FOREWORD
It is my belief that, amongst many things a good journalist should possess, one aspect is absolutely paramount: the ability to grasp the big truths by translating real-life pictures into words. My way of expressing such ideas is aimed at capturing the essence of the ineffable reality.
Media Stupidity
Last night I was watching The Bubble Decade, a CNBC documentary about one of the most dramatic decades in the history of America’s financial markets. These days, I noticed that many TV channels come up with various shows about the first decade of the 21st century. According to them, on December 31st 2009, the first decade draws to a close. Time flies. Ten years ago, I was living in London and I recall how the whole world partied down like never before in celebration of the beginning of a new millennium. Back then, I could have bet all my money that stupidity and ignorance on this subject would vanish for good. Unfortunately, the people who could not pass the moron test in 1999 are practically the same people that preach us that this decade ends in 2009. It is obvious for every person who legally owns a brain that the 3rd millennium started on January 1, 2001 and the current decade ends on December 31, 2010. So, 01/01/2001 is the start of the new millennium because there is no year 0. The calendar jumps from the year 1 BC to the year 1 AD because there is no Roman numeral for zero. When you start counting from 1 and end at 1000, the next series of a thousand begins at 1001 and goes through 2000. So the year 2000 marks the end of the second millennium on the Gregorian calendar. The same logic applies for a decade period of time: the year 2010 marks the end of the first decade.
Never underestimate the power of uneducated people!
The Fat Nation
Nowadays I was riding the New York subway during the morning rush-hour time. As usual the train was packed. While stepping-in and glancing from a distance, I noticed four people sitting on a 6-seat bench section. Mesmerizing and equally shocking fact: when approaching the bench I realized that there were only four people using the entire space. There were three morbidly obese people and a regular but extremely squeezed guy. As an intellectual exercise, let’s use some probability theory now. With 25 lines in service, NY subway is averaging over 5.25 million riders on weekdays. Assuming ten 6-seat benches per subway car, the probability of 3 people seating on the same bench is 1 percent. According to the Center for Disease Control, New York City’s class III obesity rate – people with Body Mass Index over 40, reads a level of 2.4 percent. Bottom line, the probability of finding three high-BMI people sitting on the same bench is close to 1 in 4,200 cases. Counting 250 business days per year, it will take another 17 years to witness a similar strange coincidence.
Something is telling me that it will take much less than that to get shocked again.
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