Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
The Co-Sleeping 'Epidemic'
Two more infants have died in co-sleeping incidents and Milwaukee's Mayor Barrett is frustrated and saddened and has difficulty understanding why people don't listen. These deaths are preventable if people would just listen, but they aren't listening to him.
Co-sleeping deaths are confined to the inner-city of Milwaukee. A 2-month-old boy was found dead after being in bed with several people and with his 3-year-old brother lying on top of him. A 4-month-old girl was found dead in bed with her mother who admitted that she had consumed three beers a few hours earlier. This is just what inner-city people do apparently; this is the way inner-city families are forced to live. We've heard all the excuses, all the 'reasons' why this is so difficult to control.
At the risk of being seen or accused as lacking all understanding, these deaths will continue to occur unless and until prosecution for negligent homicide or manslaughter takes place on a regular basis. These babies are being killed, they are not simply unavoidable accidental deaths. There is no legal penalty for this action today; there is simply hand-wringing and pleas to the community to change its actions. Until there is a real penalty for these deaths, there will be more and more of them. That pattern is there for all to see, and yet no one has yet taken the responsible action of criminal charging. This is one of those "hot potatoes" for politicians. Mayor Barrett is apparently still thinking he'd like to be Governor Barrett and he doesn't need this happening right now. The reality is that inner-city voters might react to such charges and none in the current crop of politicians is willing to run that risk.
There is one man who might be willing and that is current Sheriff David Clark. There are persistent rumors that he might just be thinking of a run for Mayor of Milwaukee. Inner city babies would be much better off if he did run and win. There would soon be enforcement action in such cases and those cases would become very few and very far in-between as the result.
Indeed, these are preventable deaths for the most part.
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