HOW MANY IS 120,000?

31 December 2004 -- Death Toll In Indonesia 120,000

How many is 120,000?- (c) 12-31-04 Clara Chandler

Entire population of Gary, Indiana

Number of Girl Scouts who attended the 90th Anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C. in 2003

all of Hawaii County, Hawaii

Mercer Co, West Virginia PLUS Platte County, Missouri

The entire indigenous population of New South Wales, Australia

So long, Marion County, Florida

Jefferson County, New York PLUS Wells County, North Dakota

U.S. Army reservists going to or returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom during the first four months of 2004

Lycoming County, Pennsylvania -- every person

Every man, woman, and child living in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana AND Liberty County, Texas - combined

Aiken County, South Carolina

All the working actors in film, television, industrials, commercials and music videos represented by the Screen Actors Guild

Bell and Gillispie Counties, Texas, combined

New York Oswego County

120,000 is equal to number of Americans injured or killed every year by firearms

Texas Taylor County

Maryland Washington County


North Carolina - all of Alamance County

New Jersey Hunterdon County

Cherokee County, Georgia PLUS Adams County, Iowa


Delaware County, Indiana

Number of twins in the Swedish Twin Registry

persons injured in road accidents in 1998 in South Africa

Lebanon Co, PA

Sarpy Co, Nebraska PLUS Seminole County, Georgia

Alexandria (city), Virginia

Entire population of La Serena, Chile

Average Annual Fatality Rate of Heart Attacks in the UK - 120,000

El Monte, California

Ogden AND Layton, Utah

All the Buddhist lamas and nuns in The People's Republic of China

St George AND West Jordan, Utah

Number of child soldiers fighting in Africa in 1999

Number of smokers in the UK who die each year of smoking-related illnesses

Provo, Utah + 15,000 more

Helsingborg, Sweden

Potosi, Bolivia

Magadan - the Capital of Greenland

Metz, France

Number of deaths from AIDS in Uganda each year

City of Cairns, Far North Queensland, Australia

Dunedin, New Zealand

Hamilton, New Zealand

Capital of Beni Suef Governorate, Egypt, Beni Suef New City

The entire Hispanic population of the two largest congressional districts of Kansas

Total 2000 population of Vigo County, Indiana

How many is 114,000?

Thursday, 30 December 2004
Latest Death Toll 114,000

How many is 114,000?

The entire 2004 population of MICRONESIA is 114,000

Say so long to Oxford, Oxfordshire, England.

Granada -- Central Pacific Nicaragua

The entire city of Oulu, Finland

Greensboro, North Carolina

The independent island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Number of cars towed in NYC in 1992

Number of eviction warrants issues in New York City in 1999

The entire Hispanic population of Minnesota

ALL OF THE people registered as Hawaiian or Pacific Islander heritage in the State of California 2000 census.

East Devon PCT, United Kingdom

LONG ISLAND - SMITHTOWN, New York

All individuals in Hawaii registered as Pacific Islanders in the 2000 Census
(9% of the population of Hawaii)

The entire Lac Saint-Jean territory in Canada

Vallejo, California

R.I.P. Halifax, capital of Nova Scotia

Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

Iowa City, Iowa

So long, Peoria, Illinois

10 times the 1690 population of Pennsylvania

Carrolton, TX

Pueblo, Colorado PLUS 10,000 more

The entire moose population of Ontario Province, Canada

Waco, Texas

The number of worldwide speakers of the language MAN CAO LAN: a language of Viet Nam

St. Lawrence County, New York

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Beaumont, Texas

All the Russians who settled in the United States between 1989-99

The number of New Zealanders who had a non-response to the census ethnicity question in 2001

Entire population of Lausanne, Switzerland

All of Berkeley California PLUS 10,000 more

Everyone in Fort Collins, Colorado

Twice the population of American Samoa

Goodbye, Wood County, Ohio

114,000 -- the number of displaced persons registered by The Croatian government's Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees (ODPR) as displaced in 1997.

Death Toll From Tsunami Estimated 76,600

12 hours later... count is 76,600 dead...equal to
The entire 1999 population of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

Every individual who lived on Maui in 1980

The entire secondary school teaching staff of Shanghai, China

2002 population of Lake Forest, California

2002 population of Redwood City, California

Nearly the 2001 population of Santa Maria, California


More than all the people in the city of Napa, California

More than Encinitas

Nearly three times Imperial Beach

Three times Lemon Grove

More than Poway, San Marcos or National City


More than the entire population of South San Francisco

In the Calgary CMA, there were 76,600 youth ages 15-24 in the labour force in 1996

More than 51 times the coalition force casualties in the Iraq War

55,000 Dead in Indonesia. So Far.

That's more than the entire population of San Luis Obispo-Atascadero, California AND Silver City, New Mexico COMBINED...

Or all the citizens of Petaluma, California

or Flagstaff, Arizona

or Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

55,000 -- the number of Colorado names registered multiple times to vote in the 2004 election (source: http://www.collegian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/26/417ddcbd20417)

Every single person in Santa Cruz, California, or

Charleston, West Virginia.

The death toll in Indonesia (as of 12:00 a.m. 29 December)

is equal to The United States military casualties of World War One

(Source: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm)

That's equal to all the folks who live in Jackson, Tennessee,

or South Gate, California, or Niagara Falls, New York.

Equal to the AOL Arena seating capacity.

The entire City of Pleasanton, California or St. Charles, Missouri.

The entire daytime work population of San Leandro, California.

The number of Americans that may have died as a result of taking the drug Vioxx.
(source: http://nodvin.net/blog/index.php?p=43)

All the Bulgarian military and civilians casualties during World War II

+

All the Australian military and civilian casualties during World War II
(http://www.warchronicle.com/numbers/WWII/deaths.htm)

The entire stadium capacity of the Amsterdam ArenA in Holland.

Emotional Catch-22 © 2004 Clara Chandler

Emotional Catch-22 © 2004 Clara Chandler (Excerpt)

Fear and rage are the hellish progeny of violence. The human spirit’s finite capacity for both eventually results in emotional numbness and death of the soul.

Paradoxically, human nature denies its fundamental essence in order to survive.

To preserve its existence, the expressive soul must emit emotion. A true Catch-22 situation, fear and rage provoke such intense spiritual pain the soul chooses to cease feeling in order to survive. Yet to survive, the soul must acknowledge its basic essence through articulation of its feelings.


Joseph Heller (author of Catch-22) greatly influenced my thinking and writing. I had the honor of corresponding with him online five years prior to his death. My profile contained a quote from his book and he sought me out.

Henny's Henhouse Traditions, Old and Hopefully Not New © 2004 Clara Chandler

Our traditions include planning a prepared-ahead breakfast that rarely materializes, my oldest son's perpetual disappointment with whatever he gets, and my oldest daughter's cuckolding my gifts with the better versions she offers. The two younger children generally enjoy the holiday. My sister cries because Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa are dead. We give her a handful of candy canes. Her eyes light up and she's happy.

Besides that, I cook a feast fit for a king (we keep an open-door policy on food). We utter oaths to celebrate a week later "next year" to catch all the post-Christmas sales (and never do). Sometime in the afternoon, I remember the stockings or some other quasi-vital prop, and we enjoy that then. This is also about the time I find the Christmas CDs.

If I've prepared gifts for family members not seen or heard from since last year, the gifts sit forlornly under the tree. If I don't prepare gifts for those guys, they show up en masse with two or three carloads-ful of presents. I think this year it's their turn. We're strange and nontraditional, but we love each other in our own cracked, dysfunctional ways.

* * *

Last night my sister baked sugar cookies. Her original intent was to give them as presents. Instead, she ate the whole batch -- most of it raw. Poor thing left a trail of barf all over the house.

Hope that's not the start of a new family tradition.

Thanks For Taking A Look Around

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Christmas Eve © 2004 Clara Chandler

Christmas is coming! The geese are getting fat. Please to put a penny in the old man's hat...

Henny's glad she's not a goose. Eat pork -- the other white meat!

It's Christmas Eve. American traditions for today include
1. Realizing you will not be ready in time for Christmas
2. Realizing any last minute needs won't be met because

• grocery shelves are plundered, or
  
• you'd have to wait in a queue longer than a line for free money and
  
• whipped cream really isn't that important.
  

Why Am I Angry? © 2004 Clara Chandler

Why are you so angry?

A woman in an online group asked that question in response to the previous post about Wal-Mart.

Why am I angry? Because so many hungry people can't afford to eat properly. Because so many ill people can't afford medical treatment. Because we are charged to bear one another's burdens and to lift one another up and so many of our brothers and sisters would rather invest in an X-box and a 20th pair of jeans than truly help someone who needs it.

Because so many people indulge themselves with material objects, then whine about the state of the world. Because people have the means to help, and choose not to. I respect their freedom to choose. I don't have to agree with their choices.

Why am I angry? Because the state declared my retarded sister competent to live independently solely because it has no facilitiesto deal with her. She doesn't understand the connection between paying the electric bill and having lights. She resents our dead father because he "donated all that blood to other people and never gave us any." She functions as basically a dog who can speak, or a two-year-old child. She can't make toast, for God's sake. But the state threw her out on her own and deemed her competent.

Why am I angry? Because West Virginians sit back and cluck their tongues and accept that this is the way it is instead of sticking those Scot-Irish chins out and making a fight of it. Because communities continue to turn their heads when coal companies break laws, kill their family members, and lie to their children in order to catch a few scraps from the Lord of the Manor.

Wal-Mart: Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

In its latest self-promotional gimmick, Wal-Mart announced it will match donations the Salvation Army takes in this season and give the money to the homeless and poor.

How ironic is it for Wal-Mart to donate to the homeless and poor when their corporation is responsible for creating probably half of it??? Welcome back to feudal England, where we grovel and slobber over scraps from the master's table.

It's been hundreds of years, yet Americans still lack insight into this concept.

[submitted 22DEC2004 to Charleston Gazette]

Put The Chex Back in Chex Mix

I love Chex Mix. Has anyone else noticed the not-so-subtle invasion of pretzels? I sort the bag, removing and eating only the flavored Chex squares. Lately, I can't put together a full serving of squares. Sprawled across the table are two cups of pretzels, a half-cup of bumpy crackers and seven bagel bits. That's it.


Chexmix  Take a gander at the photo on a Chex Mix bag. The few Chex squares shown on the bag seem to be an actual representation of the contents. Hey, Betty Crocker! What made Chex Mix so loved was the flavored Chex squares. Otherwise, we'd all just buy pretzels for our parties. Either change the name to Pretzel Mix, or put the Chex back in Chex Mix!