Lots and lots

Today I read an article in The Korea Herald, an English-language newspaper published in Seoul, about the opening of the ASEAN summit talks. ASEAN is the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. After this two-day gathering, there will be a meeting of the brand new East Asian Summit, which will be ASEAN plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. Here's the sentence that struck me:

"The East Asian Summit, which represents about half the world's population, will consider ways of enhancing cooperation, and proposals to create European-style economic intregration..." and so on.

SO casually, oh, you know, about half the people in the world. Hello! This is a mind-boggling thought. I already think many of us Yankee Doodles tend to forget, as we take for granted that we are the biggest and baddest, about the rest of the world, but we certainly neglect to think about just how very many people there are in Asia. When I had CNN International-Asia edition (in the old apartment), I became intrigued by viewing the world from here instead of there. It has nothing to do with being anti-anything, by the way, nor pro-anything. It's just good to remember once in a while that this new swath of 16 nations is, oh, let's see, just about half of EVERYONE ON THE PLANET.