At 7:46 this morning our nation's population will hit the 300 million mark.  How will you celebrate? 

I'll be cowering under my bed, waiting for the big one.  But that's how I start every day. 

Later I'll be waiting for an overpacked train on a crowded T platform.  I'll drop into a thronged Au Bon Pain before "work" and wait some more in a long, snaky line for a muffin. 

Actually, the nice thing about Boston proper is that housing's so outrageously expensive that, as everybody knows, the population has actually been falling for years.  Boston Metro's still growing, though.  Don't ask me why. 

According to the AP, "there's a good chance the 300 millionth American has already walked across the border from Mexico." Over at CNN.com there's these couple of fun factoids: "The number of people who are born every second in the U.S.: 7.  The number of migrants who enter the U.S. every second: 31."

There's actually been an inordinate amount of coverage, whenever this milestone is mentioned, of the issues of immigration and race.  The big scary notion is that the 300 millionth American will be Mexican.  A segment on CBS tried to quell the hysteria by consulting an expert who reassures us: "If we look at just the probabilities, it's most likely to be a white birth."

Whew.  That's a relief. 

But I think the media's taking a glass-half-empty approach to the new demographics.  We should be looking at it like—31 to 7—that's over three low-paid Hispanic nannies to every single white baby born today!  Or if you don't want a Mexican nanny (Jamaicans seem to be the nationality of choice for proper Bostonians), that's like a cook, a maid, and a gardener for every new legally born American!  We'll never have to do the jobs we don't want to do again!

See, no need for panic.