What makes us take note? And elephants.

Among all the stuff that passes by our senses, some penetrates. Which and why? And what about the elephants in the room that we don't notice.

Once again this is a germ of a thought, that leads all sorts of places and which other people must know far more about. But, well anyway, here's a few strands.

- Sometimes there are things that I know, but they don't seem important until something or someone moves it to the foreground

- There are things which are big, really big, yet most of the time, in most contexts, they are ignored. The elephants in the room.

I think these are connected. Probably the best person for pointing out elephants is George Monbiot. You can look at any of his blogposts or Guardian articles, but I'm prompted by today's, about the number of people we lock up in jail, and even more dramatically, the number that the USA locks up. There's no point me reproducing what he's said, look for yourself, but this is huge, surely? The USA, land of the free, locks up more people (a higher proportion of its population) that any other country in the world?