ROCKPORT, Texas — Do you ever wonder how yesterday’s crises manage to vanish into thin air?

Two of them come to mind today as I sit here on the Texas Gulf Coast, pondering this or that.

• Boko Haram’s kidnapping of those women and children. What’s become of these terrorists’ hideous treatment of Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens. Boko Haram grabbed more than 200 victims, took them to some hidden location and became the target of international condemnation.
• The influx of children from Central and South America into the United States. Remember when the Obama administration was being pilloried by critics who contended that our “porous” borders were allowing the flood of unaccompanied children into this country?

Both stories have disappeared from the world’s radar.

Were they resolved? No. The women and children still are missing. They might be dead by now for all we know. There was talk about Boko Haram releasing some of them, that the Nigerian government was working diligently to obtain their freedom. What’s become of that effort?

The children who fled to the United States? Has the migration stopped? Did Mexico do what it should have done all along, which was stop the migration through the entire length of the country into the United States?

Our attention span gets diverted to other things so easily, it’s a shame that these one-time crises become old news.

Those innocent victims — in Nigeria and inside our own borders — still need our help.