[Rhodes22-list] Could I Have Another Helping of Big Government, Please?

[Steven Alm]

That reminds me of a story in our family.  When I was just a toddler I got
sick with a bad cold or something and my grandmother gave me a little
whiskey.  Although I was sleeping soundly, my mother was furious.  Gramma
never got arrested but I've had a taste for that stuff ever since.  How
times have changed.

Slim

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com>
wrote:

> You're not going to believe this, but I STARTED to write about how so
> many beauracrats **pick the "low hanging fruit" to do their job, and
> thought "Nah, better not open that can of worms ..."
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
> > Herb,
> >
> > Good point! That reminds me of when I flew for a commuter airline and
> was
> > ramp checked one day.  I showed the examiner our log books and all the
> > deferred items I was dealing with and the questionable airworthiness
> issues
> > on this particular bird.  He just shrugged.  A few months later I left
> and
> > was flying a Cessna Citation jet on a charter certificate.  We had our
> > maintenance done at the factory, our training at Flight Safety, and ran
> a
> > spic-and-span little operation.  The same examiner ramp-checked us once
> a
> > week (our office was right next door).  I got pissed one day and called
> his
> > bluff.  "You only check us because you know we're clean and you can fill
> > your paperwork drill without having to get into any messy situations".
>  He
> > just shrugged.
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 7:35 PM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >> I'd love to see the exact times of this incident noted, and a study
> done
> >> tracking how many children where shown to be abused during the same
> time
> >> period.
> >>
> >>
> >> Brad Haslett wrote:
> >>
> >>> You would think after the almost three years of post-Katrina Gubment
> >>> bullshit I've witnessed I'd be immune to this stuff.  Nope, it still
> >>>
> >> pisses
> >>
> >>> me off.  By all means, let's have mo Gubment to "help us". Maybe it's
> >>>
> >> just
> >>
> >>> an age related cranky thing, but you folks who think you need mo
> gubment
> >>>
> >> in
> >>
> >>> your lives deserve it.  Keep it out of mine, thank you very much.
>  Brad
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> BRIAN DICKERSONHard lemonade, hard priceDad's oversight at Tigers game
> >>>
> >> lands
> >>
> >>> son in foster care
> >>>
> >>> BY BRIAN DICKERSON • FREE PRESS COLU
> >>>
> >>> If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product
> called
> >>> Mike's Hard Lemonade.
> >>>
> >>> And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of
> >>>
> >> their
> >>
> >>> 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family
> >>>
> >> watches
> >>
> >>> much television.
> >>>
> >>> The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should
> have
> >>> known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered
> a
> >>> lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and
> Ratte's
> >>> ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got
> >>>
> >> up to
> >>
> >>> speed on the commercial beverage industry.
> >>>
> >>> Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.
> >>>
> >>> Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the
> University
> >>>
> >> of
> >>
> >>> Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be
> >>> excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with
> >>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>> Stars" -- or even the History Channel, for that matter.
> >>>
> >>> The 47-year-old academic says he wasn't even aware alcoholic lemonade
> >>> existed when he and Leo stopped at a concession stand on the way to
> >>>
> >> their
> >>
> >>> seats in Section 114.
> >>>
> >>> "I'd never drunk it, never purchased it, never heard of it," Ratte of
> >>>
> >> Ann
> >>
> >>> Arbor told me sheepishly last week. "And it's certainly not what I
> >>>
> >> expected
> >>
> >>> when I ordered a lemonade for my 7-year-old."
> >>>
> >>> But it wasn't until the top of the ninth inning that a Comerica Park
> >>> security guard noticed the bottle in young Leo's hand.
> >>>
> >>> "You know this is an alcoholic beverage?" the guard asked the
> professor.
> >>>
> >>> "You've got to be kidding," Ratte replied. He asked for the bottle,
> but
> >>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>> security guard snatched it before Ratte could examine the label.
> >>> Mistake or child neglect?
> >>>
> >>> An hour later, Ratte was being interviewed by a Detroit police officer
> >>>
> >> at
> >>
> >>> Children's Hospital, where a physician at the Comerica Park clinic had
> >>> dispatched Leo -- by ambulance! -- after a cursory exam.
> >>>
> >>> Leo betrayed no symptoms of inebriation. But the physician and a
> police
> >>> officer from the Comerica substation suggested the ER visit after the
> >>>
> >> boy
> >>
> >>> admitted he was feeling a little nauseated.
> >>>
> >>> The Comerica cop estimated that Leo had drunk about 12 ounces of the
> >>>
> >> hard
> >>
> >>> lemonade, which is 5% alcohol. But an ER resident who drew Leo's blood
> >>>
> >> less
> >>
> >>> than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats
> >>> detected no trace of alcohol.
> >>>
> >>> "Completely normal appearing," the resident wrote in his report, "...
> he
> >>>
> >> is
> >>
> >>> cleared to go home."
> >>>
> >>> But it would be two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte's
> >>>
> >> wife,
> >>
> >>> U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home,
> and
> >>> nearly a week before Ratte was permitted to move back into his own
> >>>
> >> house.
> >>
> >>> And if you think nothing so ludicrous could happen to your family,
> maybe
> >>>
> >> you
> >>
> >>> should pay a little less attention to who's getting booted from
> "Dancing
> >>> with the Stars" and a little more to how the state agency responsible
> >>>
> >> for
> >>
> >>> protecting Michigan's children is going about its work.
> >>> Doing their duty
> >>>
> >>> Almost everyone Chris Ratte met the night they took Leo away conceded
> >>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>> state was probably overreacting.
> >>>
> >>> The sympathetic cop who interviewed Ratte and his son at the hospital
> >>>
> >> said
> >>
> >>> she was convinced what happened had been an accident, but that her
> >>> supervisor was insisting the matter be referred to Child Protective
> >>> Services.
> >>>
> >>> And Ratte thought the two child protection workers who came to take
> Leo
> >>>
> >> away
> >>
> >>> seemed more annoyed with the police than with him. "This is so
> >>>
> >> unnecessary,"
> >>
> >>> one told Ratte before driving away with his son.
> >>>
> >>> But there was really nothing any of them could do, they all said. They
> >>>
> >> were
> >>
> >>> just adhering to protocol, following orders.
> >>>
> >>> And so what had begun as an outing to the ballpark ended with Leo
> crying
> >>> himself to sleep in front of a television inside the Child Protective
> >>> Services building, and Ratte and his wife standing on the sidewalk
> >>>
> >> outside,
> >>
> >>> wondering when they'd see their little boy again.
> >>> A vain rescue mission
> >>>
> >>> Child Protective Services is the unit of the Michigan Department of
> >>>
> >> Human
> >>
> >>> Services responsible for intervening when someone suspects a child is
> >>>
> >> being
> >>
> >>> abused, neglected or endangered. Its powers include the authority to
> >>>
> >> remove
> >>
> >>> children from their homes and transfer them to foster parents who
> answer
> >>> only to the state.
> >>>
> >>> By law, CPS officials are forbidden to discuss the particulars of any
> >>> investigation.
> >>>
> >>> But Mike Patterson, Child and Family Services director for the Wayne
> >>>
> >> County
> >>
> >>> district that includes Comerica Park, said that in general his
> agency's
> >>> discretion is limited once police obtain a court order to remove a
> child
> >>> from the parental home -- usually authorized, as in Leo's case, by a
> >>> juvenile court referee responding to a police officer's
> recommendation.
> >>>
> >>> "Once the court has authorized a child's removal," Patterson told me,
> >>>
> >> "we
> >>
> >>> cannot return the child to the parental custody" until the court has
> >>>
> >> OK'd
> >>
> >>> it.
> >>>
> >>> But that doesn't explain why CPS refused to release Leo to the custody
> >>>
> >> of
> >>
> >>> two aunts -- one a social worker and licensed foster parent -- who
> drove
> >>>
> >> all
> >>
> >>> night from New England to take custody of their nephew.
> >>>
> >>> Chris Ratte's sisters, Catherine Miller and Felicity Ratte, left
> >>> Massachusetts at 10:30 the night of the fateful lemonade purchase
> after
> >>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>> police officer who'd reluctantly requested a removal order told Ratte
> >>>
> >> the
> >>
> >>> state would likely jump at the chance to place Leo with responsible
> >>> relatives. But when the two women arrived at the CPS office early
> >>>
> >> Sunday, a
> >>
> >>> caseworker explained they would not be allowed to see Leo until they
> had
> >>> secured a hotel room.
> >>>
> >>> The sisters quickly complied. But by the time they returned to CPS
> >>>
> >> around
> >>
> >>> 10:30 a.m., their nephew had been taken to an undisclosed foster home,
> >>>
> >> where
> >>
> >>> he would remain until a preliminary court hearing the following
> >>>
> >> afternoon.
> >>
> >>> By that Monday, April 7, when Ratte and his wife returned for a
> meeting
> >>>
> >> with
> >>
> >>> Latricia Jones, the CPS caseworker assigned to their case, no one in
> the
> >>> family had been able to talk to Leo for a day and a half.
> >>> More investigation needed
> >>>
> >>> At a hearing later that day, Jones recommended that Leo remain in
> foster
> >>> care until she had completed her investigation, a process she
> estimated
> >>> would take several days. It was only after the assistant attorney
> >>>
> >> general
> >>
> >>> who represented CPS admitted that the state was not interested in
> >>>
> >> pursuing
> >>
> >>> the case aggressively that juvenile referee Leslie Graves agreed to
> >>>
> >> release
> >>
> >>> Leo to his mother -- on the condition that Ratte himself relocate to a
> >>> hotel.
> >>>
> >>> Finally, at a second hearing three days later, Graves dismissed the
> >>> complaint and permitted Ratte to move home.
> >>>
> >>> Don Duquette, a U-M law professor who directs the university's Child
> >>> Advocacy Law Clinic, represented Ratte and his wife. He notes
> >>>
> >> sardonically
> >>
> >>> that the most remarkable thing about the couple's case may be the
> >>>
> >> relative
> >>
> >>> speed with which they were reunited with Leo.
> >>>
> >>> Duquette says the emergency removal powers of CPS, though
> >>>
> >> "well-intentioned"
> >>
> >>> are "out of control and partly responsible for the large numbers of
> kids
> >>>
> >> in
> >>
> >>> the foster care system," which is almost universally acknowledged to
> be
> >>> badly overburdened.
> >>>
> >>> Ratte and his wife have filed a formal complaint with the CPS
> >>>
> >> ombudsman's
> >>
> >>> office.
> >>>
> >>> "I have apologized to Leo from the bottom of my heart for the silly
> >>>
> >> mistake
> >>
> >>> that got him into this mess," Ratte wrote in the complaint. "But I
> have
> >>>
> >> also
> >>
> >>> told him that what happened afterward was an even bigger error, and I
> >>>
> >> would
> >>
> >>> like to be able to say to him that institutions, like people, can
> learn
> >>>
> >> from
> >>
> >>> their mistakes."
> >>>
> >>> *Contact BRIAN DICKERSON at 248-351-3697 or
> >>> bdickerson at freepress.com<
> >>>
> >>
> http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080428/COL04/mailto:bdickerson@freepress.com
> >>
> >>> .*
> >>> __________________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> __________________________________________________
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> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
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