Link(s): Wed, Apr 14th, 4pm


(Russian) Children Now Subject to No-Fault Warranty, Apparently
Perhaps you’ve already heard about Artyom Saveliev, the Russian boy whose American adoptive mother decided that, because of her personal, non-medically-sought-out diagnosis that he had extensive psychological issues, the appropriate thing to do would be to shove the kid on a plane with a note pinned to his sweater or whatever and thus wash her hands of him. And then United Airlines somehow managed to let her do this.

…what is our culture teaching people if they are consistently displaying the signs of believing that child rearing and child care is some kind of consumer lifestyle in which they will metaphorically purchase happiness by “selflessly” devoting themselves to a child? That the care of children is not viewed as a collective responsibility but rather an optional joy, and when it turns out that the experience isn’t joyful, that it’s too hard, you just, you know, go back to the store. Complain about the service you received. Call it a day. What happens or doesn’t happen to these kids when they are basically unwanted, no one talks about. That’s somebody else’s problem.

Health Care and Women: Stating the Obvious
A gem of an observation from an article in today’s New York Times Sports section about how female family members of ex-football players are pressuring the NFL to acknowledge traumatic brain injury among football players. As the article noted, the ones pursuing the NFL on this issue are not the players themselves, but the women in their lives…

Let’s face it, men are not invested in family health the way women are. That’s their privilege. Michelle Obama recently observed that women are “crushed by the current structure of our health care. Women are the ones to do it. Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses.”

That’s why American women consistently listed improving health care as one of the most important issues in the 2008 election, and why a 2009 Gallup poll showed that: “Men and women form almost an exact mirror image on the issue of a new healthcare law. Women favor it, while men are opposed.”

The Politics of Hit Girl
There aren’t many times when I go to a movie and I leave speechless. But that did happen to me recently when I saw the film Kick Ass. For those of you that don’t know, the film is about an average to slightly nerdy comic book loving kid who decides that he can be his own type of superhero. He dresses up in a wet suit and heads out into the street to save some people. [...]

First, let’s be clear. This is a movie for adults. If your kid wants to see it, say no.

[...] We would never be having this whole conversation about Hit Girl if the character would have been Hit Boy. No one would care in the same if a 11-year-old boy said the c-word. I’d probably just dismiss it as another sexist movie and character and move on.