The Surging Wave of Missing Persons - Well, we knew it was coming. The national media reports of kidnappings and missing young people just keep on coming. Today's latest case comes from SFO, involving a Chinese girl who got separated from her group travelling to Space Camp (with a stop at Stanford?).

In response on the criticism that the media was ignoring the kidnapping of a poor, black girl to cover the Elizabeth Smart case, we are now being innundated with any story possibly connected to a kidnapping. And like last year's shark attacks, the public might be under the mistaken impression that kidnappings are on the rise, as a result of these reports. The New Republic has a thoughtful commentary on the situation.

Building on the hype, California has introduced the Amber Alert to keep everyone aware of the latest kidnapping cases. Although, some of the kinks in the system still need to be worked out. There's also some trepidation about how to deal with the circumstance when kidnapping victims are also revealed to have been victims of rape.