Mediocrity is to Blame for Our Communal Woes

Two articles from the same news source on the same day prompted this thought:-

(1) The way-above-average rainfall in Australia (actually, only on the east coast of Australia). " Welcome to Australia’s big wet "

(2) The death of the better-chicken endeavor. " Small-scale chicken producers claim regulation preventing new entrants to market "

The first alarmist article comes complete with charts which charm the eye and text which leads us to believe that we are all doomed. The second article mentions legislation that is, perhaps, orchestrated by big-business to benefit big-business and squeeze out innovative operators.

I have read often enough that while it might be true that meals at McDonalds are terrible, at least they are consistently terrible - your burger and fries will taste the same in Idaho as they will in Singapore. Believe that the tomato you buy in Bonavista Newfoundland will have no detectable difference from the tomato you buy in Prince Rupert British Columbia, because both tomatoes come from the same farm combine in, say, Chile.

For the past fifty years, two generations of consumers have been raised and trained to expect standardization of products. So it is that while I think that fresh apricots in season now taste like Ryvita crackers, so too do you.

A natural consequence of this thinking is that whenever anything at all steps out of the ordinary, The Sky Is Falling!

I believe that the tomatoes and chicken meat that I buy are healthy and nutritious, and I am rebellious enough to buy best-use-by food at a discount because I plan to cook and preserve it immediately.

I am disturbed at the urban view that a rainfall that lies above a 100-year average is a harbinger of doom.

Think about any hundred years of rainfall. In any one of these years one of the years has to have recorded a higher rainfall than the other ninety-nine. Likewise, just one of those hundred years has to have recorded a lower rainfall than the other ninety-nine. Likewise one in a hundred was hotter, colder, and an extreme of any kind that you care to conjure up.

Likewise, of all the people you meet in the next 365 days, one of them will have to be the tallest, one the shortest (I am speaking of fully-grown adults here!)

The point here is that practically nothing in our world is average. Average is a mathematical concept that applies to - you guessed it! - mathematics.

There is no average Australian; there is no day/week/month/year with average rainfall.

There never has been, and there isn't now, and there never will be.

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