Not a joking matter

An adoptive father, incensed after watching a CBS Early Show segment of comedians taking on the week's news, blogs about it:

After a few jokes about Sarah Palin, the comedians decided to tackle a topic that surprised me: The decision made by a mother this week to send her adopted son back to Russia with nothing more than a note in his backpack explaining that she didn't want him anymore.

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Honestly, there's nothing funny about the situation at all, so I was surprised to see it in the CBS clip. My surprise turned dark when comedienne Maureen Langan made a joke that went a little something like this:

"This could be a good thing. It could lead to an increase in domestic adoptions. After all, sending a child back on Jet Blue is a lot cheaper than sending a child back on Air Kremlin."

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Had Ms. Langan stopped there, maybe it would be easy to excuse her for pushing the envelope just a bit too far. The problem is she didn't stop. In fact, her next joke was even worse. When speaking about the future of the abandoned boy involved in this case, Ms. Langan said something that went a little like this:

"Now that he's back with his drinking buddies, he'll be fine."

Are you kidding me?

You're going to poke fun at a child who has lost his family twice during the course of his first decade on earth? Don't you think that's a bit harsh? Shouldn't we feel regret that there are children in the world who are stuck in conditions we wouldn't wish on
anyone? Is it really funny to laugh about a life ruined?

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Nope. Not in my mind.

Mine, either.