I got my pictures today when I went for a long walk around Mission Bay.  I did a lot of thinking on that walk. I’m an old retired guy, so I can take a walk in the middle of the day when kids are all in school, so I didn’t see children today; but I though about the importance of expecting all adults, and especially the people who are candidates for public office, to declare their commitment to the welfare of all children.

In my most recent thinking and writing about the failure of my own country to elevate issues relating to general care and education of all American children and young people to an emergency level,  I have skirted around and not mentioned the horrific fact of the disappearance of 43 students in our North American neighborhood. The border between my country and Mexico is just 15 miles down the road from where I lie down to sleep every night.  I’ve kept quiet for too long about the disappearance of 43 students in the town of Iguala, Guerrero state.  Reports from Iguala after the students disappeared at first said Guerrero state authorities believed the student were probably just hiding. In the next couple of days, Iguala’s mayor Jose Juis Abarca skipped town, along with his wife and the town’s police chief. Reports soon included accusations that the mayor ordered the gang-linked local police force to round up the students out of fear they were preparing to be part of a protest at a speech his wife was scheduled to make in the town.  Further investigation indicated that the corrupt officers handed the 43 students over to the Guerreros Unidos drug gang. 

Most of us who travel in Mexico know Acapulco, the popular resort city in Guerrero.  The driving distance from San Diego to Acapulco (1500 miles) is the same as the distance from San Diego to Houston.

To dismiss the news story of the 43 disappeared Mexican students as just another “foreign” condition that we Americans can do nothing about is a decidedly immoral response. To ignore the latest news reports that ISIS is training children to be jihadist soldiers is an immoral response.  To turn away from news stories and photographs of children anywhere literally starving to death is an immoral response. If the human race is to survive and thrive on earth, appropriate care of all children must be our highest priority.