Is nothing sacred anymore?

Last night while visiting the "Somerset Collection" (don't get me started about how it's a collection and not a mall), I was made privy to the fact that Santa takes appointments.

Appointments, you ask?

Yes, appointments.

Apparently kids these days are too busy to stand in line for Santa, like EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH did. Instead, they check in, get a time, and can run around like crazy in this play area.

I can see where some parents might mistakenly think of this as a good idea, but let's put it this way--it's a horrible idea. Kids from my generation on down have become accustomed to not having to wait for anything in an organized fashion. You want a song? Download it. You want a fancy cup of coffee? Go to Starbucks. You want to shop? You can just go online. The worst part of it all is that parents wonder where their kids went wrong when they can't be patient enough for the simplest things. We're giving kids TVs in cars, and videos on demand. They get everything they want WHEN they want it and they're never taught the value of waiting.

This whole Santa experiment at Somerset just reinforces that type of behavior. Kids learn through everyday exercises of restraint--like waiting in line patiently or not getting to see Santa. Instead, they can run around, play giant checkers and shop while Santa gets ready for their arrival. Instead of Santa being the main attraction, it's the kids.

I don't know how parents with half a brain do it these days. The influences throughout a child's life are so hell-bent on making things as easy as possible. Kids don't experience the joy of receiving after waiting--they just "get" on demand.

It's a sad day on the North Pole. Just text Santa, and he'll tell you.

Justice?

The guilty verdict came in much sooner than expected (by me) in the Isaac Lethbridge case. Closing statements finished earlier this afternoon and court was recessed for lunch and then they were to give jury instructions. Apparently no instructions were more powerful than the ones the jurors felt inside, as the jury came back this afternoon at 4 p.m. with a guilty verdict on the count of manslaughter. Oddly enough, though (and perhaps because the trial was so focused on Isaac's death), Charlsie Adams-Rogers was not found guilty of misdemeanor child abuse in the case of Isaac's sister.

Until now I have refrained from posting the picture of Isaac that has haunted me for weeks. Today, as some justice was served, I feel the need to. The little boy to the left is the Isaac.

Will this be true justice for Isaac? Perhaps some. But true and full justice will only be served when the system that bounced him around from one horrendous nightmare to another is fixed...for good. True justice will be served when his sister is placed in a loving, caring, and healthy home. True justice will be served when the now 13-year-old girl who is thought to have held the force behind Isaac's injuries is given proper medical and psychological treatment. True justice will be served when no child is in danger of falling down Isaac's deadly path.

This should be the primary concern of our law makers and yet, sadly, it is not. Too often we let partisan politics, money, and prestige trump the people who need our help the most. Today we should be reminded of the honor and integrity that lies within each act to help a child and the way in which one decision, one law, one administrative act can change the course of history.

It just gets sadder and sadder

While a certain socialite who will remain nameless continues to enter and leave jail as if it were a resort, there's a manslaughter and child abuse case going on in Detroit that is wrenching my heart every day. Issac Lethbridge was taken from his biological parents along with other siblings because of neglect in their home. He was then placed by a foster care center which is now shut down.

The testimony that takes place each day (like this testimony today about his foster sister who was accused of actually causing his death, or this testimony last week about him being continuously neglected and harmed) rips my heart apart and the enchanting young boy is always looking on as I read on the right hand side of my screen. I just want to reach out to him and children like him--taken from abuse and landing right back in abuse.

Something has got to be done. Flat out--something MUST occur that ensures that this, and what happened in the Ricky Holland case, never happens again. Seems that notwithstanding promises previously made, many children are, in fact, getting left behind.

I don't even know where to begin. I wish I could give suggestions or even a place to start, but it seems to me that major investigations and licensing regulations need to be changed and put into place immediately and that we ought to have an agency that is fully-committed to handling the care of these children.

If we can't protect little people like Isaac then we have truly lost touch with what is important.