The net is a-titter over "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss' plan to open a brothel serving women, a "stud farm" in Las Vegas. Well, why not? Prostitution is legal in Nevada and legal brothels have been serving the male public (with "dates" of both genders) for decades. And its not as if prostitution serving the fairer sex is unknown in Las Vegas; I myself have been approached when I was there. (No thanks, but that's just me.)

What interests me about this story is that I have a personal connection with Heidi Fleiss: her dad was my son's pediatrician when we lived in Los Angeles. When Heidi was arrested for running a classy prostitution operation serving celebrities, politicians and affluent businesemen from a Benedict Canyon home,(in a massive surveillance operation that cost the city millions), Dr. Fleiss was also indicted for money laundering her profits.

By the time this all happened, it was the mid-nineties, my son was grown, graduated and gone, and I was living in a fabulous apartment in Venice Beach, a spacious former art gallery that was steps from the bike path. Heidi Fleiss lived in a nearby luxury condo and the garage in that building was the only nearby indoor parking for my little red coupe. One day, after having parked my car, I recognized a man walking out of the garage. "Dr. Fleiss!" I called out and he turned. We walked together, as it turned out he was seeing a lady, a single mother, who lived in my apartment building (which, like most older buildings in Venice Beach, did not have its own garage).

He remembered me and my son. I told him I felt so sorry for the troubles he was having over what was ultimately a victimless crime. He had pled guilty to tax evasion, his case was up for sentencing and he asked me if I'd write a letter to the judge on his behalf. And I did.

I wrote that he was not only a good doctor, but a reasonably priced doctor, that he never refused a patient, that he answered a call in the middle of the night, that he gave caring and valuable service to our community which would lose so much were he to be incarcerated. His sentence was suspended and a good man got back to his good work. Heidi got three years in prison.

Anyway, I wish Heidi good luck in her new venture. According to the celebrities in Los Angeles who frequented her previous "household," she did an excellent job, and probably would have reported her income -- if she could have. Given "madams" of Heidi's care and integrity (she never solicited a girl in her entire career, they were begging to work for her), prostitution can definitely be a victimless crime

This story, in the wake of this one on WOW, brings to mind how little it would take to help Chinese forced into cruelly desperate circumstances by poverty and cultural constraints. And as it happens, members of the local community did help out. But why didn't the family appeal for assistance before that? To save face? If that was the reason, it certainly did backfire. But more likely, it was their fears of the classist attitudes towards migrants that this piece on WOW decries.

Tears Save Sick Mother from Cremation Alive

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese peasant woman who suffered a brain haemorrhage was left at the undertakers alive for cremation because her family could no longer afford hospital treatment, state media said Friday.

She was only saved by the tears in her eyes.

The case is the latest in a series of tragedies illustrating China's stretched health care system and the inability of rural workers to meet spiraling medical costs.

You Guoying, a 47-year-old migrant worker from southwestern Sichuan province, was taken for cremation by her husband and children in Taizhou, eastern Zhejiang province, where she worked, the China Youth Daily said.

Fortunately for You, the undertaker realized she was still alive when he saw her move and tears in her eyes, the newspaper said.

"This is not only a tragedy for the family, but also for society," it quoted Xu Yinghe, a Taizhou official, as saying.

"The fundamental reason is the absence of a social welfare system."

You was taken back to hospital for further treatment with money donated by sympathetic citizens of prosperous Zhejiang, the newspaper said.

"Three days of treatment cost us more than 10,000 yuan," it quoted her daughter as saying, adding that was the sum of the family's life savings.

"If there had been another option, who would have the heart to send a member of their own family for cremation while there was still a hope of survival?"

The newspaper did not say if the family would face charges.

Vice Health Minister Zhu Qingsheng said last December that about half of all farmers could not afford medical treatment when sick.

A 42-year-old farmer too poor to afford treatment for lung cancer set off a home-made bomb aboard a bus in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, in August, killing himself and another passenger and wounding 30.

Also in August, a security guard hailed a hero for fighting off a purse snatcher jumped to his death from a hospital window in south Guangxi province because he couldn't afford the bills.

In the late 1970s, 94 percent of China's villagers were covered by cooperative medical schemes. But the collectives were disbanded during market reforms of the 1980s which ended cradle-to-grave welfare for the masses.