This is Not Adoption Reform: ORTL says, Let’s make adoption easier and cheaper in Ohio

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Bad news in Ohio.  Ohio Right to Life is ready to launch a new easy adoption  legislative project:   The bill isn’t filed yet, but  it gained traction Monday when the Columbus Dispatch  published:  Abortion foes focus on easing Ohio adoptions Since the bill isn’t up  yet, we can’t say what it says exactly, so I’m going by the Dispatch report only.  Here, is a  rundown from Mike Gonidakis,  adoptive father of two and President of Ohio Right to Life:.  . Decrease the waiting time for adoption finalization from 1 year to 60 days (Note: this seems to be a mistake.  Under the ORC, adoption finalization can currently take place no less that 6 months after placement.) Decrease the eligibility time a man can file with the Ohio Putative Father’s Registry (PFR) from 30 days  to 7. Require adoption agencies and adoption lawyers to inform fetal fathers (before the birth of the child)  that an adoption plan is being made; thus, giving them more time to file with the PRF (if they can find it) Increase the Ohio adoption tax credit from $1500 to $10,000 to be spread out over four years,  substantially offsetting the cost  of the adoption  Decrease Continue Reading →

Truly Stupid PAPs: I’m adopting from where?

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I spent a good part of yesterday trying to repopulate my Twitter account that’s been fried for probably a year. In the process Twitter gave me a continual feed of “Similar to Daily Bastardette” accounts which I dutifully checked out.  I found  new people I’d never heard of and old one’s I’d forgotten. Amongst the forgotten was Reunited Cricket  known for her infamous yet deserving Hall of Shame Blog Awards highlighting the blogs of truly stupid paps and adoptive parents. The irony, of course is that the awardees have no idea why they’ve been inducted into the Hall of Shame. I mean, these are the type of folks who upon the arrival of Baybee Bumble would hang a Kinko’s-generated GOT’CHA banner across their porch, with balloons and rainbow unicorns floating over it.  I thought I’d seen it all through the years, but Cricket this week has uncovered a blog so inane, so stupid that its author makes Melanie Capabianco look like Saint Clare of Assisi.  The award-winning entry is entitled Azer-by–wha?  It recounts the blogger’s attempt to adopt from Azerbaijan though she’s not sure if it’s in Asia or Europe. In the process, this rube manages to insult the entire Continue Reading →

Book Review: The Last Invisible Continent: Essays on Adoption and Identity by Michael Allen Potter. A superb and elegantly written mixing of the personal and the political.

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Although I am an adoptee rights activist I seldom read adoption books outside of history or other topics I have a specific interest in. I almost always avoid memoirs. To be honest most are awful. It may be good therapy to write your adoption story, but please leave it in your desk drawer!  Michael Allen Potter’s The Last Invisible Continent: Essays on Adoption and Identity is quite a different story. I’ve been familiar with Mike’s work for several years. I knew part of his story. I knew this book would be important. I was thrilled when he emailed me a few days ago and told me the book was finished and on Kindle. I downloaded it immediately.  And holy moley! What a book it is! Unlike the typical weepy adoption memoir this one is hard and gritty. It’s of the street, but also of the heart. Mike doesn’t pull any punches about his mother’s mental illness, his battle with alcohol, or his rotten adoption, which he discusses almost in passing, though it it obviously the core of the essays.  My personal favorites are the essays “The Re-education of Michael Allen Potter” and “Checking the Bastard Box.”  In “Re-education”, Mike recounts Continue Reading →

Call for Papers: 8th Biennial Adoption Initiative Conference, May 2014

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Call for Papers On behalf of the Planning Committee for the 8th Biennial Adoption Conference at St. John’s University, we invite proposal submissions for papers and research manuscripts that address issues likely to impact individuals and families touched by adoption. This Call for Papers specifically targets adoption professionals, researchers, scholars, practitioners, and graduate students. We are especially interested in receiving proposals that address the 2014 conference theme, “Sleeping Giants in Adoption: Power, Privilege, Politics, and Class.” In keeping with our ongoing goal to present thought-provoking themes relevant to the training of mental health professionals as well as to the personal growth and deeper understanding of adoption triad members, our 2014 conference will consider the intersections between the “sleeping giants” in adoption. The Committee welcomes proposals that tie directly to the conference theme, especially proposals that illustrate the ways that adoption (as it is typically practiced) tends to privilege certain voices and perspectives while downplaying those of marginalized groups. The history of U.S. adoption is rooted in social reform movements led by individuals and groups with greater access to power and privilege that set about to design child welfare interventions and social engineering plans for the children of families with less access Continue Reading →

Deconstructing the Baby Veronica Case: Implications for working with fathers in Indian child welfare practice

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I’m really impressed that this has come together so fast.  And what an array of panelists and presenters!   If I were in the Minneapolis/St Paul area at the end of this month I know where I’d be. If anyone attends I’d love to get a report. Deconstructing the Baby Veronica Case: Implications for Working with Fathers in Indian Child Welfare PracticeTuesday, October 29th, 20138:30am – 4:00pmMcNamara Alumni Center, UMN Federal and state laws, as well as agency policies and practice, play a significant role in how we work with fathers in Indian child welfare practice. In this forum, speakers and panelists with differing viewpoints will analyze the legal context of the “Baby Veronica” case for a closer look at father involvement. Practice strategies and policy recommendations will be a focal point. Read more about the event here. Breakfast and lunch will be served and light snacks will be available throughout the day. 6 Board of Social Work CEUs will be available. CLEs have been applied for. PresentersJudge William ThorneUtah Court of AppealsChrissi NimmoAssistant Attorney General of  the Cherokee NationMark FiddlerAttorney representing the Capobianco FamilyErma J. VizenorChairwoman, White Earth NationPanelistsTerry CrossExecutive DirectorNational Indian Child Welfare AssociationEssie Leoso-CorbineSocial Services Director for Bad Continue Reading →

AdoptionLand Incest Continues: Craig Juntunen from Both Ends Burning shills for Gladney

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Craig Juntunen, the most dangerous man nin Adopton Land Speaking of Gladney., as I did the other day… …guess who’s shilling for Dame Edna!. None other than the most dangerous man in AdoptionLand today, Craig Juntunen, founder and president of Both Ends Burning.and producer of Stuck, a  film  on the “orphan crisis” constructed to make your heart bleed and fill BEB’s  pockets full.of sob story money for child harvesting.. On  Wednesday October 9, Juntunen  will keynote the annual New York Metropolitan  Gladney Family Association fundraiser/cocktail party at the University Club in midtown. . (Gladneyators drink?  WWHSD? What would the home studier do?) This pairing should be no surprise, of course. Gladney and Juntunen have been up each other’s pants for quite some time now.  Gladney CEO Frank Garrott sits on BEB’s board (and the JCICS board).  In fact, the  board is mobbed up with  Texas oil,/petroleum, big insurance,  well-to-do adopters, and christian jocks–an incestuous  subject I’ll save for a later date. Earlier this year Garrott  could barely control his enthusiasm over Stuck, a Kleenix-wringer designed around the idea that “orphans”  (and the term is up for grabs) are “stuck,”– that is, held hostage in their own countries (mostly of color), away Continue Reading →

Demons of Adoption Awards 2013: Voting now open!

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Nominations are closed and the voting begins. Select the most deserving Demon of Adoption for 2013.  I know it’s a difficult task  Competition sponsor Pound Pup Legacy, has gathered an array of  stunning nominees this year:  Nightline Adoption (Capobianco agency), Gladney Center, Adam Pertman, (Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute),  Both Ends Burning (“christian” child grabbers),  Children and Families First, and a satanic host of other duplicitous bottom feeders. And to think that Beelzebub didn’t even purchase their the dark souls! Our nominees  simply turned them over to him. Here are the nominees with links to their webpages (thanks to Pound Pup) Raymond W Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoption: for their role in the baby Veronica case; Supreme Court of the United States: for their decision in Adoptive Couple v. Baby girl; Lifeline Children’s Services: for assisting evangelical adopters to complete international adoptions when other somewhat sane agencies object; Frances Fitzgerald (Irish Minister for Children and Youth Affairs): for attempts to promote inter-country adoption outside the Hague Convention; Adoption Advocates International (AAI): for their involvement in the adoption of  Hana Grace-Rose Williams; Gladney Center for Adoption: for the placement with the Shatto family that led to the death of Russian born adoptee Max Shatto (Maxim Kuzmin); Both Ends Burning Campaign: Continue Reading →

Gladney "Renounces" Re-Homing!

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Edna Gladney–Greer Garson she wasn’t Renounce: : to say especially in a formal or official way that you will no longer have or accept (something) : to formally give up (something) : to say in a formal or definite way that you refuse to follow, obey, or support (someone or something) any longer….Merriam Webster Citing  “a strict code of adoption ethics,” prominent sealed and secret adoption agency, The  Gladney Center, has issued an astounding press release and apparent confession: Gladney Fights for the Protection of Vulnerable Children and Renounces Unregulated Re-homing.  The statement, issued on September 19 says in part:  Fort Worth, Texas- The Gladney Center for Adoption was saddened and sickened  by the investigative reports featured by Reuters and NBC news that detailed the practice called “re-homing” of children by their adoptive parents ­when there is no investigation and preparation of the potential new family.  This story chronicles the desperate actions of adoptive parents who turn to the internet or social media to find new homes for the children they previously adopted.  The Gladney Center for Adoption, as well as the entire adoption community, have renounced this activity.    Gladney shares in the shock and concern over the damage these actions Continue Reading →

Kemerovo outlaws all international adoption from the region; urges Russian Duma to follow suit

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The legislature of  the Russian region of Kemerovo (Kuzbass) has voted unanimously  to ban  all adoptions  by foreigners of  local children. Galina Solovyova, Kemerovo lawmaker and co-chair of the regional educational committee, said in an official statement, quoted in The Moscow Times and elsewhere, “We think that the adoption of young citizens is an internal affair of Russia, an internal affair of Kuzbass” Solovyova, says that the new legislation was drafted due to local complaints over adoptee abuse in the US.  Solovyova also cited the recent re-homing investigation by Reuters, which documented the transfer of  unwanted adoptees to non-biological and non-adoptive individuals and couples–including pedophiles- often outside the parameters of child welfare and adoption regulations.  She particularity slammed social network cites in the US and Europe that “exchange and sell children adopted from Russia.”  (Here’s a Facebook example of an ostensibly “legal” exchange.) Adoption should only be permitted  domestically. Last week the Russian  Foreign Ministry  demanded investigation and prosecution in the cases of at  least 26 Russia-to US  re-homed adoptees.  The origins of these adoptees has  not been released. Kemerovo has, however,  been a popular sending point.  According to RIA Novisti  77 children from the region  this year alone have been disbursed worldwide. Continue Reading →

Life Imitates Art: Mary Landrieu Calls Pavel Astakhov an ass; Then files bill to speed up international adoption

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Two weeks ago New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz wrote  G20 Ends Abruptly when Obama calls Putin a Jackass. Last week, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) , in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty called Russian Children’s Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, who supports Russia’s refusal to re-open its child coffers to needy American paps,  an ass. And it wasn’t satire.  To  make sure  RFE/RL knew this just wasn’t a slip of her sloppy political tongue, Landrieu reiterated:“He doesn’t want to hear the truth,” the senator says. “He’s an ass. You can write that: He’s an ass!“  And RFE/RL did just that. Despite the impeccable US news  source , no other US media picked up  Landrieu’s  insult to a high ranking member of the Putin government, and so far only the English language edition of  RIA Novisti  has published the account (though it may appear in the Russian language press.) Astakhov’sRussian or English language tweets make no note of the outburst.  Does Bastardette have to do Drudge’s work?To add insult to injury Landrieu claimed during the interview that Russian officials  are wrong when they say that American adopters  who abuse and kill  their Russian acquisitions aren’t punished. Obviously Landrieu is the one who’s mistaken.   My  blog  Nikto Ne Zabyt–Nichto Ne Continue Reading →