This Elian Gonzalez thing has really gotten me confused.

The soap opera saga of the 6-year-old just seems to go on and on.

I certainly empathize with the little boy, who, I would imagine has no idea what all the hoopla is about.

Well, join in with all the rest of us.

His mother died while trying to get to America. Now, as I understand it, a refugee picked up before reaching the shores of the United States is subject to being sent back to wherever they came, in this case, Cuba.

He and his mother were refugees, so it seems to me the answer is simple. He has to go back.

That may seem callous. But isn’t putting a 6-year-old through this MESS callous as well?

It’s not as if he would be sent back to a parentless environment. His father is there. His mother is dead. I fail to see why there is such a problem.

Granted, his father apparently has different political views than most of us here in the United States. But he IS the boy’s father.

It is abhorent to me that various political groups would take this situation and turn it into the circus it has become &045;

24-hour CNN coverage is a bit ridiculous.

Especially when you consider the right-here-on-our-back-steps problems that this country faces everyday.

We have children being abused, children being molested, children starving, children with no warm place to sleep and no warm clothes to wear, children who are born addicted to crack cocaine, children killed by their parents, children killed by other children, even children killed because their parents would not strap them into their safety carseats.

The Elian situation is a sad one, but what is even more sad to me is that all the hoopla surrounding this child will, in no way at all, help any other child in the United States.

We have real and serious problems in the United States. If we’re going to GRANDSTAND, let’s see if we can’t choose something more substantial.

Otherwise nothing will change.