Personally, I dislike reading newspapers. For various reasons. Yes, typos or grammar mistakes are one of them. 
The other is, it’s no fun anymore. Once upon a time, a newspaper article could change the world. Today, people are so desensitized, they’ll just shrug and read on and there’ll be a new sensation the next day nobody will bother with, besides, some celebrity’s naked backside is sure to incite a greater hype than, say, 200 dead children or the slow dismantling of basic human rights.
Depressing.
I still read newspapers. Silly old me.
My reward are…totally random facts. Here are a few of the best I’ve found in the past weeks.
- A study has shown that people are less harsh in their moral judgments when the respective deed is presented to them in a foreign language. For example, Germans seem to think it’s really bad if you cheat in an exam if they read about it in English, but twice as bad if they read about it in German. Makes you think that once you’re leaving the safety of your own language behind, insecurity rides close behind and you feel compelled to judge others less harshly, lest you be judged.
- There’s one single police officer in Australia who works a beat the size of the UK. Apparently, he’s retiring these days. I wonder what will happen to his beat.
- The five richest families in the UK are wealthier than the bottom 20 percent of the entire population. Means a handful of people own more money than 12.6 million people. Two words come to mind, one consists of four letters and begins with an F, the other is ‘you’.
- The rich people from New York Park Avenue apparently hire disabled guides to take their children around attractions such as Disney World, so they don’t have to stand in line. On the one hand, a comparatively nice job, on the other, a completely wrong message.
- The oldest person to vote ‘yes’ to gay marriage in Ireland was a 101-year-old woman. Keep on rocking, girl.
Angelika Rust 