disturbing the comfortable

Here’s another story about one of these missing-in-action children. Child abuse is, like drug abuse, an equal opportunity employer.

This one didn’t die by neglect, though, in some drunk tank. He died from...violence, classism, hopelessness, rage. There’s a daily toll of kids like this, across the country. Some of them just end up as throw-aways; you can find them hanging out in big cities, aimlessly wandering in small towns. Some survive, some recover, some don't do either. The ones that don't, well, their circumstances are so bad, they get taken by some cosmic justice—I assume to a better place.

There are thousands of people falling through the holes in the Safety Net...assuming our society still has one. I’m beginning to doubt it.

Young boy dies; stepdad charged with murder

Updated: 9:32 AM, Aug. 3, 2006
http://www.ktvz.com/story.cfm?storyID=16181
By Barney Lerten, KTVZ.com

A 3-year-old Prineville boy has died at a Bend hospital of injuries allegedly inflicted by his stepfather, police said Thursday, and the man is now charged with murder and manslaughter.

Nicholas Muldrow, who would have turned 4 in November, died shortly before noon Wednesday at St. Charles Medical Center-Bend, said Police Chief Eric Bush.