Seventeen people died today in Israel when a suicide bomber gazed at "Allah" and smiled as he pressed his dirty thumb on a $1.98 switch. "Dear, do you think people will laugh at me if I wear this dress to the play tonight? I think I wore it several months ago. Do you think they will remember?" This photo was captured by our roving photographer as he happened to be driving through the lower east side tonight. It shows a mother holding her daughter in her arms as the child died. Drive-by, I suppose. I think we can run this photo on page seven tomorrow. Please advise. "Mommyyyyy! Why didn't you buy more green-onion chips? You know they're my favorites!" Amalla swatted the flies from the sunken cheeks of her skeleton of a son. The drought had for months deprived her of giving any food or water to her dying son. It also deprived her of any ability to manufacture the tears which screamed to spill from her eyes. Joey cast the birthday present aside in obvious displeasure. "DAD! How could you be so lame? You know I told you which skateboard I wanted! MAN! I can't be seen on this bogus wood!" Today, in an incredible culmination of science, siamese twins were separated. Doctors celebrated because both infants would live. A complicated division that deprived one child of a waist and leg left the other with two legs and nearly 85% body mobility...excepting one leg which would never have any feeling. The parents were unavalible for public comment due to overwhelming happiness. Prayers were answered this night. Tiffany offered the last hit to her best friend. "This sucks! I should have been Homecoming queen! I mean, like, who IS Debbie? For reeeaaal! Jennifer took the joint from Tiffany. "Yeah, really sucks! No, Tif, I mean, like REALLY!" Tifanny poised the needle drawn full back with air and pressed it against her jugular vein. Jennifer flipped the last of the spark to the darkness. "You go girl! Jennifer giggled. Hoi Lee couldn't believe his eyes. A bicycle for straight A's? He looked at his father and mother and wondered how they had managed. Then he saw his sister, his two cousins, and his uncle, with his two sons slowly appear in the living room. They were all beaming and it was then he knew everyone had pitched in for the gift. "I'm going to get a job delivering flyers or papers or ANYTHING!" He ran to outstretched and generous family hands. "I'm going to buy gifts for EVERYONE!" "What tha fuck is this?" Robert gazed with complete disgust at the Toyota pickup his parents surprised him with for graduation. "I told you! I told you over and over! I wanted a car. Not a fuckin' truck!" He threw the keys onto the asphalt driveway where they skided to a halt in a sparkling and discarded heap.

Captain Piccard sipped on his hot Earl Grey tea, it almost tasted real. His uniform possessed no pockets. The federation had no monetary system. He scanned his bridge where each member represented a member of society throughout the galaxy, each with an equal opportunity to excel had they the ambition to do so. The Enterprise ran like a dream, and every problem had an eventual resolution that left the ship in one piece. Commercial break. Click. I switch from 'Next Generation' to 'the evening news. The murders and rapes and robberies and fatal car crashes have been rattled off like a laundry list as is done every night, and now the most important segment...the weather! Partly cloudy, cool, 20% chance of rain. Click. "Make it so."

How safe our little lives are, lost in a caccoon of complacent ignorence. How blind we are from the reality of life. How long will we sleep before that reality breaks rudely into our brainwashed minds and wakes us to the cold truth.

Well, it's why we watch Star Trek, Ramnimus has it pegged there. Seriously though, this is extremely well written, and it makes an obvious point that noone ever wants to think about. I'd say we're awake to a degree if we know we're asleep, yes? But seriously, does anyone really have the capacity to fix any of it? Sure, we can be a bit more thankful for what we have, but to actually help anyone else to have more at our expense? I mean, seriously, if we're all Roberts, why didn't we buy Hoi Lee a bycicle? Do we care at all?