Literacy
According to ThinkImpact, low levels of literacy cost the U.S. up to $2.2 TRILLION annually.
A year? That’s trillion with a “T” folks!
I don’t even know how to fully conceptualize a trillion of anything, let alone 2.2…
But let’s give it a shot.
In numbers and commas…2,200,000,000,000
In standard form…2.2 x 1012
$2.2 trillion dollars would stretch from the earth to the sun, AND BACK, with change to spare.
It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 28 years before it reeled out 2.2 trillion-dollar bills.
Go back a 2 trillion seconds and you’d be around 60,000 BC.
Now let me remind you…
Low levels of literacy cost the US up to $2.2 TRILLION… EVERY. DANG. YEAR.
How’s this make you feel?
I’m no Siskel or Ebert, but…
Remember when there were actual channels on your TV?
Remember having to wait a whole week for the next episode? OMG, the horror.
Remember having to get up to actually change the channel? Tired just thinking about it.
Remember when the only place to watch a documentary was PBS?
Well, those days are long gone.
You can find ANYTHING to watch on your own TV these days, for a small fee of course.
That’s pretty cool but having so many choices can also be paralyzing.
I’m here to help. Well, maybe.
Looking for something wholesome, funny, inspiring, feel good, nature-related?
I recommend “The Biggest Little Farm”.
The documentary in full can be found on Netflix, Hulu or Prime.
Makes me want to own a pig.
Word of the week
Last Friday I attended a concert for the first time in years.
It was an incredible reggae band both my fiancé and I really enjoy. We had such a good time.
I won’t mention the name, you’ll see why in a minute, but I must say, they were spectacular.
That said, NOTHING has changed in the way shows are presented to the audience since the last show I attended, years ago.
You know “the drill”…
Opening band plays, wait, and wait some more in anticipation of the main act, they play for an hour and a half, they say, “good night” and strut off stage…but we all know what’s going to happen next, right?
It was here I looked at my fiancé and out of nowhere came our word of the week, rigmarole.
“Here we go with this rigmarole” I said, spontaneously.
You know, the good ol’ encore rigmarole.
Band says goodnight (but they don’t mean it), strut off stage, crowd screams, whistles and cheers as if that has any bearing on whether they come back or not, of course they come back, play for another 15 minutes with a big finale, lights up, shows over.
My question is, why don’t bands just save us and them the whole rigmarole an extra 15 mins?
Dude, we’re tired, most of the crowd has been overserved, and it’s my bedtime.
Maybe I’m just not 24 anymore… or, 34 for that matter.
FYI, WOC (For Your Information, WithOut Comment), some light, some heavy
- The hashtag symbol (#) is technically called an octothorpe.
- The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
- According to the CDC, children from 5-11 years old who were unvaccinated were hospitalized with COVID at twice the rate of vaccinated children during the winter Omicron variant surge.
- Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has reached the highest deforestation levels ever. 363 square miles of trees and vegetation have been removed from the basin in the first 3 months of 2022 alone.
- Inflation is close to a 40-year high; the cost to fly has increased 40% in last three months.
- The largest known living organism is an aspen grove.
- Researchers in China have developed a contact lens which detects an increase in intraocular pressure and then releases an anti-glaucoma medicine if pressure rises over a set threshold.
- You can hear a blue whale’s heartbeat from more than 2 miles away.
Gratitude Dump
A few weeks ago, I began an occasional “gratitude dump” titled blog entry.
If this is something you don’t do on a regular basis, I highly recommend it.
Write it down, pin to the wall somewhere you can see it regularly.
Today I am grateful for…
- my friends; loyal, faithful, authentic & loving
- Amazing co-workers
- SPRING, grey to green
- fresh air
- the ability to walk, talk and breathe
- things which are worth doing are hard
- Christy soon to be Floriani; real, caring, expressive, loving, beautiful, thoughtful & open-minded
- the expectations of my parents
- the Holy Spirit
- the blank canvas of every new day