National Adoption Awareness Month: Shilling for Adoption

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Today the adoption industry  launches the 2011 edition of  National Adoption Awareness Month. (NAAM) Bastardette knows you’ve been looking forward to this great event as much as she has. Coincidentally,  today also marks the first day of November NaBloPoMo . No, that’s not an unspeakable sex act.  It’s the November edition of National Blog  Posting Month, a blog ritual for over-zealous bloggers  who promise to blog every day on a designated  topic each month.  Topics that only the most abstract students of 19th century British literature can appreciate fully, such as “return” and “between,”  November, however is  the open month, which means we can choose our own bloviation.  My subject, naturally is adoption. I successfully completed the 2009 November NaBloPoMo none the worse for wear but full of wonderment that I succeeded. . You’d be surprised, though,  at the topics that  land in your brain when you are desperate to cross the finish line. 2010  November NaBloPoMo was more difficult.. I finished exhausted, but finished. This year, due to my summer hiatus I feel up to it–so far. There is so much to write about that surely I can fill up 30 days as easily as filling up water balloon Continue Reading →

Update on Artyom Saveliev: Attempt to Exclude Media Postpones Hearing

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Things just got more complicated in WACAP v  Hansen, (see entry directly below.)  Bedford  (TN) County Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell called a postponement in the hearing scheduled for yesterday, after Torry Hansen’s lawyer, Sandra Smith, filed a last minute motion to exclude the press and public from the hearing.  Smith argued that proceedings and filings in juvenile court are confidential. While this is true, the current case is filed in circuit court and not under seal. I can’t find the motion online, but Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter John Carney quoted Smith’s argument: The mere fact that the matter may be newsworthy should not override the parties’, including those of the minor child, right to confidentiality. Of course this is laughable.  Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy are concerned about Artyom Saveliev’s “confidentiality” after their antics plastered his story and picture around the world, turning the boy into an international incident that nearly shutdown cross-country adoption between Russia and the US? Concerned about somebody’s confidentiality for sure, but not his. WACAP;s Nashville attorney Larry Crain said it best: It is indeed ironic that the same parent who recklessly abandoned her child  by placing him on a one-way flight to Moscow would Continue Reading →

Artyom Savelyev Update: World Associaiton of Children and Parents v Torry Hansen gets trial date in January, hearing today

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I need to do some backtracking on the Artyom Savelyev/Justin Hansen case  The 8-year old Russian abandoned by his adopter mother,  is still in care somewhere in Moscow. Here’s what happening stateside. The lawsuit filed by World Association of Children and Parents, the adoption agency that placed Artyom with his forever mother Torry Hansen, has been scheduled  to be heard  in Bedford County (TN) Circuit Court court on January 3, 2012, a year and a half after it was filed.   Two motions  will be heard later today, though,, one to dismiss; the other to amend the petition. The case is under seal and there are no other details. Sheriff Boyce during press conference The WAPAC suit was filed in May 2010,  a month after Artyom was COD’d back to the Russian Ministry  of Education,  via American Airlines, when Torry Hansen and her mother Nancy decided the boy wasn’t a good fit.  WACAP filed asking to be appointed temporary guardian out of frustration because no one  in Tennessee, the boy’s “home state,” was investigating claims that the Hansens had abandoned and endangered him there.  Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce argued that there was no evidence to indicate that the boy Continue Reading →

Theoconia: My Other (Adoption-Related at times) Blog

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Reproductive libery in Ohio is currently under attack by well-funded national and local organizations and individuals.  They’ve had a lot of bills in the legislatlure this year, including Janet Folger Porter and Jack Willke’s Heartbeat bill , which would virtually outlaw abortion in Ohio.  Leggies  goobbled up even if it is unconstitutional. and will hit the courts the day it’s signed.  IF is the operative world.  I’ll write more about the bill at a later date. For the non-initiated, Folger Porter and Willke are the chief reason original birth certificates remain sealed in Ohio, another topic I’ll be writing about.. We also have Dr. Patrick Johnston organizing the attempt to get a Personhood Amendment on the November 2012 ballot. .  While not exactly about adoption, the usual suspects beyond Folger Porter and Willke,  are involved in these schemes, but not particularly together. Wingnuts don’t always get along with each other.  In fact, the Heartbeat bill has split Ohio Right to Life (more on that later, too). As some of you know I have several blogs. One of them, Theoconia: a Central Ohio Theocon Report, is not related directly to adoption, though sometimes it  is. I’ve been away from Theocnia for Continue Reading →

Twitter Fail – Why is this considered "convenient?"

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OK.  I give up.  Twitter has defeated me. After repeated attempts for months to access the Daily Bastardette Twitter account  I’ve thrown up the white flag. First I don’t exist.  Then I do, but my password doesn’t.  Sometimes my Twitter email account for Bastardette doesn’t exist. Sometimes I don’t exist, but then I’m adopted. I’m keeping Twitter since I get hits from it, I’ve been forced to open a new account. I can’t delete the old account because it won’t let me in.  For those so inclined please go to the left Twitter thingamajig and subscribe. I can also be found under marleygreiner in the Twitter directory.  I wanted to use “Daily Bastardette” but Twitter wouldn’t let me.  Figures. Now if I can just figure out how to add the new Google “share this” icon. It went up automatically on one of my blogs, but not the rest.

How Did We Ever Survive Without Positive Adoption Language Diddlers?

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Someone posted this on the Facebook Adoption News and Events page: 10 Keys to Using Positive Adoption Language   The original positive adoption language spiel was bad enough, but Rachel Wallace Reid, Certified Montessori Teacher and Parent Educator, author of this piece of drivel, has raised the ante to a whole new level of prissy absurdity. Perhaps she read too much Ionesco in college. Take  Rule Key #1: The adoptive parents are the “real” parents.  The real parents are the grown-ups who will take care of the child every day and for the rest of their lives.  When referring to who gave birth to the child, simply say birth parents or birth woman.  A biological father is not referred to as the real father, but the biological one. Birth woman?   It makes me think of Big Foot in a dress dropping babyees in the woods  I am  birth woman, hear me roar! And biological father?. Why not Birth Man?   We wager that the Birth Man population is greatly undercounted, and if a proper census were taken, would far outweigh that of Birth Woman who just happens to be a handy recipient of Birth Man’s love. It only takes him a few seconds to accomplish his task;  it takes her nine months not Continue Reading →

Proper Channels: The Rodney Atkins Reunion and Language

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National Council for Adoption celebrity spokesperson country singer Rodney  Atkins ,has revealed that he was reunited with his natural mother in 2008. The wire picked up the story and it’s all over the map now.  Just one story, though, so there’s no exclusive interviews, no deep insight into Atkins decision to search.  And, thankfully no primal wounding.  It appears that despite Rodney being a family secret until the reunion, the reunion has gone very well. Oh dear!  Do I hear a shoe pounding on heaven’s floor again? Atkins reunion story is nice, normal, and inoffensive except for one sentence: So in August of 2008, Atkins went through the proper channels and reunited with his birth mother in Nashville. Proper channels?  It’s an odd choice of words. Maybe that was the reporter’s choice of words.  Maybe Atkins, the NCFA spokesperson, chose them, stressing that he is a well-behaved adoptee, not some Christmas Day intruder or porch pisser. However… I’ve never seen that term used in any reunion story. Ever. And I’ve been reading them for decades. Proper channels.  The whole thing sets wrong with me, especially since Atkins was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and his information may have been available to him for the asking, no thanks to NCFA’s legal Continue Reading →

Attention Ohio AdoptionLand: Ohio Birthparent Group Invites you to Attend its First Anniversary Event

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The Ohio Birthparent Group is celebrating its first anniversary next month. To celebrate, on Sunday, November 13, the group is holding a special one-day event: Living Adoption: Life-Long Issues in the Birthparent Experience here in Columbus.  The morning session is for parents only; the afternoon session, and educational workshop is open to professionals and the public,  Both  sessions are free, but CEI credits are $20.00 (pre-registration). Brenda Romanchik is guest speaker and facilitator.  Brenda is one of the first persons I met in online AdoptionLand nearly 20 years ago (yikes!).  I’ll be there and I hope my Ohio readers can join us. OPG is not affiliated with any religion and is not sponsored by any adoption agency or facilitator. Here’s more information: LOCATION:   Camp Mary Orton 7925 N. High St. Columbus, OH 43235 In recognition of our First Anniversary, Ohio Birthparent Group invites you to a special National Adoption Month event exploring the experiences of women and men who have placed children for adoption in the U.S. Living Adoption: Life-Long Issues in the Birthparent Experience with guest facilitator Brenda Romanchik, LMSW, ACSW, CTS Sunday, November 13th, 2011 9:00am-12:30pmBirthparent Support Meeting (For Birthparents Only) 2:00pm-4:00pmEducational Workshop for Professionals and Community Members (Open to the Public) / Continue Reading →

Long Awaited Trial of Brian Dykstra to Start October 24

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; Cross posted from Nikto Ne Zabyt–Nichto Ne Zabyto  According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen and the Daily Iowan, the trial of Brian Dykstra, accused of the August 2006 beating death of his adopted Russian son  Isaac Jonathan Dykstra (birth name unknown) will start October 24. A pretrial was held on Thursday to discuss “specifics of how technological issues would be dealt with, especially in reference to the handling of redacted footage,which caused a mistrial in the Charles Thompson homicide trial in September.”  (unrelated to the Dykstra case)  Dykstra, apparently still in  South Carolina, where he lives with his wife, an assistant professor of Spanish  at Clemson University, listened in on the hearing by speaker phone  Earlier this  year prosecutors and defense said they intended to call eleven doctors and 39 witnesses to testify.  The trial is expected to last about eight days. To read more about the case,  including In Memoriam  (Summary of all cases) and Summary of Killers and Sentences,  go to Nikto and click on Isaac’s name in the  “Labels”sidebar at the right..