Hee. At CTY a few years ago Quidditch was one of the most popular afternoon activities. (Schedule at CTY is class from about 9-3, then two afternoon activities, dinner, and then an hour or two of study hall. Afternoon activities are sometimes sports, sometimes rehearsals for various theatre and music stuff, and usually at least one "silent reading" or "cloud-watching" activity for the kids who need a bit of a break from people.)

ION, do folks know there's a brand-new Star Wars/Robot Chicken on tonight?

My TiVo doesn't think so. I hope it's not wrong.

Huh. I just told my TiVo to record it.

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.

Several years ago in NJ two teenagers killed a pizza delivery man in what was described as a "thrill kill". My Mom worked a counseling agency in the county where it happened. One of the kids' Mother had been trying to get help for him for YEARS. Literall, frantically, desperately telling anyone who would listen that he was going to do something terrible if they couldn't get him some help. Can you imagine knowing that about your 14 year old boy, fighting for years, and then being right? It was a horror.

And there may be parents using Nebraska as a dumping area for kids that they just don't want to raise anymore. But if someone's willing to drive from another state to get rid of their kid, I don't know how great it would be for the kid to be raised by them. Being raised by someone who considers kids a burden can suck even if they are willing to stick it out.

At least they drive them to Nebraska. That's a step above the parents who just walk out on their kids. So many "runaways" are really throwaways.

Noah also got to ride a trike on the trike track. So cute. Until he exhausted himself into sleep.

At which point he was MIND NUMBINGLY cute?

As bad as they could be, orphanages really can serve a purpose and I hate that our society just stopped them altogether and have so few things around like the Methodist homes and Boys ranches.

We (and I'm not sure if that's "Americans" or "humans") have a nasty habit of discarding something wholesale when it has problems. When the "primarily residence home" model for every child abandoned by or yanked from their parents (often for reasons we'd now be appalled by) had serious problems we dropped it completely in favor of what evolved into foster-care -- which was never big enough from the start. Then they sort of accidentally created group homes (which were anemic temporary boys homes) and never made enough of them. Now we have a situation where in many states if a ward of the state can't be accomodated (often teenagers)they get sent to juvenile detention until a spot can be found. So if you're a homeless kid you get sent to jail. Very very Oliver Twist work house, you know?

The idea behind getting rid of the big mental institutions and orphanages, which had too often served as not much more than warehouses, was that they would be replaced by community-based facilities. They did the first part, but never got around to the second. Homelessness and a highly dysfunctional foster system are not really an improvement.

Yeah, that.

I think it may indeed be new, tommyrot. I'd best school my TiVo.

There was a case ten years or so back where a kid was in juvie for two weeks and the parents packed up and moved to another state. But he was a violent, out of control teenager who was like 6"4, 280 and the parents were living in actual fear for their lives. And again, had been literally begging for help from social services, from the police and finding absolutely nothing.

They were found a couple of weeks later, IIRC, and I can't remember what the resolution was. Horrifying on all counts, really.

There was another case in NJ several years ago where a 15-year-old boy killed an 11-year-old boy. The 15-year-old had been been in and out of institutions a few times, plus was involved in a police sting operation (a middle-aged man he'd met online had raped him, and the police were using him as bait to trap the guy, and the kid eventually got fed up with this, decided that the guy cared more about him than the police did, and ripped all the recording stuff off his phone), and his parents had told a judge, basically, "We don't know what to do with this kid, we can't do any more to help him, please help us," and the judge essentially told them to take him home and be better parents. A few weeks later, he killed the younger boy.

Article in Time about the Nebraska law says the majority of the kids are older than 13 and have a history of being treated for psychiatric disorders.

College level quidditch. People scare me: [link]

I like how they finessed the Snitch.

I'm telling you the Harry Potter theme park is going to outsell Disneyland by a large margin.

Star Robot Chicken Wars was good. Some episodes were OK, and some had me laughing hysterically.

Now they're showing the first one again....