It is no surprise, then, when somebody tells us that 3,000,000 or so people have a disease, or a condition, or are doing something, we panic. Three million is a lot of people, after all! I certainly wouldn't want to invite 3 million of my nearest and dearest friends to supper some evening, unless perhaps I was using my suburb and two neighboring suburbs to build the table.
Let's put numbers in perspective. As many as it might be, 3 million residents in the US and 3 million residents in Mexico and 3 million residents in Canada might be people, but we are talking apples and oranges as far as comparisons.
Three million Americans (because calling them "United Statians" is klutzy) means devoting space to approximately 1% of the population, just 600,000 short. On the other hand, three million Mexicans (living in Mexico, this is not about illegal immigration) would mean a little less than 3% of the population. When Canadians talk about 3 million people, they are serious, because the population of Canada is NINE times less than the United States, and the percentage comes out to about 9%.
What's this got to do with the price of Tea in Beijing?
The Media reports facts and figures thrown at the average person at an alarming rate. Our respective governments are quick to quote figures, especially when they wants its citizenry to support or not support an action or a bill, again in a rapid fire fashion. All that information can create anxiety, even depression that perhaps the world is going to Hell in a hand basket, and very quickly, too.
I once conducted a totally unscientific experiment. I first listened to two hours of Fox News in the background of my home, and recorded my impressions. I take a conservative to libertarian approach to life, so a lot of Fox's content does not cause me angst. However, the constant bing-bang of factoids, or doom and gloom, did have an effect on my mood.
The next day, I listened to two hours of CNN as my white noise. Here, the angst became apparent within ten minutes of the listening period.
The third day, I listened to Fox in one room and CNN in the other as I wandered the house, doing my usual. The angst was reduced, and I think I brought new meaning to the term Fair and Balanced. I still got agitated, and I still became depressed.it was only on the fourth day, when I left Style in one room and Watercolor Jazz in the other, that I achieved a calming effect.
The big clue in this is my group of subjects- ONE, UNO, EINS, UNE. This was just little old me. I didn't even have a control group.
I'm not saying we should live in a Care Bears world, where cookies rain from the sky and everybody is happy. I'm not saying the world does not have its problems, because it does. I'm not even saying we shouldn't listen to the news of whatever stripe we choose.
But we need to pay attention to what we hear. The young ones are just as guilty of this as the middle aged and the seniors. We don't pay attention to what we hear and read. We don't analyze. We don't cogitate. We hear, and we react. Too often our reaction is fear.
Long before I completed the military's journalism course, and some time before I explored high school journalism with 3,999 of my closest friends and fellow inmates, Sister Mary Christine advised our fourth grade class of the four Ws and one H. They are:
- WHO. Just who said or did this?
- WHAT? What exactly was said or done?
- WHEN? Was it yesterday? Last week? In the 3rd century BC?
- WHERE? In Canada? Mexico? Bahrain? Iraq? China? The United Center?
- HOW? With a crowbar? With a doctor? Through a straw? Using a needle?
We were told that WHY was not sufficiently impartial, and all news reports had to be impartial. If colored our news with why, then we had an editorial.
I urge you to apply those four Ws and one H every time you hear what is presented to you as fact. Perhaps it is fact, but perhaps it is also distorted fact. I challenge you to restore that distorted fact to its original shape. Put it in context. Ask yourself a fifth W, WHY, as in, "Why would somebody want me to believe what they are telling me, why would the teller distort my perception?"As an added bonus, I am giving you a link to a calculator that not only translates easily percentages into whole numbers, but clarifies ratios into percentages.
http://www.onlineconversion.com/percentcalc.htm
To give you some practice, I'll link you with some news articles and factoids, and see if you can tell me why things are not as they might appear, or we are being led to appear.
- The Israeli Election Was Rigged Against Liberals- Ms. Livni's party won 28 seats. Mr. Netanyahu won 27. There are 120 seats in the Knesset. 120 -28=92 seats. 92-27=65. Why is Mr. Netanyahu forming the new government in Israel? Why is this important to North America, especially the United States? http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-13-voa30.cfm http://www.knesset.gov.il/faction/eng/FactionMain_eng.asp http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061917.html
- Poverty in Mexico Means Illegal Immigration Is Necessary- Use these links to determine if indeed, as some claim, half the population of Mexico lives in poverty, and there are no jobs at all in Mexico. If so, how impoverished are those in poverty in Mexico compared to the rest of the Mexican population? What do people do for a living in Mexico besides farm, run cantinas and engage in street trade? How does that poverty compare to illegal emigration to the United States? Justified? Not? Why? World Bank Information Mexico http://www.indexmundi.com/mexico/population_below_poverty_line.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mx.html
- The United States Is In A Depression, And The Whole Dang World Is Going To Starve Unless We Not Only Adopt, But Fully Support The Plan The Present Administration Put Before Us- What is a depression? What is a panic? How many people this month are unemployed? How many people were unemployed last month? What percentage is that compared to the total US population? What is the percentage of the US population that is retired, house people (domestic engineers), or only seeks casual employment? How many residents of the United States are children? How do these figures relate to the population of the United States as a whole? Why does the Media want us to believe that part of stimulating the economy means including entitlement packages and government restructure? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html http://www.bls.gov/CPS/ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html#People http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en
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