After having some discussion with child advocates Brock Meeks, reporter for MSNBC, wrote that after a recent commentary on the topic of public disclosure: a valuable lesson had been learned. His thoughts: "When you offer yourself up as a sacrificial lamb, be prepared for someone, somewhere, to turn you into a digital blue-plate special."
 

In a previous column, he had argued that putting sex offender registries online was a bad idea. He said: "I based this reasoning on the premise that the issue of sex offenders is such an emotionally charged issue, it would be too easy for the ensuing emotionalism to boil over, allowing people to use the Internet as a blunt instrument able to harass or provoke violence on sex offenders from afar."
 

He indicated he had been prepared to be unpopular; but that he wasn't prepared for "the amount of emotional violence" he was subjected to at the hands of a group of people during email comunication, "each of whom had some personal involvement in sexual offenses, either as a victim, the parent of a victim, or a professional working with victims."
 

He went further by saying that he had been the recipent of "unreasoned, derisive email." That he had been "hammered me relentlessly with unreasoned, derisive pieces of e-mail, copying others on the list with their diatribes to me. This essentially created a firestorm of emotion - the list feeding on its own ginned-up ranting. What these people didn't realize is that their anger simply proved my point: That using the Internet as a blunt instrument is a dangerous tool, even in the hands of well-meaning and otherwise rational people."

The prize in all this is the picture he paints of one "female PhD", our own Dr. Nancy Faulkner. Meeks comments are below:

"A female Ph.D., with some 16 years in the field of family and child counseling, resorted to bottom-dwelling name calling. At one point she invoked the tired Saturday Night Live line, writing: '"Brock, you ignorant slut."' Then she accused me of simply writing the column to further my career with a sensationalistic topic. When I pointed out to her in private e-mail that I needed to do neither and suggested she read a couple of my other columns, she wrote back: '"I have absolutely NO interest in reading any of your articles. Case in point, a Pulitzer Prize Winner was charged with child sexual abuse this week.'" Her point, I suppose, was that all writers of note are somehow tainted. And for the record, it was a Nobel prize winner who was charged with that sexual abuse, not a Pulitzer winner."
 

That Nancy would come quickly to the aid of our children was no surprise to those of us who know her. That she would take on a reporter of some years experience was also no surprise. A dedicated professional (an expert in the field of child sexual assault), a woman who has devoted her life to healing the wounds of survivors, a truly wonderful friend, and yes... a mother lion for all children. Those are the makings of a hero. 

Dear Dr. Nancy Faulkner, thank you for being their voice...and their hero.

As Nancy always tells us "give them more than a star to wish on."