Feeling small

Well, this is my neighborhood...actually it also includes the surrounding four neighborhoods as well. That's just it...this is only a thumbprint of my immediate area, a thumbprint. The more you zoom out the smaller (obviously) it all becomes - the smaller we become. This isn't revelation or anything, I'm not that obtuse but every so often, don't you just look at your hand or pinch your flesh and go, "Wow! I exist?!" I did it a lot as a child and would sometimes sort of freak myself out. Just a ripple in the after affects of a pebble tossed in water. I don't know I just like to go there and recognize just how insignificant we can be - it doesn't take away the responsibility of things we can change and ought to - we can make SIGNIFICANT contributions but in the whole of things we are still remaining quite insignificant. Fabulous, isn't it?

Anyway, this all sort of came about from a discussion I had last week about a new book, Freakonomics. One of the topics was why the crime rate had dropped so much in the past few years...what was the leading cause? Yes! What WAS the leading cause? Was it the polititians or congress creating tougher punishments? Were more prisons built avoiding pre-releasing repeat offenders? Did it drop because technology has made things more difficult? Want to know?????
YEA, come ON already!

According to Freakonomics, the decrease in crime rate was due to the population percentage being less than normal. Roe-V-Wade took place just over 20 years ago and because of abortion being legalized, more of them took place therefore the number of children were less and they would have been at the common age of mischief therefore a reduction in crime. The crime rate hasn't necessarily dropped but there are fewer people to commit them which by numbers, reduced the crime rate. Make sense? Well it does but I may just suck at explaining it. Go to Amazon and pick up a used copy or support your local used bookstore dealer....RECYCLE the knowledge and pass it on.


But seriously, really fascinating info inside - it's crazy how some of the stuff comes about but there is some twisted logic to it and if you do or don't believe in some of the theories it certainly makes for interesting table talk and mental stimuli!