In the category of Questions I am Too Lazy to Research, I don’t understand how the third world produces so many children. When I ask this question, people misunderstand me. I understand that birth control may not be available to women (or men) in poor countries, and that women may be under enormous social pressure to reproduce, but that’s not what I’m getting at.
Poor countries have a high fertility rate (as in how many children a woman bears). In fact, this is a measure of how poor a country is. They also have short doubling rates, meaning it takes a short period of time, compared to wealthy nations, for the population to double.
My question is this: how can allegedly starving women produce to many children? After all, you can’t really get pregnant and produce living offspring if you are malnourished, and in turn those children can’t survive long enough to contribute to a high doubling rate.
And if these women really are well-nourished enough to get pregnant again and again, what is this I’m hearing about how all those people are starving? How do you reconcile this?
Put it another way: if you have two ponds with fish in them, and one has more food (is wealthier) than the other pond (is poorer), you would expect the poor pond to be unable to reproduce all that much. In human poor countries, they reproduce a lot. Dig?
No matter how you slice it, I think overpopulation is a root of a lot of our other problems. (Says the woman who is trying to get pregnant!)
Maybe I need to talk to a demographics expert? How do I get the answers?

I have an embarrassing confession: I love TV. I don’t know why that’s such a bad thing, since clearly I’m not the only one: people shell out for the latest plasma TVs and buy premium cable packages. It adds up to a lot of money. Further, it’s not considered shameful to be a movie (or better yet, film/cinema) buff.

This doesn’t seem quite fair. People often refer to television as film’s “ugly step-sister.” Being a step-sister myself, I dunno. (As to whether I’m ugly, well, that’s for others to decide.) Also, people often refer to TV as a stupid medium. Movies are often a stupid medium, too- I’m sure we can all name at least 30 movies to lend credence that film is not necessarily nobler than TV.

Even nobler a medium is books. Now, movies aside, there are “smart” TV programs and “stupid” books. I think that House, MD is a “smart” show. It is very well written and researched, and my friend, who is a medical student, says she is actually learning from the show, so it is performing a public service! Again, I’m sure many of us can name “stupid” books. Typically those written by celebrities, but that’s just off the top of my head.

Among TV shows I have just adored over the years and would consider “smart”:

Seinfeld, before it bit the shark hard in 1996. The Simpsons. Family Guy. Northern Exposure. House, MD. Big Love. Married… With Children. Sesame Street. Futurama.

There have been “stupid” shows I liked over the years, particularly as a kid in the ’80s, the golden age of sitcomery, but anyone of my generation pretty much knows what those are and I’m embarrassed to talk about them.

What are your thoughts?