Saturday, March 28, 2009

Undersize me, please!

Does size matter?

Many Americans think so. In fact, in our great and wonderful country, big has beome synonymous with better and soon will be appearing in our friendly thesaurus. Professional athletes keep getting taller and bulkier. Fifty years ago, a professional basketball player at 6' 9" was considered tall. We now have players 7' and taller. Yao Ming, the great Chinese bgasketball player for the Houston Rockets, measures 7' 6" and weighs a whopping 260 pounds of solid muscle. When Rocky Marciano was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, he barely made 5' 10" and weighed 180 pounds. The current champion, Vitali Kitischko, measures 6' 7" and weighs around 260 pounds. When "Refrigerator" Perry was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1985, he amazed the world by weighing more than 300 pounds. He was considered the biggest lineman ever at the time. Today, he would be undersized against many pro linemen.

As Americans, we proudly announce to the world that our world-class athletes are taller, stronger and faster than ever before -- thanks to improved nutition, better healthcare, and more sophisticated training methods.

As everyday Americans, we don't just eat anymore. We supersize it.

If you happen to be an alien who linked to my Web site by mistake and don't know what supersize means, please climb into your silver spaceship with multiple jet engines and shuttle to earth to visit a McDonald's. All you need to say when you place your order is, "Supersize it." When you see the mountain of French fries, you'll understand the term.

As for me, undersize me, please. Think about all the money we'd save if we really did live in a less is more world. Do you know what a billion is? That's right, 1,000 millions. And a trillion? Right again, 1,000 billions.

It used to be that $1 million was a hefty sum. Now a scam artist like Bernard Madoff does a convoluted Ponzi scheme and cheats sophisticated investors of $65 billion or 65,000 stacks of million dollars. Did you get a hold of that number in your head? Try this one. Put in a bank at 6% simple interest, $65 billion would generate 3,900 million dollars a year. Mind boggling isn't it?

I don't need that much to live well. Do you? I'd be happy with $1 million.

Undersize me, please!

2 comments:

  1. Hi David,

    Reducefootprints.blogspot.com said I should look at your work because you are an accomplished author who is also interested in "green" publishing.

    Your thesis here, that less can be more, seems so obvious that it hardly bears repeating; yet it is so difficult to actually follow through with that we must keep reminding ourselves and each other "enough is enough!"

    I appreciate your thoughtful remarks and your wonderful writing style and look forward to reading your mystery thriller.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for your kind words. I'm delighted you like my writing style. I'll be writing a couple fo shoert articles on "green" subjects in the near future, so stay tuned.

    ReplyDelete