Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite

sleeping babyToday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the latest in a grim series of articles reporting on infants dying while sleeping with adults.    A number of infant deaths in similar circumstances late last year led to City of Milwaukee health officials launching a “safe-sleep” information campaign.  Billboards have been placed throughout the city, and the Health Department website includes information on keeping infants in a safer sleep environment.    Parents are advised to place babies in their own safety-approved cribs or bassinets with no stuffed toys, blankets or bumper pads.  Babies, we are told, should always sleep on their backs to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

As a person who has been studying children’s issues for many years, I find a number of things about this campaign to be noteworthy.

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Not Quite Children, Not Quite Adults

Monday’s New York Times reports that individual states and the federal government are currently working on new laws to address the problem of teenage runaways.  A couple of different problems with runaways have received public attention lately, and a fair amount of attention has been focused on teenage prostitution.  According to the Times, there is evidence that increasing numbers of runaway teens are turning to prostitution as the recession makes it difficult for them to obtain other, safer forms of employment.  Kids who are caught engaging in sex trafficking are often arrested and charged, but there is no evidence that this is having any positive effects on the larger problems that left the kids homeless and engaging in prostitution in the first place. 

The new initiatives discussed in the Times article, especially some policy guidelines being drafted by the National Conference of State Legislatures, are a big step in a positive direction. 

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Appreciating Our Professors: Charles L. Black

Charles Black was a professor at Yale Law School while I was a student there, and although I never had a course with him, I would still name him as the professor who most influenced me.

During the fall of my first year, two of my best friends were assigned to Professor Black’s Constitutional Law class, and they were quite enamored with him. He was legendary to even us neophytes: a brilliant constitutional scholar, a leading light for equality in the Brown v. Board of Education case, and an outspoken critic of the death penalty. My friends reported that despite his fame, he was modest and charming, with a great sense of humor.

Time marched on until Halloween, when I, the two aforementioned women who were in Charles Black’s class, and another woman, decided that our lack of funds should not prevent us from enjoying the holiday. So the four of us pooled our resources, purchased some red poster board, black paint, and string, and proceeded to make sandwich boards of the four first year casebooks, which we then wore to go trick-or-treating in — you guessed it — Professor Black’s neighborhood. When we rang the doorbell, Charles Black appeared at the door with a bowl of candy — he just looked and acted like an ordinary guy, with his longish curly hair, craggy face, and cowboy boots worn with jeans. He was focused on the candy at first, but when he finally looked up, his eyes widened. “My Lord!” he said in his Texas drawl, “it’s my students!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he invited us inside, and pressed tumblers of scotch upon us.

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