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As a female, I have hitchhiked all over the US and in Europe, particularly Spain. On the Spain trip, at 24, I made lifelong friends with a couple I met who saved me from a near sexual attack by a truck driver. (I jumped out of the truck on a deserted road, and they happened to come along. They took me to their apartment in Granada and spoiled me rotten for a week, taking me to all their favorite tourists' attractions and making me incredible meals. I practiced English with their children. 

The scariest experience occurred when I was 14 and was hitchhiking with a friend. We got picked up by a very young state senator who eventually took us to his sister's home where we stayed for a couple of days before the senator decided to ferry us back home some 1200 miles to our parents. Enroute we spent a night at his condo where he attempted to get us drunk. He ended up trying to rape my friend. We barracated ourselves in a spare bedroom and then slipped out a sliding glass door and ran into the dead of the night. When the police picked us the next morning sleeping on a lake shore, no one believed our story and the senator got away scott free. We were 14. Fast forward 17 years, and I saw the senator had become a lawyer and was representing teenagers in a case of politiians who were raping teenagers in a very high profile case. The irony slayed me.  

posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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Imagine if Taormino was actually doing something to help free children and women from the bondage of ponography, rather than capitalize on and legitimize her work as a pornographer.....this just once again tells people that it's better to worry about sexual needs than channel all that extra free time into being a productive human being with the capacity to effect change in the world by donating all that free time toward something more lifechanging. Once again, were mired down by the reptilliian brain instead of using our hearts. 

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Amen brother. Like TOTALLY annoying! 

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Chipper people in this economy really need help.

FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Excessively Cheery, the gratingly upbeat and the annoyling cheerful.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/fda_approves_depressant_drug_for

More seriously, I am not convinced we don't this period of introspection. I think we moved too fast after 9-11. Like Sho Dozono telling Oregonians to go to New York and send a defiant message to Al Queda that we wouldn't be denied our American-give right to spend, spend, spend. This greedy everything-is-beautiful attitude incites the hate others feel toward Americans.

But this POV, also shows up in our societal attitidues about divorce and death (get over it, snap to it, move on...there's a whole lexicon built around denial). Not to say that the pursuit of happiness is a bad thing, but for the most part we all do better when we live in the NOW, not in the past, not in the future and not in "how I want it to be."

posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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I have a 2007 Prius and the mileage drops by 20% with Oregon's mandated additive. I am a huge fan of biofuel but this mileage loss totally defeats the purpose FOR ME of owning this car. It's bad enough it was hyped as getting 60mpg and only gets 40-48 in summer, and 32-34 mpg in winter. I don't see how this reduces reliance on fossil fuels. I am at the pump way more than I want to be. Thankfully I can bike to make up some of the difference, but I would never have spent the money to buy this car had I known this in ahead of time.

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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