Folks, I have been emailing Caterina privately off this list for quite some time now. This is an articulate, knowledgeable woman with intelligence I could only hope to approach. She also clearly adores animals and her baby Gigio in particular. My husband, too, is from Mexico City. What she is stating is true. Luis backs it up. He has told me things that made me cry. No, he's not proud of it. But it's there. And there are people, like Cathie's Mom, who are trying to change it. And believe me, we are not saying Mexico is a backwards place. But, it's not the United States. In some ways that's not so good, in other ways it's good, and I'm not blasting the United States. I love my country. And I've lived abroad myself so I can honestly say I can see the pros and cons. But no one or no thing is perfect. In my belief system, there was one perfect man. And look what everyone did to him........... As long as we TRY to change things. Try our hardest. This woman is a reliable source. What we need to be saying now is "How can we help?" rather than "You have to be wrong......" Catherine, Pato, Snowball, Hubert, and Elsie "Behind The Zion Curtain" [Posted in FML issue 3179]