(I’m pretty sure I’m doing this wrong.)
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=917683
The ‘nut’ that nauseates
National Post Published: Thursday, October 30, 2008
The U. S.-based Centers for Disease Control reported this month that roughly 4% of children have food allergies. That number may seem small, but the risk to the affected children is not. Peanut allergies, for example, can have deadly consequences.
Some candy makers appear oblivious to this fact, producing Halloween variety packs containing nut products meant to be distributed to children tomorrow night. Some products even have “peanut” right in the brand name. Retailers are equally oblivious — throwing this product up on their shelves alongside nut-free Smarties and Mars Bars.
Picture the teary child whose parent has just taken away a chunk of her Halloween night’s haul because it will make her nauseous or worse. Try explaining to a kid why the avuncular neighbour down the street is giving out candy that could necessitate a trip to the emergency room.
This is not an area that calls out for government regulation. But it does cry out for common sense among producers and retailers: A nut-free Halloween would make life a lot less scary for children and parents alike.
4% of children have food allergies.
Some of these allergies are life-threatening.
Allergic children trick or treating can receive these candies, and be put in emotional or physical harm.
Therefore,
ONLY peanut free candy should be given out at Halloween.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/opinion/05wed3.html
Nebraska’s Abandoned Families
Published: November 4, 2008
The Nebraska Legislature had newborn infants and desperate young mothers in mind when it passed a law that allows parents to surrender unwanted children to the state without fear of prosecution. In just a few months, more than two dozen children as old as 17 have been abandoned, usually by parents or guardians who claimed that the children were uncontrollable.
Gov. Dave Heineman has called a special session of the Legislature so that the law can be rewritten to protect only newborns. But lawmakers will need to do a lot more to address the causes of these disturbing and unusual abandonments.
One of the central issues in Nebraska — and in much of the rest of the country — is that the social service and juvenile justice systems provide little help to families with troubled children, many of whom have mental or emotional problems. In general, the state gets involved only after the law has been broken, when a child has been abused or neglected by a parent or has committed a crime and ended up in custody.
According to a recent analysis by Voices for Children in Nebraska, a well-known advocacy group, even before the recent abandonments, some parents decided that their only chance for getting counseling or mental health care for their children was to make them wards of the state. That is a true choice of desperation — and one that is hugely costly for everyone.
It increases the likelihood that the child will remain entangled with the juvenile justice system — and end up in prison as an adult. Treating children in custody costs a great deal more than helping them in community-based settings.
Critics rightly charge that Nebraska has spent too much effort and money on removing children from their homes and too little on preventing problems with early intervention. When the Legislature reconvenes, it should focus on ways to help struggling families, providing child-care subsidies for low-income families and children’s health insurance. No parent should have to abandon a troubled child just to get help.
3. Nebraska does not have sufficient support for underprivileged families in the way of social and juvenile systems.
1. Nebraska Legislature lets families give up children they can’t care for.
2. More than 2 dozen children, as old as 17, were given up to receive ‘better care’.
a) the law will now be rewritten to include only newborns, as was originally intended.
4. Many underprivileged families cannot help their troubled childrens by providing them with counselling, etc.
5. Some families think best mental health care etc. can be provided through state.
6. State will only get involved when laws are broken in some cases.
Thus,
7. Giving up children for ‘better care’ is dangerous and usually harmful to children, sometimes leading to a tangled web of the juvenile justice system.
Therefore,
8. Legislature should focus on providing support and funding to low-income families so they do not have to go to such lengths as giving up their own children.
