What was I thinking?

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If you've seen my previous post, you'll know it was a writing experiment which didn't turn out quite as planned. Most of the comments it received either missed the point entirely or were cries of confusion. Only two or three people seemed to have figured out what I was saying, and as the writer I have to take the blame for that. So, what was I thinking? A lot of things, actually, and maybe that's part of the problem. For starters, I was peeved that my post about Syria - one that took ages to construct - was apparently read by just four people. So I decided to put together something that wouldn't be much of a challenge to read or write. With the Syria post's failure to launch, it also made sense to shoot for something with a broad appeal, and there are few things more popular at myLot than talking about myLot. Double that if you mention earnings. (Sometimes I don't miss Bubblews at all.) That part of my plan worked, at least. "Can I earn $1 a day?" is now my second-most popular post. I was interested to know if people actually bothered to read posts or were happy to add comments on the basis of a title and a couple of lines. To help things along, I kept things brief so there could be few excuses for not reading the whole thing. Unfortunately, the reveal didn't really work as I kept things too brief. Did most visitors make it past the opening lines? The jury is still out on that one, but I have my suspicions. A few folks said that they were misled by the title, so I dropped the word "here" and nothing changed. What really needed fixing was the word "I". Incidentally, the main idea came from a funny story I read recently. It's an autobiography of Severus Snape, written as if he'd been raised in the ghetto. Only at the end do you find out who it's about - a great "a-ha" moment. For what it's worth, the post was about something important after all - child labor. There is absolutely no comparison between our efforts to earn a myLot dollar and what 200 million school-age kids around the world are called on to do for the same amount. I hoped my post would bring this into perspective without hitting people over the head with facts. Guess not, so here are the facts: That figure of 200 million equates to roughly one in seven of all children in the world. Asia has by far the largest number of children at work, with Pakistan and Bangladesh among the major offenders, but the highest percentage of kids in full time employment is in sub-Saharan Africa. More than half of these children are working under hazardous conditions. This includes an estimated 300,000 child soldiers, millions of sex slaves, and a number you don't want to know about working in diseased and overcrowded firetrap sweatshops. A lot of these at-risk workers are also employed in agriculture. In fact, almost 100 million children around the world are expected to work the land. It's hard to say what an average working day might be, but an aggregate of studies suggests it's about 14 hours. Despite these hardships, the greatest risk to most child laborers is that they will never have a chance to go to school. Denied an education, they remain ripe for exploitation, and so the cycle of poverty and dependence continues on to the next generation. Thanks for reading. Heeeere's Johnny...