What individual living in a western city can conceptualize the area that an acre takes up unless one is a surveyor or lives on a ½-acre lot? Even then, once the figure gets over a few acres, all hope of making sense of the information is lost, yet the media keeps informing their listeners/viewers about wildfires covering 1000s or 100s of 1000s of acres. Why not take it a bit further & tell the audience what they really want to hear — how many million or billion square centimeters or inches does that equal? That will sound really impressive with “millions” & “billions” in the headline.
Or the expiration dates on packaged foods. With expiration dates being of questionable value altogether, some packagers insist on providing not only a year, but a month, & on some, even a specific day. WTF?
& then the one that really gets me is how a so-called journalist interviews someone who wants to remain anonymous because of possible fatal consequences if some local spitbrains hear him criticizing them or their less than exemplary behavior, yet the anonymity is given away be using the actual 1st name, identifying the area where the interviewee lives or works, or mentioning something about the person’s activity or profession. Even I, a computer dud, could probably track down most any of the “anonymous” individuals interviewed, especially when it’s done with the…
