Bastard Nation in Slate

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Yippie!  Bastard Nation got a nice and extensive plug yesterday in Slate::   Luke  Marci and Me:  After 34 years the Internet gave me a sister I’d never known.  in which writer Luke O’Neil recounts the discovery of his sister, he knew about, but had remained illusive. Luke discusses BN and sealed records about mid-way through the first page.  Comments are mainly good, but contain a number of expected snarks in two categories. (1)  It’s a Pandora’s box.  You’re better off not knowing (2)  Searching betrays adoptive parents. I’ll  be commenting  there later today. Thanks, Luke!

Adoption Noir: A Review of Ed Lynsky’s "Ask the Dice"

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I’m a fan of adoptee noir, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Ask the Dice a member of that growing subgenre.  No doubt some adoption deformers will get the vapors at the thought of a hit man who just happens to be adopted (hit man, might be too benevolent–from the way Tommy Mack Zane tells it, the number of dead pile up in the hundreds), but as a Bastard I found it refreshing and so un-PC. Even better, he’s a TRA hit man, black and adopted by a white Washington DC couple out of an “orphan home” in Champagne’s Folly, Texas, his landing point after his parents mysteriously committed suicide, giving him an extra layer or two of adoptee angst and screwed upedness. He clearly loves his adoptive parents Amanda and Phil Zane, but feels apart, different. Being 5 or 6 years old and finding his mother Nela hanging in the kitchen a week after his father Bradford shot himself doesn’t help.Thankfully, Tommy Mack suffers no primal wound and doesn’t blame his career choice on adoption. But back to the book.  Tommy Mack  is a contract killer for the blind, dirty-minded, and mysterious Watson Og (love the name!) Continue Reading →

Central Ohio Support Group Starting

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New! General Adoption Support Group Interested in learning about the life-long experiences of adoption? Join Ohio Birthparent Group and Adoption Network Cleveland for a new adoption support group forming in Central Ohio! FIRST MEETING: Sunday January 22nd, 2012 / 2-4pm Gahanna Public Library Community Room310 Granville St. Columbus, OH 43230 Designed to create open dialogue across the spectrum of experiences with adoption, this support group is open to anyone who is touched by adoption or simply interested in learning more about adoption issues. Adult adoptees, adoptive parents, birthparents, prospective adoptive parents, spouses, partners and extended family members are especially encouraged to attend. Co-Sponsored by Ohio Birthparent Group & Adoption Network ClevelandOhio Birthparent Group is excited to partner with to bring this much-needed General Meeting to the Central Ohio area.  For those utilizing ANC’s Search Assistance programs, attendance at our Central Ohio meetings can be used toward ANC’s . This Central Ohio meeting is facilitated by peers who experience adoption as birthparents, adoptive parents and adoptees. There is no cost to attend and no RSVP is needed. For more program information, visit . About Ohio Birthparent Group What We Do Ohio Birthparent Group is a non-profit organization committed to supporting the Continue Reading →

For Ohio Adoptees and Parents: Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorsements

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For more than 15 years, Ohio Right to Life has been  the chief opponent of the restoration of the right of all Ohio adoptees to access their own original birth certificates  For ORTL, adoption is the loving option; adoptees aren’t. Ohio Right to Life PAC,  has published its list of endorsements for the March 5, 2012 Ohio primary. . The endorsements are for contested seats only. Since endorsement lists sometimes disappear from webpages after elections, I’m posting the list below for the record. .Incumbents are in italics.If you are in Ohio and any of these candidates are on your ballot, don’t let them get in the door.  For those who are in the door, give them your personal boot. 1.  Ohio has been redistricted and some incumbents may currently represent a district other than what they are now running in. 2. Some incumbents may be term limited and are now running for the opposite house..     Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorsements for the March 6, 2012 Primary Election Ohio Senate Endorsements Republican State Representative Randy Gardner – Senate District 2 Republican State Senator Peggy Lehner (Honor Roll Status) – Senate District 6 Republican State Representative Joe Uecker (Honor Roll Continue Reading →

Happy New Year 2012: Thoughts on Adoption and New York City on New Year’s Eve

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I am a New York City person.  I  know this  for a fact, not only because I love Manhattan and feel at home there, but all of the theatre people I know in the city tell me I belong there. Unfortunately, my life in the Big Apple was hijacked before I was born.  My birthparents were inconvenient enough to have spawned me in a “tourist cabin” on the back Akron-Massillon Road (or someplace like that) and my adoptive parents, thoughtless of my needs, remained in Ohio. My amom, though, for reasons known only to her, decided I should be a copywriter or a graphic artist, neither of which I had much talent for. If I’d followed her command you’d be watching me, not Peggy Olsen on Mad Men–unless I decided to play out a Ronna Jaffe career girl and throw myself out a window or take bottle of Seconal after being used by Don Draper.  It didn’t help that I decided to get married when I did, cutting short any chance of ever having a real life. That last sentence is stupid, of course, but that’s how I thought back then.. What does this have to do with New Year’s Continue Reading →

US Adoption’s Dirty Little Secret: US Babies Exported Worldwide

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America’s dirty little adoption secret (which one?) is out , but nobody is paying much attention. Last month the US Department of State issued the 2011 FY 2001 Annual Report on Intercountry Adoption.  It’s only five pages long but full of “interesting” bick-a-brac  Within the stats we learn than 73 US citizen children were adopted out of country; that is, they’ve, as State quaintly calls it,.”emigrated” to another country via adoption.  The largest receiving country is Canada with 31; the second is the Netherlands with  27.. It gets better:  the largest sending state is Florida with 49 little Floridians packing their diaper bags for other parts of the world, . The second largest sending state is South Carolina with 12–all heading for Canada..  These two states far outstrip other states in outgoing shipments. I got curious, so I went back and found reports for 2009 and 2010 and found even more alarming figures  The number of American children  removed, renamed, and remodeled  abroad has more than quintupled  in three years, from 26 in the 2009 report to142 in the 2011 report. (According to the 2009 report these figures go from October 1, 2008-September 30, 2009.  The other reports don’t give Continue Reading →

Ivan Skorobogatov : Cravers Lose Appeal

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The Cravaers were back on court this week . Both courts.  The results were as expected. Wednesday morning, York County Common Pleas Court Judge John S Kennedy, who presided at their trial, denied separate appeals from the Cravers for retrials. The couple, who earlier escaped death penalty specs, was tried for murder, but convicted on lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of child endangerment, and conspiracy.  They appealed their case on the flimsy grounds that their convictions were “against the weight of the evidence.” The Cravers were charged in the death of their adoptive son Vanya  Skorobogatov  who died of severe beatings and malnutrition  in 2009. In their appeals, the couple argued that with their convictions and probations hanging over their heads, they can’t find work and have been forced to move in with friends.  Michael Craver is reportedly an Air Force veteran and an engineer by profession.. Thrown into the pot (which I’d not seen published  before) was the couple’s request that their court costs of nearly $100,000 be cut  half. Some people just don’t’ know when to quit.when they’re ahead. I disagreed with the flop to involuntary manslaughter and the wrist-slap sentence.  I thought Judge Kennedy equivocated Continue Reading →

Vaclav Havel, 1936-2011: He Had Things to Tell Us If We’ll Listen

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Vaclav Havel, playwright, dissident, former Czech president  died today at the age of 75. His obituary is all over the media. My favorites are the Christian Science Monitor’s, Vaclav Havel:  Remembering the Czech President, Playwright, and Peacenik   David Remnick’s, Postscript: Vlaclav Havel, 1936-2011 in the New Yorker online. I have always believed there is a seamless line between art and politics (excluding Hollywood hacks, HuffPo progs, and Thomas Kinkade). I’m not sure if art or poliltics came first for me, but they have always been one in the other.  Mississippi Freedom Riders, Tuli Kupferberg, Yippie! the early Yoko Ono, Merce Cunningham, Charlotte Moorman, Norman Mailer, Gene McCarthy,  Gore Vidal, Beckett, Ionesco, Big Bill Haywood, The Velvet Underground, Randolph Bourne, Gilbert Seldes, Alfred Nock.  Even Thomas Jeffrerson and Beethoven are part and parcel of my political package tied up in a big red ribbon by Emma Goldman. So, it’s not strange that I came to Havel through theatre, not politics.  I’m hardly an expert on him so I won’t try to write about him.  I want, however, to post a couple things–or rather point you to them.  I am particularity fond of Havel’s essay,  Totalitarianism  and Stories,  (April 1987), which weaves Continue Reading →

Russian Adoptee Reported Murdered in Canada

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Voice of Russia says that a 4-year old Russian-Canadian  adoptee  named Sasha, has been beaten to death by the live-in boyfriend of his Forever Mother. Saturday, Russian Children’s  Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov sent a  tweet about  the death which I’ve read, but offered no other details, and as of this writing there are no additional messages.  No statement has  been published by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science in either Russian or English or by TAR-Tass News Agency or any other Russian online source.  .  I’ll be watching this story. UPDATE: One of my readers, Andraya Charette has pointed out to me that this is an old case from 2002–but that the Russian government  has only now has become aware of it.  The little boy’s name was Sacha Valee.  I have some more information on the case, but it’s late, so I’ll put it up tomorrow probably.. Andraya pointed me to an article published today by the Russian Legal Information Agency (l’l be linking that  publication permanently in my sidebar on Niko) article, Children’s Ombudsman reports death of Russian-born child adopted in Canada..  The article quotes RIA Novisti, which wasn’t listed when I googled earlier this evening: “It is Continue Reading →