runlindsayrun

300,000,000

So I watched the three hundred millionth American enter the world the other morning, live on television.

This amused me for a couple of reasons:
1. Who's to say the three hundred millionth citizen was a baby? It was just as likely an immigrant. But I suppose the news footage wouldn't have been as cute.
2. Um, did anyone else notice that the baby was all cleaned up already? I doubt it was born that way. And if it took them longer than 11 seconds to clean him up and set up the cameras, then I doubt he was the three hundred millionth citizen - it was some other kid in some other city. Or an immigrant (see point #1).
3. There was no way they had camera crews set up in every hospital in the country, and that every hospital was in touch with the news bureaus so that they'd KNOW when that baby was being born. And what about home births? Or immigrants? :)

And at the end of the day, it's all just a stupid estimate. But let's make it a major news event, shown live in other countries! What a ridiculous world we live in. I'm adding it to my list of Things That Don't Make Sense.

And on the list of Things That Make Me Sad, there was another counter in the news this week. I watched as the Japanese set their clock that marks the number of days since a nuclear test back to 0. Which brings me to more Things That Don't Make Sense. But I'll save that for another blog post.

L

posted by Lindsay @ 9:03 AM