Ms. Boyle appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, more specifically the episode that aired last weekend. And the reason why it’s important to note that she appeared on last weekend’s episode is because of how big of a phenomenon she’s become since then. As of this writing, the video of her on YouTube has garnered 29.9 million hits. In a week! Ms. Boyle is an internet sensation if there ever was one and she’s probably the most deserving one in history.

What is remarkable about Ms. Boyle is that the judges on Britain’s Got Talent (of which Simon Cowell is one) immediately wrote her off as a bland, hopelessly untalented wannabe. And the crowd in the theater was no better. They immediately fell back on to the sad innate biases of the 21st Century – that a 47-year-old, homely, somewhat frumpy looking virgin charity worker had nothing of significance to offer the world and thus, let’s laugh at her. In fact, if you watch the video linked above, you’ll hear that people are laughing at Ms. Boyle just as she stands on the stage. It’s ridiculous.

But the laughter immediately changes to adoration a few seconds into Ms. Boyle’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. It’s stunning. It’s the type of real world reaction that the entertainment types cannot recreate and that no money can buy. And the humiliation embodied by the judges after Ms. Boyle’s amazing performance shows that there is at least some large degree of remorse that comes along with judging a book by its cover.

So, during a time when the global population is concerned about local, regional, and the worldwide economies and at a time when we’re not sure what the next day holds, it’s good to know that a person like Susan Boyle can become not just an internet sensation, but the hope of a generation. Like the rest of the world, America – and New Jersey – is pulling for Ms. Boyle to win this season of Britian’s Got Talent. Good luck!

This article coincides with a special report that I just finished reading from The Economist talking about garbage and how to cleanup the garbage on the planet. The main lesson to learn from all of this is that everyone needs to be more aware of what they are throwing out and, to a greater degree, where their garbage is going. In other words, if you choose to throw a can, plastic bag, or piece of cardboard in the garbage as opposed to recycling it, that singular act alone is not enough to put us in a bad situation. One person, one can – we have enough room for that in our landfills. But what happens when all 25,000 people in your town do the same thing…or all 5 million people in your state? What if all 300 million people in America toss out one can per week? What about two cans? How many sodas or beers or other canned/bottled beverages do you have in a week?

The picture becomes a little bit clearer, I hope.

However, it is amazing that we are creating such a vast amount of “space junk” in the higher and lower atmospheres. And this isn’t stuff just floating around out there; this is stuff that is going at a few thousand miles per hour! Imagine being on a spaceship and all of the bravery that shooting up into the atmosphere takes, but then getting up there and having a stray nut or bolt (or an entire dead satellite) smash into your spaceship at two thousand miles per hour. Unreal.

This is an issue that someone really needs to get on top of – space needs to be cleaned up.