I have gotten much better over the last year, regarding needles. I have been needle-phobix since a disastrous blood-darwing episode involvinh two arm casts over the elbow, an overeager resident, and a hospital policy on not drawinf blood from the legs or the necks.

I was stabbity. LIke 11 times.

What with all the sugery this year, I've gotten a lot better. I canNOT look at the needle at all, and always warn my docs. And my veins are rolly and splaty -- when they put in the pre-antaetheic for my operation, I bled so much it looked liked they's chopped of my hand.

Now, sutures. I can watch people including me being stitched up, take out stiches, get my hands bloody, whatever. It's the IV needles that really get me. And vomit. I'm a sympathetic puker. Can't even hear it, much less smell it.

I remember once when I was a kid, our dog threw up and I heard it/smelled it, and then I went, and then my sister went and my mom had to leave the room. Poor dad was stuck cleaning up 3 for the price of 1.

Let's set up well-run Islands for Misfit Toys, where at risk kids get the attention, guidance and dare I say it, love, they deserve and

Hey, that's my new job! I start tomorrow! (Seriously, it mostly is!)

Yay Erin! The kids will be lucky to have you.

Sparky, I didn't mean to imply that the parents don't love their kids. I don't think love even crossed my mind.

It seems like the problem may be that there's a whole lot of nothing in between the choice between giving them up or getting no help for them at all.

The information that doesn't seem to be present in the stories I've seen is whether or not the parents have asked for the type of help you suggest. They certainly didn't seem to have in Nebraska.

The father who dropped off 9 of his 10 kids invoked the 'no questions asked' portion of the law. This struck me as less a cry for help than a statement.

And my little liberal heart would be happy to have the gov't supply some of these services (mental/behavior health)

See, my liberal heart wants us, as a nation, to go a step further. I'm having it up to here with the 'states rights' notion that we should be able to take care of ourselves.

The fact is, too many of us just don't. Is that something that deserves nothing but compassion or do we need to figure out a way to finance collective care?

I'm even less interested in a structure where we AREN'T challenged to be better people, but dang. There has to be some middle ground.

The information that doesn't seem to be present in the stories I've seen is whether or not the parents have asked for the type of help you suggest. They certainly didn't seem to have in Nebraska.

How on earth would we know this? Or do you mean they didn't ask at the hospital at the time of the event?

Has anybody been following the Nebraska Safe-Haven debacle?

What got me is that there were parents flying or driving thousands of miles to take advantage of the law. A dad who flew from Miami and a mother who drove from Georgia. And I know with the mother from Georgia, she made a point of saying that she loved her son, but she just couldn't get him the kind of help he needed.

Which makes me wonder about the difficulty in getting these kids and parents help in their home states.

And I think I remember reading something about how few of the children left were actually infants, which is who the law was intended for in the first place.

The father who dropped off 9 of his 10 kids invoked the 'no questions asked' portion of the law. This struck me as less a cry for help than a statement.

Why couldn't it be interpreted as someone in such distress that he couldn't talk about it? Can we even assume that the person asking the question was doing so in a compassionate manner and not in a shocked or accusatory tone that might scare someone?

Bottom line, I think the news stories being written about this issue are closer to tabloid journalism than investigative journalism.

Or do you mean they didn't ask at the hospital at the time of the event?

Exactly this.

And who knows how or why the stories are pitched the way they are, but I didn't seen any indication that parents said things like, "We've done all we could. Do you have any other ideas? Can you help us keep our kids?"

In fact, the reporter in the last bit I saw made a point of the fact that several of the parents drove from several states away rather than seek help in their own areas.

The lawmakers stressed that the attraction to Nebraska seems to be that the parents could abandon the kids without threat of legal consequence.

That is the crux of why the state is going, or has gone, into a special session to close the loophole of convenience.

I'm off to a clothing exchange, so I'll be away from my screen for a while. And, truly, while I'm sincerely interested in what folks think of this situation, I wasn't spoiling for a fight. Just profoundly moved by what seems like a good news/bad news paradox with this law.

Sigh. I don't understand people. The Oxford rugby team had a party where the theme was to dress up as Orthodox Jews, complete with bags of money, and bring Jewish girls as dates. [link] The comments on that article are totally confusing me -- aside from an amusing diversion into a comparison between anti-semitism and anti-piratism, there are a whole lot of comments there from people who just don't get why anyone would find this party at all problematic.

few of the children left were actually infants

I had heard that NONE of the kids were infants and that the law was being changed to read 30 days old or less, preferably 72 hours.

And, Sparky, I'm in agreement with your take on the journalism, or lack there of. I'm absolutely NOT indicting parents who can't get their kids the help they need.

The story of the 9 out of 10 dad didn't include an interview, so who could possibly know one way or the other.

My original point is that I'm not sure having a place for parents to give up their kids is actually a bad idea.

I'll restate my original question, can we, as a nation reorder our priorities so that kids who cannot get the help, guidance and love they need in their own families be well supported by the country?

It seems to me that that is a natural resource that is sorely in need of devotion on our parts.

Interestinly, a story I saw in tandem with this one talked about how 40% of AfAm kids don't have basic literacy and how that is being addressed by a program where book nooks are being set up in barber shops and beauty parlors.

Why should that sort of problem solving be left to individuals and communities? Why aren't we, as a collective, supporting our children?

The Oxford rugby team had a party where the theme was to dress up as Orthodox Jews, complete with bags of money, and bring Jewish girls as dates.

Gee, I wonder how Oxford and Cambridge got their reputations as being anti-semitic.