A Walk To Beautiful
Kristy and I just finished watching NOVA's
"A Walk To Beautiful" - a
documentary about the pervasiveness of
obstetric
fistula in rural Ethiopia and the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital,
which was established in 1974 specifically to treat women suffering
from these terrible (and preventable) childbirth injuries. The story
of the ruined lives of these women, many of whom are married as young
as 12 and 13, is heartbreaking.
The NOVA program is available
on-line
in six chapters or via broadcast (check your local listings). Please
watch it... and then donate
here.
Kristy and I used
PayPal to contribute
a general donation of $450 - the approximate cost to provide
complete treatment for one woman.
There is also a feature-length version
of the movie
"A Walk To Beautiful"
coming soon to DVD.
Car of the Future
I watched NOVA's
"Car of the Future"
tonight on the TV. It was a pretty fascinating exploration of the
technology being researched to make cars much more efficient than those
that we drive today. One particularly interesting piece of the show
highlighted an all-electric car in production today that, well, looks
really really cool: the Tesla
Roadster. The Tesla is 100% electric (e.g. 100% torque available
at 0 rpm), does 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds, has a range of over 200
miles, and at today's
electricity prices it costs less than 2¢ per mile to operate.
Pretty cool.
By comparison, my motorcyle has a 3.5 gallon tank, averages about
45 mpg, and will do 0-60 in just about 6 seconds. Doing the math: my
motorcyle has a range of just over 150 miles and at $4.00/gallon costs
about 9¢ per mile to operate. The downside of the Tesla? The
cost is north of $100k (I paid less than $10k for my motorcycle).
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