About abduction attempts, Monika told him that if a stranger tried to take him into a car, he could use all the bad words we don’t let him say, as loud as he can.

So here’s the only way I can argue against my own position:

* after his initial abduction, he was held in isolation for a prolonged period, tortured, drugged, sensory deprived, to the point he became brainwashed.
* uh, that’s it.

[Sure. Very fair. But if you go back to both my articles, all I asked for was an e-mail, a word to the cops that gave him rides home, something small, really.]

Even here I find my devil’s advocate unconvincing. Hornbeck was gone four years. As Ilana points out, other children have been through equivalent abuse for similar periods and acted differently.

Yes, it’s true, I have never been kidnapped and abused, and faced with this hypothetical prolonged torture, I don’t know how I’d respond. I’d like to think I’d run if I had a chance. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have made my parents suffer.

Ilana’s daughter: your take on American schools is right on. I don’t know how it is that our schools are so pathetic, but they are. (In spite of this fact, I continue to support a free education for all children – there’s gotta be a way to have access to education without making the education worthless.) Glad you made it out OK.