Mom Arrested for Kids Playing, Sues Neighbor

In La Porte, Texas, it appears that a false claim of child endangerment is strong enough to trump obvious facts and has landed a suburban mom in jail for 'Felony Child Endangerment' and 'Felony Child Abandonment'.

A neighbor claimed to responding police that she had hit one of Tammy Cooper's 2 kids in the suburban cul-de-sac where they were playing on their scooters.  Despite no injuries reported or seen by the 'unnamed' police officer, and despite the fact that Mrs. Cooper was present and clearly supervising her children at play, 'unnamed officer' took Mrs. Cooper into custody and then the kids REALLY were abandoned, as she was locked up for 18 hours, and wound up paying over $7,000.00 in legal fees to get out.  She also had her children interrogated by Child Protective Services in Houston.  Charges were dropped, since there was no shred of truth that any endangerment or abandonment happened.  There is no word on any charges being brought against the neighbor for filing a false police report.

Mrs. Cooper is suing the La Porte, TX Police Department and her obnoxious neighbor, Shelley Fuller.  She also claims that the handcuffs aggravated previous injuries and she will now require back surgery.

The father was in Austin, TX on military duty.  I wouldn't want to be 'unnamed officer' when dad gets home!  Read the full article HERE.

Pomp and Circumstance and Junior High

Use #101 - Wiping Away The Tears of Joy and Pride

There were no caps or gowns.

There were some smiles, a few frowns.

There were lots of people staring.

The sun was hot, and glaring.

It was the last day of school, promotion.

From Sixth Grade to Seventh, The notion

of which had you scared, confused,

Bewildered, bemused.

You don't know what to do now.

Its summer, time to play now.

For in the fall you start

On a new adventure far apart

from the one that led you more than halfway there.

Dad is very proud of you, Evan.

You're more than halfway to being an adult.  You have a mind of your own that loves to learn, a passion for building things, and a heart that would give away everything he had if someone else would benefit.  Your mom and I are blessed that you are our son.

There are no more baby wipes left in the hall closet.  There are no more left in the cabinet under the sink.  You haven't needed them in years.  This blog was started to share stories of raising you, and now you're old enough to read them and understand their true meaning.  My work here is finished.

Is Gas Really That Valuable?

I realize times are tough and gas is expensive.  Where I live its around $4.30 per gallon for the cheap stuff.  But c'mon mom!

A woman was busted in Aurora, Colorado for three seat belt violations; hers, her 14-yr-old son, and the little one in the back seat.  The gas canister was not cited.

The Colorado Dept. of Transportation posted this picture on their Facebook page.

Facebook Junior: Evil Scheme To Hook Your Kids

From LATimes.com: The evil overlords at Facebook are considering new ways to data mine the populace.  Now they're cooking up a way to circumvent privacy laws regarding children and hook our kids on the same brain crack that many adults find themselves hooked on.

Introducing Facebook Junior - aka Facebook for kids that should be outside playing instead of sitting in front of a computer interacting with total strangers and racking up hours on inane games, all for the sake of generating marketing data.

Facebook is evil.  Its marketing intentions have never been clearly articulated by its CEO because if they were, no one would join voluntarily.  Remember the Zuckerberg interview at the 'D' Conference and the waterfall of sweat from Mr. Z as he tried to explain what Facebook was up to?  Facebook's stock price is currently the butt of jokes on Wall St. because there is no real value to the company (remember MySpace?).  No one trusts Facebook to keep their data safe or secure, their privacy settings have been laughable and their 'errors' in releasing private data have always been to Facebook's benefit and not the users.

And yet like lemmings, adults keep logging in and using it.  Up until now, the younger generations have been uninterested in Facebook, preferring to walk into lamp posts, sending TXT messages to people they actually know IRL - in real life - see, I'm plugged in, kids.  Truth is, the kids have more common sense about new tech than the adults do, and that's why they're not interested in Facebook.

This new ploy by Zuck & Co is like the cigarette ads back in the '60s, designed to get kids hooked on smoking, knowing full well they'd stay hooked until they died of lung cancer.  Sorry, but I see a strong similarity.

Remember: Facebook's product is YOU - the user.  Do you want your kids to be a product?

Stoned Mom Loses 5 Month Old Baby Off Car Roof

From FOXnews / AP and The Mail Online- To all the folks who wish to legalize Marijuana, and rationalize it as a 'victimless' crime, I offer this story as justification why this substance should remain controlled - and why it is definitely NOT victimless.

It seems a distraught 19-year-old mom was so upset that her stoned boyfriend had been arrested - hold on - for 'aggravated driving under the influence with a child in the vehicle' - she went out and got really stoned with her friends afterwards and forgot her baby was on the roof of her car, strapped into his car seat.

The infant was found in the middle of an intersection in the Phoenix area, and is now in the hands of Arizona Child Protective Services.  The irresponsible mom, Catalina Clouser, has now also been arrested on charges of aggravated DUI and child abuse.  Evidence submitted by the prosecution consists of a thankfully unhurt 5 month old baby boy and a badly damaged car seat, with paint from the roof of mom's 2000 Ford Focus.

Ironic car model - Focus - something both mom and the boyfriend lacked as they put an infant in danger twice in one evening as a result of indulging in an illegal substance.