Uh, this is a very uncomfortable sentence. There are two possibilities, here, regarding the function of this sentence. 1) The Technically True but Terribly Vague: This is a category of opening sentence that is grammatically and intellectually fine, but also very boring. It's a cousin of "since the dawn of time," and I don't let my Rhetoric students use either type of opening line, as they are both lazy rhetoric. However, the second possibility is much more troubling: 2) This also sounds a lot like the extremely racist "black people can be very articulate."

I know we are to the point of just beating the crap out of the editors, now, but come on. This could have been easily avoided.

Who was in charge of this notation??? Was there an audience response? Would it not have been just as effective to start a new paragraph?