his time looking for food and shelter, and shivering, clothing made from fig leaves not being very warm. Finally, he learned that animals were useful not only as food but also to provide clothing and shelter, since their pelts and hides could be used for cloaks and tents and so forth. He became a hunter and hunted all the time without a twinge of remorse, since there was no animal\-rights movement to tell him he was doing wrong. So he roamed the earth, searching for food and shelter, breathing the pure air and drinking the pure water. He had plenty of room to roam, for the Earth was not crowded in those pristine and prehistoric days. The average life span, you see, was only 18 years. Man limited his activity to the daylight hours, of course, since he had no light strong enough to dispel the darkness that covered the face of the deep several hours of each day. He was in bed by sundown, which means that he spent much of his short life in unconscious sleep. Over the centuries, life changed. Man discovered the fire, which provided heat and light. True, it burned forests, and occasionally human beings, but people decided the advantages of fire more than offset its dangers. Through the years, more and more people began to live in permanent villages, towns, and cities. They dumped their garbage into the streets and nearby streams and rivers. Thus they invented pollution. And life expectancy rose, reaching 30 years by Roman Times. Man continued to develop and change. Eventually he invented candles. Then he discovered that lamps fueled by oil, from whatever source, produced stronger light than candles. Since whales were a good sourced of lamp oil, people killed a lot of whales in those days. But there was less darkness upon the face of the deep. People could even see to read at night. Hardly anyone spoke out in defense of whales. In the 18th and 19th centuries, man moved into the Industrial Age. This featured factories that filled the air with black smoke and poured new pollutants into the rivers and lakes. Man breathed poison 24 hours a day. His live expectancy jumped to about 40 years. Miracle followed miracle. The industrial revolution led to the internal combustion engine in automobiles. Soon there were millions of these vehicles running about the globe spewing fumes into the air. Somebody invented cigarettes. With factory smokestacks, cigarettes, and automobiles filling the air with foul particles, lungs didnt know what fresh air felt like. Since the internal combustion engines and the factory furnaces and the power generators needed fuel, man drilled for oil and transported it hither and yon. Now and then he spilled some, polluting the rivers, lakes, and oceans. And his life expectancy soared beyond 60 years. And so it has gone most of this century. Good lighting provided by generators powered by coal, oil and nuclear energy has dispelled much of the darkness from the face of the deep, which means people no longer have to lie down when the sun does. Factories have produced machines that have made life easier and richer than prehistoric man ever thought it could be. Once forced to spend most of his waking moments merely to obtain the necessities of life, man now has leisure time in abundance. He can play at home or, if he chooses, hop aboard an airplane and fly to another playground on the other side of the globe in a matter of hours. And his life expectancy is about 75 years. From all this, it would appear that pollution is manÂs best friend, since the dirtier the environment, the longer he lives, and the more he prospers. Pollution actually is a very bad thing, however as the experts have been telling us for days in observance of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Civilization is doomed, they warn, unless people cleanup the air and water, stop smoking cigarettes, stop cutting down old trees, save the spotted owl, and recycle everything. Exactly how man can restore the purity of the air and waters and preserve the forests while retaining all the benefits of industrialization and technological progress is not clear. But future generations probably will have time to figure it out. Experts predict that babies born in this highly polluted year of 1990 may live an average of 110 years. Distributed by Heritage Features Syndicate.

Two questions and answers, copied and pasted from the Social Security Administration web site: Question How long must you be married to a spouse to collect benefits when the spouse dies? Answer A person can qualify for widow's or widower's benefits if he or she was married to the deceased worker for at least the 9 months just before the worker died. (A surviving divorced spouse must have been married to the worker for 10 years immediately before the date the final divorce became effective.) The 9-month duration-of-marriage requirement is waived if the insured person's death was accidental or if it occurred in the line of duty while he or she was a member of a uniformed service serving on active duty or if the widow(er) who was married to the insured person at the time of the insured's death was previously married to and divorced from him or her and the previous marriage had lasted 9 months; or if the worker was precluded from divorcing a prior institutionalized spouse under State law and married the widow(er) claimant within 60 days after the prior spouse's death. The first three of these exceptions to the 9-month duration-of-marriage requirement do not apply if at the time of the marriage the worker could not reasonably have been expected to live for 9 months. The insured person's death is defined as accidental only if he or she received bodily injuries through violent, external, and accidental means and, as a direct result of the bodily injuries and independent of all other causes, died within 3 months after the day on which the injuries were received. AS an alternative to the 9-month duration-of-marriage requirement and exceptions, a claimant may qualify as the worker's widow(er) if he or she:  Is the biological parent of the worker's biological child;  While married to the worker, legally adopted his/her child before the child attained age 18;  Is the parent of a child who was legally adopted by the worker while married to the claimant and before the child attained age 18; or  Was married to the worker at the time both of them legally adopted a child under age 18. Question If I receive widow's benefits and remarry, how does this affect my benefits? Answer In general, you cannot receive survivors benefits if you remarry before the age of 60 unless the latter marriage ends, whether by death, divorce, or annulment. If you remarry after age 60 (50 if disabled), you can still collect benefits on your former spouse's record. When you reach age 62 or older, you may get retirement benefits on the record of your new spouse if they are higher. Your remarriage would have no effect on the benefits being paid to your children.

I worked for the Social Security Administration for over 30 years. Social Security does a hell of a lot of good. I know personally because Medicare pays for my kidney dialysis. If anyone is worried about waste and fraud, you can report it by calling 1 800 772 1213 or going online on www SSA gov and look for the "report fraud" button, leading to the Office of the Inspector General. Examples of fraud would be someone buying or selling Social Security cards, working while disabled (a guy who collects Disability who can cut his lawn and play golf doesn't count), not reporting a death and cashing that person's Social Security checks afterwards, and receiving mothers/father checks for a child under 18 who doesn't have custody are examples. And don't blame Seniors or Social Security employees for the cheaters.

I think Social Security will be bankrupt pretty soon. As Rosemary pointed out, most people are collecting far more than they ever put in and it can't be sustained. But you also can't shut people off because for a vast majority of seniors, it's their only income. I suspect there will be reform in the future. Not because the government actually cares about grandma and grandpa but because there's a huge portion of the electoral base who will be pretty angry if they lose their benefits or are told there's nothing left. THAT will be the only thing that dictates a change - fear of losing an election. As a disclosure I'll say I'm not talking about anyone in this thread and I'm not angry at people who receive SS. It's the plan and it's unfairness that bothers me. Just general annoyance at having money stolen from me every paycheck under the promise that it will support me in 40 years when I need it. Yeah right. And yes, I do consider it stealing because it's mandatory and there is NO guarantee that it will be available when you're due to collect. The irony is that if it were a private company running this instead of the government, I don't think it would be legal! Imagine the electric company deciding to collect $100 extra from everyone every month. This is a mandatory charge but they say that in another 20 years, you will never have to pay another electric bill. However, there's small print saying that you will only get free electric if there is any money left to cover it, and if the money is gone, you will have to keep paying for your own electric and all of the previous tens of thousands that was collected from you will not be returned. Can you say lawsuit? lol