OUR world of 100 people

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We are told that we have crossed the 7 Billion people mark this year, I even put an App on my computer from National Geographic that fills your screen with people, little people starting with one until no space is left and then asks the question ‘How will your world Change?’ hard to imagine really.   Most of us withstand change however it is happening all around us and so we had better catch on, the world is changing with us or without us.    I wonder what will change for us locally or in your family or globally, the changes in terms of politics, needs, supplies – water politics, basic food production, the list continues

Compiled below are facts and figures to give us a snap shot of our changing world, facts to deal with in a world of change.    The people of God, the body of Christ the ‘ecclesia’ of God is here to bring about change, and not just be the victims of change.   We are here to change the atmosphere, to be the instigators of change; through the Kingdom of God we are to bring the “fullness of Christ” to creation NOW THAT IS CHANGE, if nothing else.

One strategy we must take seriously, is to find like minded people, empowered people connected to bring change according to the will of God.   Joining our hands with them, this should be the church of God, so who around you is bringing change? and who around you has the passion for transformation? proclaiming the Kingdom of God has come and is coming?

I recently read, for you who live in the UK, “Imagine the global population in terms of 75,445 Wembley’s, or, indeed, 2,341 Wales’? The numbers are so big.

The report went on to say, “It’s a question that has piqued the curiosity of several would-be demographers, including, most famously, the late US environmentalist Donella Meadows. In 1990, she published The State of the Village Report, which was released as a poster at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. At around the same time, a Canadian retired geography teacher called David Smith started work on If the World Were a Village, which was eventually published in 2002. Both works conveyed a vivid sense of global perspective. Smith’s research, for example, revealed that a world village of 100 people would be home to 61 Asians, as well as 16 severely undernourished people – and 189 chickens”

Of course, little Britain barely gets a look-in in that reduction: we are equivalent to just about a single person. So what would happen if we gave our country (with a population of 61 million, give or take a Rutland or a West Somerset) the same treatment? If England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were condensed to a single community of 100 people, what would that community look like?

This question was asked by The Independent (Laurent Taubin www.unsitesurinternet.fr) put pencil to paper, ear to phone and finger to calculator, and trawled acres of spreadsheets and data-sets published by government and other statistical authorities to produce a snapshot of Britain in the 21st century, this is the last list ‘if Britain was a village of 100 people”.

Below are various demographic reports for your thoughts of how we as the church across the world will impact humanity, these figures are way beyond grasp but knowing TOGETHER the church across the world are commissioned to make disciples and being empowered by the Holy Spirit for “works of service” to transform and restore society and creation OUR WORLD.

Village Earth

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of 100 people, with the relative size of human groups remaining the same:- 

•       57 Asians, 27 Europeans, 14 Americans, 8 Africans

•       70% would be non whites, 30% whites

•       70% non Christian, 30% Christian

•       52 would be female 48 male

•       59% worlds wealth in 6 hands, All 6 would be American

•       70% unable to read, 50% suffer malnutrition

•       80% live in substandard housing

•       1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth

•       1 would have a college education, 1 would have a computer

•       If you woke up this morning in health you are better than a million who will not survive the week

•       If you have never experienced battle, imprisonment, torture or starvation you are ahead of 500 million people.

•       If we can gather as the church without harassment, arrest, torture or death you are better off than 3 million people.

•       If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, roof over head you are better of than 75% of people

•       If you have money in the bank, wallet or spare dish someplace you are among the tope 8% of the world’s wealth. 

Updated August 19, 2011.     If the world were a village of 100 people…

  • 61 villagers would be Asian (of that, 20 would be Chinese and 17 would be Indian), 14 would be African, 11 would be European, 9 would be Latin or South American, 5 would be North American, and none of the villagers would be from Australia, Oceania, or Antarctica.
  • At least 18 villagers would be unable to read or write but 33 would have cellular phones and 16 would be online on the Internet.
  • 27 villagers would be under 15 years of age and 7 would be over 64 years old.
  • There would be an equal number of males and females.
  • There would be 18 cars in the village.
  • 63 villagers would have inadequate sanitation.
  • 33 villagers would be Christians, 20 would be Muslims, 13 would be Hindus, 6 would be Buddhists, 2 would be atheists, 12 would be non-religious, and the remaining 14 would be members of other religions.
  • 30 villagers would be unemployed or underemployed while of those 70 who would work, 28 would work in agriculture (primary sector), 14 would work in industry (secondary sector), and the remaining 28 would work in the service sector (tertiary sector). 53 villagers would live on less than two U.S. dollars a day.
  • One villager would have AIDS, 26 villagers would smoke, and 14 villagers would be obese.
  • By the end of a year, one villager would die and two new villagers would be born so thus the population would climb to 101.

UK as a Village of 100

If Britain were a village of 100 people…

17 of the 100 villagers would be under the age of 15, while another 16 would be 65 or over (three of them 80 or over).

There would be 80 adults (aged 16 or over), of whom 40 would be married and 11 would live alone.

There would be 42 households in the village, of which 13 would be home to just one person. (Six of these would belong to lone pensioners, of whom five would be female.

Of the 19 villagers aged between 20 and 34, four would live with their parents.

The village would welcome one new baby this year. The baby would expect to live for 76 years and six months (if it was a boy), or 81 years and seven months (if it was a girl)

One person would die this year.

Ninety-two of the villagers would be white. Two would be black, two Indian, one Pakistani, one of mixed race and two would be of other races.

Ten people would have been born outside the village, three of whom would live in London.

Six people would be gay or lesbian (probably).

84 of them would live in England, eight in Scotland, five in Wales and three in Northern Ireland

Eight people would live in Greater London (one of them in Croydon).

There would be 51 women and girls, and 49 men and boys.

If Britain were a village of 100 people, and its land mass were scaled down by the same proportion as its population, the village would cover an area the size of 99 football pitches.

Fifty-three of these football pitches would be English, 32 Scottish, nine Welsh and five Northern Irish.

Agricultural land would occupy 20 football pitches, on which 54 sheep, 17 cows, eight pigs and 273 chickens would roam. There would be one farmer.

London would cover just over half a football pitch.

All built-up areas and gardens would occupy the equivalent of six football pitches

Seventy-two people would identify themselves as Christian (although only 10 people in the village would go to church regularly). Fifteen people would say that they were not religious, while there would be two Muslims, one Hindu and 10 people who practised other religions.

Each person would generate 495kg of waste every year. The village as a whole would generate 163kg of waste every day, of which just 47kg would be put out for recycling

If Britain were a village of 100 people, 17 of the villagers would smoke, of whom 11 would like to give up.

Nineteen adults and three children would be classified as obese (that is they would have a Body Mass Index of 30 or greater).

Sixteen men and eight women would usually exceed the Government’s daily sensible drinking benchmark (3-4 units per day for men; 2-3 units a day for women).

Eight men and four women would have taken an illicit drug in the past year

Eight people would have asthma.

Eight adults would be suffering from depression today (but as many as 20 would suffer from depression at some point in their lifetime).

One person would have dementia.

The villagers would have 118 mobile phones between them (66 of which would be pay-as-you-go). There would be 55 telephone landlines.

There would be 90 televisions (an average of more than two per household).

Twenty-one villagers would have watched Andy Murray beat Stanislas Wawrinka under floodlights at Wimbledon this year; 32 people would have watched Susan Boyle lose ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

Of the 42 households in the village, 32 would have satellite, digital or cable television

Twenty-seven households would have access to the internet (24 of those would have a broadband connection).

Thirty people would have a Facebook account.

Sixteen of the villagers would be at school – of whom one would be in private education.

One of the 16 pupils would leave school this year. Twelve of them would, when the time comes, go into higher education. Nine of them would achieve five or more GCSE or equivalent passes at grades A*-C.

One person in the village would be illiterate.

There would be one teacher.

Seven people would be in further education. (In 1990, there were only four.)

Of the 62 villagers of working age, 45 would have jobs; nine of them would be in the public sector.

They would earn an average of £388 a week (including part-time workers).

Of the 13 villagers of working age who weren’t working, four would be unemployed; three would be looking after family and/or home; three would be excluded from the workforce by sickness; two would be students; and one would have taken early retirement.

The 80 adults in the village would share a personal debt of £2.4m (£30,480 each, on average).

Six would be claiming housing benefit; five would own their homes but have negative equity.

The richest 10 people in the village would receive 30 per cent of the total income. Between them, they would earn more than the poorest 50 combined.

The poorest 10 people in the village would receive 2 per cent of total income.

Two adults would not have access to a bank account.

Fifty-six of the 100 villagers would claim to have given to charity within the past four weeks. Overall, the village would donate £17,393 to charity this year.

Twenty people would claim the state pension; 12 would be women.

Five villagers would be employed in the food industry.

Five men and four women would have had multiple sex partners in the previous year.

If Britain were a village of 100 people, there would be 74 voters.

Only 26 of those voters would have gone to the polls at this year’s European elections.

Of the 42 households in the village, 18 would have at least one pet. Between them, those households would have 38 pets (not including fish), including 13 dogs (comprising 10 pedigrees, one cross and two mongrels) and 13 cats (12 of which would be moggies, or non-pedigrees).

Three of the villagers would be vegetarians and a further five would be partly vegetarian.

Between them, the villagers would spend £2,955 a week on food and non-alcoholic drinks. They would spend £1,154 a week on food eaten outside the home, of which £355 would go towards alcohol.

Seventy-eight of the villagers would have a passport.

Fifty-five would have a driving licence.

There would be 56 motor vehicles in the village, including 44 cars and two motorbikes.

Of the 42 households in the village, 18 would have one car, 13 would have two or more cars and 10 would not have a car at all.

In the past year, the people of the village would have made 107 trips abroad, spending £60,055 between them.

I rest my case and invite you to think of our responsibility and accountability let’s transform our world in order that Christ might be seen.    Let us bring the order of the Kingdom of God to our world!

Freedom Day Celebration

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Sandra and I are coming to the end of our autumn/spring period in South Africa, it depends of which side of the equator you live, with a day of national rest hitting  Cape Town.   The traffic filling the roads system as the rain came down we even had a lightning show, winters knocking.     As people begin to enjoy another public holiday in South Africa.   This one is a celebration of 18 years of “Freedom” (2012), when a political system and all it contain ended.    The news and media are full of reports and comments along with interviews and reminders that “we are a young nation”, with facts and figures  such as 60% of all South Africans are below the age of 35 a literally young nation.       Celebrations, brai’s (South African / Zimbabwean slang for a barbecue), family get together, last trips before winter seem to be the order of this Freedom Day, yet freedom still eludes all humanity.    Sometimes it comes but then it’s so fleeting, how can we enter into a freedom way of life and it becomes sustainable never fleeting?     We are told if we do this, spend that, take on a certain products, make change such as…, use this or that, visit here, travel there, go to this event or meeting freedom will follow or so the promise is there but it only comes up empty.     The promise is cut short it seems.    Yet the promise of freedom through another, the Christ of God, is there which is not empty at all, it means a different way of life and more difficult probably it requires a paradigm change a of though, which means my history has to be re arranged my education has to be renewed to enable this liberty and sustaining it.

Through life you meet people or hear of people’s’ lives that touch you deep inside their lives words and actions transforming your thinking and propel you into the future believing, affirmed and ready to tackle what ever mountain that comes your way.   These events have a peculiar resonance, a definite way of lifting each one of us.   I wonder where these people and events are in your story to date?    Not only that, where did you meet these people?  In person, through reading about them or in Hollywood’s remake of their lives, where ever and through who ever I am thankful we can meet these people and events in our lives, where would life be without them?

Let tell of one Hollywood scene, I know a dear friend that gets empowered and transformed to the mountain top in his passion, he really is a passionate type in any case, as he watches the many times he has seen the man lying on a cold stone table in a Hollywood remake of William Wallace’s life, as Wallace comes to the end of his life at this closing scene he cries out with a heart wrenching “Freedom“, a cry that sends your own spirit soaring and longing for FREEDOM.

I recently listened to Mother Teresa in her acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace prize in 1979, outlining her humble privilege of life as she shone with humility “…the joy of spreading peace, loving one another, that the poor are our brothers and sisters… I chose the poverty of the poor people I receive it in the name of the unwanted of our world…in their name I accept the award…understanding that loving the poor and seeing that death is nothing but going home to God…” clearly a woman of great character who had found her own life’s liberty and brought freedom to others passionately outlines her passion for the poor of our world.   One person she helped said that he had lived on the streets in filth all his life but now he would die as and with angels.   LIBERTY.

Martin Luther King Jr in April 1968 a day before he was assassinated made one of his fine and moving speeches in which he declared prophetically of his own future “… I have been to the mountain top…I would like to live a long life-like us all but that does not concern me now…I just want to God’s will…I have seen the promised land, I may not get there with you…I am not fearful of any man for I have seen the glory if the Lord…” he had encountered FREEDOM and felt its LIBERTY clearly that had released him.

Paul captures the same sense of freedom, liberty, when he addresses the Galatian church, I believe we read it and often miss the relevance of what is being spoken, it was penned to produce that same impact as the heart wrenching shout of Freedom from Hollywood in Braveheart, or the moving testimonies of the lives mentioned earlier, who are so free they gave up all to pursue that which was pursuing them.      Paul wrote it so we to would cry FREEDOM while living life.    I wish we could feel the rush of the words transforming as I read it, departing from our heads and the whole person catching this soul moving, spirit rising “…it’s for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free.   Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again to a yoke of slavery…” Do you feel it surge through your fingers, life into you, feel it so strongly, like plugging my fingers into an electric socket I would surely feel it.   FREEDOM!    This Gospel we proclaim the gospel that came to us, and discovered us, this gospel of freedom is not to become religious mantra with patterns and formula, but must bring constant liberty to our lives.

Galatians 5:1 The Life of Freedom

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

This freedom is a clear central theme of our message, the message of the scriptures and the Kingdom; each of us should grasp this freedom and nail ourselves to it.   We have a message of liberty and freedom.    wherever the message of Christ is uttered, it should be noted that liberty is produced, and freedom is released.

The message of the Christ is to bring freedom to us let us this week discover freedom living and empower others to be free.     FREEDOM consider and look to see how we can participate, enjoy and live with it!

Keeping up image & likeness

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I was so moved today reading the ‘Cape Times’, two stories caught my attention, one of a 17-year-old girl who was gang raped,  all of which was caught on a mobile telephone and subsequently went  viral on the internet.  The video shows her being offered R2 (R12.5 to the £; R7.8 to $) to keep silent.   The other was a story from India, New Delhi and Amritsar, it out lined an account of two fathers, one who beat and burned his daughter with cigarettes as she was a girl – she was only 3 months old.   The second story  of a father who strangled his wife as she gave birth to a third daughter, another girl.   The UN states that a girl is 75% more likely to be killed in India than male children, it is reported by the UN  to be the worst country world on its treatment of women and girls.

I am scandalised, what violence on individuals, but more what violence on Gods wisdom in creating women, I don’t know about you, are you stirred by it ?  I am not covering up the atrocities that happen all across the world in other places either, Africa and Europe has its share as well.   I am moved as to how humanity deals with its self.   I am also stirred at the treatment of females worldwide.

Before we switch off thinking this is all happening somewhere else, thinking how dreadful but, is on another shore in another nation, let us consider our actions and perceived realities towards women.    It could be that lives are not taken in our society, but consider how we treat females different to males, surely this  is also needing to change and be addressed.

I am not looking for equality either I am asking for righteousness and justice to be shown in all things about gender.   If we do anything else we will always have a fight, so what do I mean by righteousness on this matter?   It is to discover the eternal view regarding man and women, to find out the foundational view of the Father and be in the same line towards humanity keeping the principles set in the Fathers heart towards humanity.   Let us not get involved with the argument on what is equality, but come back to what God says, then live and change to make our world conform to the view of the eternal Godhead, it really is the only answer.

Our world is on a course of elevating women I believe its time for the church to discover the right view of God in regards to men and women.    Much of our practice came from a fallen condition, patriarchy for instance is not a pattern taken from the Godhead, rather in the Godhead we see each one giving to the other, each one serving and pouring out for each other ‘Perichoresis’.     This is not about male headship or dominance neither is it about feminism, it is time to discover an eternal view and make it happen.

Let me outline a thought for you, we have in Genesis a view breaking in to a  time-space world of the requirement of male and female in the design of God.  it begins with Gods’ statement “…it is not good for man to be alone…”, I wonder what  your view has been regarding that statement?   Perhaps it was something that you were taught in Sunday school of the loneliness of mankind, Adam.  Looking again at the text, to my understanding this was a declaration that humanity did not fully reflect the image and likeness of God, as humanity was alone. This statement highlighted to us that God is never alone; for God is in covenant, therefore to be in the image and likeness of God there cannot be singularity there must always be more than one.

In the process of creation, we see Adam’s partnership in creation with the Father in naming the animals, Adam being the prophet giving word and describing god’s actions, interpreting God’s actions. It is my conviction that Adam did not simply name the animals, e.g. a lion, giraffe, etc., but working with God Adam named the DNA and interpreted God’s creation.

After this partnership God did not bring animals to Adam to see which one was compatible to humanity as a mate, that is a foolish thought in my view, as intimacy can only be found with the same “thing”, more on that to come.  Having “named the animals”, Adam – humanity, is put into a deep sleep.  Humanity/Adam was male and female at this time, and only at that point were they separated.   The reason was so that humanity could reflect the image and likeness of God, there has to be more than one. This thought challenges all individuality and singleness, establishing clearly that the image of God is found in more than one-corporeity.

God, the Father, the Son and Spirit brought about that which reflected them. There is so much we could say on this but this is not the time.

The Hebrew thought on this, taken from the text in Genesis, is that God did not take a side or a rib, but within the clay and the ruach there were already two faces present, one representing male and the other representing female.   God recreated them bringing the 2 faces to face one another.    It is from this idea we also read in the Old Testament the description of Moses, Abraham and others, of their quality of relationship with God being known as a ‘face-to-face’ relationship. Humanity is a picture of God and man having the capacity to be in a face-to-face relationship and the gift of marriage is also model of this ‘face-to-face’ relationship. I don’t know about you but I love this Hebrew picture, it paints for me the quality of relationship I have with God and reminds me that the gift of my marriage is to display this.

Now coming back to the thought above… ‘you can only be intimate with the same stuff’, can you see why Adam could not have found a relationship with animals, they were not of the same stuff.  God took that which was clay and breath and from this took the triumph of female.     Paul in the book of Ephesians talks about the picture of the bride and bridegroom, the Christ and the Church being displayed in marriage. Firstly this face-to-face relationship and secondly that Adam and Eve were the same stuff, here we have the exciting discovery that you and I having been born from above have an intimacy with God, because we are all the same stuff as God. How do I know I am the same stuff as God?    It is his desire to be intimate with me.     What a salvation!

Another thought, in Genesis 1 we have a clear pattern laid out for us, the male and female are called to display the image and likeness of God, not to establish superiority or subservient views.  The account is far more about ruling together, filling together, enlarging and advancing the ultimate intention of God together.  I would suggest that this account is an eternal view breaking in on this time-space world.   Following this through in history, we read Paul’s statement in Galatians  “…neither Jew or Gentile, male or female master or slave…” Is Paul taking his lead from the kingdom that is breaking in upon us?  Taking his lead from the eternal realm, displaying and speaking forth what it is like in the true economy and kingdom of God.  I fully understand that patriarchy, dominance and subservience has been displayed through many of the pictures in the Old Testament but this does not mean that this is what the kingdom should be like or how eternity functions.  I would suggest that Genesis 1 with a constant flow together of male and female is how we need to operate and Paul’s statement only affirms Gods creating order, there is neither, the eternal order, the invading Kingdom of God order.    Please hear me, in our fallen world clearly there are functional differences but we have to learn to be herald righteous and just and uphold Gods eternal kingdom.

If our world constantly break down and remove women to such a low-level, causing them to live dominated, it is time for the church of God to show the righteousness of God and display a different way.   In Ephesians Paul’s tells us that man should love his wife to display the Christ and the bridegroom. Has not the bridegroom lifted up the bride and seated the bride on the throne, therefore let me suggest that man’s way should be to lift woman higher than themselves for is this not what the love of Christ has done for us, and is this not true headship.  Unfortunately as men we so quickly become dominating and press women down. Men I ask that we become the liberators of women in these days.   This is not a post-modern or a modern way of thinking but it is a rediscovery of the eternal value maleness and femaleness in the image and likeness of God.

Just as Christ serves the church we better serve one another so that the bride may truly be lifted up. Is it not amazing that all across the world, in virtually every culture women are subservient, beaten; young female children are treated with a lack of value.    It is time for the eternal people of God to speak out rather than allowing perceived realities to continue to imprison. My appeal is that we become male and female, and advance the kingdom of God together, just as God would have us to do.

There is so much more to come revelation, biblically and theologically that we are discovering in these days regarding male and female.    Let us reflect righteously the view of eternity, for this is the Kingdom of God that is breaking in upon us, as we taste more and more of the order of God.

With the Fathers empowerment we will and should bring to an end stories such as we began with throughout our world, Politicians speak out, the church do not stay silent.    Wars are fought on treasures in the ground, boundaries of nations but silence regarding such atrocities as we began this article with continue. Really its violence to the image and likeness of God let us highly regard one another and be what God intending firstly n the church family then in our world.

Leadership – discovering again its SERVANT nature.

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There are so many Leadership styles along with books urging us to discover style would be the best to lead making your mark amongst people and society.    We some times get confused how we who are followers of Christ should reflect the Christ in our work.    Jesus said in John 1:18 (NASB) “…came to explain the Father.” he has invited us to continue what he started, explaining the Father.    I have repeatedly stated and asked the challenging question of my self “do I  explain the Father” as I live my life, do we explain him.

My interaction with people, my work ethic, my conduct, character, the way I live life, are people gaining an explanation?     You and I have to admit we will through word and deed explain something of to others, I wonder what.     I wonder how I conduct myself in a supermarket line, the way I drive the car, my conduct towards those older, younger, or of any difference to me, what do I explain?   Do people walking away from me depart with an explanation of God or is it something else?

We have been called through our own temperament, they way we are cut our character and life not be like the leadership style in our own way but one that explains what God if like.   Leadership is clearly to be rediscover, is in urgent need to be seen as a SERVANT style, one that pours out for others, one that is more interested in establishing an inheritance for the next generation that building for our selves, that serves the society around giving away to build and establish through a servant leadership.   Let us rediscover in world govern by business, getting more and more, amassing wealth, gaining control a servant leadership that flows from being a son of God rather than endorsing an orphan spirit of protection of me and mine, working to make secure my provision rather than trusting the Father and being a Servant Leader.    the people of God would be different in itself if we could driver our delve storm celebrities to servant ministries and taking that model to our world.    Sometime we are so caught on making a mark we have forgotten the desired Christ like style to do so and fall to become “Christian X-factor” leaders rather than poured out Servant Leaders, Christ will triumph and we will become the Servant Bride- a Challenge to be different but explaining God!

‘Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance.’

J. Donald Walters

‘You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.’

Anthony J D’Angelo

‘Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.’

St. Augustine

‘Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.’

Winston Churchill

‘But among you it should be quite different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must become your slave.’

Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.”( Matt 20:27, 28)

Jesus the Christ

Good read to consider further – Leadership, Greatness & Servanthood Phillip Greenslade

9 things that will come to pass.

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I came across this recently thought-provoking list.   It’s a list of 9 things that will pass away in our lifetime, what will your world be like If these pass?   Start thinking and realizing the effect on our life style

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come…

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long-term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Cheque. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with cheque by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the cheque. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’ve always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is “catalogue items,” meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”

7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they’re playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It’s time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The “Things” That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in “the cloud.” Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest “cloud services.” That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this “stuff” or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big “Poof?” Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That’s gone. It’s been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, “They” know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. “They” will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.