The airwaves crackle with gossip about the Georgia lady who just could not face her long-planned marriage. Law enforcement is deciding if they should prosecute or attempt to recoup the virtually 100,000 bucks spent when it was thought that she had been kidnapped.
What is the problem? Her fiance states that he loves her and wants to wed her.
The sellers for the 600-guest marriage will get paid anyhow, without any of the work. The families’ pride will at last be revived and their humiliation rubbed out. What will the nonsense say about the state of our society? In other times, without the mass communication equipment available today, folks could just disappear, and frequently did. When a person drops out now, we presume foul play as we are so inured to its occurrence.
Is it her fault a manhunt was launched? Her primary claim she had been kidnapped was patently fake ; her real act of running away was an emotional jolt to her folks but certainly not against the law, nor was it for the California housewife who chucked everything and went to Vegas. Or is there an obscure statute somewhere that proscribes us from shipping out with no notice and no apology? If we’re not avoiding debt or crimes, why can’t we are going wherever we want? Our society is so arranged and our identities so rigidly bound with numbers and private history that we will not escape ourselves. Wherever we are going, we are able to be traced : social security numbers, names, dates of birth, deposit account numbers, fingerprint archives, Web droppings, medical and dental records. Where does it stop? Communication and intelligence-sharing is required for security purposes but just how deep into our non-public lives should Big Brother intrude? Private liberty means the liberty to be ourselves, to go wherever, and do whatever, we’d like so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Do others have, in truth, a right to know who and where we are? Look at the almost-bride’s eyes in each image. She seems like a shocked rabbit looking for a technique to bolt – and eventually she probably did.
Poor tiny rabbit, you did not get very far, did you? The occasional urge to escape, to run off to join the circus, to tie up our products in a headband on a stick and set off to see the world, tempts each one of us at times. You will be found, brought back, in public humiliated, and presented with a bill for the cash it cost to search for you. No wonder we read books, watch films, and play games rooted in fantasy. She has performed therapeutic services for at least twenty years and has studied the results of cultural forces and job on the individual.
