Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Morning Edition - 12/4/07
State Sanctioned Suicide or Religious Freedom?
Dennis Lindberg, 14, died just hours after superior court judge John Meyers ruled that the eighth grader was competent to make life-and-death decisions regarding his own health and that the youngster was “basically giving himself a death sentence.” Meyers also said, “I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision.” The state of Washington petitioned the court to force the teenager to undergo a life-saving blood transfusion to treat his leukemia. Doctors say Lindberg had a 70% chance of survival with the transfusions and other treatments. Rachel Wherry and Dennis Lindberg, Sr., the boy’s birth parents, argued that he was being influenced by his aunt and guardian, Dianna Mincin, who is a Jehovah’s Witness. The Jehovah Witness believe that Leviticus 17:14, “You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh,” includes life-saving transfusions. Although I believe in religious freedom, I’m perplexed by Washington State court’s decision to allow a minor to make such a fatal decision.
Daddy Dearest
If you’re one of the throngs of gay men who want to have your gene pool progress or are simply doing your fag-hag a favor, you may want to think again; well, unless you’re ready to shell out some serious dough. A Nassau County (NYC) man is reeling after he was told to pay-up for his, now 18-year old, son. The young man will be entering college soon. “No good deed goes unpunished,” said Deborah Kelly, the lawyer representing the man. The sperm-donor, a doctor, says he worked with the child’s mother and agreed to donate the sperm for his colleague and her partner. Over the years he sent gifts and cards to the child and even signed those gift notes with a short, “Dad” or “Daddy.” Now that the request for child support has been served, good ‘ole spunk-dad would like a paternity test done. Unfortunately, the courts have ruled that no paternity tests will be allowed, since the results may prove ‘traumatic’ for the “child.” Court documents show that the young man’s birth certificate bears the sperm donor’s name.
Christmas Gifts and Anxiety Attacks
As my faithful friend J’Moo will remember, after my shopping spree pass-out incident many moons ago, I tend to get a bit stressed with choosing Christmas gifts. For years now, I have resorted to buying Christmas gifts for my nephews only and saving all other gifts for folk’s birthdays. This system worked well until now. BD is a BIG Christmas fan. He loves everything about the gift-giving season and says it’s his favorite holiday. With that announcement, my brain has gone into overdrive trying to figure out an appropriate gift for my baby. He appears to be a huge technology buff, but also seems to have every new gadget in existence. He’s not much for the pampering that would signal a spa gift certificate and outside of outerwear or underwear, I don’t particularly like buying clothing or shoes for my man. I’m down to the wire now and am considering anything that has substance, has some redeeming sentimental quality and doesn’t send me into financial ruin. I’ll keep you posted what I narrow it down to. At this point, I’ll be happy if I don’t end-up on my back at Nordstrom…and not in a good way.
On Blast
Our criminal justice system has been charging youth offenders as adults. Last year, following sending over 200,000 minors to adult prisons, many states are changing their minds on what really works with regard to minors. Similarly, should we consider if minors should be granted the authority to make life-altering (or in Dennis Lindberg’s case, life-ending) decisions with regard to their health and welfare? Should an adult or state-appointed guardian be assigned to make serious decisions affecting minors?
Keep passin’ the open windows…
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6 comments:
What's interesting about your question is this; most of us (majority of the minorities) are really in favor of a leftist politics. You know, all about pumping the fist, power to the people, and taking a long run to stand against the really traditional views of this country. Maybe, this is our mistake? Could it be that we want a more contemporary, leftist, socially acceptable society that bad that we are losing sight of some key traditional values at the same time? I mean hey, it's just a question.
But boy, oh boy, am I feeling u on the Christmas gift thing. I have absolutely no freaking idea what to get this boy.
-DTW
Seems to me that the majority of the minors who are being sent to adult prisons are blacks and latinos. They are then consumed by the general population in jail as sex objects. Its a sickening cycle. Most of the youth offenders were victims of abuse as children and are then sent to prison to be abused by more adults...its just wrong any way you look at it. Depending on the severity of the crime, there has got to be a better way to handle youthful offenders.
On the other hand, if families did veer more to the side of rearing their children in a more conservative manner - where consequence is no coincidence - perhaps the youthful offender perpetrating violent crimes would be a bad memory and a trend of the past. We need to be held accountable for our children. Perhaps its the parent that should be sent to the adult prison and the child to a juvenile facility.
I hate shopping and no one is getting anything from my black ass for Christman and I have told people not to get me anything. I say this crap every year and never follow through, but I will this year. Only people I am buy for is my mom and my two year old nephew. Everyone else can bite me. Yeah, I said it.
Merry Christmas.
I think I will stand behind anonymous 12:18am!
It all starts in the home. Even if you do everything right and the child could be influenced by someone who didn't have the same rearing as yours. there needs to be approbriate child rearing and careful sheltering to ensure a better tomorrow.
The world is on a downward spiral, who is going to stop it before it is too late. One man is not enough...
Some of these bad kids deserve to live under the adult prision.
we like to believe that we can influence children absolutely through deeds and examples. but some individuals just will not be what you want them to be, whether through peer pressure, deficient critical thinking skills or chemical imbalance (what we used to call crazy). you just never know, but we should all try our best.
sending juvenile offenders into adult prison is like leading the lamb to the slaughter. but the powers that be view it as, "Let them kill themselves, I don't care."
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