Thirteen Is A Manageable Number

Football is currently dominating the world stage.  While much of the globe is watching the World Cup play in Russia, perhaps the most famous football team around is the Wild Boars.  They are playing the game of their lives, 7,065 km southeast of Moscow.  (Translation for the U.S., football = soccer, and that’s about 4,390 miles)

As this is being written on Sunday, July 8, 2018, rescuers are bringing out the first of the twelve Thai football players, and hopefully their coach, from 4 km deep inside the Tham Luang cave.  I guess the mere thought of being buried alive brings out the claustrophobia in all of us.  Ever since Lassie ran across the fields to the farmhouse to alert the residents that Timmy (or Jeff if you are a bit older) had fallen down the old well, our fears of deep damp spaces has been buried in our psyches.  We can only hope that all thirteen people will be rescued.

All the world watches the rescue efforts

My point here is not one of the rescue and its dangers (one diver has already lost his life), but of how a small group of children and their coach could so quickly garner so much attention.  Even Elon Musk dipped into his 20 billion dollar portfolio to offer his engineers and hastily constructed kid-sized submarines to help in the rescue effort.  Master showman and media manipulator Donald Trump was even nudged out of the spotlight on occasion.   How is this possible?

My only explanation lies in the more manageable number, thirteen.  I think here of the perhaps 100,000 people at risk of starvation and death in South Sudan. Yemen too, has millions at risk of dying from starvation.  In the U.S., over 37,000 will die each year on our nation's highways.  Air pollution will kill an estimated 5.5 million people around the globe each year.  These numbers are staggering and perhaps they are beyond our grasp to either comprehend or feel like we could make a difference.  Yes, thirteen is indeed a figure we can contemplate.  We can more easily root for a small group of young children and one adult than we can attempt to address the plight of hundreds of thousands of people in other situations.

Deaths due to starvation, air pollution, and highway accidents are all addressable problems with higher potential rewards.  They do not however represent a profile where the media can roll out their Breaking News banners or where workable solutions are not more complex.  

I just heard on the news from our bedroom that the first couple of children have been taken out alive from the cave.  We can only wish them all well.