“Elvis is dead, and I don’t feel so good myself.”
[list]
[*]late Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Lewis Grizzard, a Great American[/list:u]

BEGIN RANT:

This burns my butt.

Today, a man in Blaine, Minnesota (a north suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul), left his 4-month-old son in the car all day at his place of employment. Police arrived on the scene and found the baby dead.

The “father”—using the term loosely—had “forgot.”

A few weeks ago, a mother did the same thing with her kid. This was in a news story that basically stressed the fact that the “mother”—using THIS term loosely—was a corporate executive. The writer implied that it was understandable that the “mother” forgot her child: she had a big presentation that day, and she was under stress by the duties of her job.

On top of that, the State of Minnesota just announced that 14,000 abortions were performed in 2000, 160+ more than in 1999.

All of this is to say that my wife and I can’t have kids (please don’t mention adoption; we’re not willing to go through the bureaucracy and years it takes to get a child that way), and feel as if we’d never forget our child thusly.

Left a kid in a car. All day. In 90+ degree weather. WHAT THE @#*%%!! ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!

This reminds me of cartoon I saw the other day. It a scene in front of an abortion clinic. It showed an obviously pregnant woman walking out the clinic, with a smile on her face. At the clinic’s window stood a doctor and nurse. The caption read:

Nurse: How did you convince her to keep it?

Doctor: I told her it was a puppy.

Think about it.

END RANT.

_________________
“Free your mind & your butt will follow…”

Rodney O. Lain
Mac Observer Columnist, iBrotha’s page at TMO

iBrotha.com, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: iBrotha on 2001-07-10 23:30 ]</font>

Oh my God… that’s too awful to contemplate.

There was a case here recently where a security guard at (name of well known casino removed) was patrolling the carpark and heard noises coming from a locked car (the window was down maybe a crack).  And in it was a crying baby who was absolutely going off his tree.  They paged for the owner of the car and it turned out his parents had been sitting in front of the slot machines (for chrissakes) for FOUR HOURS.  They tried to deny it, but the video surveillance showed that they *had* been there all that time.

Some parents don’t deserve the gift of children.

You need to pass a test to get a license to drive a car but any yutz with functioning plumbing can become a parent.

Rodney, I’m sorry you and your wife can’t have children, I’m sure you’d do better than a lot of folks who can. I know you’d do better than those who can but shouldn’t.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ahnyer Keester on 2001-07-11 09:08 ]</font>

I will be a father in a few months myself and hearing stuff like this scares the heck out of me. I’m both excited about being a father and yet scared with the question of will I do the right things. If you have ever seen the films called “Faces of Death” it depicts people dying in very horrible ways or from just being stupid. I can watch these just fine until I came to a part about deformed babies that were aborted. That scene of that movie scares me even to this day and I still have nightmares about it (I saw that over 6 years ago, 26 years old now). Luckly my wife does not have or wants a job,  she wants to stay home to take care of our child. This makes me feel better that she wants to be that devoted to motherhood. I just pray to God that I keep my wits about me at all times concerning my little girl.

At first, I thought it was a joke, that Rodney was going to lead into a computer-centric rant and was just using a tabloid-like headline to grab attention. No such luck.

I’m sorry about your situation, Rodney. I know you didn’t mentioned it to elicit sympathy, but you have mine anyway.

My two kids are nearly grown. Like MOST other fathers, I had no idea what to expect, but it was, and continues to be the most rewarding experience a man can hope for.

It’s unfortunate that people, like the Minnesota idiot and the gambling dimwits, exist. What really scares me are the cases that don’t make the news. You can believe that, for ever woman that is “stressed” out enough to kill her kids, there are 3,000,000+ more who are only stressed out enough to beat their kids senseless and hide the fact. For every man who “forgets” his infant, there are 30,000,000+ who won’t even acknowledge that they are fathers, leaving the mothers to carry the weight of parenthood alone. These people really should not be allowed to procreate, but then, many of our most gifted people are the results of such environments.

I will mention, Rodney, and to anyone else wishing they can do something to help. While there is nothing that can take the place of having your own kids, you can help kids that were unfortunate enough to be born to idiots. Foster parenting is NOT an answer, but it does help. Not everyone can do it, but if you have the time to invest, please consider it.