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Barack Obama's recent call for responsible fatherhood was welcome, overdue -- and misleadingly incomplete.

That America's fathers need to embrace their most important role is no secret. Activist fathers have been trying to make the same claim for decades, without much success.

Not all fathers are trying to be good dads, it goes without saying. But neither are all absent by choice, as Obama's message implied.

His plea to fathers came on Father's Day, a time we usually reserve for praising good men. Noting the plague of fatherless homes, he called on fathers who have abandoned their responsibilities to act like men, not boys.

Hear, hear.

We got there early, or so I thought. But no.

Some 4,000 people had gotten there ahead of us, forcing us to take seats in the far upper reaches of the cavernous historic Fox Theatre in downtown Atlanta. We had all come to watch a black-and-white movie churned out by the studio system more than 60 years ago, long before most of us in the audience had been born.

We came to watch Humphrey Bogart lament that "of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

We came to giggle at Claude Rains claiming to be "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here."

And we came to hear Bogie tell Ingrid Bergman one more time that "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Imagine that it's Saturday morning and you woke up with a sore throat. You can tell it's strep throat. But your doctor's office is closed, and a sore throat isn't something you take to an emergency room.

You will have to spend the entire weekend feeling worse and worse with a hope that Monday morning you will be able to talk your doctor's office into finding an appointment for you.

An Eagle article indicated that another option could be right around the corner, literally ("Walgreens to open walk-in clinics in Wichita," June 12 Business Today). Across the nation, in-store health clinics are opening in pharmacies, Wal-Marts, Targets and grocery stores. Such clinics are rapidly multiplying, with estimates of 1,500 to 1,800 opening by the end of 2008.

These clinics offer an alternative avenue for care for both the insured and uninsured. As policymakers debate how to approach the concerns of the uninsured in the United States, they should acknowledge the advantages offered by these private sector clinics and make sure not to stifle these innovations.

In-store clinics offer both acute and preventive care. The acute care options are for diagnosis and treatment of basic cases such as strep throat, sinus infections, earaches, bladder infections and more. Preventive services generally are available for blood-sugar testing, cholesterol screening, routine physicals and vaccinations.

Some individuals have taken a few poorly considered comments I made for their own purposes, stretching my comments far beyond anything I know or believe ("Concerns arise over SRS files' validity," June 8 Eagle).

First, let me make clear that I do not know of or believe there has been an instance in which an assistant county or district attorney has asked or demanded that a social worker with the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services commit perjury or misrepresent the facts of a situation.

Child welfare cases are some of the most emotional situations professionals are asked to address. At times the emotion and stress can lead to a lack of civility. This can happen in various places, and it was never my intention to imply it has only ever happened in Sedgwick County.

In fact, one of the aspects of my comments I most deeply regret is that they did not recognize the great strides that have been made in Sedgwick County, through the leadership of District Attorney Nola Foulston, to improve the professionalism and civility of the interactions among various participants in the child welfare system. That I failed to acknowledge this does not contribute to what Foulston is trying to achieve, and I will have to work hard to repair this breach.

The disputes I was referring to in my comments, and for which I was not clear, have nothing to do with the veracity of the information provided in legal documents. Rather, there are at times disputes over what facts are relevant to the case at hand in assessing a child's current safety. In these situations, professionals, all dedicated to doing their best to keep a child safe, can disagree about what factors should be considered and the correct course of action. Ultimately, it is up to the juvenile court judges to mediate these disputes and, through their fact-finding, make the right decisions.