I have a girlfriend who decided to ride in Rolling Thunder this year, too. She has become quite the patriot since 9/11 and I hope she met some guys on the ride that opened her eyes and her mind to a totally different lifestyle from her little cocoon of a teacher’s life in suburbia that she’s enjoyed all these years. I can’t wait for her to call and tell me all about her biker experience.

My nephew is a real sweetheart – a humanitarian and he has always had a strong interest in helping people. The college program takes a lot of precautions to protect the students, but such an unstable culture as the African countries exhibit makes me very concerned. He’s leaving the U. S. at the end of the month, so it occurred to me that something he might appreciate taking with him would be a calling card. You know, the prepaid phone cards that let you make international calls at very cheap rates?

I found an internet site that sells the phone cards in different denominations and has different types of cards, from single use to ones you can reload. From reading about the rates between the United States and Johannesburg, it is much much cheaper to call FROM the U. S. to South Africa than to call the U.S. FROM South Africa. So I will get him a card with at least 20 minutes of calling time that he can keep in his wallet and in case of emergency he can at least call home and let us know he needs help. Otherwise, because of the expense, his mother should call him at a pre-arranged time to save money, so I’ve buying a calling card for her, too.

The earthquake in China was devastating. The reported number of people killed keeps growing, by practically hundreds by the hours. The last time I looked it was over 12,000 dead and 18,000 missing or trapped in the wreckage of schools, office buildings and apartment homes. My heart goes out to these people and I hope that the rest of the world steps up to help provide aid to these victims.

Again tonight we are having severe weather warnings. I’m glad for the rain, as last year was a drought for most of the southeastern states. But the wind does a lot of damage and the tornadoes do kill people when buildings collapse or cars flip over.

I wish the government had a better handle on the global warming and could lead the way for the rest of the world – especially China – to treat our Earth with more respect and care.

The new Corporate Manslaughter Act goes into full force and effect next month. This new Act is a strengthening of previous legislation that tried to do the same thing, but it unfortunately was limited to prosecuting just the individuals in the company who it could be proven had enough seniority and responsibility for the company to be deemed the “directing mind” of the company.

The new law has lifted that limitation so that the entire company can be held liable if there is a death as a result of the company’s gross negligence.

I was reading about the new Corporate Manslaughter Act on a website that focuses on workplace safety issues. The website is uncluttered yet full of information. There are easy to follow links to more information on a variety of safety issues. Since these issues are important to me, it is also interesting to me to read the perspective of people outside of the U. S. that are dealing with this, too.

Unfortunately, their client was found guilty despite their best efforts. I know how devestated they were when it was over, and of course they went right into the appeals process.

What bothers me about the justice system in today’s world is that there is no longer a speedy trial. Once someone has been arrested, they can be held in jail for 6 – 9 months before their case goes to trial, sometimes even longer.

If they are found not guilty, how can we, the public, ever repay these people for all that time and money spent on trying to defend themselves and the loss of their freedom, their earning power, their parenting responsibilities, etc. ?

Think about the havoc it would cause on your family relationships, your finances, and your standing in the community to be in that situation when you are wrongly accused. It is very disheartening to me.

The news I get is the real stuff from friends, neighbors, and relatives living everywhere in the country, all fed up with high gas prices not being able to find a jobs and everything inbetween. It is time for change, and with the next election America will finally have what it should have had 8 years ago, a Democrat as President.