In the News.

A school principal puts a knife to a student's arm and kids around that he'll remove his tattoo for him. The mom's pretty upset, knowing that if her son had done that to the PRINCIPAL, he'd be in jail right now. Yup.

I don't think you can see all the ins and outs from one brief story, but considering the boy waited a full month to chat about the incident, and that to a school counselor who then took that information and reported it, I don't think he's in any imminent danger. I do understand the poor mom freaking out, but I don't know that I would necessarily keep the child home from school for that. IMO it fuels the rumour mill and/or makes your kid look like a scaredy cat wuss. Well, I'm not the mom, but if she's planning to send her son back to school, keeping him out now will make things difficult. He *had* spent a month after the incident in school well enough, apparently. (But like I said, I'm not the mom. Maybe I'd have done the exact same thing she did... never say never!!)

Reading the comment section, though, makes me wonder why the issue about whether the child has tattoos or not is even relevant. Story: the possibility of a principal acting inappropriately is under investigation. End of story. Here, school rules dictate tattoos are to be covered up and hair must be a "natural" colour. The dress code appears really strict on paper, I guess so that when they get around to asking the most flamboyant cleavage-flasher to cover up, no one could say it wasn't all written down.

And more...

The story of Planned Parenthood covering up teen sex abuse. Young women will go into clinics posing as minors under the age of consent. They'll discuss abortion and tell the workers there that their lovers are like, 27 years old. The law requires them to contact social services right away and report this.

But I don't know if I would... I really don't. If I were presented with a young, scared, pregnant teen who is already sleeping with a much older man... Is the kid lying to protect her teenage boyfriend who is really 15 as well or what? Do her parents know what is going on, and shouldn't they get to press charges and/or have a shot at helping their daughter? I could see myself calling the mom and dad easily. But not the state.

Law would dictate that I rat on the kid to the state... but... I don't know if I could. Yes, there are lots of sick old men out there taking advantage of young girls who want to be worldly. But... giving the girl an abortion behind her parents' back, loading her up with birth control pills, and letting the state get round to asking questions and then probably doing nothing about this anyway... I don't know that I could do that. Maybe I would if I thought it would be handled well... Then again, I wouldn't take the job if it had rules like that... Well... I don't know that I could work in an abortion clinic anyway, so it's probably a moot point.

One preschool Patrick attended when he was two and I thought he needed "socialization" had some interesting rules. The director in the "handbook" informed parents that YES, she's a designated reporter but she is obligated under Biblical command to approach you first to clear up misunderstandings. I like that. I'm sure that if she saw a parent committing an assault against a child she wouldn't bother with the chat... just those grey areas like, "How did that bruise get there?" or "Joey said he wasn't allowed to eat dinner last night" usually have some reasonable explanation.

Well, there's a point at which you have a reasonable suspicion an innocent child is being hurt and forget about whether the Mom and Dad like what you did by calling. But there's a grey area, too. If nothing else, I think it would help a potential abuser to know that there are people looking out for the child. Maybe it would stay his hand... I don't know.

Last, and totally unrelated, I wanted to chat with you about "Tiberius," the captivating scent of the shirtless Captain James T. Kirk, hitting the market soon. The perfect Father's Day gift, I suppose, unless you really don't like your dad all that much, in which case the new Star Trek scent of "Red Shirt" would do nicely.