Sorry about the hiatus. I skipped town for Easter weekend and was a little slow in getting back in the swing of things.

Elian. Just by starting with the name I’m driving some of you away. That name and his smiling little face has been in the news since December. I’m a college student who doesn’t keep up with a lot of what’s going on in the world, but I can’t help but know what’s going on with Elian. I really don’t care to know, but you can’t get away from it. This weekend Elian was forcibly taken from his relatives in Miami and reunited with his father. What I don’t understand is why this thing has dragged on for so long. The poor kid’s mother died, so put him with his closest relative, his father. What does it matter that his father lives in communist Cuba. You’d think we’d be over that by now. And what was with that forcible raid. The media flashes so many memorable images (there’s a contradiction) and the image of an INS agent in riot gear with an assault rifle aimed at Elian and the man holding him will stick with me. Who is acting in that child’s best interest when he has to be dragged away screaming at 5 in the morning by men with body armor and rifles? Obviously the government had to deal with the protestors outside and relatives who weren’t exactly cooperative. But a pre-dawn raid with machine guns? And what about Elian’s Miami relatives. What were they thinking? We love this child so we won’t give him up, even though that means you’ll come busting through our house with guns.

This whole thing just blows my mind. It’s utterly stupid. It’s the typical plot of a daytime talk show. What I want to know is how many other children like Elian are there out there? How many other children are caught up in sticky custody battles with feuding families? But nobody seems to care. Why should I be so concerned about a boy in Miami?