I got a really late start, so Ill just post a clip tonight from everybody’s favorite adoption film The Bad Seed. This is one of my favorite scenes: Our Rhoda figures out the jig is up. One of Bastard Nation’s Founding Foundlings knew this scene so well that she could perform it at the drop of a shoe. I’ve written about mp personal experience with Mrs Daigle here. RIP Clyde
The US House of Representatives! Now that’s a big chunk of Adoption, Inc to chew on. While we were pulling for our own nominee (Adam Pertman) we couldn’t be more pleased with this august body of hacks, crooks, sycophants, boodlers, and hypocrites has taken the grand prize this year. I mean, is there anybody who likes these people? The House-Session 112 was Demonized ostensibly for its overwhelming support and promotion of HR 1464 popularly known as tne North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011. I admit I’ve not followed this bill as closely as I should, so I’m going to nick some information from Pound Pup Legacy: (from link above). In a devastating analysis of this bill, Catherine Hong makes the following observation: Modeled on a failed series of North Korean human rights bills that stretch back to 2003, the North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011 proceeds from an outdated portrait of on-the-ground conditions and distorted premises. Empirically speaking, the bill misrepresents the reality of the children whom it purports to help. As a placeholder for children who are, by and large, not North Korean, not refugees, and not orphans, the “North Korean refugee orphan” is a Continue Reading →
As some of you know I’ve been forced in old age to take a job as an :”inventory associate.”–that is, I count inventory at mostly chain stores– Penney’s ,Victoria’s Secret, Party City,, Tractor Supply, Hollisters. For the last two days I’ve worked at the Lowe’s in Mount Vernon, Ohio. . Today I counted over 16,000 pieces of merchandise, everything from screws and light bulbs to planks of lumber. It’s tiring. Afterwards, I trudged back home, and after nursing my decrepitude with a bag of White Castle double cheese sliders I promptly fell asleep There. in Dreamland, I dreamed the most interesting message: Martin Scorsese hired me to write a screenplay on the history of adoption reform.. I envisioned it as a bourgeois Gangs of New York with Bill Pierce as Bill the Butcher, and me as Amsterdam Vallon. –but probably less compelling. Thankfully this screenplay will never make it to Marty’s mailbox. This dream however, reminded me of other adoption- related dreams I’ve had through years. Theyonly stopped when I (for you pop psych fans) I integrated my adoptive and non-adoptive self. ***** I come home from school and find my amother has been “sent away.” Nobody , including my Continue Reading →
Call for Papers Mothering from the Margins: New Philosophical DirectionsEditors: Amrita Banerjee and Bonnie MannSubmission deadline: July 15th, 2013. The last two decades have witnessed growing philosophical scholarship on pregnancy, birth, and mothering – areas in which the discipline of philosophy has hitherto remained largely silent. Scholarship in these areas is philosophically important since it takes women’s embodied experience and maternal practice (a practice that has been historically placed in the realm of ‘feminine’ work) as serious domains of philosophical reflection and, more importantly, recognizes the potential of these domains for generating new knowledge in ethics, epistemology, ontology, etc. While this work constitutes an important new development in feminist and philosophical inquiry, there are a number of critical gaps in the new literature. While reviewing some recent work on the topic for the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Shelley M. Park notes the absence of the voices of “non-normative maternal subjects” (Park, 2012), that is, maternal subjects that are not “straight, biological, middle-class, able-bodied, white, western mothers of infants and very young children.” (Park, 2012) Social, cultural, economic, and political arrangements (such as race, nationality, sexual orientation, etc.) that anchor ‘non-normative’ maternal subjectivity, as well as ‘non-hegemonic’ contexts of mothering (such Continue Reading →
(NOTE: this is the first part of a two part blog. The second part will be posted in a few days. This serves as an introduction. Please go to my originsl Adoption Not Abortion piece lined below for background.) The adaption not abortion crowd is back! A year ago,in Adoption Not Abortion: Pimping Adoptees for a Higiher Purpose, I wrote about Student’s for Life’s misleading flyer project : What Do Willie Nelson and Eleanor Roosevelt have in Common? Willie and Mrs. Roosevelt and other celebrities presumably without their (or their estate’s) consent) were described as adoptees, and pimped out to promote the group’s adoption- not-abortion.message for National Adoption Awareness Month 2011. The Students for Life lie-based publicity campaign. has been updated and streamlined a little for the 2012 season. . In what appears to be a SFL attempt to look relevant to its intended target, a few new “adoptee” celebrities, including Snooki (!) have been added to the page to, I suppose, to illustrate positive adoption outcomes.in pop culture. To be fair, a few genuine adoptees are included.. The number of adoption lies on this page, however, are so staggering we can only wonder if Students for Life didn’t outsource Continue Reading →
Good news for adoption researchers and activists! The Triadoption Archives–a massive collection of news and magazine articles, adoption reform newsletters, search and reunion materials, maternity home/adoption agency directories, pictures, and audio and video records — is now digitized and online. Much of the material is from the 1970s and 1980s, but some goes back as far as the 1930s. I admit it. that until Paul Redmond posted a link to the site this afternoon on the Bastard Nation FB page, I’d never heard of the Triadoption Archives. My bet is you haven’t heard of it either, and it’s a shame for both of us. From an introduction to the archives page: TRIADOPTION® was formed as an information center in 1978 to gather and dispense data to assist adoptees, birthparents, siblings and others in locating family members. Based on the belief that adoption adds options and creates extended families, it seemed appropriate to support full disclosure to all involved parties, opening of all sealed records and assistance in acquiring everything pertinent to facilitating reunions and ongoing relationships.For a decade, adoption reform movement newsletters were collected from over 500 organizations spread across North America and some around the world. Newspaper and magazine Continue Reading →
Keith Humphrey, the candidate for the Kansas State Senate who was attacked by the state GOP for his adoptee(lite) status, was defeated Tuesday 9622 -8538. Humphrey, a decorated Navy veteran and small business owner, was a solid candidate, endorsed by the Wirtcha Eagle, the Kansas AFL-CIO, District 70 Lodge of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Kansas Families for Education. and other organizations. Humphrey made the “mistake” of running a clean and positive campaign. The Republican accusation that he was hiding something through his adoptive name change is even more whack considering that Kansas governor, Christian reconstructionist Sam Brownback has adopted two children from China and has claimed publicly that adoption is a pathway to salvation. (I have a video of his prolonged adoption testimony taped at a Call rally in Washington about 10 years ago. It is not available online.) No doubt Brownback’s adoptees got themselves adopted to lead a Maoist takeover of the Kansas statehouse.25 years in the future.. The creepy mailer was not the first personal attack Republicans made on Humphrey this year. In June, four days after Humphrey filed to run for the senate, a Republican operative with ties to the Brownback administration, Continue Reading →
Claud d’Arcy has been kickin’ it high this NaBloPomo with some very relevant wor.k on her blog, Musungs of the Lame. Today she published a very nice research piece BraveLoveorg– Another Front for Adoption Profits. on bravelove.org, a new, seemingly well-funded, baybee grabbing organization out of Dallas. I considered looking into bravelove myself, but was busy with other projects and knew it wouldn’t happen, so I’m happy Claud picked up up the shotgun and bagged a big one.. Here’s what bravelove says about itself.(my emphasis): Our mission is to change the perception of adoption through honest, informative, and hopeful communication that conveys the heroism and bravery a birth mother displays when she places her child with a loving family through adoption. The heartbreaking truth is that many women facing unplanned pregnancy feel unable to care for a child. Sometimes the single-most loving thing a mother can do is place her child with a loving, eager adoptive family. We aim to invite and empower women to choose adoption. In other words, heroizing women into tossing their newborns into the ever-shrinking adoption market evaporating for lack of product. Altruism. See, if you love your baby hard enough, you;’ll give it away,. I Continue Reading →
I’m frequently asked how I keep this up. All this adoption crap. To be honest, I don’t know. Some days the word :adoption” freezes down my brain. This is not what my life was supposed to be about. But… As an historian I find my inspiration and endurance in history and keep on keepin’ on . My influences are many: Emma Goldman, Voltarine de Cleyre, Gurley Flynn, SB Anthony, Lucy Stone, Big Bill Haywood, the Reuthers, Ghoulardi, early Qukuaers, Malcolm X, Neal Cassady, Abbie Hoffman, the Yippies, the Wobblies–even Alexander the Great. And. of course, Bastard Nationals. It’s a mixed bag that makes little sense except to me. Among my more contemporary historical “mentors” is Mario Savio, leader of the 1964 Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. Since I had little time to write today, I surfed YouTube and found this excerpt of Savio’s 1964 Sproul Hall “bodies against the gears” speech. Although Savio was addressing the liberal corporate educational system -and in larger terms the American corporate state–his speech can be narrowed to include today’s adoption machine–not only the adoption industry and its cronies in church and government, but the so-called reform movement that props up that industry through compromise Continue Reading →
Bastard Goddess Janet gets her OBC One of the collateral benefits and enjoyments of bastard rights activism has been the election,of adoptees and other adoption reform activists to state legislatures. After a couple years of trying to pass access legislation in New Hampshire, in 2004 Bastard Nation’s own Janet Allen was elected to the New Hampshire House. During her second term, she was instrumental in the enactment of SB 335 which retored the right of all the state’s adoptees the access upon request.of their original birth certificates. Janet was the first person in the state to receive her OBC when records were opened January 2005. Since then Maine has elected two activists to its House. Bobbi Beavers, first mother and co-founder of OBC for ME, shepherded PL 409 which in 2009, restored the right of OBC access to Maine adoptees, through the Legislature She was was elected to the House in 2010 (D-District 148) and re-elected yesterday, 3,164- 2,094. Bobbi sits on the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology. Her legislative interests include foreclosure protection and environmental issues. Bobbi earned perfect marks from the non-partisan Maine Conservation Voters for her votes to protect the environment and invest Continue Reading →