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Father loses custody of son over lemonade
WZZM 13 Website ^ | 4-28-08 | Brian Dickerson

Posted on 04/28/2008 7:58:13 AM PDT by mombyprofession

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.

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, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars" - or even the History Channel, for that matter.

(Excerpt) Read more at wzzm13.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: cps; custody; godsgravesglyphs; michigan; mikeshardlemonade
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To: 50mm

Omgosh you so started it, lol. Maybe I was just more to the point?

Hick.

Eastern yes, liberal um no. I’m probably more conservative than you. :)


201 posted on 04/28/2008 8:44:15 PM PDT by Twink
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To: Twink
I’m probably more conservative than you. :)

Nobody east of the Ohio is more conservative than me. You can take that to the bank after your liberal state takes 2/3 first.

202 posted on 04/28/2008 8:47:27 PM PDT by 50mm (99 bottles of beer on the wall)
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To: 50mm

heh. Here’s one. Ever had sex before marriage? What do you think about that?

I bet I’m far more conservative than you. Probably more liberal in a way, too. ;)

Heh. NJ sucks. Don’t blame me for it.


203 posted on 04/28/2008 8:51:25 PM PDT by Twink
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To: Twink
Depends on your definition of sex. There's sex and then there's sex.
204 posted on 04/28/2008 8:55:43 PM PDT by 50mm (99 bottles of beer on the wall)
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To: 50mm

Um no. there’s just sex. Not too many ways to twist it ;)

I’m gonna back away now before I completely make a fool of myself.


205 posted on 04/28/2008 9:00:59 PM PDT by Twink
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To: Twink
Look anything like this, Twink:


206 posted on 04/28/2008 9:01:40 PM PDT by 50mm (99 bottles of beer on the wall)
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To: 50mm

In my dreams.

Wanna see a pic? lol.


207 posted on 04/28/2008 9:03:40 PM PDT by Twink
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To: Twink

Yeah, pant, pant, pant.

Do you drive a ‘64 Buick Skylark?


208 posted on 04/28/2008 9:05:32 PM PDT by 50mm (99 bottles of beer on the wall)
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To: 50mm

No. I wasn’t even born in 64. And cars mean nothing to me, no clue about cars. No idea what a skylark, 64 or otherwise, looks like.

I’m sure I’m missing something but in this type of post, you have to be more specific. My eyes glaze over once cars are mentioned.


209 posted on 04/28/2008 9:12:17 PM PDT by Twink
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To: Twink

Dang! You’re not Marisa Tomei.


210 posted on 04/28/2008 9:13:36 PM PDT by 50mm (99 bottles of beer on the wall)
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To: 50mm

Not even close :) Wish I were, looks wise.


211 posted on 04/28/2008 9:19:06 PM PDT by Twink
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To: absolootezer0

I wholeheartedly agree. This is a sign of gov’t-employed zealots with too much time on their hands.


212 posted on 04/28/2008 10:05:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: colorado tanker

:’)


213 posted on 04/28/2008 10:10:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Fred Nerks

I wonder about the professor. If he’s just another cookie-cutter liberal academic, I hope he gets the chair. ;’) I’m mystified over the ease with which the child was removed. I guess regs have changed since I was familiar with that field. :’(


214 posted on 04/28/2008 10:12:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______________________Profile updated Monday, April 28, 2008)
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To: Polybius

I certainly believe that the father in this case did make a simple mistake and was ignorant of the fact that the lemonade in question was an adult beverage. However, your responses identifying soda brands in glass bottles add nothing to the conversation regarding what is available in Comerica Park. That is all that I was pointing out.

BTW, thanks for brining back memories of the good old days while I was stationed at Ft. Lewis. That local brew was a pretty good and cheap alternative! Gotta love the 30 packs.


215 posted on 04/29/2008 4:52:14 AM PDT by CSM (Kakistocracy: Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.)
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To: CSM
I certainly believe that the father in this case did make a simple mistake and was ignorant of the fact that the lemonade in question was an adult beverage. However, your responses identifying soda brands in glass bottles add nothing to the conversation regarding what is available in Comerica Park. That is all that I was pointing out.

Granted.

However, some posters on this thread, were blaming the father for not knowing, at a glance of the shape of the drinking container (whatever it might have been), that his son had been given an alcoholic lemonade.

The father in question had a Ph.D. archeology. There is a reasonable probability that he knew more about distinguishing the difference between Etruscan drinking vessels from the drinking vessels of Magna Graecia than he knew about the alcoholic beverage culture of 21st Century America.

To judge the father with the certainty that some posters have on this thread also requires a familiarity with baseball stadiums. How can you possibly judge the father by the shape of the glass bottle that a beverage usually comes in when, as far as I know, glass bottles have been banned in baseball stadiums since the 1950's?

Detroit being Detroit, however, I can imagine the vendors in a Detroit ball park shouting, "Beer! Peanuts! Lemonade! Molotov Cocktails!"

216 posted on 04/29/2008 7:04:50 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: Polybius

It looks like we are on the same page. I have to admit to taking some glee in this guy getting caught up in the big government net that socialists crave. I am making a pretty safe assumption that this Ann Arbor resident (socialist bastion) that is a professor (socialist vocation bastion) at UofM (socialist educrat facility) is a socialist.

I can only hope that this experience cures him, or at minimum teaches the kidlette a valuable lesson. I doubt it will work tho, as I expect the socailist to start screaming to ban these beverages in MI.


217 posted on 04/29/2008 8:56:15 AM PDT by CSM (Kakistocracy: Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.)
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To: wideawake

I’ve seen them in my Wal-Mart here in Tuscaloosa, AL.


218 posted on 04/29/2008 9:42:47 AM PDT by redtetrahedron ("Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee" - Jer 1:5 | RIP Fred'08)
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To: AndyJackson
Do you actually AGREE with this complete and utter idiocy and breakdown of the normal social order??

What is an outlier is the lack of any thinking human being in charge, from the cop on the beat on up.

Well said.

219 posted on 04/29/2008 6:07:55 PM PDT by Ken H
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To: Fred Nerks
Sounds suspiciously vindictive to me. Could this incident be race-related? Let's get that uppity whitey and his little kiddie too, hmmm?

I think that's quite possible. A few years ago, I would have said BS.

220 posted on 04/29/2008 6:13:42 PM PDT by Ken H
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