Colleen Leduc, of Barrie, Ontario is a single mother, raising an 11 year-old autistic daughter. She sends her daughter to public school, because that’s all she can afford.

On May 30th, she received a call from her daughter’s school, asking her to come in right away. When she got there, she was informed that there were suspicions that her daughter was being sexually abused.

“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”

Based on this ridiculous cold reading trick, school officials called the Children’s Aid Society, which launched an investigation into the allegations.

Luckily, Leduc was able to satisfy CAS that the abuse was entirely imaginary.

[A] case worker came to the Leduc home to discuss the allegations of sexual misconduct, only to admit there wasn’t a shred of evidence that anything had ever happened at all. They labelled Leduc a “diligent” mother doing the best she could for her child under difficult circumstances, closed the file and left, calling the report “ridiculous.”

This, right here, is why belief in spooky mind powers isn’t harmless fun. These baseless allegations wasted the time and resources of the school, the CAS and most significantly of Colleen Leduc. She’s only lucky that the “psychic” didn’t blame her for the non-existent abuse. I hope that Ms. Leduc sues the crap out of the “psychic,” and every school official who was involved in perpetrating this farce.

CNN.com/crime is reporting that a 16 year old Oregon boy, whose parents raised him in a faith-healing only church called the Followers of Christ, has died of a urinary tract blockage. The blockage caused a buildup of urea in his bloodstream, which poisoned his organs and caused heart failure.

He probably had a congenital condition that constricted his urinary tract where the bladder empties into the urethra, and the condition of his organs indicates that he had multiple blockages during his life, said Dr. Clifford Nelson, deputy state medical examiner for Clackamas County.

“You just build up so much urea in your bloodstream that it begins to poison your organs, and the heart is particularly susceptible,” Nelson said.

Nelson said a catheter would have saved the boy’s life. If the condition had been dealt with earlier, a urologist could easily have removed the blockage and avoided the kidney damage that came with the repeated illnesses, Nelson said.

In March, the boy’s 15 month old cousin died of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection, after her parents refused to do anything but pray for her recovery. The two children are the latest in a series of deaths among younger church members, which in 1999 prompted the state of Oregon to remove protections based on religion for parents who treat - or rather, FAIL to treat - their children with prayer rather than actual useful medicine.

Unlike the parents of the little girl, who were charged with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment, the parents of the latest victim have another out. Oregon law allows minors over the age of 14 to refuse medical treatment. If it turns out that the boy was offered treatment and refused it, his parents are off the hook.

Two things spring to mind. First, these people are serial child abusers. Points to Oregon for having the stomach to prosecute them. We can only hope that their planned religious freedom defense doesn’t stand up in court. A competent adult should have the right to refuse medical treatment for any reason, but withholding medical help from a sick toddler is crazy and criminal, and no amount of faith should shield willfully neglectful parents from prosecution.

Freedom of religion, like every freedom, has to have practical limits. Freedom of speech doesn’t protect the proverbial guy shouting “fire” during the premiere of the latest summer blockbuster. Freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference shouldn’t protect parents who routinely let helpless children die from easily treatable diseases. We as a society need to come to some kind of consensus that exempting churches from property taxes is acceptable, but subjecting children to potentially fatal neglect isn’t.

Second, and more personal, are some variations on the question I asked above. How many times does the power of prayer have to fail before these parents will wake up and stop letting their children die? I don’t expect them to stop believing in their god, but is a healthy dose of “those who help themselves” to much to ask? How deeply indoctrinated do you have to be to believe that your all-powerful, benevolent deity has a plan that includes your son or daughter dying for want of a bottle of penicillin? Is there any way to shake these people awake before another child dies? If anybody has answers to any of these, I’d love to hear them.

After three months of nervously keeping it secret, I can finally share the biggest thing to happen to my life since I got married. No, I’m not going to drop out of law school to start a dating service for narcoleptic furries. My wife is going to have a baby.

The answer to your first question is February. The due date is sometime in mid-to-late February. If that wasn’t your first question… well, I’ve spent three months anticipating reactions to this announcement, so I’ll try to cover as many of them as I’ve thought of. If I don’t answer your particular question, or if you don’t like my answers, feel free to leave a comment. Or have your own god damn baby. Bonus ultrasound photo if you make it to the end.

(more…)

I pulled this CNN.com screenshot at about 3:45 p.m. on Sunday 28 July:

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The same weekend that Iran’s freakazoid religious police are hanging people for dealing drugs, being intoxicated in public, and committing adultery, someone in Tennessee goes to church and starts shooting. The grisly scene in Tennessee — where apparently even the Unitarian woo-woos aren’t safe — is the fourth time in 15 months that a freakazoid Christian went to a house of worship and started blowing people away.

My point, and I do have one, goes thusly: On the one hand, you have the state religion authorizing, no requiring periodic waves of particularly cruel, slow, public executions (i.e., suspension hanging by cranes) for infractions of social norms that civilized people would consider minor. And on the other hand, you have the quasi-state religion, kow-towed to by politicians and spoken of with superstitious reverence by the entertainment industry, that also isn’t safe from murderous fanatics.

The guy in Tennessee went to a Unitarian church because the worshipers weren’t Christian enough. That’s logic for you. They don’t follow Jesus as closely as he does — so he kills them. If that’s not a Christian message for you, I don’t know what is.

Ever seen a headline that reads anything like “Shooting spree at atheists’ gathering shocks community”? I sure haven’t. So in the interest of serious, in-depth research, I googled “atheist shooting spree.” Here’s what I got:

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Here’s another recent headline for good measure: “Israeli parents forget daughter at airport.” The ultra-Orthodox couple — and ultra-Orthodox anything tends to involve keeping the woman at home as a baby factory, even in the States — had multiple bags of duty-free shopping, 18 suitcases, and 5 kids. Guess what got left behind? One of the kids.

[T]he parents were unaware they had boarded the aircraft with only four children instead of five until they were informed by cabin staff after 40 minutes in the air.

Let’s work this backwards: Forty minutes in the air + time spent waiting on the tarmac + boarding the plane and waiting for everyone else to board the plane (did they board early as a party with special needs?) = probably over a full freaking hour that they didn’t notice that one of their kids wasn’t with them! And a 3-year-old, at that! And because it’s that kind of blog, I blame their religion. Any freakazoid belief system that requires you to have so many kids that you forget — or “forget” — to take one of them on vacation with you should just be banned and its practitioners caned. The Yahoo! news URL references the comedy film Home Alone; instead, it should reference something like the documentary Jesus Camp.

When the mother of your baby schedules an appointment with her obstetrician, she will sometimes let you choose if you will attend or not. This is not a real choice. She’s handing you (gift-wrapped, with a big, honkin’ bow) an opportunity to prove that you’re a prepared to be great father/partner/baby daddy. If she gives you the option, and you decline, you’re really just showing her that you’re the kind of Neanderthal who’d run off to hunt mammoth with the boys, leaving her to defend the cave against the wolves who want to eat her and her baby.

Somewhere around the fourth month, when you take her in for an appointment, the doctor or midwife will tell you that you’re going to get to listen to your baby’s heartbeat. A device that looks suspiciously like a Geiger counter will appear, someone will squirt goo onto her belly, and then smear the microphone around in the goo, searching for the vicinity of the baby. (If your baby has a flair for the dramatic, it might snuggle itself into its mother’s pelvis, where the bones prevent reception of the sound. Don’t panic.)

Decades of dramatic movie trailers, and trips through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute, have conditioned us to expect a THA-THUMP, THA-THUMP heartbeat sound, like an elephant skipping on a hardwood floor in the upstairs apartment. Your baby’s heartbeat will sound nothing like this. Instead, it’s a rapid wooshing sound. Think of a bird’s wing, flapping underwater, a little faster than twice a second.

This next bit is the important one. Your baby’s mother will be feeling joy, relief and some species of pride that she’s gotten through the touchy early months without making a major mistake. No matter how unexpectedly silly the noise is, do not snicker. If you do, your chances of getting to do the thing that started the whole process will plummet dramatically.

Here’s something about babies that nobody bothered to mention. Newborns have to grow into their heads.

My sister recently gave birth to her first child, a little girl who, hopefully, will be supplying our impending little one with hand-me-downs until they’re both in college. Because I am a dutiful (if not necessarily enthusiastic) brother, I packed my wife in the car and drove down to see the new baby the day she and her exhausted but happy parents came home from the hospital.

Because she is my niece she is, of course, as cute as a button on the belly of a baby panda. She’s got a bit of the squinty, jowly, miniature-old-man look that all newborns have, but she’s tiny and soft and she wriggles and makes little grunty, gurgly squawks that will be charming as all hell until the first time she gets colic.

I’ve never held a freshly minted human before, and it was quite pleasant. But I wasn’t at all prepared for the thing that she did with her face.

Rather, I wasn’t prepared for the thing she didn’t do with her face, which was move it with the rest of her head. I was reclined slightly on the couch, and she was lying with her head on my chest. She turned her head in response to some sound or another, but her face stayed in place. All the internal parts - skull, nose, eyes, jaws - turned where she wanted to look, but the pressure of her head against my chest kept the soft parts - eye sockets, lips, skin - from moving. She looked like a Shar Pei being dragged around by the cheek.

I really didn’t mean to mention this phenomenon to anyone, because saying “hey, your baby is cute, and OH MY GOD WHAT’S WRONG WITH HER FACE?” is too blunt for even my limited grasp of tact. But I made mention of how soft her newborn skin was, and we sort of got off on a tangent that ended with me wondering out loud how many of them we’d need to make a nice comfy bathrobe.

I am a terrible person.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

My wife is expecting our first child in February. I plan to be a responsible and caring father. I know, therefore, even before I know whether we’re having a boy or a girl, that I am going to make sure that my child receives all of the recommended vaccinations on the medically accepted schedule.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

I want my child to grow up as safe as possible from the scourge of serious illness. I will not rely on the vicarious or “herd” immunity of my child’s peers. I will take responsibility for the health of my child, and for the health of those around us, by ensuring that my child won’t succumb to a preventible infection, and in so doing become a vector for potentially devastating disease.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

There is some small chance of adverse side effects from vaccination. Fevers, swelling at the injection site and mild nausea are all possible. In extremely rare cases, a severe allergic reaction can cause permanent brain injury. But these risks are far outweighed by the benefits. Vaccination will protect my child from diseases that have maimed, disabled and killed infants and children throughout human history.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

Vaccinations do not - DO NOT - cause autism. It isn’t even worth wasting breath on. Vaccines have never contained methyl mercury, the compound that has long term toxic effects on the human body. Every study linking vaccination to autism has been shown to be fatally flawed or totally fraudulent. The preservative that was thought to be the culprit hasn’t been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, yet the rate of autism diagnosis has continued to climb.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

I am going to protect my child to the best of my ability. Safe, reliable vaccines are arguably the most important medical advance ever developed. Vaccination is among the most important child safety measures that a parent can provide. To withhold it based on rare side effects and anti-scientific hysteria is irresponsible, unconscionable and unbelievably selfish. You are exposing your child, and everyone your child interacts with, to unnecessary risk.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

I am not just going to protect my child’s body. I am going to protect the vulnerable, malleable brain that every child is born with. I am going to teach my child the value of learning, of critical thinking, of asking questions and not accepting answers without evidence. Blind belief and nonsensical thinking are mental infections that plague humanity, and I will give my child the tools to grapple with them.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

Because I am responsible for the wellbeing of my child, and for the safety of the friends my child will make. Because my parents cared enough to vaccinate me. Because I am going to be a good father. Because I love my child.

I am going to vaccinate my child.

Doctor says that we’re having a daughter. More info and pics when I get home from class.

I noticed last night that the commercials for Zack and Miri Make a Porno have started referring to it as just “Zack and Miri.” And it’s not like it was even during the early evening when your precious little offspring might be watching. This was around 11:30 p.m.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, free speech (!!!). On the other… no, you know what? Screw that. I think we can all handle explaining to a child that “porno” is like “hell” or “damn” or “douchebag” or any other word they hear at 6 p.m. on network TV. It’s a word that is not to be said in your kindergarten classroom. (And for the record, how many times has TBS replayed the episode of Friends where the guys get free porn? How many times is the word “porn” used, and that’s perfectly fine for early evening “family time” fare?)

Also? If asked, just tell your curious little ankle-biter the truth: “A ‘porno’ is a movie for grownups, and it may or may not also feature animals, and bad hair in every area imaginable.” What’s the big kerfuffle?!

I would not, however, recommend telling them about that Pirates porn flick. I think it might create a smidge of cognitive dissonance with the kid-friendly pirate marketing that Disney has worked so hard on. Heh. I said “hard on.”

I digress.

I’m going to be a horrible parent. My kid’s going to drink 10 Mountain Dews a day and go to school with gum in his hair and know what a porno is. Excellent. Where’s THAT bumper sticker?

With those of you outside the Delaware Valley area.

A Warren County, NJ family is upset because their local ShopRite refused to write their 3-year-old son’s name on a birthday cake. The boy’s (actual, legal, parent-given) name is Adolf Hitler Campbell.

Philadelphia Will Do sums it up perfectly:

“The family did not want to write their own inscription on the cake — which they could have easily done — because that wouldn’t be exploiting their child to get attention to their laughably horrible cause.”

Here are some choice quotes from the original story:

• “The Campbells said they don’t expect the names to cause problems later, such as when the children start school.”
• “‘Yeah, they (Nazis) were bad people back then. But my kids are little. They’re not going to grow up like that.’”
• “The Campbells have swastikas in each room of their home, the rented half of a one-story duplex just outside Milford, a borough in Hunterdon County. They say they aren’t racists but believe races shouldn’t mix.”

Okay, I give up. The whole article is one long advertisement for narcissistic stupidity. Go read it if you want to try to gasp and guffaw at the same time.