Rendered Speechless. . . .

Yes, ME of all people were rendered speechless this morning while reading an article on 12 Haitian orphans that are stuck in bureaucratic limbo. The highlights of this story are that 12 'extra' orphans were included in an emergency airlift from Port-au-Prince after the earthquake there. These 12 are 'extra' because they were not already in the process of being adopted by American families, but the people on the ground decided to include them in the airlift, which in my opinion was probably the best thing to do. If you have to ask why that was the best choice you won't understand the answer. These children range in age from 15 months to 13 years, so they are truly children, that were in the hands of Bresma Orphanage before the earthquake. The dilemma seems to be whether or not these children have to be returned to Haiti or can be adopted by families here in the United States.

The stand of the State Department is that they must verify that relatives of the children truly relinquish their rights and responsibilities for these children before they can be adopted to American families and with that I do truly agree; however, Haiti is an island nation and does not even consist of the entire island of Hispaniola. It is not truly that hard to find family members and verify their desire for these children, sure it isn't an easy task but we are now more than 6 months after, if the relatives were actively searching for them someone would have heard by now and if their relatives were injured then they would have been identified by now and hence be found. We are talking about only 12 children, I imagine that the true nature for the delay is more of a monetary discrepancy than any true verification issues concerning the status of these children as orphans.

Now while this story is one that is one that pulls at heart-strings it is not one that has major impact on the country or global relations. And it was little more than my heart-strings that endeavored me to even read more than the headlines. After wards for some reason I did another thing that is rare for me - - I scrolled down and glanced at some of the comments of this article. And it was while I was skimming over the comments that I found myself speechless. Maybe I shouldn't have, I know that the world is full of closed minded, ignorant people that are so lazy that spewing hate is much easier than making an effort to educate themselves and work at having an open mind that endears the desire to better the world. Sometimes little acts carry huge returns. It is one thing to be mean and hateful to adults, they are capable of defending themselves and understand the evils in this world. But to spew hate against children that have been through hell through no fault of their own is just vile. It shows just how cruel and cowardly you truly are.  I find it truly repulsive that there are still "educated, upstanding pillars of society" that can harbor such streaks of true venom.

To judge for your self check out the article here