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Hard lemonade, hard price | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press — These sorts of stories are just too common. What is wrong with these people? Does anyone in government display any common sense anymore?
If you watch much television, you’ve probably heard of a product called Mikes 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 Rattes ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.
Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, hes more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching “Dancing with the Stars” — or even the History Channel, for that matter. The 47-year-old academic says he wasn’t even aware alcoholic lemonade existed when he and Leo stopped at a concession stand on the way to their seats in Section 114.
“I’d never drunk it, never purchased it, never heard of it,” Ratte of Ann Arbor told me sheepishly last week. “And its certainly not what I expected when I ordered a lemonade for my 7-year-old.”
Found by Brian Blank.
He’s obviously an “enemy combatant.
Off to Gitmo with him!!!
I can only infer from this article that I should no longer give my kiddies Hard Lemonade on purpose?
Its fun to see them try to dance–especially after the dog takes a swig and tries to catch them.
In my country (South Africa) we have Large warning labels on boxes of cigarettes.
The opening flap thing will be red or blue, and say something like “Danger: Smoking can Kill you”. Do you have that on cigarette boxes in USA?
A similar solution could be applied to alcohol bottles. The Proof or %Volume will be printed on the label, but if there was a “red ribbon” on the bottom of the label with the %Volume in bold white in the ribbon you could immediately see if something is alcoholic or not. It may sound stupid and unnecessary, but there are some very stupid and unnecessary people in this world.
Wait a minute, this guy bought liquor (unknowingly) for his 7 year old and he instantly loses custody over his child?
I understand he made a big mistake, but besides temporary poisoning of his childs body, isn’t loosing custody a bit to hard on the family?
This rule must be in the law to prevent molestation and abuse. There is no mention in this article of molestation or abuse. How can child workers come to this decision for them to push the kid into a foster home? This is nuts.
Idiot cops and an idiot case worker abusing their authority because they can. “Just following orders”, when you hear this along with all reason thrown out the window, you know you live in a police state.
Lucky for Latricia Jones (the idiot case worker who needs three days to investigate, what a lazy piece of crap),the idiot Comerica Park security guard, and the hospital idiot police supervisor it wasn’t my son, I assure you they would all be having ‘life difficulties’ until I Hannibal Lectered them into an unfortunate accident.
C’est la vie asshoes.
“Latricia”?? Um, mom. Dad. The name is Patricia. Did you make a typo on the birth certificate? Sheesh.
This made me remember my folks, who when we were kids would taste things first to make sure there was no alcolhol in it before they gave it to us.
But how can one bottle get your kid taken away?? I’d be talking with a lawyer about this.
Where’s the intent to harm?
Wouldn’t have happened in Wisconsin.
To have your kids yankd away because of this is idiotic. I thought this was the land of second chances. I guess only if your a mexican or office jockey.
The state has thus asserted that it will raise the child much better than the loving parents.
YEA RIGHT
Killing a family for your safety.
YEA RIGHT
Protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
YEA RIGHT
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
YEA …. oh… YEA
“Does anyone in government display any common sense anymore?”
As has been pointed out on more than one occasion on this blog, what’s common sense to us and what’s common sense to a religious nut, a power-mad cop, a crooked politician, a crackhead, an inflexible bureaucrat, a bored judge etcetera can be very different interpretations of reality indeed.
Folks, there aren’t enough high-IQers on the continent to do all the jobs that require high-IQ critical thinking. If you accept that premise and run it out, you’ll realize that low-IQ people end up taking high-IQ positions (there’s no choice).
We’re outraged when the cashier F’s something up, when an overzealous caseworker F’s something up, when a county commissioner or the butcher or a construction supervisor or a lifeguard F’s something up. “How dare they not have my High-IQ critical thinking skills!”
That’s the world you live in. All the high-IQ people work in Smile Imagineering down at Disney, or in the Xtreme-Taste Food Powders & Shellacs Division of a NJ chemical factory. There’s not enough IQ horsepower to keep the basic civilizational machinery going. All the IQ is spent on the frosting, not the cake.
JerryP says “We sow the wind. We reap what we sow.” I say we’re The Elves… packing it up and sailing into the West. Making the knowing decision to leave this world to the little ones with hair growing in weird places. Ick.
I read this article when it first came out here in Michigan (almost sent it in, but oh well). The part that leaves me STILL wondering was that the kid supposedly drank 12 ounces of the lemonade but had ZERO alcohol in his system when he was tested at the hospital! Something doesn’t seem right here
Al
#14
Common sense and a sense of fairness require little of an IQ. It requires not wearing your balls or cunt-ness in Latricia’s case, on your sleeve. If your position relies on that then you have no position.
The first questions that comes to mind is how did he ask for it and was the vendor aware that he was ordering for his child? Was this, “I would like a diet coke for me and a lemonade for my son.”?
I certainly didn’t expect to see him lose his child because of a single incident. A friend of mine’s ex-wife stabbed her new husband, and she continues to live with him, and still has visitation!
Of course we don’t have the full story, but judging only by what I read here, does anyone else detect a certain lack of uncontrollable outrage & rage over the fact that the authorities have taken one’s child away because of a plausible error?
That said, most learned folks know the difference between “soft” drinks and “hard” liquor, even if it might appear as a Trivial Pursuit question.
RBG
#15
Mikes is low % anyway, about the same as beer. Prob enough time had passed.
Did someone put Hillary in charge of that stadium?
Have they charged the employee of Comerica Park for selling alcohol to a minor? Have they pulled the liquor license for the park?
To answer the question you pose right at the beginning: yes.
I’m grew up in Detroit (did I just type that out loud?)…take a look at their current mayor and there shouldn’t be any surprise here…oh, and btw:
government + common sense = oxymoron
#25
“government + common sense = not gonna happen.”
Fixed.
Pedro: Besides not watching TV (not a “crime” on itself), the guy must have no social life nor care what his studends are doing not to know something like that.
I’d guess by that statement that you don’t know a lot of university professors…. needless to say, ‘social life’ and ‘caring what students are doing’ isn’t exactly at the top of things describing professors…
Anyone foolish enough to not be aware that the beverage they purchase was alcoholic should have their children taken away. Show some basic life skills!