DAY 97: BILLIONS OF PEOPLE

     The world population reached 7 billion yesterday.  Try to get your heads around that.  While you’re doing that I’ll scream “PLANETARIUM.”  I hate the planetarium.  (And if I ever get on the show Inside the Actors Studio, my least favorite world will be “planetarium.”  Similar to how Sean Penn’s favorite curse word was “dentist.”)  I hate how when you’re there and looking up at some pie graph on the ceiling, the guide tells you how the time humans have been on this earth is equivalent to 24 hours or some other very small time increment as compared to the time the world has existed.  It makes one feel insignificant (I’m not disagreeing that we’re anything but insignificant, but a couple hours at the planetarium listening to that garbage makes me feel terrible and has led to my incredible fear of death.  So if I ever have kids their dad can volunteer for the field trips and take them to the planetarium.  There’s no freaking way I’m going there.)

     Back to the 7 billion; that’s a lot of people to consider.  Oddly, the owner of the company where I work recently asked me how many people I thought had actually lived on this planet at one time or another.  I chose not to scream PLANETARIUM in his face, but instead to answer.  I don’t remember my response, but it was much larger than the actual number, which I think is 107 billion. 

     As another aside, some of the powers that be think that the seven billionth person was born in India, since so many babies are born there per minute.  The baby was a girl.  India’s actually appointing 7 girl babies to symbolize the 7 billion.  It’s interesting the country chose girls, and probably a good thing, because many girl children are never born due to abortion. Many Indian families choose not to have girls due to the cultural importance imparted onto male children.  When pregnant women learn of their baby’s female gender they (or their families make the decision to abort) abort the female fetuses.  That’s another lovely topic you might need some time to get your head around.  But I do think that sonograms have been outlawed now due to how common the practice was becoming...