What the World Needs Now

Yes, I know I haven't written in a while.  I've come to terms with the fact that I stink at blogging...or at least at doing it consistently.  In many ways, I stink at keeping up with most things electronic.  It's why I read other people's Facebook statuses and tweets but rarely update my own.  It's why sometimes I answer an e-mail in my head but forget to send an actual response to the person (although, since I recognize this fault, I make every effort to avoid it on really important messages).  I think it's also why the virtual pets on a keychain I had as a child always died from lack of virtual food and virtual care.  Fortunately, I do much better with real live things.  None of my actual animals have suffered from such a fate.

So, yes, it's been a while since I've written.  Mostly, it's been because this whole job search thing has completely drained me.  Not only has my writing here suffered but my work on my scripts and other projects has also faltered quite a bit.  Recently, however, I've been working as a temp at a temp agency.  By that I mean I'm actually answering phones, making appointments, filing, etc. at the temp agency.  It's bringing in a bit of a paycheck, which is a pretty big morale booster for me at this point, so I'm slowly making my way back creatively.

The reason I'm writing today, though, is that I read a story online that saddened me in a way I can't ignore. The story was on www.foxnews.com, which is site I rarely visit.  I'm more of a CNN girl myself, but I venture onto Fox from time to time to see what's being said.  And, today, I found buried amongst stories of the devastating tornadoes and the awful economy an article about a homeless man who recently died on a street in Queens.  Security cameras caught this man sacrificing himself in order to save a woman from a knife attack.  Stabbed and bleeding, the man chased after the assailant until the man collapsed on the sidewalk, dying in a pool of his own blood.  In the two hours before paramedics arrived 25 different people walked past this man without taking notice - with the exception of one passerby, who stopped long enough to take a picture of the dying man with a cellphone before continuing on.

I've lived in a big city, so I understand that there's a certain level of indifference where strangers are concerned.  It's a necessary defense mechanism because it's difficult to know who you can trust and who you can't.  I also understand that there are areas in cities where this sort of death is, sadly, a common occurrence; and people in those areas learn early on to keep their mouths shut.  I'm not blind to that reality. However, it still breaks my heart to see human life devalued in such a way.  A man is dying in plain view, and it takes almost two hours before someone can be bothered to call for help?!  No great heroic act was necessary.  Just three numbers dialed into a cell phone might have made a difference.  It would have at least shown this human being some respect.

We have a lot of problems in our nation today.  We're fighting two wars, the national debt is soaring, healthcare is still unstable, unemployment is at an outrageous level, and Democrats and Republicans have failed to stop making accusations against one another long enough to attempt to find some common, productive ground.  But I have to ask, how do we expect to solve those issues when not even one person out of twenty-five can find the decency to acknowledge and aid a dying man?  Perhaps you think it's a long jump to make from our national issues to the death of this one man, but I think it's a lot closer that any of us care to admit.  We get so caught up in our personal agendas - whether those agendas have to do with ambitions, politics, religion, or whatever else we have on our plates - that we forget to stop and recognize what the person next to us is really going through.  We put blinders on so that we can stay focused on the end result, but sometimes it's what is in between here and there that matters most.  And, sometimes, we have to be willing to sacrifice something of ourselves for the sake of others.  Despite his own agenda of day-to-day survival, that homeless man - whose name by-the-way was Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax - chose to make a great sacrifice on behalf of a stranger.  It's too bad twenty-five different people couldn't even make a simple phone call to do the same for him.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/24/homeless-hero-ignored-dying-nyc-street/?test=latestnews