Greetings, Gentle Reader,

What are our local priorities? Economic development? Protection of ruins? Increased tourism? They should be none of the above.

When the policy was changed, and we couldn’t vote in schools, some thought it an over-reaction. Unfortunately, it probably was not. We have reached the point in our country where children have become targets of truly evil people, and it is impossible to say when or where the next tragedy will occur. And yes, it could happen here. We have the social conditions that create these problems, just as they have elsewhere.

That 12-year-old Ohio boy who pulled a gun on his teacher and classmates told another teacher he had done it because his mother was in jail, and this was the only way he could be with her. This poor child had assumed that, since his mom was in jail, if he could do something that would cause him to be jailed, they could be together. This is just a young boy who needed his mama. He wasn’t trying to kill his teacher or classmates. But the action itself will so obscure the cause that the cause will be ignored.

Unfortunately, but predictably, the only reaction from the media was an increased call for gun-control. Have we really become so goofy that we cannot discern the cause of something like this incident? Or is it that we have become so irresponsible that we choose to hide the truth from ourselves, rather than face the reality of what we have become?

The ongoing breakdown of the American home, overwhelmingly the result of drug abuse, unwed mothers and increased divorce, creates these types of incidents. If that were not enough, too many good mothers are forced out of the home and into the workplace by our impossibly high cost of living. Their babies lack a mother’s close, loving presence during their most formative years, which is of critical importance.

In addition, Colorado has many mothers in its jails. What of their pathetic little broods? These poor children are victims of their mothers’ behavior; they aren’t victims of lack of funding, or social workers or loving teachers. They are victims of their mothers’ drug use and/or gross irresponsibility.

And what of their fathers? Some of these mothers don’t even know who the fathers are. These children lack real fathers and mothers, and boys need devoted, involved fathers even more than they need mothers.

The greatest tragedy of this episode is that this boy may grow up in a detention facility. If he spends the rest of his childhood in a facility or being shuffled from pillar to post, never being permitted to attach to someone solid, he will probably end up in jail, just as his mother has. Children cannot survive and attain any degree of normalcy in a violent, drug-saturated society like ours unless they are anchored to good parents.

It is obvious to all but the most politically-driven that this scene is being acted out repeatedly in the Four Corners. Children are born into families where their chances of becoming healthy, productive citizens are slim to none.

Why? There seems no cure for many drug-addicted parents. Some are in and out of treatment centers for years. And yet, they have children, some of whom are abused; many of whom are neglected. And those children are time bombs, just waiting to explode.