For some Chinese farmers, contracting cancer is almost equal to receiving a death sentence. The government is responsible for changing this situation.

Since the (government) buyout came through, we're contracting out our tobacco. We're getting approximately $1.55 a pound this year where last year we got approximately $2 a pound.

Even if 1 million of them need assistance and the state pays 10,000 yuan (US$1,200) each for their annual treatment fees, the total budget will be around 10 billion yuan, which should be an affordable figure to the soaring state revenue.

Under the current medicare system of our country, it is not rare for a person who catches a major disease like cancer to spend his or her lifetime savings on treatment. Many are forced to choose giving up treatment, just waiting for death.

If the government ends small business contracting programs, then the $119 billion in awards currently reported as going to small firms will go to large companies which make up only 2% of U.S. employers. Small business owners need to get on the phone or on the Internet and let their Congressional delegates know that they don't want the government to eliminate Federal programs for small business. Once these programs are gone, we will never get them back.

It's really going to happen. I really won't ever go back to school. Not ever. I'll never be famous or leave anything worthwhile behind. I'll never go to college or have a job. I won't see my brother grow up. I won't travel, never earn money, never drive, never fall in love or leave home or get my own house.
It's really, really true.
A thought stabs up, growing from my toes and ripping through me, until it stifles everything else and becomes the only thing I'm thinking. It fills me up like a silent scream.