Lists Every state has a list of the most terrifying places in their state. You have to wonder who is making these lists. I am not for most lists because they tend to be made by people who might have something to gain by putting certain places or objects on that list. One of the famous restaurant reviewers which comes out with a list every years of the best restaurants was found to have said they reviewed all the restaurants on the list, but investigators found out they had not and just used the results from the year before for many of the restaurants. When we look at the political polls, we have to realize they are also lists. Many times, these list are composed by people who have an agenda. We can see this when we compare lists which sometimes come out to be at odds with other lists. These lists can be formulated in many different ways to get the desired results to hopefully have an influence on the elections. How many times have we heard someone looked at one of the polls and say they were not going to vote because so and so already had a lock on the election? Sometimes lists of donors in certain situations are lists of powerful people who vie to get on the top of the list for many different reasons depending on what the list is for. Political donors want power and favors. They can be companies or individuals, but the reason is the same, favorable treatment in some way. Perhaps it is contracts or the relaxation of some regulations. There is always some ulterior reason for wanting to get high on the list. The Nazis in World War II probably had a list of people they wanted to kill because they were Jewish. This is a terrifying thought, but they thought nothing of it. They were very good at paperwork. How anyone could treat this as just another list is beyond me. I am talking about people in a country which had an advanced culture at the time. It is hard to believe not only what they did, but how matter of fact it was. NASA makes lists of the best performing astronauts. They are tested for all sorts of physical and mental capabilities and a list is made of the most qualified ones. The list is then used in conjunction with other factors to see who the next crews will be on the International Space Station, and the next qualified people for manned space travel when it takes place. When private space companies sell tickets for seats on their spacecraft, they make a list of all those who have reserved seats. It may be hard for us average people to think people are paying these incredible prices to ride on a rocket, sometimes for just a few minutes. The price for a ride on a Blue Origin rocket has not been revealed, but the company had been thinking about charging $200,000 a few years ago. Musk said the first tickets to fly to Mars could cost about $500,000, but would eventually drop to about $100,000. One list which most of us make is our grocery list. I know I would be lost without it. I would simply forget to get some things or maybe even buy the wrong ones. I know my memory is not as good as it used to be, but even when I was younger, I had a grocery list and found it very useful. I think we have all seen historical lists. I am talking about the lists of presidents of the United States for example, or the list of signers of the Declaration of Independence. These lists are certainly not limited to us. Every country on the planet has historical lists. Even the ancient Egyptians had a list of their pharaohs. The only ancient countries that didn’t have some kind of a list were those who didn’t have writing, but amazingly they were still able to do some incredible things. Sometimes there are lists made which have the purpose of letting us know what are the most popular books. The New York Times has a best seller list. Some have accused the creators of the list of leaving off a book or two which didn’t suit them, even though they should have made the list. There is usually a similar list for the most popular movies. I enjoy knowing what might be on the list. I guess it is just more out of curiosity than anything else, since in the case of movies, I no longer go to the movie theater. One type of list we all dislike is the list the mechanic gives us with the list of things wrong with our car and the bill. This is never a happy experience. Even worse is the list a doctor’s exam must be responsible for. A list of things wrong with us. I have seen some terrible lists others have gotten, and it is no fun reading them. When we go to school and get a report card, what is it exactly? It is a list of how we have performed in the subjects we have taken. When we are young, we all generally do good in kindergarten and maybe the early grades and things get harder. As we get older, we might try and hide that report card, but inevitably, our parents would find out and that would not be a good thing for us. Some have tried to even go as far as to change their marks. It never seems to work out. One list most of us do not want to get on is a mailing list from companies we don’t want mail from. I know when I go to my mailbox, I am peppered with useless bulk mail which lands in the garbage without being opened. Some of the mail tries to hide its origin by not having a return name and address. That mail lands in the garbage also. I have always said if the mail was important, it would not have an anonymous envelope. Sometimes lists are made to embarrass people. Such was the case in a state which published a list of all the gun owners. Other times a list is published to let people know where they stand in their pursuit of an organ, for example. Even though there is a list, from time to time someone who is deemed IMPORTANT is allowed to jump the list such as one incident of a governor who needed a heart and was put at the top of the list. On top of that he was also put on top of the liver list. He was able to get to the top doctors directly. You can imagine how others on the list must have felt when they found out.
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