The winners and the losers

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Aug 18, 2007 | by Deseret Morning News editorial

-- Winner: Utah prison inmates contributed more than $1,000 to family of Stephen Anderson, a clear demonstration of their respect for the slain corrections officer. Anderson was shot twice with his own gun June 25 while accompanying inmate Curtis Allgier to a medical appointment at a University of Utah clinic. Anderson was known to treat inmates with dignity and respect. The inmates, obviously, appreciated his humanity.

-- Loser: Ogden School District officials apparently need to crack their American history textbooks. Recently, the school board named a new elementary school after the fourth president of the United States, James A. Madison. Oops. Madison had no middle initial, an error pointed out by a history teacher. Some school letterhead will need to be replaced, but the error was discovered before it was placed on the school's sign.

-- Winner: If you owe more than $2,500 in child support, don't count on the U.S. State Department to issue you a passport until you pay up. States have collected at least $22.5 million through the program thus far in 2007. A growing number of deadbeat parents were detected after the State Department imposed new requirements that travelers need passports to fly back from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and South America. Some $24 billion in child support collected on behalf of children through various mechanisms each year but any new means to collect delinquent monies is a boon to children's livelihoods.

-- Loser: A hospital security guard in Houston is probably wishing he'd taken a different tack with a defiant father who attempted to take his newborn daughter home. When the father refused to cooperate, the security guard fired a stun gun, sending the man and baby crashing to the floor. The incident was caught on a security camera. The infant has been placed in state custody because of a history of domestic violence between her parents. The father claims the baby cries and shakes as a result of the incident, but child welfare officials said she does not appear to be suffering any health problems. Regardless, the use of the stun gun was foolhardy, considering that wristband sensors placed on babies born at the hospital shut off elevators if anyone attempts to take an infant without permission.