MISCELLANEOUS RUMINATIONS 8

Americans spend multi-billions of dollars annually on foods, fads, books, treatments, surgery, séances, and God knows what else to lose or otherwise keep their weight under control. Why not the peripeteia of that? That is to say spending time and treasure to keep one’s weight up. Sounds ridiculous you think, then consider: The 18th & 19th century’s English cleric and economist, Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), observing that the population was increasing geometrically and the food supply arithmetically, declared in his Essay on the Principles of Population (1798) that absent of deadly pandemics or world-wide wars the world was in for massive starvation. What did happen to the world’s population in those centuries since?

The world population has increased approximately as follows: 600 million in 1700; 900 million in 1800; 1.6 billion in 1900; 2.5 billion in 1950; 6.5 billion today. This is certainly a geometric increase, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. Why then has there not been catastrophic starvation? In fact this year the World Health Organization declared there are more people at risk for health problems from excessive weight (eating too much food) than from starvation. True enough millions of people in the third world suffer from a deficiency of nutritious food, yet a shortage of food is not at fault; rather it is a delivery problem coupled with corruption and inefficiency of United Nations and government officials on the receiving end of foodstuffs given by the generous and compassionate West.

It turns out that the supply of food has increased even more than the population in the past 300 years. The term used for it is the “Green Revolution” meaning advanced mechanized farming, packaging, storing, and delivery methods for food stuffs. Malthus had no way of predicting or even imagining this true revolution.

More recently, in the late 1960’s to the 1980’s, a screwball named Paul Ehrlich (see my essay Fools, Frauds & Fakes) in his 1968 book The Population Bomb predicted that ½ billion people would die of starvation in the next decade and there would be food riots in the United States in the 1980’s. He opined that the world’s population would be 1.5 billion by 1985. This Ehrlich book (it sold 20 million copies) and his 1991 book The population Explosion were best sellers and he made numerous appearances on national TV programs. Ehrlich was the darling of the left in his day much as the equally loony and labile Al Gore, who is clearly afflicted with amentia, is today. The next time you hear people such as the egregious Scott Pelley (see my essay Global Warming or Cooling: Which the Hell is it?) and ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore, who stated this past week that he rejects balance on reporting Global Warming as he considers critics of GW merely hacks and lackeys, keep in mind the record of the we-are-all-going-to-starve crowd. Journalism objectivity is not a strong suit of the paralogistic press (main stream news media).


The latest affright by the wacky left, quo modo, as with Global Warming, is that the world’s seas will be depleted of harvestable seafood by 2050. These kvetching people apparently will never be satisfied until depression and despair affects every living soul on earth. A 14 member group of scientists (?) from Halifax U. in Nova Scotia, Stanford, Scripps Inst. of Oceanography, Stockholm U., and British Columbia U. came up with this carking scenario. University of Washington professor of aquatic & fishery sciences, Ray Hilborn, responded “It’s just mind-boggling stupid.” Indeed.

Even though as the 16th & 17th century’s English poet and preacher, John Donne (1571? – 1631) wrote in his Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624) “Every man’s death diminishes me because I am involve in mankind, therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” that does not mean all sacrifice of life is futile. In defense of their homeland various countries have paid heavily. Great Britain, France, and the United States collectively suffered approx. 750,000 military deaths in World War II. In the three months Battle of Moscow in the late fall and winter of 1941 after Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union, the Russians calamitously had 150,000 more military and civilian death than that - a total of 900,000 in just three months. In fact 80% of the German causalities in the war occurred on the Eastern front fighting the Soviets. It is conceivable that without Germany’s war with the Soviet Union on their Eastern front, the Allies invasion in June 1944 may have not succeeded. At the very least the Allies effort to defeat the Nazis would have been much more costly in time, blood, and treasure.

The United States had 405,000 military deaths during WWII. For every US death Japan had 5; Germany 20; and the USSR 75. The total military and civilian deaths during WWII for the Soviet Union were circa 30 million. There are those who have said that the United States should not have allowed the Soviet Union hegemony over Eastern Europe after WWII. The Red Army occupied the Eastern European countries at the finish of the war – it was a fait accompli. For the United States to have intervened would have meant another war. Wasn’t there killing enough already? Eastern Europeans suffered under the Soviet yoke from the rest of the 1940’s through the 1980’s, but they are largely free now. Incidentally when Boris Yeltsin declared the end of the Soviet Union on 12/06/1991 the date was 50 years to the day when the Soviets counter attacked in the Battle of Moscow.

The second most consumers spending holiday in the United States after Christmas is now Halloween. And this holiday has spread to other countries, especially in Europe. In what may fairly be characterized as continuing anti-American xenophobia, the French government is attempting to minimize if not completely eliminating this, horreur, imported American celebration. However, in an irenic spirit we can reasonably empathize with the Frogs on this one. After all what children would want to go around on Halloween saying, “bonbon ou baton (trick or treat)?” Literally this means “candy or a baton (club)”, presumably applied to the noggin of recalcitrant or parsimonious treat givers. The phrase in French is “treat or trick” - butt-backwards to the English expression, but then what would you expect from the Frenchies? Even French children sensibly do not want to make themselves sound ridiculous by repeatedly yelling “bonbon ou baton.”