Friday, April 18, 2008

uh-oh

OK. I uncovered another pet peeve of mine. Well, I don't know if I'd call it a pet peeve, but I dislike those reports and articles that like to make statistics an odds thing. Like 1-in-4, or 1 out of every 3 Americans... Dude, I realize that the point is the scare people, but it just pisses me off. Especially when you're with some friends and it's something like, 1 out of 5 Americans have genital herpes. There you are with four other buddies, so you laugh because there's five of you and according to that theory, one of you have genital herpes. I know it isn't "true" because there could be a group of five that all have genital herpes so it throws off the curb.
How many times did I say genital herpes? 3? 4 times? Sweet. I was just wondering how many, there's no other meaning.
OK, so I saw this article that had that odds-schmodds right in the headline. 1 in 5 combat veterans have mental problems? I was thinking about all of the combat veterans I know in my unit and it's pretty true. There's like two of us out of 10 that seem to have diagnosable mental illnesses. Of course in a broader stroke "mental problems" can be attributed to nearly 90% of the service members I know. C'mon, we've all gotta be crazy to join or stay in.

1 comment:

damned_cat said...

this has next to nothing whatsoever to do with your post, but one of my kids came back from a prolonged absence with a dr.'s note saying she had oral herpes.

um.

where's my wikipedia?