USCF Dues $588 Per Year?

I was enjoying flipping through my copy of the June 2007 Chess Life magazine, with its nice articles, interviews and photos.

Then I came to page 13, which contains an ad which begins, "Get Chess Life for $49 a month." At this point, I was especially thankful that I've been a USCF Life Member for quite some time.

Let's see... $49 per month works out to $588 per year. I do enjoy having membership benefits, including an annual subscription to Chess Life, but $588 ...

On the other hand, this might help improve the USCF's financial condition. Say the USCF has 30,000 full dues-paying members. Now we've got $17,640,000 coming in each year. Hello, fully endowed U.S. Championship! Maybe we could create the new CNN - Chess News Network.

I'm all for it. Especially as a Life Member.