I have a problem with this.

I am not going to say that I am one of those people who cannot get through a day without tuning in THE DR. PHIL SHOW but I do enjoy watching it from time to time (especially when the show is spotlighting the so-called Dr. Phil Family, a family who is plagued with one emotional problem after another). But, yesterday's topic was "What is Wrong With People". I found it to be quite interesting.

The show centered on several current issues that are hovering in the USA, One issue involved a lady with a PHD in Biology that she had received from Harvard and who just recently had been a long-term professor in a college and who has had quite a run in her adult life, and possibly in her childhood also. (That information is not to be shared with the rest of the world.) Anyway, in the 1980s, she "accidentally" shot her younger brother in the chest. The wound was fatal. Her family swore up and down that it was a very unfortunate accident and did not want any more pain by going through a long drawn-out court trial. So, charges were never filed against her.

Later, there was an incident involving her at a local IHOP. She became enbroiled in a disagreement with another woman over a child booster seat. She eventually began beating up her opponent. Police arrested her. When her case was heard by the judge, he gave her 6 months worth of probation and "recommended" that she may want to seek out some anger management classes. He did NOT order that she do so, so she never bothered to take the classes.

MANY of her students had made complaint after complaint of her irrational behavior, etc. The school never checked into any of the allegations.

Later, a pipe bomb was sent out which authorities believed she had sent but could never prove.

From what I understood on the show yesterday, tenure is hard to come by at the college level. Many professors try to get it. Many professers are shot down and kept on a year-to-year employment basis. After teaching at the same college(not Harvard) for several years, she had just been told AGAIN that she was being turned down for tenure. She did the next best thing in her opinion. As soon as a normal everyday coference was scheduled for all of the professors, she made sure that she was sitting in a chair closest to the door of the room. As soon as all of the professors were sitting down, she stood up and pulled out a gun. She shot 7 of the professors which resulted in 3 deaths. When her gun failed to shoot the eighth person, she fled the conference room.

She then called her husband and very calmly told him that she was ready for him to take her home. The poor husband was totally shocked when he arrived at the college just to see police putting her into a police car and ambulances everywhere. He was and still is totally in shock.

The other "article" that really captured my attention was that of a child abuse case. As a parent, that is an issue that really bothers me.

Let me back up just a little, in our nation, doctors and teachers are court mandated to report any and all possible child abuse cases to local authorities immediately. In the state of Kansas, these need to be turned into SRS, Social Rehabilitation Services. Of course, it is only to be expected that some of these cases that are turned in, end up being faulty. Still, if someone suspects that children are being injured physically, sexually, mentally or emotionally, he/she needs to report what they believe they have seen or understood. Unfortunately, family members, neighbors, friends, etc are not legally bound to report anything. For them, this is only a moral issue.

On Dr. Phil's show yesterday, he brought up a case in which a young girl had been caught by her parents taking food to eat out of the family's refrigerator. Wow! It happens at our house each and every day. In their family, this was a major crime. The girl was beaten and then placed in a small closet where she would spend each waking and sleeping moment except for the time that she was in school for the next two years. During those two years, she failed to grow at the same rate as the other students in her class. Eventually, her size was the same as children 2 or 3 years younger than herself. Why? Because she was only allowed to eat at school and was only given small amounts of food when she was at home. Somehow, no one seemed to notice.

Even after all of this was taking place, her father continued to beat the child with belts and steel rods. Neighbors and landlords mentioned later that they had heard child screams coming out of the house on many occassions. Still, no one cared enough to call the authorities.

Finally, one of the girl's three brothers went to a teacher and relayed the information that he was concerned that his sister might die at the hands of the parents. At that point, the teacher became VERY involved in the situation. The authorities and police went to the home and discovered that this girl had been "imprisoned" in her own home for this entire time.

Once they began their investigation, they soon discovered that authorities had been sent to the family home in a different state FIFTEEN times. The parents had once conducted an EXCORISM on one of the children. The horrific story went on and on.

Why is it that our very own American countrymen are so gutless or want to be totally uninvolved, that they will allow children to live and in some cases, die, in a living hell???

VLE-B