VIOLENCE IN OUR COMMUNITIES: A COMMENTARY

On Friday, February 10th we had another school shooting.  It happened during lunch hour in a cafeteria filled with elementary children happily eating lunch.  All we can ask is why?  The school is about 20 minutes from my doorstep and diagonally southeast as the crow flies.  I know several of the teachers and students that work and attend this school.  We share sports programs and the arts.  It is a good school.  Who would have thought such a tragedy would strike here and with a child so young carrying a gun and somehow getting it past the eyes of a watchful and caring staff.  It is heartbreaking. 

We don’t think of these things happening is small, rural communities like the one I live in or those children live in but it even happens here.  Why?

When I was growing up we only occasionally heard of a murder, maybe a few more robberies and off and on a case of domestic violence but it was rare, very rare, especially in rural communities and we never heard of such violence and tragedy in our schools.  What has gone wrong?

Where are all this hate, fear, bullying, desperation, violence, vengeance and moral decay coming from?  Is there anything we can do to stop it?  God help us.  I sure don’t have the answer.  I wish I did.

Maybe it is the broken families, lack of stability in the homes.  Both parents work, they have to.  They have no choice.  Maybe it is because there is only one parent to start with and you just can’t be mother and father and bread winner all in the same breath.  Parents are pushed beyond their limits and children end up ignored and without the discipline and moral upbringing they need.  We may love our children but we are too busy trying to survive to let them know just how deeply they are loved.  There is very little if any family unity anymore. 

The TV becomes the nanny, the babysitter and it doesn’t teach very high morals.  The same goes for the video games and internet games we and our children play and the media plays their part in the nightly news and the daily paper too as they lean toward scandals, violence and all manner of sensationalism with next to no reporting of the good that happens in the community, State, Nation or the world.  We are being fed a very heavy diet of negative with little to no positive.  Children learn what they live.

Schools push for the competitive edge, win no matter what it takes when it comes to sports or any other competition and academically every child still passes to the next grade and still gets some sort of award even if they haven’t truly learned or earned it…No child left behind.  It is sending mixed signals to the child.  It is okay to fail in one area or another.  Why do my best, be my best.  The effort is a waste of time.  We are all going to get some special award and our diploma anyhow.  So what if I can’t really read or write or even do basic math.  Machines will do it for me.  I don’t have to read a book.  I can listen to it or watch the movie, same difference, right?  Who really cares so long as I’m not in the way?  I don’t have to learn math, I have a calculator that with just the push of a button will give me the correct answer so why study.  Who really cares about the process?

Churches are not much if any better today.  They no longer teach morals and God given laws.  They are politically correct and just about anything goes.  That helps bring more money into the coffers when no one is offended in any way.  Many now speak of God as a higher power, not Lord God Almighty but whatever higher power you choose to believe in, be it the Judeo-Christian God or some other god or whatever power you choose, wind, rain, stars, the moon, the cobra, the cat or a tree.  It makes no difference as long as you believe in something beyond self.  Not every church is this way but a lot are today.  I’ve been there and listened to them.  God forbid we offend anyone and stand up for God and His teachings.  I’m sure God is very offended and that bothers me. 

No wonder children, our young adults don’t know right from wrong.  Oh some will blame it on Satan and his legions of fallen angels called demons (You know, the devil made me do it.) and that may be correct to a point but it is each of us who make the choice.  We decide for our self how we choose to behave.  How can we choose when we are not taught morality in the first place?

We are a society that has become segmented, segregated and morally corrupt.  Drug and alcohol abuse is no longer just ghetto garbage; it is rampant in the highest echelons of our society and affects everyone from the homeless wino in some back alley to the CEO of our multibillion dollar corporations to the government leaders of our communities and nations.  We reap just what we sow. 

It is sad when we see young children becoming so disconnected with reality and life and living and the wonder of being human and alive that they no longer feel life is worth their next breath and they put a gun to their head or their neighbors or peers and squeeze the trigger.  BANG and it is over in a split second.  No more worries, no more fears, no more feeling lost and alone, no more being bullied and belittled, no more nothing.  Is this what our society as come down to?  God, I hope not.

Maybe we shouldn’t have thrown God out.  Just a thought on my part. 

Now that this has been said, let’s move on to the basics.  There are different kinds of abuse, and they have different symptoms and consequences.  This is important if you plan on spotting abuse.

The types of abuse are:

1. psychological/ emotional abuse
2. physical abuse
3. sexual abuse

T he types of neglect are:
1. physical neglect
2. emotional neglect
3. medical neglect
4. educational neglect
5. neglect brought on by mental health issues such as Munchausen by proxy syndrome.

Psychological abuse is the act of using words and nonverbal language to manipulate, confuse, belittle, and hurt a child.  This may include yelling, withdrawing emotionally, holding a child to outrageous standards, using a child as a scapegoat, and gaslighting, to name a few.  Symptoms of psychological abuse are often difficult to pinpoint, making it nearly impossible to prosecute parents for such behavior.  That said, some of the symptoms of psychological abuse are:
1. withdrawing
2. acting out
3. lack of self-image
4. often very parentalized at a young age
5. nervous habits (nail biting, etc).
6. difficulties eating
7. difficulties sleeping
8. vague medical issues (constant headaches, stomach aches, etc)

Physical abuse is the act of striking a child in any way other than that deemed by the state as acceptable for necessary discipline.  This can include threats of violence toward the child, or engaging in violence in front of the child.  Some symptoms of physical abuse include:
1. violent behavior
2. problems with anger
3. overly-conscious of sudden movement
4. withdrawing
5. suspicious bruising, burning, scarring, or welts
6. Problems with school attendence
7. Constant emergency room visits

Sexual abuse is the act of using a child for any purpose that involves arousal, seduction, or emotional dependence similar to that a couple might experience.  Emotional sexual abuse is somewhat uncommon and difficult to detect.  Often in dysfunctional relationships such as these, the parent will treat the child as “special”, give in to the every whim, and generally treat them in a manner that one might treat a significant other, while no physical sexual misconduct occurs.  Symptoms of sexual abuse include:
1. withdrawal
2. acting out
3. acting in a sexual manner toward other children that is not normal for the child’s age.
4. presence of STDs and STIs
5. irritation, itching, soreness, and bleeding of genital area
6. fearing visits to a specific person
*please note that most sexual abuse takes place between a child and a family member or someone close to the family

Neglect is a huge problem in America, and although the different types usually get thrown under the general “neglect” term, each type is very serious.  Usually these are all tossed around under the same term is because they tend to occur together and because they have similar symptoms:
1. generally appear to be unclean or unwashed
2. may appear to be underfed
3. may steal food or act extremely hungry when eating
4. have consistent issues with parasites, such as fleas or lice
5. severe diaper rash in children who are still in diapers
6. lack of parental supervision (or injuries from lack of parental supervision)
7. leaving the child in the care of a violent offender, a sex offender, or a known drug addict or dealer
8. giving children medication/alcohol/drugs or making these items available to the children
9. children may appear to be extremely parentalized (especially older children)
10.lack of medical, dental, or psychological care not due to financial issues
11. parent may seem to have a general lack of interest in the children
*often parents who engage in neglectful behavior will treat their children as though they are objects that they “possess”.  They may seem very interested in weather or not their childrens’ clothes match/look nice but may not properly feed, supervise, or educate their children.  This can sometimes make certain types of neglect difficult to spot.

Knowing this information, please, go forth in the world and report when you see behavior like this occurring.  Child services needs all the evidence they can get before children can be taken out of an abusive situation, and quite often they are not able to get that evidence in time to save the child’s psychological and physical health, or even to save their life.

The environment minister of the Italian government has made a plea to ship owners – cruise ship company Costa Crociere – to draw up plans for anchoring the giant ship somehow, to the granite rocks on which it currently lies in 100ft of water.

Monitoring Sensors have shown the ship to be slimming downwards at 7mm daily, meaning that soon it could tumble over the  shelf edge down into  over 200ft depth of water. This impact could result in the shattering of loaded fuel tanks, causing an environmental disaster on a massive scale.

Laying obstacles against the hull, large objects that would block the vessel in the current position, is another option, but the fact that a 12th body has now been found by divers leads to the supposition that more bodies remain to be discovered, and since salvage cannot begin until they are, securing the ship seems vitally important now.

When one considers that there are many other cruise ships out there which are larger, and that even more massive ones are planned, you have to wonder at the chaotic and frankly shambolic evacuation procedures followed on this ship, which were terrible to say the least.

There are videos showing how a female crew member was advising passengers to return to cabins AFTER the rock had been struck, while divers searching the captain’s cabin today found his uniform, clear evidence of his obvious intention to abandon ship with no regard for passenger safety.

More video evidence shows just how totally disorganized the crew of the Costa Concordia were in trying to herd passengers to safety. Not one right hand had a single clue what any left hand was doing, and the fact that people died must in part be due to the lax attitude of those in charge regarding the running of safety drills.

However you look at this dreadful disaster, where twenty people, including a young girl are still awaiting discovery within the stricken wreck, nothing remotely resembling proper emergency procedures was enacted aboard, and panicked passengers were lucky to get away as they did, considering the attitude of the errant captain.

The number of lawsuits being filed against the cruise company will almost certainly force them out of business, and perhaps rightly so, all things considered, but the wider implications for every other cruise ship company out there are colossal, in terms of tightening up on safety issues.

The unspeakable tragedy of the Costa Concordia need not have been as expensive as it was in terms of human life, had more care and attention been given to making sure that passengers knew what they should do.  Such accidents may be a rare occurrence, but even so it can never again be regarded as excusable for safety drills NOT to be carried out before the vessels set sail. The cost, as this awful event clearly shows, are simply far too high.

There seems to be no standard set of definitions for a case worker to go by when determining cases, and the qualifications for the case workers to be able to make such determinations is also a question that comes up for families that have been caught on the wrong side of the fence.

Here in New Hampshire there is a petition sponsored by Dorothy Knightly, Hope Nardone and Pat Patterson which outlines specific assessments that need to be done to DCYF as an agency. The petition calls into question the actions taken by the agency. and also brings to light the need to assess the qualifications of the determining caseworkers. Upon viewing the petition there are a number of heart-wrenching comments on the damages that have been done to individuals and families.

 I am about to share another one. Once again, the names will be changed of course. I am going to name her Jane, so that she may be protected from mass ridicule and judgment about previous decisions she has made in her life. The circumstances of the pregnancy were not the best, to say the least. There was no white picket fence in the front yard, rather there was another run down apartment in the low-income housing sector. There was no husband to pay the bills while she stayed at home with the baby, in fact the mother wasn’t sure of who the father was, and she was on disability for schizophrenia at the time.  She lived with her mother, and her two siblings.

When she went to have the baby at Portsmouth Hospital, she was in an abusive relationship with a man she thought was the father. What should have been a happy and fulfilling time in her life, became a parents worst nightmare, one fall short of losing a child through death.

What followed in the next few days was horrific. After having her baby premature due to the psych medicines she had to take due to her illness, the baby had seizures, and was in the ICU under constant care. When the baby was finally stable Jane was able to take him home.  After a few days, Jane was worried about her son, as he was not latching on well and she was concerned about how tiny he was. She was also concerned that the baby was spitting up and it appeared that sometimes it would look as though he was choking on his formula. She immediately called the baby’s doctor.

The doctor told Jane that she needed to take him to the hospital again, because he was not gaining weight. From there the accusations started with hospital staff who were less then professional in their judgments about Jane. Surely Jane, 5′9 with short multicolored hair, multiple piercings and a slew of home branded tattoos was the unfit mother starving her child. The hospital called DCYF, who under an emergency status placed the child with an unestablished father while leading Jane to believe she could not go and get the child and that she had basically lost the child in the system.

Jane felt bullied, was suffering from the loss of her child, and worse she didn’t understand why. Jane felt hopeless and beaten by the system, and began to sleep the days away. After feeling confused as to why she couldn’t get her baby she, and her father, went to the DCYF office to gain an understanding of exactly what happened and where Jane’s rights actually stood. After some bickering and quite a bit of unprofessional accusations and judgments, the social worker in charge of the case at the time explained that there was “no paperwork”, and that the surrender of the child was “voluntary”. Nothing legal, in fact, was holding the child in the residence they placed him in, which was in the home of the unestablished father. When Jane indicated she was going to get her son then, the DCYF worker stood up and said “What I’m telling you is that if you go and get your child then I’m going to file an Exparte.” In case one isn’t privy to the law and all its fancy terms, an ExParte is an emergency order. Apparently Jane was such a horrible mother the child was endangered on an emergency level.  Jane walked out of the office and never retrieved her baby. Her esteem as a mother was crushed, and she was already tired of fighting.

Shortly after the office visit from Jane, the child was placed into foster care.  DCYF used Jane’s reactions to her baby’s removal as evidence for continued removal, stating to the judge, “they had reports claiming she was always sleeping and neglected her child.”. The grandparents were never given an option and the DCYF staff took a baby away from his mother during a critical bonding period between a mother and child, when the child was still coming into focus to see his mother for the first time, he faced a stranger. This happened because of false allegations that were initiated out of retaliation from her previous partner.

The truth here is that Jane has done nothing wrong, and had only been accused of such. DCYF doesn’t need proof to start the procedures of taking your child from you. It’s not considered criminal in which the burden of proof is needed. DCYF even appoints their own social worker to a case, which is there as an unbiased representation for the child.

Jane looks more like a doll then a human being, and now, sometimes there is a vacancy where a warm smile used to reach for the sun claiming she was able to catch it. The child has lost valuable emotional and physical developmental bonding with his mother. He is still not at home with his mother, and the biological father, according to a DCYF worker, is “not sure how involved he wants to be.”

An update brings no solace to this situation. Accept perhaps maybe a note, that the foster mother has recently brought the baby boy into the hospital for the very same reason. He wasn’t gaining weight, and wasn’t eating the way he should have been.

I am writing this, so maybe somewhere someone will see that a series of systems are in place that are somehow able to simply take our children at will based simply on allegation without the burden of proof all in the name of “protecting” our children. The agencies have been preying on one of a parents worst fears. I too, am a parent that finds myself consumed with the thoughts about how I might be raising my children wrong, worse, I am worried about what will happen if I fight alongside others who feel the same way.

A change needs to happen, but until then, all one can offer is knowledge, and someone else did it better then I could. Please visit http://nhdcyf.info/first_contact.html , if you are in need of a resource here in NH. As a personal note to the victims in this story, this is the only way I know how to help. I would like to ask you, please never give up, never stop fighting and I will do the same.

It’s still not clear why Baker killed her grandson, and police are not making the suicide note public. But two family members tell Volunteer TV that Baker had been depressed. One of Baker’s sons, Nick Kenestrick, spoke exclusively with us. He says Dylan had been living with his grandmother on and off since he was 9 months old. Both of Dylan’s parents have been in and out of jail since then, and Baker had been Dylan’s legal guardian for the past three years. Kenestrick says this is taking an emotional toll on his family. “I’m kind of at a loss for words. How do you deal with it? It’s about unbearable, but you gotta get through it.” Getting through it is all Nick Kenestrick is managing to do.

Police say 54 year old Mary Baker killed Dylan Akers at the Ken Jo Market on Merchants Drive Saturday night, before turning the gun on herself.

Kenestrick says he doesn’t know why his mother killed his nephew. He says his mother was a wonderful person, who cared for Dylan while both of his parents were in and out of jail. “I wouldn’t ask anybody to understand what this feels like. It’s taking every ounce of energy I got, just to keep myself afloat. Let alone of sound mind and body.”

He’s also working to protect the other children in the family, trying to keep their minds off of what happened. “I’m just trying to keep their minds occupied. Keep them playing outside, keep their minds busy so they’re not thinking about what’s going on.”

Kenestrick says more than anything, his family needs time, and space, to heal. “We need time to cope with each other, and to be able to lean on each other.”

This is only one story but so many more are just as heartbreaking,

Driven by “anger, hatred and revenge,” a Fairfax County woman plotted to kill her 2-year-old granddaughter by tossing her off a 44-foot walkway at Tysons Corner Center last November, Fairfax County’s top prosecutor said in court Monday.

Carmela Dela Rosa, 50, hatched the plan during a family outing as a way to get back at little Angelyn Ogdoc’s father, James Ogdoc, prosecutors said. They said she blamed him for getting her daughter, Kathlyn Ogdoc, pregnant out of wedlock and splitting her from the family

“This defendant killed this child because she was a spiteful woman,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said at the opening of Dela Rosa’s murder trial. “It was her way or the highway in life.”

But Public Defender Dawn Butorac sketched a very different portrait of Dela Rosa, who entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Butorac said Dela Rosa was a loving grandmother who suffered from “major depressive disorder” and had tried to commit suicide several times. In the months before the Nov. 29 death of Angelyn, Dela Rosa’s mental health issues were exacerbated by the family’s financial problems and the death of her brother in the Philippines. She couldn’t cope with the strain, Butorac said.

“August until November 2010 was a downward spiral” for Dela Rosa, Butorac said during her opening statement. “Her thought process turned psychotic.”

The trial, which is expected to last as long as 10 days, will revolve around Dela Rosa’s mental state. If Dela Rosa is found guilty of murder, she could face a sentence of up to life in prison.

During that trip to the mall, Morrogh told jurors, Dela Rosa fought with her husband, Leandro, and son, David. But Morrogh said what really set Dela Rosa off was a call from James Ogdoc to Kathlyn Ogdoc.

Dela Rosa “was angry and jealous this man was intruding on private time with the family,” Morrogh said. “She felt this man stole her child from her too soon.”

At that point, Morrogh said, Dela Rosa began planning to kill Angelyn. Morrogh said Dela Rosa, who is deeply religious, never got over the fact that Kathlyn Ogdoc got pregnant out of wedlock.

James Ogdoc and Kathlyn started dating at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington in 2004, Morrogh said. The pair, both children of Filipino immigrants, built a “strong relationship” and continued seeing each other through college, he said. They were married shortly before Angelyn was born in 2007.

In an April 2009 letter to her daughter that is in the court file, Dela Rosa said she was hurt by Kathlyn Ogdoc’s choices. “I feel very betrayed and disappointed,” she wrote. “I wanted you to enjoy your 20s without any responsibility of a husband and child.”

Butorac said Dela Rosa was first diagnosed with major depression disorder in June 2000, shortly after her father died in the Philippines. Treatment kept her mental health issues in check at first, but in 2008 Dela Rosa took a turn for the worse, Butorac said.

In 2010, Dela Rosa tried to commit suicide by swallowing pills and then drove her car down a steep embankment in the Shenandoah Mountains, Butorac said.

In the week before Angelyn’s death, Dela Rosa stayed home while her family took a beach trip. “During those five days, she didn’t shower, didn’t eat, didn’t see anyone,” Butorac said.

When the family returned, Dela Rosa seemed in better spirits, so the family planned the outing to the mall, Butorac said.

Monique Cox, who was visiting Tysons Corner that evening, testified that she and her fiance were on the sidewalk when they heard voices from a walkway above. She said she glanced up and saw what she thought was a child’s jacket falling.

“When it hit a tree, we saw a face,” Cox said. “That’s when we started screaming.”

Cox said Angelyn landed on the pavement a few feet from her and her fiance. They knelt and stayed with her as a crowd gathered and, later, an ambulance arrived.

“If we had known it was child, we could have caught her,” Cox said.

This is a truly sad day when we don’t notice the signs pointing to these kinds of things,and try to stop them before they happen

this woman should have been institutionalized before murder became her way of dealing with all these supposed slights.

and then we see a case like this

An 18-month-old girl who police say was physically abused by her mother’s boyfriend died from traumatic head trauma, Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said Monday.

The manner of death for Alaija Corbin is listed as pending in Sonnenberg’s report, which he issued Monday afternoon after the girl’s autopsy was completed.

The child was rushed to St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center last weekend. Paramedics were called to a home in the 300 block of East 40th Street at about 2:30 a.m. Oct. 8 for a report of an unconscious infant.

Paramedics determined Alajia Corbin’s injuries were consistent with head trauma. Emergency surgery was preformed on the child. She was pronounced dead Oct. 14 at Saint Luke’s Boise Medical Center, according to coroner’s reports.

A warrant was issued for the arrest of Jordan Everhart, 21. Garden City police officials say Everhart was babysitting the child when the injuries occurred.

Ada County prosecutors say Everhart told police Alajia Corbin was injured after being knocked down by a dog.

 But a medical exam showed the girl had a contusion on the abdomen, bruising on the hip, new and old injuries and bleeding in the brain, and hemorrhages in the eyes. The head and eye injuries are consistent with shaking and doctors said characterized those injuries as “non-accidental,” according to court testimony.

Read more: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/10/16/1841618/garden-city-toddler-who-police.html#ixzz1cTQBs6qU

The people who are supposed to love and care for these children are instead doing the unthinkable.

OREGON CITY — A youth soccer coach has been charged with accusations of child sex abuse after police seized his personal computer.

Parrish Leland Chang Sr., was indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 19th on five counts each of first-degree and second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse, according to Lt. Jim Band. Investigators said he had more than 100 pornographic videos of children on his personal computer.

“We would like to know if there are any victims out there,” Band said, “We have no reason to believe Chang has directly victimized children in the community, but are concerned about the possibility because of what was found on his computer.”

Police served a search warrant Aug. 12th at this home and a forensic computer analyst looked through his computer. His name came up in June when police were scouring advertising of file-sharing networks for child porn.

Court documents obtained by KGW said that the computer files were titled with names including “Little Boy,” ”4-year-old Girl,” and “11-year-old Girl Raped.”

Chang was arrested on Monday, when he told police that he had retired from coaching youth soccer, but investigators have learned that he had been coaching til the day of his arrest, Band said.

Chang coached for Oregon City Community Schools and the Soccer Center in Clackamas. Those organizations have been told of the arrest.

“People who have this kind of interest in children usually have a target where they are attracted to a certain age group and that age group also happens to be the same age group that he coaches in soccer,” Band said.

Chang’s Facebook and MySpace pages portray him as a family man with a wife and kids.

But what is considered good parenting by a few is considered abuse by most.Neglect is also a leading form of child abuse and child endangerment.

A Nebraska mom has been arrested for cruelly caging her two young sons in an animal kennel so they couldn’t sneak out of her hellhole trailer at night.

Ashly Clark, 22, was collared Monday night, along with a trio of her trailer-mates, after cops in North Platte discovered how she had imprisoned her boys, ages 3 and 5.

Clark told police she devised the barbarous treatment after the boys tried to hop out of the windows of her trailer, according to KNOP-TV in North Platte, which is in the central part of the state.

The kennel measured 42 inches by 30 inches. Clark fastened its gate closed with a wire tie. Its inside contained a small, decrepit mattress, reported KHAS-TV in nearby Hastings.

Cops said the kennel was filthy, but nothing could compare to the wretched state of the trailer itself.

“Once they gained entry into the residence, they found the house was extremely dirty,” North Platte Police Lt. Rich Hoaglund told KHAS-TV.

“There were a lot of animal feces and urine about the house, along with dirty clothes, food and trash, et cetera.”

Cops had visited the trailer to check on the family, but the reason they did so was not clear.

Two sisters – one 8 years-old, the other just 8 months-old – were rescued from the trailer, though cops said they were not kept in a kennel, like the unfortunate boys.

The girls’ 20-something parents, Bryson and Samantha Eyten, were also collared, KNOP-TV reported.

All four children were placed in the government’s care.

A fourth neighbor of Clark’s, Lacy Beyer, 24, was arrested as well, KNOP-TV reported.

The four now face charges ranging from felony and misdemeanor child abuse to felony false imprisonment. Each is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail; they are due in court on Thursday.

Police said the boys’ imprisonment was most likely not a recent development.

“It had to be going on for some time,” Hoaglund told KNOP-TV. “Whether it was going on six months or a year, I couldn’t tell you.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nebraska-mom-ashly-clark-busted-caging-young-sons-animal-kennel-article-1.968282#ixzz1cTTto2Qf
We don’t know what sparks this kind of abuse but,If anyone reading this thinks they might know of a child being abused,neglected or exploited ,I’m begging you not only as a mother but as a survivor of abuse don’t wait untill it’s to late Please get intouch with child protective services immediatly it could mean life or death to these poor innocent children.

As a result, Karen’s husband was put in jail for assault and Izzy was placed in foster care.

What has Karen’s life been like sense then? She divorced her husband in an effort to fight for Izzy’s return, but the little girl was illegally adopted. She coped with that through the years before finally remarrying and becoming pregnant with a baby boy. She shared her feelings through those months of pregnancy, saying that somehow she knew that CPS would come into her life and take this one as well… And Karen was right. Seventy-two hours after baby Brandon was born he was removed from the home for accusations of neglect.

“Neglect at seventy-two hours?” Karen’s niece asked in bewilderment. “That’s long enough to have the child, stay in the hospital for the observation period, bring him home and put him down for a nap. How can that be neglect?”

Three years, drug and alcohol tests, counseling, illness and injury to the child and 400 doctor’s notes later, baby Brandon was finally returned home… but the boy will never be the same. The cause for his return was validated accusation of abuse and neglect by the foster parents and CPS.

Is this a pattern you recognize?

Did you know that more than 1,000 children die every year on average while in foster care? Did you know that most of the children that don’t die have been mentally, physically or sexually assaulted? Did you know that sometimes it’s all three of those offences? Did you know that there are cases where CPS has turned a blind eye to children who really do need to be removed from a home? Did you know that foster parents get more money from the state for a child in their care with an illness or condition? Did you know that most (not all) foster parents spend their time creating a problem around the child in their care? Did you know that CPS case workers get a bonus for every child they adopt out?

There are innocent situations that are turned into horror stories by organizations like CPS. Not all children die, but it is very rare that a story has a truly happy ending. Supposedly, they do their job claiming: “It’s for the interest of the child.” There have always been problems within the child care system, for reasons that allow organizations to take parents around in circles. This is their system, so they have all the means in the world to do so. The people who work in CPS are nothing more than the working class fishing for more potential customers. Like most businesses of the world, they do it for the dollar amount earned for each child they take in. The potential customers are the foster parents while the harvested market is children.

Or… at least that’s what these organizations make it look like. The more they act the more children become victims. When will it end? Will it ever end? When will the parents of the United States start fighting back, and what will organizations like CPS do then?

Will there ever come a time when ACTIONS, will in fact, SPEAK louder than WORDS?    So many of us strive for the pleasure of others and not in pleasing ourselves or most importantly the pleasure of The Creator of all Mankind.   I find it interesting that some people are better at finding fault in the actions of others rather than to fix the issues that they themselves have first before they can then share wisdom with others.  Even then, your plight may not necessarily be similar enough to someone else’s.

An Astroturfing; derived from the word AstroTurf, or a brand of Artificial Grass, in a nutshell means to pretend to be a grassroots movement.  In reality; both its AGENDA and STRATEGY are controlled by a hidden non-grassroots organization.  Most often there is a FRONT or SHOW of individuals who pretend to be voicing their own opinions.

In all honesty, the world is populated of the good as well as the bad in it and a part of our test here in this life is to do our best in order to qualify for the better in the life after… http://www.sofeetmovement.com/

Here in my country, or in Philippines, there are numerous people who would exchange their whole time just to show their faith to the so called GOD, and in turn neglect some of their duties. Like for example, my aunt spend her whole time going to church, from morning till evening, but she have neglected her duties to her children as a mother. Is that acceptable?

There are people here who always go to church, but when outside they use defamatory words. They act selfishly and they show different personality to other person.

So where is values there? Where is Being Christian there? Is what they’re doing teachings of God?

Lately we hear more and more frequently depending on sex . At first impression, I would be tempted to giggle amused and give careless in his hand as a sign that “they did not exist.” Well, sex addiction exists and, moreover, there is the reverse of her sexual anorexia .

That does not mean that if the occasional “we do not feel like” we are in danger of suffering from this disease. 

Sexual Anorexia is characterized by severe anxiety and fear and avoiding sex obsessive sex. This can make the sexual anorexic to feel strong and protected.

Symptoms that might indicate that sexual anorexia:

1. We feel ashamed and disgusted by a game of sex
2. You have a rigid attitude and prejudices about sex
3. An excessive fear of sexually transmitted diseases
4. An obsessive self-doubt
5. Self-destructive behavior to limit, stop or avoid sex

A related problem – and even more common – is to avoid intimacy. All people need love and care, but those with sexual anorexia, even if they need affection, taught love not worth the trauma and can not trust others.

Someone who has an unhealthy fear of intimacy would be able to:

… have a pattern of short-term relationships, failed, which he kept saying.

… begin a relationship with someone and a sabotage when it gets too serious or too close to each other feels.

… long for a relationship and never wonder why functionaeza.

… have an obsession with people who are not available, such as celebrities, or those married men who are emotionally unavailable.

… lie and cheat.

Trauma is generally the root of any fear of intimacy. It can be an obvious trauma, such as sexual abuse or trauma of a negligent parent. Infants and children require constant attention and love from their caregivers, and their absence can be as damaging as sexual abuse. Neglect, especially in the first months and first years of life can set the stage for a lifetime of privacy issues.

If you think you may suffer from anorexia or fear of sexual intimacy, the first step is to seek treatment from a qualified therapist.