Who is killing our toddlers?

I am not going to get into this too much, because it involves my line of work and something that I see on a regular basis. But some of you women out here are going to have to start making better choices with the men you choose to let into your lives.

How many stories have we heard of a mother taking up with her new boyfriend, only to have said new boyfriend cause the death (intentionally or otherwise) of her child? I would say far too many.

Then there are the women who choose to hook up with gangbangers and cats who sell illegal pharmaceuticals, and they end up putting their children in danger by mere association with these abhorrent characters. I am not going to state the obvious. We all know that these thugs and urban terrorist who choose to wage battle on our streets, and the heartless men who would harm a child should bear responsibility as well. But this post isn't about them; it's about the other part of the equation.

Take, for instance, this case out of Brooklyn, New York. Poor Antiq Hennis never had a chance.

"NEW YORK (AP) - Police investigating the death of a 1-year-old boy who was shot in his stroller during a walk on a city street believe his father was the intended target, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Monday.

Authorities have some leads in the killing of Antiq Hennis in Brooklyn on Sunday night and believe his death may be gang-related, Kelly said.

Antiq's father, Anthony Hennis, had just gone to pick up the boy at the home of the baby's mother, Cherise Miller, and take him to visit Hennis' grandmother, Kelly said. Hennis, 21, put the boy in the stroller and was pushing him across a street in the Brownsville neighborhood when shots rang out at about 7:20 p.m., police said.

"I saw a man with a stroller screaming: 'My baby got shot! My baby got shot,' " witness Gina Gamboa, 23, told the New York Post.

"He was going crazy."

Grief and outrage over the toddler's shooting loomed over the annual West Indian Day Parade about a mile and a half away, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the killing "a tragedy for his family, for this community, for the entire city" and political candidates talked about gun violence.

Four shots were fired, and one hit the boy in the left side of his head; he was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. The gunfire left four .45-caliber shell casings on the corner and bullet holes in the stroller, Kelly told reporters before the parade. [Source]"

You won't find a bigger advocate for stricter gun laws and more gun control than yours truly, but you people have got to make better choices and start being smarter with your children. What's the point of having them if you are going to put their lives in danger?

Finally, it's Labor Day here in America, but I have to wonder why we even celebrate it anymore.

Labor unions are becoming obsolete in this country and Americans look down on the labor movement now more than ever.

Big business and capitalism has won. They can thank a republican party that's in their pocket for that. It's all about the bottom line now, and cheap labor and poor working conditions rule the day. Americans are just glad to have a job (any job) and they are not going to risk losing it by speaking up for things such as a safe work environment and a fair wage.

It's such a shame. Labor Day used to mean something.