Posted on 02/06/2006 8:59:18 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The spectacle of a hapless little boy staring through the heavy mesh of a cage launched mega-successful author of the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling, on a crusade to end the caging of Eastern European tots.
Referring to a 2004 story in Britain’s Sunday Times about little Vasek Knotek imprisoned in a Prague hospital, Rowling wrote in today’s Times, "If you read the piece and it’s as bad as the picture, then you’ve got to do something about it.”
The story hit her hard, she wrote, especially since she has a horror of what she sees as "one unendurable terror - incarceration in a very small space.”
"I tore out the article, frightened of losing it even though it was the most disturbing thing I had ever read,” she explained. "The following day I photocopied the page 50 times and started writing letters.”
Doing something about it has not been easy the Times noted, explaining that Rowling has had to combine her work for numerous other charitable causes and her roles as mother and author. It meant she had to stop breastfeeding her third child slightly early when she traveled to Bucharest last month to launch a charity, the "Children’s High Level Group,” which will campaign for improved rights for children.
Among its goals, she wrote is putting a stop to the "widespread cultural acceptance, even encouragement, of abandonment in the cases of children with mental and physical handicaps.” Noting that the Romanian government has put a moratorium on adoptions by foreign parents despite pressure from the West, she wrote that it is "an issue around which tempers flare like grenades.”
She writes movingly of "exceptional” children and teenagers she met who had experienced Romania’s child care system, describing how she found one abandoned baby lying listlessly in a hospital.
"I tickled her cheek with a finger; she continued to look ahead. But then as I was about to move away she looked round and gave a sudden smile.” Rowling writes that she so choked up that she felt she had a "hard-boiled egg in her throat”.
Conditions for children in Romania, says Rowling, have improved hugely since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. But she writes: "There is still much work to do there — more than 30,000 children remain in care.”
I always thought B.F. Skinner was a Death Eater.
Just remember one thing, Ms. Rowling; under the Communists, you couldn't fight for a cause like this.
You can because of hard-nosed American politics. You can because Ronald Reagan said "evil empire" and refused to stop producing very expensive weapons. You can because rough men stood ready to do violence on your behalf.
While fighting your good fight, and make no mistake I think it's an excellent one, if you happen to run across an American soldier, be sure to thank him. While you're at it, thank the hundreds of Romanian troops in Iraq.
Off the top of my head I didn't know who that was, so I googled him. Now that I know, I totally agree with you. LOL
I agree with Rowling about children of all backgrounds should and do have the right to a family and a good safe place in wich to live and learn and grow and play.
I wonder if we'll see children in cages in the last book?
"You're welcome!"
LOL;)
Harry Potter BUMP!
You know, I don't know. I'm searching around to see what I can find.
Noooooooooo!
My wife and I childproofed our house.
But they still keep getting in.
Let me know what you've found out.
Living up to your screenname ;o)
That was a good one!
GRYFFINDOR!
No? Why not?
Only if it's Draco!
I'd like to see him in a cage! LOL!
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