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What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 10:20:40 AM
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Sunnymom
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quote:
Hard lemonade, hard price
Dad's oversight at Tigers game lands son in foster care
BY BRIAN DICKERSON • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • April 28, 2008
If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
I can understand the concern that a parent was giving a child alcohol, but this case was mishandled from the getgo. Why the CPS system can't exercise some common sense in dealing with individual cases is beyond me.
Many of the comments I have read about this incident are by parents who feel that they are on eggshells in public- they are afraid to raise their voice or swat a hand or even joke around with their kids because someone might misunderstand and report them. Do you ever feel like that?
What are some changes that could be implemented to prevent at least some of the more ridiculous abuses that occur in the system?
IMO, one would be to get rid of anonymous reporting. If someone calls to report abuse, I think they should give their name and address to the worker, (not to have it disclosed to the public or the accused), but so that if it is a frivolous report or someone being vindictive or manipulative that the authorities could address it.
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 11:18:25 AM
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mommyplus3
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how sad this is....
what about the vendor? shouldn't he/she share some responsibility. i am sure that the father didn't order a "mike's hard lemonade." think the vendo coul have said, "do you want the alcohlic drink or regular kemonade? really infuriates me as i think about it!
as for the reports made to cps. i absolutley agree sunnymom! accusers should be required to give a name (as you said it should be kept private). this worls really stinks that we have to watch our backs with everything we do with our children!!
okay, enough ranting, next....
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 12:16:27 PM
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Auben
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That's an interesting thought, especially considering the recent threads in homeschooling and parenting about reporting someone to CPS and how most people want to do it anonymously to keep their family (and possibly the other children) safe. After reading that thread I think the vast majority would not report something unless it was anonymously.
Personally I would think most people who work for CPS and most judges would be too busy to consider ignorance a crime.
And the couple would have to be very unobservant to consider that to be lemonade once they had it in hand. If they didn't read the bottle, when you open one up you can smell the alcohol. Most children would be able to taste it and would say something.
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Tamara
~Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time~
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 12:21:57 PM
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Jenny-Fair
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No one is saying the accused should know who called in, just that the government agency should know.
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:10:45 PM
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PrincessDonna
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quote:
But it wasn't until the top of the ninth inning that a Comerica Park security guard noticed the bottle in young Leo's hand.
"You know this is an alcoholic beverage?" the guard asked the professor.
"You've got to be kidding," Ratte replied. He asked for the bottle, but the security guard snatched it before Ratte could examine the label.
And this is where it should have ended...
Dad: Oh my...no, I didn't know. Son, lets go get a regular lemonade for you.
The end.
Okay, so I have a hard time believing the guy never noticed hard lemonade in the grocery store, because even if you don't watch TV, you must go shopping occasionally, right? But...if he didn't know, he didn't know.
It really ticks me off that they possibly traumatized that poor kid instead of just using common sense. But the more I deal with CPS, the more I am sure a complete lack of common sense is a requirement to work the job (my apologies to anyone here who works with CPS...this is my experience with the CPS workers in MY county).
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He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
~Psalm 91:4~
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:34:58 PM
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zoebob
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In some states you can't buy any kind of hard beverage in a grocery store: you have to go to a special store.
OK. I just did an experiment. When I first read this thread my first thought was that my mother could do this. I called her and said "If you heard of a beverage called "hard lemonade" would you know what it was? She had no idea. If she saw it at a stand at a ball game she might ask what it was...if she noticed the word hard. She doesn't watch commercials on TV. They don't sell hard beverages in any state she's lived in as an adult. Even if they did, she would just walk by that part without noticing it. When she is in a grocery store she doesn't browse. SHe has a specific list of items she needs and goes and buys those items. SHe also tends to only buy generic if at all possible so she wouldn't be looking at name brand products.
SO, yes, it is possible for a person living in this world, who doesn't drink do not know what hard lemonade is. I did ask her if she knew what it meant if a drink was described as hard. She asked if that meant it had alcohol.
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:36:14 PM
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Jenny-Fair
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I have seen Mike's in the store...in big black boxes. I have no idea what a bottle of it would look like, because you can't see the bottles.
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Ziva: It is possible. I do not remember all their names.
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:43:19 PM
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zoebob
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Yup, my grandfather was an alcoholic who rarely worked so my father is very anti-alcohol. Neither of them has never had a drink. Even when we attended churches that had some grape juice/some wine for communoin they made sure to sit up front to get the grape juice.
My husband drank a lot. however, I only had maybe 2-3 frozen slushy type drinks a year
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:44:33 PM
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Jenny-Fair
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Sarah, I just turned 33 and have never had a drink, so don't think you are that weird...well, unless you think I am, lol.
Soft drinks are actually called that because they are not hard. But it's been so long since they were christened that people don't know.
I find it interesting that the kid still had lemonade in his bottle in the NINTH inning, and that he apparently drank it so slowly he was not affected and had a .0 blood alcohol when they tested him later. He only drank 12 ounces--which is the amount in a can of pop, which most kids would suck down in 10 minutes flat. Cool kid.
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Tony: Ziva, did you kill Houdini?
Ziva: It is possible. I do not remember all their names.
My Blog
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:50:55 PM
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zoebob
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I just looked at the article and saw the sign. It doesn't even say that it is hard lemonade. Just "Mike's Lemonade" Now the fact that it was more expensive than beer could have been a clue but if you don't drink and don't pay attention to anything alcohol related you wouldn't necessarily notice that.
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 1:53:56 PM
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Jenny-Fair
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Concessions are so expensive that I would not have batted an eye. Their prices don't make sense to begin with!
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Tony: Ziva, did you kill Houdini?
Ziva: It is possible. I do not remember all their names.
My Blog
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 7:17:09 PM
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Auben
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quote:
No one is saying the accused should know who called in, just that the government agency should know.
If you read those other threads you'll see stories of goverment agents letting things slip in one way or another. If people think they will be found out they're less likely to say anything.
In this case the whole point is moot if the security guard turned them in. He wouldn't be reporting in anonymously.
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Tamara
~Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time~
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 7:27:15 PM
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Focusing
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Someone gave me a "hard lemonade" one time, and I didn't know it had alcohol in it until I had drank about half of it and the heartburn kicked in. I thought it was just some "cool" name they gave the lemonade.
But, back to the OP, I think CPS overreacted to the situation. A one-time incident due to ignorance is just that. CPS needs to focus on the families who obviously and persistently abuse their children. I feel really bad for the family in this story.
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/12/2008 10:19:33 PM
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Covaan_Meshuga
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Okay. I'm a mom of two children in their late and mid thirties, and if I hadn't had teenagers to tell me what "hard lemonade" was when it first came out here, I would have thought it to be like the sour candies they sold then and now -- really sour lemonade, hard to drink, but people drink it for the challenge.
Just the other day, I saw a new drink in the grocery store and started to buy it, but I didn't, because although I could not find anything that said it had alcohol in it, I became suspicious. I still don't know if it had alcohol. My children have had to tell me as lately as in the last five years that certain innocent-looking drinks had alcohol in them!
It used to be that the drinks were in containers that were obvious. Now, I can walk in a health food store and buy root beer that looks like beer or into the grocery store and buy a fancy pop that looks like beer.
So yes, I think CPS took it too far, BUT the reason they have the freedom to do this is because of the aeons of abuses children suffered, because everyone just turned their heads. There were laws on the books to protect animals long before there were laws on the books to protect children and women.
The pendulum swings.
It's like when women were pushed into a corner, not allowed to vote, not allowed to work, not allowed to own property, not allowed to prosecute husbands for abuse. When they were fed up with the ignorance and idiocy, they flexed their muscles, and innocent men paid the price. We are still working on getting that pendulum into the center.
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I just asked my husband, and he said he learned what it was through advertising. I asked him what he would have thought it was if he had not seen the advertising, and he said, "Sour lemonade."
< Message edited by Covaan_Meshuga -- 7/12/2008 10:25:34 PM >
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Abiyah
"Ladies and gentlemen, there are things that you will only be able to learn by the weakest among us, and when you snuff them out, you are the one that loses." ~~Gianna Jesson, 1977 LA, CA, saline abortion survivor
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RE: What you don't know can hurt you - 7/13/2008 12:56:23 AM
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Covaan_Meshuga
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Well, we all know that malted milk is of the devil. And your Malted Milk Balls, too. If you don't know that, what's wrong with you???
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Abiyah
"Ladies and gentlemen, there are things that you will only be able to learn by the weakest among us, and when you snuff them out, you are the one that loses." ~~Gianna Jesson, 1977 LA, CA, saline abortion survivor
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If you didn't read the label closely it would be hard to know it's a malt beverage, although it does say right on the front(although in tiny print) "5% alcohol by volume" and then in a separate spot, also on the front it says "Premium malt beverage". Who really reads the fine print though?
Mart and I worked there for 3.5 years and I had to card enough people who were buying it. 
