As Tropical Storm Gustav spun toward the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, insurance companies were ready to send adjusters and appraisers to assess damage from the storm if it does make landfall in the United States. They were also prepared financially, having made changes in their coverage in the three years since Hurricane Katrina.

At State Farm Insurance Cos. headquarters in Bloomington, Ill., staff is on-call 24-hours a day while the company waits to see when and where Gustav will hit. Once a distinctive storm path is determined, more than 1,700 claims representatives will be sent into the affected area.

"We're in a holding pattern, we are waiting to see where this thing is going to go," said spokesman Kip Biggs.

Allstate Corp. and MetLife Inc. had catastrophe units as well as claims representatives en route to the Gulf region.

"We are preparing for Gustav to be a major event at this time," said Tim Bowen, director of property claims at MetLife.

Meanwhile, after paying out $41 billion in claims payments since Katrina struck three years ago Friday, insurers have made sure they are financially ready for another storm; they have settled Katrina-related lawsuits, raised policy rates and also cut back on the insurance they offer in areas most vulnerable to tropical storms.

"Insurers have all taken a hard look at Katrina and made adjustments that they feel are appropriate," said Robert Hartwig, an economist and president of the Insurance Information Institute, a New York-based industry group.

At Allstate, "we have reduced our exposure in coastal communities," said Mike Siemienas, spokesman for the property, casualty and auto insurer. "We have 17 million households that we insure throughout the country and we need to make ensure we are not overexposed in any one area that is catastrophe prone."

The value of coastal property exposed to hurricanes increased by 24 percent, or $1.7 trillion, from $7.2 trillion in 2004 to $8.9 trillion by the end of 2007, according to research and weather modeler AIR Worldwide Corp.

Gustav was not the only storm insurers were watching -- on Thursday, Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Atlantic, northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. It was too early to predict whether Hanna will threaten the United States, but Gustav was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane over warm and deep Gulf waters, possibly hitting the Gulf Coast by early next week.

Katrina was the single largest natural disaster loss in the history of the insurance industry. Insurers paid $41 billion arising from 1.7 million claims for damage to homes, businesses and vehicles to policy holders in six states. Hurricane Andrew -- the previous record holder -- produced $15.5 billion in losses in 1992 and 790,000 claims.

Insurers typically keep money aside in order to pay claims that are much larger than a Katrina -- or this summer's Midwest flooding or California wildfires. "Insurers have to assume that a worst-case scenario can occur any year," Hartwig said.

Disaster losses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are likely to escalate in the coming years because of huge increases in development and rising building and repair costs, he said. "While 2005 was by far the worse year ever for insured catastrophe losses in the U.S., future storms could prove even costlier, reaching upward of $100 billion."

To help offset some of that amount, some insurance companies have raised rates, most taking effect later this year.

In July, State Farm said it will boost its homeowners insurance rates by 12 percent to 18 percent in several Alabama counties. Some 700 policies on the state's coast will also lose State Farm's wind coverage over two years.

Earlier this month, two separate divisions of Allstate said they would raise homeowners' rates for wind and hail coverage in Mississippi by an average of 13.9 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively.

State Farm is also raising homeowner rates in Mississippi by a statewide average of 13.6 percent, but State Farm policyholders without wind coverage will not see a rate increase.

Reasons for the increases: The rising risk and cost of doing business, State Farm's Biggs said.

"In order to make claims we've got to have the money in place to be able to take care of people in a time of need," he said.

To limit their exposure to catastrophic losses from natural disasters, many insurers in coastal states are selling homeowners policies with percentage deductibles for storm damage instead of traditional dollar deductibles, which are used for other types of losses such as fire damage and theft. Percentage deductibles are based on the home's insured value.

There are also percentage deductibles for wind damage, varying from 1 percent of a home's insured value to 5 percent. In some coastal areas with high wind risk, hurricane deductibles may be as high as 25 percent.

Mass settlements of homeowners' lawsuits and a series of favorable court rulings have helped the insurance industry come close to resolving Katrina claims by the storm's third anniversary.

Earlier this month, State Farm settled with Mississippi regulators over how the insurer handled Katrina damage claims in the state. State Farm has agreed to reopen some claims and pay more than $74 million more to Gulf Coast policyholders whose homes were destroyed by Katrina's storm surge.

Two weeks ago, Florida settled an insurance dispute with Allstate, giving homeowners insured by the company an additional 5.6 percent rate cut. Allstate also agreed to insure 100,000 more Florida homeowners against hurricanes and other perils, forgive a $175 million loan to its Florida subsidiary and pay a $5 million fine.

Both of us used to be avid readers. Sure we weren't THE most well-read folks around, but both of us definitely read more than average joe. And then came along the internet.. the better/faster/more accessible it got, the less we began reading. Of course we can't just blame the net for it without taking any responsibility, but it surely has played a huge part! Like even right now, I have a book that i've started (and plus some 4 or 5 that i haven't yet) lying at home. But i haven't gotten to reading it (/them) cos even when i'm bored of the net after my daily online 'chores', i look for ways to pass my time online instead of reading!

I also know of other people who have faced similar problems with reading & internet.. but anywho, net or no net... here on out i'm going to get back to my reading ways!!

And since we're on the topic of reading... I stumbled upon a couple of blogs that had this whole list of a 100 books going which was compiled sometime, somewhere by someone.. Supposedly the average adult has read only 6 out of these. Not to add to the census or anything, but i just wanted to try and see if my favs fit in to this list or not.. (it might serve this survey's purpose... but i don't think this is anywhere near the best 100 books list) and plus now i know a few more books i'd like to read (after i finish those at home)! anywho... here's how it goes:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Highlight the ones you still want to read but just have not had a chance yet!
5) "Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them" - REALLY!????

1. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
3. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
5. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
10. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman
14. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
15. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
18. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
19. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
20. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (Do abbreviated versions count?)
21. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
23. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
24. Animal Farm - George Orwell
25. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
28. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
29. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
30. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
32. Complete Works of Shakespeare
33. Ulysses - James Joyce
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
36. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
37. The Bible
38. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
40. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
41. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
42. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
46. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
47. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
48. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
49. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
50. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
51. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
54. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
55. Middlemarch - George Eliot
56. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
57. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
58. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
59. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
60. Emma - Jane Austen
61. Persuasion - Jane Austen
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
63. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
64. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
66. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
68. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan
70. Dune - Frank Herbert
71. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
72. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
73. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
74. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
77. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
78. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
79. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
81. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
82. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
83. Dracula - Bram Stoker
84. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
85. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
86. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
87. Germinal - Emile Zola
88. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
89. Possession - A.S. Byatt
90. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
91. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
92. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
93. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
94. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom No idea what this is about, but the title - hmmmm :)
96. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
97. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
100. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

My Current Read - The Killing Club by Marcie Walsh.

It's this murder mystery about this bunch of 30 yr olds who in high school had a club where they wrote down ingenious ways to kill people! and now those murders are happening... but to them!

I actually got the book as a gift, and didn't think i would enjoy it... but was pleasantly surprised.. it's pretty well written with a fast narrative!!

That's not what this post is about; it's about what happened after she passed.

She lived alone. Her brother was out of town and kept trying to call her, with no answer. Finally he sent the landlord into her apartment, who then discovered what happened. They think she had been dead for two days.

Talk about a peril of living alone.

I've often thought about this. I know I'm young, and the chances of a heart attack are unlikely. But truly, you never know what could happen. My mother constantly reminds me that since I rarely call her, she would never know if something bad happened to me. We talk maybe once a week. And I like it that way. I communicate with other people in the meantime, but if they didn't hear from me for a couple days, they probably wouldn't think anything was strange. At least not strange enough to bust down my door and see if I'm lying naked in my shower, immobilized by a broken arm. For that kind of a reaction, I feel like it would have to be after several days of my disappearance. There would be no phone tree fan-out to find out if anyone had heard from me -- because most of my friends are independent, spinning circles around me instead of one cohesive unit who know one another.

I never thought about all the perils that come with living alone.  I hate the idea that if something happened to me, no one would know -- perhaps for several days. I love the independence that comes with living alone...but I'm not a fan of the perils. And I'm not sure how to reconcile the two. Sure, I could have a check-in buddy who I talk to every night before hitting the sheets. But as much as I love all my friends who could easily serve this purpose, I don't want to be tied down like that. Isn't the whole idea of living alone so you don't have to check in? I'm not a phone-talker, the idea of having to have a 15 minute conversation every night with someone is just horrible to me. Even if it's with one of my best friends.

Sure, DD should probably serve in this role. I'd be more inclined to talk to him every night before I lay me down to sleep. But we don't have that kind of a relationship. We're both anti-phone, so we rarely use it. We text or e-mail daily, but if we go a day without, or one of us doesn't reply, we assume the other is too busy right then. If we go a couple days without communicating, one of us will reach out to make sure all is well, but we know the default answer is probably that everything is just fine, so we're not really worried. But what happens when things aren't fine? At what point do you worry and go into overdrive?

God, I feel like now I have to go create some sort of elaborate phone tree so that if something ever happens and I disappear for two days, everyone knows how to get a hold of everyone and they find my body while it's still recognizable and before my story turns into one of those "it's so sad," [storyteller shakes head.] "she wasn't found for a week. Can you imagine!" tales that I shared above. This is all a lot of work for a girl who just chose to get a place on her own so she could enjoy a little space.

Order Say You're One of Them from Amazon for $9.99

Don't have Amazon Kindle? You can always purchase it from here
Or if you prefer to read the Print editions instead, you can get it from here

Other Kindle Books of Interest
Beijing Coma: A Novel
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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Exhaustion aside, it was still a decent weekend in Milwaukee. I was definitely ridiculously sick, and it crossed my mind on more than one occasion that I shouldn't have gone. Luckily the one time that the thought really creeped in (when DD's friends wanted to go out after dinner on Friday night when it was already midnight) I asked him to drop me back by the place we were staying and he did -- and stayed with me instead of going back out to booze it up with his friends. I felt bad I was impeding on his weekend, but I expressed that to him and he said it was fine, so I got over it and that was that.

Luckily on Saturday, I felt better and was able to enjoy the wedding we went to even though my voice was gone and a nasty cough was setting in. But the wedding was awesome. I don't even know the couple and I still thought the ceremony was beautiful and the reception amazing. The party was at a brewery and it was definitely the coolest venue I've seen. The colors were black and white with green accents, and I loved the linens and flowers and everything the couple chose. They had a Riverdance-type trio for the cocktail hour and beginning of dinner and I loved it. I'm normally not a big band person at weddings -- my old age shows because I think it's just too damn loud -- but I like the combo of a band and then the DJ so we could all put our dancing shoes on. They even had a photobooth to go in and shoot pictures of yourself. Then the booth gave you two copies, one to keep and one to paste into a memory book along with a little note to the bride and groom. So cute, and I'm a big fan of the keepsake currently hanging on my fridge.

So it's obvious I loved the wedding, just wish I could have been totally healthy so I could've enjoyed some of the booze. My only complaint for the whole night (aside from my very sexy, but very tight dress that got rather uncomfortable after a large dose of wedding food) was the lack of slow songs. I'm a mushy girl and I love having the opportunity to actually slow dance with my man at weddings. After all, it's pretty much the only time you get to do that! This wedding literally had 2 slow songs the whole night and I was quite disappointed. Ah well.

On the 6 hour ride home, DD and I had good talks of the relationship-variety, so while I joked before the trip that it would be good bonding time for us, it really turned out to be that way I think. Remember last week how I was complaining about his lack of communication? Well, he totally gets my complaint, but the thing is, that's just who. he. is. And he recognizes I don't like it (which is better than him not getting it at all), but made it very clear this isn't about me, it's him. If he was dating anyone else, he'd be talking to them and seeing them just as much. It's just how he is, whether it's his family or his friends or his significant other. And then he made a comment that really hit home. He said that several months ago I told him that he had to like me for who I am, even if it's not who he is - and that the same rule should apply to him. In that case, it was about my non-bar star ways compared to his. In this case, it's about phone communication. And he has a point. He has definitely made some compromises and gained a better understanding and acceptance of my hatred of bar nights, so I have to decide if I can handle this thing about him that sometimes frustrates me. When I take into account all the things about him I do like -- his goofiness, his kindness, his generosity, his patience -- I find so many more important things about him I do like. So I guess maybe I'm going to have to adjust my communication needs, because in the grand scheme of the world, those other things are more important and more difficult to find all rolled into one person. 

All in all, a very good talk, encompassing other things I won't get into here because they're all a bunch of half-baked conversations that we continue to have and arrive at no conclusion, just more questions and a slightly better understanding, if that's possible. But sickness and all, I'm very happy I went. Just wish the cold would subside!

And now, off to attempt that thing called sleep.

Well, no need to wonder what happens when you fall down in the shower, because I did that today, and lived to tell the tale. While taking a luxuriously long shower, I must have slipped on a wet spot (what isn't wet?) and for a few seconds I just slided around, trying to grab onto something -- anything -- to prevent me from falling. Alas, that was not to be and I went down, complete with shaving gel and a razor. All I could think was "Oh my God, I'm going to break my arm and I'm going to have to call 9-1-1 and some hot paramedic is going to have to pick up my naked, broken body and that's going to be pretty damn embarrassing. Kind of like that Sex and the City episode where Miranda screws up her neck after getting out of the shower and ends up laying naked on the floor, only to have Aiden come find her and have to deal with her naked self.

Luckily, I landed on my bad shoulder, which was dislocated in college due to a disagreement I got into with my bike. That shoulder's been a little off ever since, so it really was the perfect appendage to land on since it tends to bounce back easier due to previous traumas.

I'm beginning to think this really isn't my week. But at least the humor of the situation made me feel better about this cold I'm fighting.

Rappel des dates concernées :
1898 1910 1922 1934 1946 1958 1970 1982 1994 2006 2018 2030 2042 2054 2066 2078 2090 …

Le chien (狗 gǒu) est le onzième sur douze Animal dans l'ordre d'arrivée qui apparaît dans le zodiaque chinois, lié au calendrier chinois.Le « Chien » est décrit comme étant sensible, justicier, artiste. On dit du Chien qu'il s'entend bien avec le « tigre » et le « cheval », et très mal avec le « dragon ».

Le Chien est sensibilisé par tout ce qui touche à l'injustice. Le Chien aime être entouré et donc souvent il fait de son ennemi son ami, à ses risques et périls. Le Chien est intelligent et serviable. Il est souvent attiré par les métiers d'arts, comme la comédie ou la danse, il excelle dans ses disciplines. Le Chien se plaint parfois de ne pas être écouter. Il a de l'humour. Le Chien souffre souvent de rumeurs qu'il a du mal à supporter et passera sa vie à rétablir la justice.

Bien entendu, ce portrait résume non pas les caractèristiques mais les tendances du Chien en général, il existe bien sûr des différences énormes entre personnes nées dans une Années du Chien selon l'Elément/agent de la naissance d'un Chien.

Source : Wikipédia

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Son caractère : réaliste l’aide à porter des jugements directs et logiques. Il est difficile de trahir le Chien, car il connait le prix à payer pour tout. C’est un compagnon fidèle qui ne souffre d’aucune injustice. Bénévole et généreux, il apprécie faire plaisir à ses proches et leur porter toute son attention. Chez les chinois, les dangers masqués sont flairés par le Chien.

Travail : il aime la complicité, le travail d’équipe le motive. Il est capable d’assumer de lourdes responsabilités grâce à sa capacité de réaction face aux soucis.

Amour : il est droit et fidèle, s’il venait à s’engager, ce serai pour de bon. Il aime autant donner de l’amour qu’en recevoir.

But my dad has the response time of a normal, non-lazy/drunk person. So I called, he promptly fixed the stove, and $54 later, I was back in the business of cooking.

I finally got a hold of my landlord today (because he didn't return my voice mail from a week ago) and told him what had happened and that I'd gone ahead and replaced the burner and would there be a way I could get reimbursed. The conversation went something like...

Supergirl: Hey. I blew a burner on my stove. My dad replaced it, but it was $54. Is there any chance I can get reimbursed?

Landlord S: Well...I will this time, but I really prefer to make the repairs myself, because I will probably have an appliance guy come take a look and now I'll also have to pay him.

Supergirl: Well...I would have called you, but it seems to take you a couple weeks to fix things, and this needed to be fixed right away.

Landlord S: Yes, well, now that we understand each other....

Supergirl (to myself): Yeah, well, maybe if you didn't take a bajillion weeks to get rid of a squirrel that still isn't gone, and then only took any action about it after I stalked you for a week, then I'd be more apt to call you when emergencies arise. But in the meantime, I don't have time to stalk your ass for everything that goes wrong in my apartment. And since I'm living in your ghetto-ass apartment building, it should also be obvious I don't have $54 to just go around replacing things with. So give me my money and start being a responsive landlord and this won't happen again.

Yes, Landlord S, we definitely understand each other. If by understand  you mean I communicate something to you and you respond with vague, incomplete sentences and we end up nowhere.

I'll bet money he doesn't even call the appliance guy to check on the place like he said he needed to. 

This morning, I woke up and was rather hungry for pancakes. DD and I lolled about, him watching basketball, me reading a book, and breakfast time came and went. Along about noon I pulled out some chips and the two of us gorged on those like we were on a deserted island with nothing but some Tostitos to keep us alive. While I felt the chips would simply satiate my hunger until we could make it out for said pancakes, it did quite the opposite. It made neither of us very hungry. Two hours later, we parted ways, but my craving for pancakes was still apparent. I thought, why don’t I just go home and make a couple small ones? That will satisfy the craving and not overtax my very un-hungry stomach.

So off I toddled away from DD's and back home to the ghetto-fabulous old-motel-turned-apartment in which I live. I immediately fired up the burner, set the non-stick pan on it to heat up, and quickly mixed some batter. The last step was to spray some Pam on there to combat the non-stickiness. I happily poured some batter in the heated pan and waited.

Smoke started to swirl from under the pan, but I continued on. There was a faint burning smell, but I continued on. I flipped the pancakes, and BAM sparks flew, pops were heard, and I jumped to the opposite side of my kitchen.

It should be noted here that I have a large respect for fire. I won’t say it’s a full-fledged fear, because I do enjoy a cozy fire in the fireplace. But it’s a respect. I don’t bother it and it won’t bother me, ergo I am less likely to burn to death. So far, that mutual respect has worked. Never have I experienced sparks, much less loud POPS, while cooking. Never have I realized it may be a good idea to keep a fire extinguisher close to my stove.

Until now. After bringing my heart back into my body and venturing cautiously across the kitchen toward the stove (still afraid it may blow up in my face), I realized I’d blown the fuse. And burned a hole straight through my favorite (and only) large skillet. Oh, and a matching hole straight through the burner itself. And to add insult to injury, I’d quite smoked up the place and basically burned the pancakes.

I immediately wondered what I did wrong to elicit such a response from my stove. Upon inspection of the Pam can, I found the culprit. I had applied the oil to a heated surface (the skillet), a major no-no. It was obviously my fault I’d almost lit my place on fire.

I felt the need to absolve myself (or further blame myself) of this, so I called my dad. I regaled him with the story and at the end he said: That was absolutely not your fault. He explained the finer points of electric stoves and said my burning element was simply shot. He gently reminded me that it still was not a good idea to apply Pam to a heated pan because it could have flamed up and caused a much more serious issue, but that these particular sparks were not my fault. He even offered to fix it for me so I could avoid dealing with Landlord Steve, who would probably get around to fixing years from now, long after I’ve moved on to a (hopefully) less ghetto residence.

All of this has led me to the following conclusion: fire extinguishers are probably a good idea for the kitchen. As I stood there, shaking, still jittery after my brush with the fire that used to respect me so, I realized I had no idea what I would have done had it been more than sparks that flared up. Had flames actually occurred, I would have jumped far away, screaming, and NOT grabbing a bowl of water.

I was also reminded of the importance of insurance. Maybe I should up my coverage...

I have neglected (in a major way) my blog. I thought it would be easy to write or find something for most days, but lately enthusiasm has been at an all time low.

I can muster up the energy now and then to find something to spasmodically update the latest entry, but really, one must do so more often than once a week.

Anyway, I hope to get into it soon, and I also hope to announce another little side project that I am in the development stages on. Bear with me, all will be revealed in the next week or two.

In the meantime, keep checking the rss reader or keep visiting back for what will hopefully be some fresh content on a consistent basis.

Untitled by A.E. Houseman.

I to my perils
Of cheat and charmer 
Came clad in armour
By stars benign.

Hope lies to mortals
And most believe her,
But Man’s deceiver
Was never mine.

The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers’ meeting 
Or luck or fame.

But mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady,
So I was ready
When trouble came.
 

How many farmers would be aware that the seeds they cultivated through harvesting are sterile? Monsanto is a global company and if it propagated these seeds, doesn't it result in famines and destruction of humanity? Well, does anyone know the after effects of Genetically Modified food? Its still a untested and developing technology whose side effects are not proven yet. What would happen to the people who are caught unawares of the kind of food that's going into their system?

Life recreates itself.. How indignant it would feel if the authority of ownership of its basic right is owned by some multinational giant? How would I feel if I have to pay some MNC to carry my own child??? Feeling repulsive and pensive about the deviousness of the whole issue and thought of origin of this entire technology.

As I read some where.. Good Design starts not with thinking of what I can do but questioning what I really want to do.