Neff Zone Column

Print Edition: January 21, 2006

STATISTICS AND MORE STATISTICS

This time of year a lot of surveys and statistics are published. Looking back at the last couple of years there are some interesting tidbits to note. For example, old timers always tell us that in "the good old days" schools didn’t have the dropout problems these new fangled institutions have today. Then explain why in 1980 there were 739,000 dropouts but that number fell to 496,000 in 2004. That’s still too many, but apparently the good old days may not have been as good as some remember them to be.

Along the same lines, Seattle was deemed to be the most literate city last year, followed by Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and San Francisco. El Paso, Texas and Stockton, California nabbed the bottom two slots but they don’t know it yet because no one can read the results.

In a bit of disheartening news, Yahoo said its 2005 top internet searches were for: Britney Spears, 50 Cent, Cartoon Network, Mariah Carey, and Green Day. With all that’s going on in the world this is what most people want to know about? To my way of thinking if you read this list and didn’t recognize the names or the network you should congratulate yourself. With your superior intellect you could move to El Paso and take over the place.

I was a tad embarrassed to learn that Michigan was the tenth stingiest state when it came to its citizens’ charitable giving; New Hampshire was the most tight-fisted. Mississippi was the most generous followed by Arkansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. I’m not surprised by the Mississippi ranking because they save a lot of money by being last in the nation on school funding and at the front of the trough when Senator Trent Lott scams the rest of us out of federal pork barrel dollars.

Some statistics just make you angry. For example, total vehicles built the last three years by GM just over 26 million, recalls caused by bad engineering just over 22 million. GM’s global market strategy? In the last 5 years GM Europe has recorded a profit for only 1 quarter. GM’s accounting? In 2005 they discovered they had overstated profits by 400 million dollars for 2001. Pensions? While under funding the hourly pension fund to the tune of 45 billion dollars and taking the company to near bankruptcy, GM boss Richard Wagoner has managed to fully fund the Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan that will pay him 4.6 million dollars a year when he retires regardless if GM goes belly up. All this, yet they complain health care costs are what’s sinking the company and can tell you to the dollar the health care tariff per vehicle. Right – who’s doing their "goesintas," Jethro Bodine from the Beverly Hillbillies?

If you find these bites of information interesting you might like to know that the editors at Webster’s New World College Dictionary have a new term for this – "infosnacking." Basically, infosnacking covers online shopping, checking sports scores, surfing the net for no apparent reason, and all other forms of "multi-purpose time-killing." Infosnacking is so prevalent Webster’s made it their word of the year for 2005.

Apparently, while we are doing all that infosnacking we are also just plain snacking. Auto makers have announced that they are making car seats wider to accommodate our expanding backsides. Honda, in what has to be a tongue-in-cheek statement, said the purpose is to "meet the growing need of our customers."

As a standard for American design, the average width of a seat for a ballpark, arena, public transportation or theater has been between 16.5 inches and 17.6 inches since 1907. Many of these facilities are now in the process of "upgrading" to 23-inchers. If they change the seat size at U of M’s stadium and want to stay at a 104,000 capacity they’ll have to add so many new sections the top row will be in downtown Ypsilanti.

This is on the heels of a report a few years ago by U.S. Preventative Services Task Force which revealed that only 54% of Americans knew that "exercise" meant "moving a part of your body." Apparently the other 46% thought exercise was sort of like spontaneous combustion, happening without cause or explanation. In the same report, 59% considered walking to and from the mailbox as exercise. Presumably they look forward to the arrival of the spring catalogs so they can do some serious power lifting.

Last week Pride Mobility, the leading manufacturer of those three-wheeled scooters meant to help those in need of mobility for a medical reason, announced that due to the increase of obese adults the newest "exercise" is "scootering." They’re coming out with a model in candy-apple red that can handle up to 400 pounds. Some doctors have expressed concern because patients could actually gain weight if they bought a scooter, thereby decreasing the little activity they now have.

Oh well, on the bright side we will all be faster because we’ll be shaped like bullets.

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Comments to neffzone@gmail.com. Read Neff Zone columns online at www.neffzone.com/cadillacnews.