Is The World Getting Odder?

Oddity #1: As of 2009 there are more new fragrances released yearly than there were in the 1970's and 1980's combined - at least 500 a year. In 2008 celebrity scents made up 10% of fragrance sales - more than 3 million bottles. It seems perfume is the best way to sell celebrity. The perfume houses don't pay for what's in the bottles. Fragrance manufacturers develop scents for free and share the profits with the perfume houses. Also, having celebrities' names on the bottles saves millions of advertising dollars. Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker, 50 Cent - celebrities are profitably "scentimental".

Oddity #2: In 2009 the ball was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. The curator explained that the Ball had just gotten in because the Toy Hall of Fame didn't come into existence until 1998 and because only 2 or 3 toys are inducted a year. Both the Atari 2600 Game System and the Nintendo Game Boy were already in. So were the Cardboard Box and the Stick. Obviously, those who decide which toys are inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame hadn't been keeping their eyes on the ball.

Oddity #3: On November 1, 2009 family and friends identified the body of 59-year-old Ademir Jorge Goncalves, a bricklayer in southern Brazil, who had died in a car crash. The funeral took place the following day, the Day of the Dead, a holiday when Latin Americans pray for family and friends who have died and remember them with gifts. When Goncalves attended his own funeral, shocked relatives tried to jump out of windows in the funeral home. Although Goncalves wasn't dead, he'd been dead the night before - dead drunk in a bar near the crash site.

Oddity #4: On November 11, 2009 Forbes magazine ranked Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman 41st on its list of the world's most powerful people. That ranking put him ahead of Russian President Medvedev (43), Oprah Winfrey (45), Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu (46) and U.S. Chief Justice Roberts (49). Guzman isn't a world leader, a religious leader or a humanitarian. He's a reputed, Mexican drug lord, head or the Sinaloa Cartel, with a $5 million reward on his head. Over the past 8 years Guzman has shipped between $6 billion and $19 billion in cocaine to the U.S. The world's 41st most powerful person is a drug dealer addicted to power.