Fearful Steps

I just watched a documentary clip on the Australian Screen website. It's from a film called Land Mines-a Love Story.

A man and woman in Afghanistan fall in love. Both have been victims of a land mine. Before the man became a victim of a land mine, he was a soldier that planted them.

The Australian Screen website says that there are about ten million unexploded land mines in Afghanistan. Waiting for their next victim. Every 22 minutes, a civilian is killed or injured by one of these things.

Scary.

Although Afghanistan has a war going on right now. So that's scary in itself. But even when the war is over, there'll still be new victims.

This website has a list of countries with the most land mines; Somalia, Mozambique, Bosnia, Kuwait, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Angola, Iran, and Egypt.

Egypt has the most. I'm kind of surprised about that.

Lord Wiki has some info.

There's an anti-landmine treaty; the Ottawa.

Australia has signed it.

The United States has not which is really embarrassing. Shameful. I'm so tired of being ashamed of my country.

The US government website says they ARE trying to change things. They plan to eliminate use of all persistent land mines. I think these are ones that can be activated simply by coming across them.

It is a step in the right direction.

But it's sad that we have to have ANY weapons.

Couldn't we just spit on each other? Or even better....pick our noses and wipe them on each other? Actually, that could be a deadly weapon if you have a bad strain of the flu. So maybe those are NOT good ideas.

Life is seriously scary.

I was watching this video and thinking. How horrible it would be to be fearful of each step.

But then I thought—even in relatively safe countries—there's horrible things that can happen, at any moment.

We might go to the grocery store the same time a crazed gunman shows up.

A serial killer might decide we'd be the next fun toy to play with.

Our plane could blow up.

You could be go to get your mail and get hit by a drunk driver.

Your next highway excursion might be your last because an adventurous teen wanted to see how fast his car would go.

And if nothing like that happens to you....there's always cancer. Or a heart attack.

You can choke on a piece of steak.

Life is a gift, but one that's a bit hard to hold onto some of the time.

I think I'd be happier and more relaxed if we were all immortal.

But even without that guarantee.....I'm a pretty happy person. I'm a happy and SCARED person.