Numbah ten, Mama-san

More numerology in the news. This time the number ten (10). Now the number ten by itself, most of us can relate to. Ten is the top of many of our self-made scales (Bo Derek not withstanding). In others, number ten is the opposite of number One. Way down the preferred scale. It’s a small number we can wrap our heads around.

When “The Dow” drops below 10,000 for the first time in four years, we can understand that this is a bad thing, though we certainly have no clue why it dropped or how bad it really is. Really stretching outthe number ten beyond our comprehension is the National Debt which has topped 10 trillion.  A trillion is a million million. Does that help? Probably not. It didn’t help the National Debt clock either, which wasn’t built for a number this large, Once it clicked over 9.99 trillion there was no more room. Like the gas pumps of several months ago that couldno longer dial in gas prices that high.

Our measurement devices appear just not to have been made for this world. Sometimes I wonder if we were either.