Late last night, someone, his parent(s) presumably decided he was disposable. The left him on an outside stairwell at a church in Parkland. A janitor heard him crying and found him there, with a cheeseburger and a bottle of water.

Earlier this month, I posted about some recent stories about what I consider idiot parents. This case transcends that. I can’t fully explain why, but this makes me furious. And while its likely a good thing for the boy, the near brush with tragedy is hard for me to read about. Thank God this had as good of a resolution as it did.

I’ll be nice for a moment, and assume that maybe they did this for his best interests, and not out of selfishness, but at the same time, outside on a stairwell is hardly the safest place is it?

Were there no relatives? Did they attempt to call social services? A good friend? I can’t answer any of that.

Ok, I’ve heard enough and had enough. Everyone has been pounding this issue into the ground, and I can’t stand silent any more.

One thing I learned well during the 2000 presidential campaign, thanks in part of friends and to websites like factcheck.org and Spinsanity, was to look at what was said, in context, and not just knee jerk reactions. This issue put my new skill to the test.

Sen Dick Durbin, D. Ill, as most of us know, made some outrageous comments last week, and I won’t rehash it completely, but the gist of it is that he was describing alleged abuses at Gitmo, and after describing some detailed abuses, he said:

Immediately, conservatives began calling for his head.

A lot of happy favorites were showcased on the show, including all of the Brady kids, even the annoying cousin.

So, I thought about what the Brady Bunch represented. Being a Step-Father, I appreciated the blending that family did. The parents maintained equality regardless of who was who’s biological child. Trying to balance the “my kids vs your kids” life can be trying, and is often one of the hardest things blended families do. They even debunked some myths of evil step mothers and the like. The show despite its cloying sweetness was really unique.

The parents slept together, made mistakes and corrected them and genuinely loved their children.

The kids had normal problems and generally showed a somewhat more normal suburban life then many other shows. The did stupid things. They got upset over trivial things. They were competitive and still defended each other.

My sister has a portable DVD player, a small 7 inch screen DVD player. Really pretty nice, she loaned it to me when I was down there visiting her and my mom.

These things used to cost about 300-500 bucks but now at Costco, about $130 bucks will send one home.

Portable video is the rage. They have in dash car stereos with a slide out DVD screen, or those roof mounted ones you see in the big SUVs.

Every where you look someone is watching something in the strangest places. Camera phones stream video now, most laptops come standard with a player, and even video games like the Xbox and the PS2 play the movies.

And of course where you have movies, you have porn. In fact it wasn’t long ago a guy was driving his Mercedes down the street with not one but three DVD screens all playing porn. Pretty flipping clever, huh? He wasn’t quite smart enough to watch where he was going though, and drove too close to the police station, and got 3 misdemeanor charges for his efforts.

So much for the Michael Jackson free zone…..Ok, so the news is out, he was found not guilty on all charges.

Big shock there huh? Honestly, did anyone expect him to be found guilty of anything more threatening then bad hair? I certainly didn’t. While I personally think he is a serial pedophile, the jury has spoken, and in time his faithful fans will forget about this. In fact, I think it if anything, it will increase his popularity with his most devout faithful, for he is now the oppressed martyr, triumphant in his vindication.

Which brings me to a couple thoughts.

First, why are his fans so desperate to defend him and deny the claims? Come on, they found many boxes of graphic pornography in his house, including all male pornography. Claims that he is the misunderstood child are thin next to the mounting evidence of sweet Michael actually being a 46 year old pervert. And let’s face it, if he had been a skinny white guy with bad hair from Jersey who had a porno stash and was sleeping with boys it would have been a done deal.

Two recent Court rulings have me concerned, neither having to do with Michael Jackson, thank God.

The first was the election contest for the Governors race here in Washington. For background (my blogs anyway) look here, here and here. In short, the Governors race was won after 2 recounts by a mere 129 votes, leading to an election contest suit.

Today the judge ruled against the challenger, Dino Rossi. All that’s fine and dandy, and you would think it would solve things. The problem is that the Court made some strange findings. First it made a finding of fact that more the 1600 illegal votes had indeed been cast by felons, dead people, double voters and provisional ballots. 1600+ versus 129 seems like a no brainer, but there is a little hitch, a lovely legal logic trap. According to the election contest statute, you have to prove that each vote went to a particular candidate or not to prove that removing those votes would have changed the election outcome. But since the Washington State Constitution requires that votes be anonymous, how can you prove who voted what? And since voting illegally is a felony, who is going to admit to it?