It’s official! Mexico is NUMBER 1!!!! We should be bursting with national pride. Unfortunately, our newly published numero uno recognition is for kidnappings.

We have commando drug dealers levantando other drug dealers and judicial authorities for executions. We have ex-judicial commandos kidnapping wealthy civilians for ransoms to finance more drug dealing and for the average working class families, we now offer the subtle, yet highly effective kidnap express. With the newly added kidnap express, one no longer has to be involved in illicit actions, wealthy, or even in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mexico now offers the equal opportunity to be kidnapped to all of its faithful citizens.

Official statistics show 751 kidnappings documented in 2007, while unofficial statistics show more than 7000. Many kidnappings are never publicized because they are of average, non-wealthy, citizens. The victim is usually abducted in broad daylight, taken to their bank where they are forced to empty their accounts, beaten, and later released in unknown areas. The new term for this type of kidnapping is, express. Between the combined failure to prosecute kidnappers and the corruption within the judicial system, a reported 89% of all kidnappings are no longer reported.

As with every war or tragedy, business opportunities flourish. With the fear of kidnapping on every citizen’s mind, it is now possible, for a price of $4000 U.S. plus $2200 U.S. in annual fees, to be implanted with your very own microchip.

Xega, a Mexican security firm, originally designed global positioning systems to track stolen vehicles until a company owner was kidnapped in broad daylight in 2001. Frustrated by his powerlessness to call for help, the company adapted the technology to track stolen people.

Most people get the chips injected into their arms between the skin and muscle where they cannot be seen. Customers who fear they are being kidnapped press a panic button on an external device to alert Xega which then calls the police.

Many high government officials and wealthy individuals are standing in line waiting to pay thousands of dollars to be implanted with a grain of rice sized microchip and tracked by satellite. I’m not sure, with our history of judicial authority, if I would want to be tracked. It seems it to me, I’d be putting a bulls-eye with a dollar sign directly on myself. Apart from the self-imposed bulls-eye, what if I forgot my panic button, or left it on another keychain, or it’s batteries went dead on the day I was kidnapped, how would anyone find me?

Lucky for me, I have NO money. My bank’s A.T.M. machine emits a hideous electronic laugh and denies my request for withdrawl of even the minimum amount. It took me a month and a half to save for my dog’s microchip and it only cost $65 U.S. I guess the only real hope for modern tracking technology saving my life in such a tragic event would be if I were kidnapped with my microchip implanted dog, Wyatt. God Bless Us All.