I'm being a jerk.

Nah, not at all. Just skimming over it, it seems totally suspicious. That's one of the things I like about you, you step back from things that sound outrageous to uncover they aren't as cut and dried as it sounds.

It's something I've had to learn about picking up stories that sound outrageous in a way that supports my worldview. There's often an argument on the other side that is at least somewhat reasonable, not all the time, but often.

It's important to note that only crackpotty sites are reporting on this. I couldn't find anything in a paper.

In general, I feel bad for family services type people. It seems like they are always the bad guys in the media no matter what they do, either taking kids from their loving parents, or not intervening soon enough.

It's something I've had to learn about picking up stories that sound outrageous in a way that supports my worldview.

I've been spending a lot of time writing about this for the new book. Managing my confirmation bias. ita does a really good job of that. Strega does as well. I'm having a difficult time with it. Taking a deep breath and stepping back and saying, "I need more facts."

You know, and this happened recently when a friend posted a story to her FB about a woman in Florida who was taken against her will and basically committed to a hospital because she told her doctor that she couldn't go on bed rest during a high risk pregnancy. She was single, and the sole supporter of two other children.

She miscarried two days later while being held in the hospital.

And I felt this huge outrage...but then I went to my handy dandy google, and found that the ACLU took her case, and the judges found for her, and stated that they clearly wanted to set precedent so that this never happened to another woman. The judges said that. And I was like, "DUDE. THAT WAS THE IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY."

Not, "woe, the plight of women in america," it was, "woman in america triumphs."

Why you trying to Rage Fatigue me? WHY? There's enough shit to be angry about.

brenda,

I have never read that site in my life. I am not quite sure how I've avoided the crackpots, but I have. You'd think I just signed on to the Internet last night.

In general, I feel bad for family services type people. It seems like they are always the bad guys in the media no matter what they do, either taking kids from their loving parents, or not intervening soon enough.

Yeah, absolutely. Because you only hear about exceptional stories, and/or ones where someone raises a stink.

Sort of relatedly, last weekend's This American Life had a story from a guy who went to go rescue some kids from their meth head parents, and what actually happened. It was interesting.

I think that 1)The fact that it happened at all is rage making AND 2) That the judges recognized that and found for her is also important.

I couldn't find anything but religious home-school sites and right wing crazy sites carrying it. (Of course that probably would confirm a bias of a different kind-that the MSM doesn't report on Christians being oppressed).

what drives me crazy is that the social workers weren't telling them they couldn't pray, but they couldn't pray about reunification of the family because they didn't want the children to feel pressured.

so why couldn't they just have modified the prayers a bit in response to this?

fact: elizabeth taylor outlived the person who wrote her NY Times obit.

[link]