Tag: Family Breakdown

[Member Post]

 

(Reflections on prior conversations) It’s a fact often remarked on that a lot of us ordinary folk, out here in flyover country, look to celebrities as role models—that we dream of being famous and rich like them, living a lifestyle like theirs—in fact, that many of us want to play-act as if we were celebrities. […]

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Pot – Weed – Marijuana – Cannabis

 

That is what is emblazoned on a mailing that we received prior to Christmas. The words are huge and white, followed by “It doesn’t matter what you call it, MAKE IT LEGAL. Immediate action required – send your personalized petition and mail it back today – free!” I looked at my “personalized petition” and it contained the voter’s information printed on the three-fold flyer, of both my husband and I, including our full address, and our voter registration numbers. All we had to do was sign it and pop in the mail, no postage needed! It came from “Make It Legal Florida” in Tallahassee.

It then states that the “form” if mailed, will become a “public record” upon its filing with the Supervisor of Elections, because apparently, it is a planned Amendment. The amendment is titled “Adult Use of Marijuana,” and gives a ballot summary. The big glossy, colored flyer gives some incentives. They are as follows:

  1. The amendment includes “strict rules” to make sure that marijuana products are clearly labeled, childproof, and not advertised to children.
  2. It will help combat the “opioid addiction” crisis and free up law enforcement to protect us from violent criminals and sexual predators.
  3.  It will boost our economy and generate more than a hundred million dollars per year in new revenue to fund important priorities such as schools, healthcare, and public safety. The above words in bold were in bold on the flyer, so they took the time to point out the wonderful benefits of legalization of marijuana in the state of Florida.

Where do I begin? I was deeply offended that this organization dove into our County Records and obtained our and others voting registration records. I live in a state that already has a major drug problem. We are known as the capital of the pill-popping clinics, called pill mills. Just Google pain clinics in Florida and the articles are filled with doctors spreading the addiction of oxycodone across the country, reports if numerous arrests of physicians in the business of writing endless prescriptions for drugs, the increased crackdowns on drug distribution, etc. that go back decades.

Utopia Under a Tent or a Waterfall?

 

I had my six-month dental cleaning and check-up. I didn’t expect to see the same hygienist. At my last visit, she was planning a move, possibly to Portland but I told her she may want to re-think that. She got back yesterday and said parts of Oregon were beautiful, breathtaking, the waterfalls, cool breezes, deep emerald green forests and didn’t want to leave. They hiked every day. She grew up here in Florida and is ready for a change. What she wasn’t ready for was Portland. She said she’d never seen anything like it, and was shocked by the enormous homeless population. Tents everywhere. “They don’t bother you, she said, or panhandle”. But “you couldn’t help but feel ill at ease,” walking from the donut shop with a bag of fresh-baked donuts. She walked by a young man at 7:15 AM, shooting up in broad daylight. Drugs that come in from Mexico and China. She said another’s face was beaten to a pulp. The smell was awful. But Oregon she said, was truly breathtaking…

I asked her why has Portland turned into this refuge? Her first answer was the legalization of drugs, marijuana. This seems to lead to stronger drugs and the lack of incentive for work or a better life. We both wondered where they got money for drugs. She said even with the abundance of jobs, they are mostly high-tech and rents have become unaffordable as a result. I asked why don’t they build affordable housing? She said that’s in the works, but you still have to have a job, and the towns don’t have the “budget to build them.” No wins here. She then commented, “I get the concept,” like what they are doing in LA.”

Naomi Schaefer Riley joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss how family court in New York fails vulnerable children and how reforms could improve child-welfare.

In the New York Family Court System, judges adjudicate cases ranging from custody disputes to child abuse. As Riley reports, though, the whole system can feel like an agonizing series of hearings, trials, and meetings—often without any resolution. The process can prove detrimental to a child’s emotional well-being, in addition to draining money and resources from parents.

Family Alienations

 

I looked up a (thirty-something) relative today on Facebook. I won’t get into the detailed branching.

Still, I thought I might want to connect and introduce this young educated lady to another person, not for romantic reasons since she has a boyfriend but since the man I know is isolated in that city and she might be kind enough to include him among her acquaintances and perhaps she might know of a matching lady. Things looked okay for a fair amount of scrolling through photos etc. Then it flashed before me.

Dennis Saffran and Seth Barron discuss New York City’s misguided family-reunification policies, which can have fatal consequences for children in distressed homes.

In the Summer 1997 Issue of City Journal, Saffran wrote an article entitled “Fatal Preservation,” which chronicled attempts by New York’s social-services agencies to keep children with their troubled and abusive parents. The policy proved tragic for kids like six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo, killed at the hands of her crack-addicted mother in 1995. Elisa’s mother had regained custody of her daughter over the opposition of relatives and teachers. Too many other New York City children have met similar fates.

[Member Post]

 

Mass shootings, the opioid crisis, gang violence. These issues have dominated national news headlines for months, but they had been building for years. Each flashpoint is predictably met with outraged politicians calling for new or more stringent national laws & regulations-a power grab from the top that ultimately will strangle freedoms from individuals; gun control […]

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[Member Post]

 

From Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition for the Twenty-First Century, by George Gilder: Comfortable failure will always and inevitably turn to politics to protect it from change.  Just as declining businesses turn to the state, people and groups that shun the burdens of productive work and family life will proclaim themselves a social crisis […]

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I’ve been inspired by two of Denise’s recent posts (Choosing Life and Is Divorce Bad for Children?). The vulnerability she shared gave me courage to share more of my story. Also, Gary and I had a very pleasant exchange recently, in which he offered an apology for misunderstanding my motives. It’s not that I needed an apology, […]

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[Member Post]

 

For all we fawn over celebrating mothers, or mother-figures on this holiday, we often forget that this day causes a fair amount of discomfort, or even pain for those parents and children whose relationships are rocky, or have failed altogether.  Not all relationships transition well from childhood to adulthood, while other relationships falter later on. […]

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A Problem Beyond the Reach of Politics — Troy Senik

 

A few years ago, while giving a series of talks on a long essay I had written about the malignant influence of teacher unions in California, I got a question from an audience member (or rather the kind of monologue that often substitutes for a question), in which the interlocutor, agreeing with my basic points, essentially said that all of the problems facing public education would fade away if only the union influence was undone.

I agreed that such a scenario would reap substantial dividends, but had to balk at the utopian idea that it was a silver bullet. Even if education was reformed along the exact lines that conservatives preferred, I argued, there’d still be plenty of problems. Why? Because the underlying variables are human. There’s no public policy fix to make kids study instead of goofing off, to get parents more engaged in their children’s education, or to make a 15-year-old think on a time horizon that extends beyond the next weekend. These things either happen or they don’t. Public policy might affect them at the margins, but they are shaped primarily at the social and individual levels.