Where are the police? Where are the social workers?
Mon, Feb 09, 2009 Mon, Feb 09, 2009 ~ Alan S. Russet
Protester outside Suleman house NBC/AP photo
Nadya Suleman received $165,000 in disability payments over six years …
…. but didn't pay a penny of it to her parents, who have been caring for her children. Her Mother was driven into bankruptcy last year, citing a bad house investment in her bankruptcy filing …
…and citing in her interview with Radaronline the cost of caring for Nadya's earlier six children.
"The truth is that Nadya hasn't worked since she started having her children," Angela, charged, "while Ed and I battled to pay her bills.
"Nadya promised to help me with the bills, but she never has. I lost a house because of it and now I'm struggling to look after her six. We had to put in bunk beds, feed them in shifts and there's children's clothing piled all over the house."
"How she's going to cope, I don't know," said Mrs Suleman. "I'm really tired of taking care of the six children and need her to think about how she'll provide for all these children."
Meanwhile, back at the publicity agent …
Nadya Suleman's publicist Mike Furtney said that his client has been away for nearly two months, so shouldn't be held responsible for the home's current condition.
Not a helpful argument for his client's ability to care for her children. Nor is the fact that she is hiding from the media in an undisclosed location
Furtney said his client planned to move into a larger home once the octuplets were healthy enough to leave doctors' care.
With what money and help, now that Ms. Suleman has worn out her Mother and Father? Enter Corporate Sponsorship?
Meanwhile, Ms. Suleman is going ahead with the "Miracle Baby" photo spreads and television interviews (e.g. the Today Show). No links needed – just go to the "Entertainment" (Entertainment!) section of Google and you'll find over 5,000 articles – 5,134 this morning at 10:41 am.
Ms. Suleman so clearly wants to be a celebrity.
Where are the police? Where are the social workers? Somebody, help this family!
Posted in News	Nadya Suleman
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16 thoughts on "Where are the police? Where are the social workers?"
Ten Bears says:
Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 1:44 pm
… $165,000 in disability payments over six years … paid out in the form of higher premiums to the carrier's clientele. "Suckling at the public teat, though not necessarily the taxpayer teat", indeed.
andthecowgoesmoo says:
Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 7:46 pm
I really didn't know why the heck you guys were posting about this subject on what seemed like a daily basis. This seemed like just the latest roadshow human interest / trainwreck and I've been doing my best to ignore it.
But damn it if you didn't make me care a bit. As a former psychology major myself, who at one point intended to work towards a doctorate, I can attest that all Psych majors are headcases and she is no exception.
But in a callous business standpoint, she's working towards a big payoff that is still a few months away. Let's see if her parents get a reasonable cut of her big book / movie / Nadya Suleman Fertility Clinic Franchise payout. If so, I guess her parents will be appropriately compensated (maybe).
But of course those poor kids have no fucking chance.
But dammit. Now I can't act all above-it-all and pretend like I don't know anything about Nadya Suleman.
… and the cow goes moo
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 9:22 am
Living as I do without TV, I remain blissfully ignorant. These posts are the only exposure I've had to this absurd but unnewsworthy situtation. If it's a scam for media attention, she's got you right where she wants you.
Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 11:52 am
Except she probably can't even leave wherever she is in hiding due to a hostile public and no company will use her for endorsements for the same reason.
There's no way she and her mother can care for 14 children, even if they could afford it, which they can't.
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 7:51 am
Controversy and polarization may hurt her chances at landing her own clothing line at Zellers, but the fury over her family circus has to be causing book publishers to salivate.
She's still got a payday coming. And her kids still have no fucking chance, of course.
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:01 am
Right now she's in hiding after receiving multiple death threats
"There's no way she and her mother can care for 14 children, even if they could afford it, which they can't."
Would that it was a unique situation. The number of births per pregnancy may be unique, but having more kids than one can afford surely isn't. Sadly, I don't see the furor over this calling any attention at all to an all-too-common problem.
UJ says:
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Bob, you've whipped people into wanting to execute the peanut guy's family, then they wanted to take away Nadya's health care, now everyone's an armchair eugenicist deciding if this woman deserves to have babies or not. Could this possibly get ANY creepier?! Let's see if we can ratchet it up just a bit further. Who wants to call for labor camps? Anyone?
Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Only if Evildoers I Disapprove Of are in the labor camps. For their own rehabilitation, of course. And out of my compassion for them.
That I think the peanut guy is guilty guilty guilty doesn't mean he shouldn't get a fair trial with vigorous defense. If he walks, he walks. And I am real leery of mob justice. It's a cure that is generally worse than the illness.
The following is apropos, a lawyer friend just sent it.
Ode to the criminal defense lawyer
Perhaps the greatest calamity that can befall a human being in our society is to be charged with a criminal offense. Based on mere accusations, the government, through the machinery of criminal prosecution, focuses its formidable powers against the individual. Amassed against the accused will be the prosecutor, the police and often times the general public.
The process may rend apart the accused's family, alienate his friends and destroy his own feelings of self worth. He will be forced to undergo public proceedings, many of which he may not understand, and in which the prosecution will constantly point the accusatory finger as if to say "By his deeds, he is no longer one of us."
Very often the stakes are high. A judgment against the accused may require him to forfeit his property, his freedom, even his life. Into this breach steps defense counsel.
Sworn to protect the client's interests to the best defense the law will allow no matter what the personal costs. Armed with little more than his wits and his knowledge of the criminal law, he will become the voice through which the accused will, in effect, do battle with the awesome powers of his own government. Our adversary system requires no less than that defense counsel become a "brother in arms" to the accused in this battle.
Defense counsel must be prepared to stand and fight for his client against public outcry; he must stand and fight for his client throughout his trial; and he must stand and fight for his client at the time final judgment is entered. Such a system is not efficient. It is not designed for "swift justice." Indeed, some would say that it is not designed for "justice" at all.
But if posterity judges a free society by how it treats it individual members, it should be of considerable consolation to us all that our system does not require an accused to stand alone.
–author unknown
While I have long read and admired Bob's work, He in no way has "whipped" me into an execution frenzy.
No One, whups me into anything.
They delude themselves otherwise.
This is what pisses me off about "liberals", and why I'm registered No Party Affiliation (out here in Oregon we call it thinking, something the rest of the country is apparently incapable of) – with blatant disregard the mother-fucker killed eight people, and you want to let him get away with it. A life sentence, even consecutive life sentences, at a cushy country-club resort at the taxpayer's expense is getting away with it.
All I've said throughout was that if we slapped a few of these cretins around, maybe hang a couple of them, then this sort of behavior on their part would sharply curtail. What is so difficult to understand about that?
(Comment deleted at request of commenter)
Hey. "No personal attacks" is the policy here. Attack the ideas, but not the person.
So, everyone, chill.
I apologize to everyone, including Ten Bears, for that rude, distasteful comment. I respect everyone's right to free speech and open debate, and I'd like to retract my previous comment. Except the death penalty part, that still stands 😉
TB,
Here's some info on using the death penalty as deterrence…
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty
"A study of the deterrence value of the death penalty focused on whether the death penalty deterred the murder of police officers. The researchers surveyed a thirteen year period of police homicides. The study concluded " we find no consistent evidence that capital punishment influenced police killings during the 1976-1989 period. . . . [P]olice do not appear to have been afforded an added measure of protection against homicide by capital punishment." (W. Bailey and R. Peterson, Murder, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence: A Review of the Evidence and an Examination of Police Killings, 50 Journal of Social Issues 53, 71 1994)"
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 5:00 pm
The Tree of Liberty need be at times watered with the blood of tyrants.
We're all pretty much in the same space around here, with a dissension or two. As it should be, we wouldn't want to all agree, there'd be nothing to talk about! I've been screwed, but so have we all.
Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Hell,I sometimes don't agree with what I used to think, much less with what others think!