Going Back

I don't like people filling my e-mail box with the latest "cute" posts that are making the Internet rounds, and I especially detest those posts that, like the pyramid letters back in the snail-mail days, exhort me to pass it along to 8 friends if I want happiness and joy the rest of my life. But one I received the other day captured my interest. It was longer than this, but I'll cut right to the chase. The subject was the number one billion. The point was putting it into context. A billion days ago, it said, there were no two legged animals walking the earth. A billion dollars ago, it concluded, was eight hours and twenty minutes at the rate our government is spending money.