Was It Worth It?

OK, I kinda/sorta understand when cultural expections make you go to the extreme. Like women getting Triple-G size implants. But when you are so poor you sleep on the floor and you pay to be made pregnant and actually bring a child into this world with the great possibility that you won't be around for the heavy lifting.

Take for instance this lady on the left, Rajo Devi Lohan, gave birth to the child she is holding in her arms at the age of SEVENTY through IVF. Now she's dead.

I Almost Disappeared Like That

On Sept 17, 2009, Mitrice Richardson, a 24 year-old, All American-type girl, disappeared. There is a lot of controversy over whether the Sheriffs Department was negligent in releasing her in the dead of night, without a ride or someone to pick her up, in an undeveloped area with a lot of hills and brush. Oh yeah, the sheriffs wouldn't give her her car - impounded for some unknown reason - and told her she could leave though - on foot. As of today, June 26,2010, Mitrice has been missing for nine months.

This story haunts me because I almost disappeared like that, in a split second, and like in a movie playing out before me, someone from out of NO WHERE, in the next split second, saved me, literally, physically, saved my life.

I was riding my bike on a deserted street of undeveloped land when a van pulled over to the curb as I was waiting to cross the street. The man in the passenger seat asked me for directions. He looked harmless - chubby with fat cheeks and me, with my Girl Scout and sunday school training, I thought I would help him. As I straddled my bike and tried to think of how best to explain to him he jumped out of the van and ran towards me, grabbed my wrist and started pulling me to the van. I was like WTF is going on!!??

The struggle began as I started jerking back on my arm and digging in my feet trying to breakfree of his gigantic dirty hands. It was like we were in a tug of war. He got me all the way to the van and I stuck my arm straight out and braced it against the side to keep him from pulling me in.

I knew my skinny arm wasn't going to last long but adrenaline is a powerful thing because I felt like I was in a struggle for my life. It wouldn't have been any different if it had been a bobcat or bear or some other beast, I was scared to death and was fighting for my life.

I'm looking at the driver of the van, an old Latino man with gray hair and missing teeth. I'm begging him to help me, to stop his grandson and then it dawns on me that the old man is in on it. Just then, just in time, right before I was beginning to give up hope, a big fist came across from the left and socked fatboy so hard he staggered back and let me loose. He got back in the van and they sped off.

If this man had not stopped and rescued me I would have disappeared, just like that, just like it happens everyday.

Yet Another Disaster......

On April 20th a huge catastrophe occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil spill, gushing out millions of barrels of oil day and night for the last two months. The black ooze of oil is all over the beach and it is a pathetic sight to see the birds and animals coated with it and can't move or fly. Ah, the cost of providing fuel as we know it.