Culture comes for you!

It actually is coming for you! Run! (Please don't really run, that would completely defeat the purpose of my blog to begin with.) I was just listening to NPR (yes, I listen to NPR, it's good news, get over it), and I wondered how many other people in the world listen to public radio as well. I know that in the United States, there are approximately 30 million people who, when polled, said that they did listen to public radio. Now, I think that the group of public radio listeners are a rather shy bunch who wouldn't really be found out that often to begin with, so that maybe doubles the number of people who could potentially listen to NPR to around 60 million.
Now, we all know that polls can get everywhere, and that includes the little hermits living in the Rockies who support public radio, but NPR listeners, again being a rather timid lot, probably didn't want to reveal themselves as such for fear of government wire-tapping programs. So, again, I think we can safely double the number of NPR-ees once more to around 120 million.
The other thing that gets to the public radio listener is their profound sense of unworthiness. So, when asked about whether they did listen to public radio, they will think that to really be considered a listener you have to "seriously" listen (more than the meager 5 hours a day they do), so again they'll answer that they don't listen to public radio. With this, we may double our numbers another time, to get 240 million NPR listeners.
Possibly, the only other reason people might not identify themselves as NPR listeners would be the pledge week. Most people dislike the week-long begging drives that the local radio stations have to go through to support themselves as somewhat commercial-free radio, and considering the psyche of the NPR listener, they will be sure to not consider themselves part of the "true" listeners because they always switch stations during pledge week. This, yet another time, provides sufficient evidence to double our numbers to 480 million Americans listening to public radio stations.

Still, I think we should double once more just for good measure. I mean, we wouldn't want an estimate to be too far off the money. So we land ourselves with roughly 960 million public radio devotees. There we are. I, for one, am sufficiently satisfied with this hypothesis, and will stand by my prediction that somewhere around 274.3% of all Americans are actually public radio listeners. WE INUNDATE YOU, AMERICA! HA!

I want to drive fast...

I don't know how many people this may actually apply to, but I like driving (driving, on the other hand, doesn't like me). In society today, we drive mostly for transportation. Vehicles serve simply as a means to get from point A to point B in a much faster manner than walking or biking. Driving, on the other hand can also be for fun. My problem is, ARE THERE ACTUALLY ANY OUTLETS FOR FUN DRIVING? Taking turns on 280 quickly is fun, but you also don't want to endanger anyone. Going on 459 at over 80 miles per hour may be entertaining, but it can aslo land you tickets. What's a race-driver wannabe to do? Maybe I haven't looked into this enough, but I do know that even courses that teach you how to do this in a somewhat safe manner (okay, that may be a bit of an oximoron, but I can dream, no?) can cost thousands of dollars.

Then again, perhaps the benefit of most at the expense of a few may be for the best. During the early 1900's, when cars were just making their debut, many people didn't know how to drive well, and the rate of accents was exceedingly high. We all remember Mr. Toad's wild ride, as well as everything that happened with cars in The Great Gatsby. Perhaps I'd be better off just playing some racing games. Oh well, at least they're less expensive.

Thank you, sir, may I have another?

We eat too much! Ok, that's a lie. We probably don't really eat too much, but we DO eat too many calories. (Only I eat too much.) As a culture, we really don't know about calories and that whole lot. Most americans eat out (at a restaurant ro fast food) more than once a week, instead of eating at home. Actually,

"An average of one out of five meals consumed by Americans — 4.2 meals per week
— is prepared in a commercial setting."

from the National Restaurant Association

Now, most Americans are not in the top income bracket, and really the only incomes I would associate with being able to eat out at a relatively "high-class" resautrant are those of the top income brackets. And really, the only restaurants that would even serve food that's even relatively healthy would be those types of restaurants. Even then, a restaurant's main attention is to taste, not health, so it's iffy even then. So, I believe it's safe to assume that most of these meals eaten out are eaten at fast food restaurants. And we all know just how healthy (or in this case, unhealthy) they are. Most meals that fast-food restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King, Wendies, Sonic, etc. are around 1000 Calories, and are very high in fat, sodium, and sugar. Now, we look at the recommended total daily intake of calories for a given person, and lo and behold, it's about 2000 Calories. Even were these meals not high in nutrients which in excess are bad for you, they represent close to 1/2 of your daily calory intake. My personal opinion, Americans should take cooking classes.

"This Blessed House"

Okay, in class last week (maybe 2 weeks ago?) we read a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri called "This Blessed House." It was nice.

Alright, that doesn't count as a whole blog post, so I have to extrapolate some more. I found the whole idea that a little porcelain (maybe plastic, I forget) Jesus figurine is so off putting to Sanjeeve really interesting. I gathered that he and Twinkle were Hindus, but I do not recall in any of the experiences that I've had with Hindus that they were specifically against any particular religion. Now, one may offer that Hindus and Muslims in and around the Pakistan area have had long ranging conflict, but really, the root of that is simply in that one or the other is oppressed, which seems to me to be a normal reaction to oppression as it has happened many times elsewhere in the world. Take for example, the Arab-Israeli conflict in Gaza . (You're going to have to copypasta the link if you want to see it, I forgot how to hyperlink, and I' m sorry FOX news was just the fastest find in terms of a somewhat reputable news story.) As such, I do not see Sanjeeve being oppressed by these little statuettes, so I find his resistance to Twinkle's very minor want to keep the statues at least somewhat confusing.