It seemed like a good idea

Once upon a time, the state of Nebraska enacted a Safe Haven law permitting parents- without fear of prosecution- to drop children off at approved hospitals throughout the state. As is frequently the case with such laws, its initial intent was beneficial: to curb and hopefully eliminate newborn abandonments. Every state in the U.S. has a safe haven law of some kind on the books.

Nebraska’s law contained one minor difference. It used the word “child” instead of “newborn” or “infant”. Apparently, a few senators were concerned about arbitrary age limits and felt that “child” was a more acceptable word.

The substitution would make all the difference in the world, because when theory was put into practice, consequences that hadn’t been fully anticipated arose. Parents from other states who’d had it up to here their troublesome teenagers decided to take a road trip to Nebraska. One Nebraska parent took her 14-year old to a police station.

The child was refused. Police stations were not on the state-approved drop off list.

One of the most shocking- and sad- cases involved a father who decided to surrender 9 of his 10 children (whose ages ranged from 20 months to 17 years) to a hospital in Omaha. When asked how he could do such a thing, the man said that he could no longer cope. He was unemployed, overwhelmed, and his wife of 17 years had died of a brain aneurysm shortly after delivering their youngest child.

The stories piled up. Saturday Night Live ran a skit. Scrutiny of Nebraska’s new law intensified. All told, 34 children were abandoned before the Nebraska legislature would propose a rewrite. A law that had once been a vanguard acquired a distinction of a different kind- it now imposed one of the strictest age limits in the land. Under the new revision, infants no older than 3 days of age could be left at a drop-off point.

A few news items have caused me to reevaluate Nebraska’s initial law and to contemplate whether those senators knew something the rest of us didn’t.

There is, of course, the story of Josef Fritzl. You may recall Fritzl as the (now) 73-year old man who decided it would be neat to abduct his 18-year-old daughter and keep her in the basement of his house for 24 years, repeatedly raping and impregnating the poor girl. She bore 7 children.

A safe haven law probably wouldn’t have made much difference; Fritzl lived in Austria, after all. Moreover, he certainly did not want to give up his daughter.

But such bizarre stories don’t just happen in Europe. Last week in Florida, a 16-year old boy recently escaped from a bathroom he’d been confined to for nearly three years by his adoptive mother and her boyfriend. The boy, who weighed a mere 111 pounds when the authorities showed up, had endured a lot over the past three years. His body was a veritable roadmap of scratches, scars, oozing wounds, and a broken arm from his last beating. Nebraska’s initial law could have saved this teenager from years of neglect and abuse.

I used to think that Cinderella was a simple fairy tale told to young children to pass the time. In truth, it is just that- a fable. Cinderella had it easy.

The Silencing of a Lamb

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. In few places is this more apparent than morning radio. There’s rarely silence on a morning radio show and when there is, it’s usually the result of a mistake.

Not that long ago, I used to equate the radio with music (much like I used to equate MTV and VH1 with music videos). But as I’ve grown older, my listening tastes have broadened. When I turn on the radio now, it’s generally because I want to hear conversation or discussion about topics of the day or political issues. I am fascinated with hearing others articulate their thoughts and positions, even when they run counter to my own.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned to like (and even look forward to) morning radio. Since I spend a lot of commute time in my car these days, I depend on radio for news, entertainment and diversion. Sometimes all three at once.

And it is fairly predictable; there’s a lot of talking. That used to annoy me in my teens and twenties, but no longer. You see, I’ve discovered the drama of radio. Every now and then, things get just a little unpredictable. Every now and then, a morning show will unexpectedly peel away its shiny, happy veneer of harmonious conversation and good-natured ribbing to reveal differences in personality and perspective. The moments- as rare as they might be- allow me to hear who the person(s) behind the microphone really is, what they’re made of, and even who they think I am.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, a strange thing happened. I was listening to the radio and the show host and his morning minions were recounting the events of the weekend: the latest in the Chris Brown-Rihanna saga, the upcoming awards show, Madonna’s latest reinvention/conversion to…whatever. Typical banter.

And then things took a turn. It might have started with the announcement that Bin Laden had- like Tupac from the grave- released a new album. Or perhaps something else I can no longer remember. What I do recall, however, was one of the minions randomly asking the group if they’d heard about the guy in Buffalo, the one who founded a Muslim TV station and-

“Don’t go there,” the host said abruptly.

If I’d been a dog, my ears would have perked up. I watch Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski each weekday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Consequently, I can smell morning show conflict coming a mile away.

“What? I was just-“

“I said don’t go there,” the host repeated, this time a little more sternly.

“But this guy cut-“

“No. We’re not going to talk about that. What we are going to do is take a quick commercial break and come right back.” There was a short pause- a silence if you will- and then an ad for a local community college started up, followed by a second spot, then a third.

What was that all about? I kept asking myself in the seconds that followed. I was both excited and stunned.

The morning show minion was referring to something that I, too, had seen on the news while getting dressed that morning. Muzzammil Hassan, the founder of a Muslim TV station in Buffalo, a station specifically launched to counter negative stereotypes about Muslims and the Muslim lifestyle had been arrested for killing his wife. Manner? Decapitation. With a sword. I think I can omit the ‘alleged’ stipulation here because Mr. Hassan personally visited a Buffalo police station to report his wife’s death.

It’s no wonder the morning show minion wanted to bring the story up; the possibilities for conversation were almost limitless and the irony of the scenario alone could easily fill a few segments.

Unfortunately, there was no further mention of the topic that day and to my knowledge, it hasn’t come up since. Perhaps the host thought the mere mention of the beheading- even as a news item- would plunge the show down the bleak road of generalizations and negative stereotypes about Muslim culture and beliefs. After all, how much intellectual discourse can you expect from those who listen to a radio station that plays Britney Spears, Beyonce, T.I., Lady Gaga and a handful of others ad infinitum (outside of the morning show, that is)? Or maybe the host was mentally picturing riots not unlike those that swept through Europe and the Middle East after the publication of a series of Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad a few years back. Radio, much like the local newspaper, is a dying medium and such a scandal might just push the local station over the edge into the abyss.

I may never learn the real reason for what happened, but I do think an opportunity was lost in the station’s brief silence. And, in the long run, that might have been a mistake.

On the other hand, the morning show minion could have just been a moron.