Return to sender, address unkown...

…No such person, no such zone.  I doubt that when Elvis sang that catchy tune, he could have known that decades later we could be singing the same tune, but instead of lovers’ spats, we would be singing about Russian orphans. 

You may have heard about the boy “Justin” who was put on a plane sans parents, with a note telling Russian authorities that he was, in essence, a defective child and they didn’t want him anymore.  It can be very difficult adopting children, especially older children who may have many emotional problems.  Many of them lack the ability to attach and bond because of their abandonment issues.  That said, is it ever okay to pack a kid up like a toaster with a sticky button that you take back to Walmart?   I have thought long and hard about this, and I have come to a resounding “No way, José.”

First of all the adoptive mother, Torrey Hansen, is a nurse.  This is a woman whose chosen career is dedicated to helping those who are sick.  Perhaps she felt that mental illness doesn’t count.  It is impossible to know, because she is currently nowhere to be found.  I guess you can’t really blame her for running.  After all, a woman who would ditch a kid at the airport probably has no scruples about hiding from the law.  (By the way, the family denies that they “ditched” him because they paid a tour guide to pick him up in Russia and take him back to the orphanage.  Has anyone else ever heard of human trafficking?  How hard would it have been for someone to take that kid and we would just never hear from him again?  Would Torrey Hansen have even cared?  He wasn’t her problem anymore.) 

In her reasoning, Hansen stated that she and her family felt threatened by the child and that they feared for their safety.  One might think that the logical thing to do with a boy who is clearly suffering from emotional problems would be to enter him into some form of rehabilitative therapy.  Unless, of course, your name is Torrey Hansen.  According to news sources, she spoke to several psychologists about the boy.  She just never bothered to actually take him to one.  Wow.  Really?  First of all, it might not have been a bad idea for the boy to see a therapist in the first place.  I am sure that adoption in and of itself is a traumatic experience.  Lay on top of that moving the child to another country where no one speaks his language, and that is just a whole other thing.  Lord knows that there are plenty of doctors around who speak Russian.  Heck, even my anesthesiologist at my last surgery was Russian.  How hard would it have been to do an internet search to find the kid a therapist that he could actually talk to? 

Why didn’t the Hansen’s turn to local agencies for help?  There are always programs to help with disturbed children.  They could have received help and much needed support to help him adjust.  If for some reason he was found to be so emotional disturbed that he couldn’t function in society, well, they have programs for that too.  What kind of human being dumps a kid with a note in his pocket (reading, by the way: "After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child.") at the airport without so much as an hasta la vista? Call me when you land to let me know that you got there safely?  Anything?  The kind of people who belong in jail for child abandonment.  Torrey Hansen’s mother was the one who actually bought the ticket and put the child on the plane.  Is there a criminal charge for accessory to child abandonment?  If there isn’t there should be.

We shouldn’t excuse the behavior of people because they have seen one too many movies about evil orphans from Russia and they are afraid that they are going to get pushed down the stairs.  (Really, there is a movie called Orphan about an evil orphan from Russia.)  Especially when they hardly even bothered to look for help for him.  Let’s be honest, the real reason that they sent him back was because he was more work than they bargained for.  They wanted a cute Russian kid who was polite and smiled.  They felt like they got refurbished goods in a brand new box, so they him back to the manufacturer. 

If this kid didn’t have problems before, he sure as hell does now.



F. Bear Slippers

If you're a stereotype and you know it, raise your hand...

If you have seen the show “Jersey Shore” (or pretty much any other reality program), you know that the single greatest commodity in Hollywood today is fitting snuggly into a stereotype. If you are a shallow high school student with no idea how you want to spend the rest of your life it is okay, because you always have MTV to fall back on.  (So long as you are either rich, poor, skinny, fat, a hero, a villain, a good girl, a drunk, a tramp, smelly, blond or have abs that are in and of themselves a full-time job.)

I have personally only seen one episode of Jersey Shore, and that was more than enough for me. Watching the way those people moved around in circles made me want to run to the nearest clinic and get tested for STDs, just in case I caught something from being is such close proximity to the television. Watching that episode of Jersey Shore may even been one of the reasons that I finally got rid of our cable. Besides the terrible time suck that occurs sitting in front of the tube, I couldn’t even say that the time spent had enriched my life at all. I didn’t learn anything new, I didn’t feel relaxed, I didn’t even feel happy about having watched it. In fact, I think the closest thing to the feeling I had would be akin to the way Snooki’s latest conquest feels the next morning, after the booze have worn off and he is suddenly faced with the terrible consequences of his night out with the boys. In short, I felt sad and more than a little dirty.

There have been some reality shows that I have enjoyed, Top Chef, Project Runway, Kitchen Nightmares, and most recently Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (I just love anything that has to do with revolution). I will even cop to the season I watched The Real Housewives of Orange County. Watching that show is like reading a primer for everything that is currently wrong with the world. In fact, if there were a primer it would probably be called “Everything that is Currently Wrong with the World: The Real Housewives Phenomenon”. After a short while, it made me sick to watch the snotty, entitled attitude (see my previous blog entry for my feelings about that), and I just could not bear it anymore. The people were horrible, their children were horrible and watching them made me feel horrible. I don’t miss that show one bit. (Man, am I glad we disconnected the cable.)

Now of course, MTV is attempting to capitalize on the Jersey Shore craze and are currently recruiting Persian-Americans for a Jersey Shore type show. First of all, I find it necessary to state that I happen to know quite a few Persian-Americans. I cannot for the life of me figure out which stereotype they are trying to plug into with this. All of the Persian people I know are fun-loving, but I have never seen any of them in a compromising position, or even conducting themselves in a less than honorable manner. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on how Persian-Americans are perceived, because I must have missed the racial profiling memo. I can only imagine that this is something that was cooked up by someone who doesn’t actually know anyone Persian. Not to say that there aren’t crazy Persians out there, I am simply not aware of any stereotypical behavior that would lead one to think they would make good television. Unless, of course, MTV is making a show about young, respectable people making wise choices. Yeah, right.

F. Bear Slippers

When your two year old’s outfit could feed an entire developing nation…

I must admit that I, like many parents, have been guilty of eyeing cute, fashionably tattered/stained jeans for my young daughter. I have purchased clothes from Nordstrom that lasted barely long enough for me to see her in them before she grew out of them, and shoes that sparkled and lacked any element of practicality. Let me follow that up by saying that nearly every item I purchased was on clearance at a mere fraction of the original cost, often not spending more than seven or eight dollars. For jeans I went as high as $30, but that was a rare occurrence.

This all comes about because I was flipping through msnbc.com entertainment and saw what I am certain was intended to be a cute photo montage of Suri Cruise and her extravagant clothing. It was labeled “Suri Cruise carries an $850 purse!” Something about this immediately rankled me. I understand that there are many out there who can afford to shop in such a manner, but the question still remains, “Should they?” When these children who grow up in such climates of excess and extravagance are unleashed upon the world, who will they be, Charlie Sheen or Prince William? Certainly there is a spectrum of people who fall from the “Have” tree and actively seek out to help those of us clawing at the roots of the “Have Not” shrub. But there are far too many children that I see out there in the world carrying their Louis Vuitton purses wearing $150 jeans, who spend their days indulging their senses, texting their friends and ignoring the plight of their fellow man.

The result of these excesses is an entire generation that has been spoiled rotten. And when I say rotten, I mean ROTTEN. A young man recently kicked in the head of a little girl who objected to his dating her young friend. He got mad, so he decided to kill her. Our children are growing up in a world where absolutely everything is objectified, even people. People exist as ethereal avatars on screens and as a result there is no real substance to the connections being formed. If anything, the real connections and relationships are with the technology meant to be a portal of communication. It is so easy for them to harass, embarrass and otherwise torment other people because they don’t have to look them in the face when they do it. When the torment moves to the physical world there is already an established disconnect (which is so firmly entrenched) that they may as well be pushing buttons on their cell phones. In the case of the young girl in Boston, who was tormented endlessly until she hanged herself in her closet, the young girls who were responsible for the harassment bragged about it, and laughed. Those young women are now charged in her death. What do the parents have to say of their ill-bred spawn? According to the New York Daily News one of the mothers (Angeles Chanon, mother of Sharon Chanon) said this, ‘’’(Sharon) exchanged a couple of words with her," Chanon told the Boston Herald. "Phoebe was calling her names. They're teenagers. They call names." Chanon insisted her daughter never "physically assaulted" Phoebe, no matter what the District Attorney says.

"I know she knows better than that. I wouldn't accept that," she said.”’

Your daughter was part of a campaign that bullied a young girl to death. For the fun of it. You are right, she did know better than that. That is why she has been charged with murder.

It is a slippery slope folks. When our children grow up getting everything they want without the benefit of working for it, and are rarely or inconsistently punished for their wrongs, what more can you expect? I have no doubt that even now, as these kids face serious charges that will impact the rest of their lives, they still don’t really care that Pheobe Prince is dead. And they don’t care that they contributed to her death. Can you imagine what is going to happen when this generation of children has their own children? Heaven help us all. I’ll be sleeping with a gun and one eye open.


F. Bear Slippers

If I could change the world...

You may have noticed a newer, slightly edgier tone in my blog, and for good reason.  I am taking on newer and edgier topics.  Not that you won't get pictures of my Christmas tree ornaments, but there are so many things going on in the world that I happen to have opinions about, that I have decided that a blog would be the perfect place to do it.  You know, like every other blog in the world.  But you don't read every other blog in the world.  You come here because you love my humor and wit, and yes even my opinions.  Do I think that my blog will change the world?  Not likely.  But I am more than happy to settle for changing my little corner of the blogosphere.

F. Bear Slippers