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

[Herb Parsons]

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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