Here’s a sobering, albeit quirky, ‘thoughtlet’ I got from my wife this morning:

Dreams are a dime a dozen. Martin Luther King had one. So did Ed McCurdy. He dreamt “that men had all agreed to put an end to war.” Let’s imagine that both their dreams have come true. And while we’re at it, let’s add no global warming, no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no famine, no pollution, no cop-killings, no cops doing the killing … Hell, let’s make it as close to Heaven on Earth as Heaven on Earth could be. And yet still, in a hundred years, every one of the 7.8 billion people who are alive today will be dead. Worse yet, ten years from now, every one of the people alive then will be dead in a hundred and ten years. And so on. Surely so many millions of people dying every day will be the greatest natural disaster the human race has ever known. 

But hang on. Had there been fewer human beings on the planet, there would be that many fewer deaths each day. So clearly the leading cause of death is unprotected sex. The second leading cause of death is surviving cancer, third surviving a heart attack. I’m not sure whether it’s surviving a tsunami or jogging while Black that’s # 18, but in either case they’re both right up there. Think about it. One of the leading causes of death for African American men is surviving a jog through a white neighbourhood.

I hasten to repeat that this was my wife’s contribution to our coffee klatch this morning. I take no responsibility.

Categories: Humour

Tags: death, disaster, Ed McCurdy, life span, Martin Luther King, mortality, natural, population, survival