Tennessee Convolution: A Resource

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Kansas, Alaska, Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine are the only states that recognize the right of all adopted persons, without exception, to receive their original birth certificates upon request. Deformers, however, attempting to foist their capitulation obc bills as the real deal, like to cook the books, adding other states, with conditional access to the list. They fail to mention those states are compromised and restrictive. To deformers, it appears, any state that offers some access, must be an open state. You can count on Tennessee to be at the top of their revisionist list. Around 1999, a couple years into the law, I received an email from a Tennessee bastard who refused to play along. In good faith he’d signed two or three affidavits and had been waiting 18 months to get his cert. Every time he inquired about his request, he’d get back more forms to sign. The last time I heard from him he said he’d decided to pay a searcher rather than continue to play ring around the bureaucrat. In 2000 I attended an adoption conference which featured the administrator of the Tennessee obc release program. She’d started the job only a couple day before Continue Reading →

Texas Blank Slate: Adopters Have No Right to Background Information

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More tales from the wacky world of adoption. I am only going by the news article I’m using below. I’d like to think there is more to this story but since it’s Texas and the topic is adoption… WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth reports that the Texas Attorney General has told would-be adopters “Phillip” and “Sara” that they have no right to know the background of the four children they were adopting from the state’s foster care program. In 2008, already the parents of five biological children, the Arizona couple was suckered by a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services flyer advertising a sibling group. Before they knew it, instead of adopting one child as planned, they were hooked on the sibs. Although the sibs had suffered “some neglect and physical abuse,” Texas authorities, they claim, told them the kids, ages, 3, 4, 5,and 6 were healthy and not in therapy. They were assured that the children had suffered no sexual abuse. Within a couple weeks of arrival at their new home, the two oldest were molesting the younger bio kids. The Arizona placement agency the couple worked with told them to contact their Texas caseworker. The paperwork they received back Continue Reading →

Small Update on BJ Lifton

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I’ll be updating and expanding last night’s post on BJ Lifton’s passing. In the meantime I have a couple updates from Facebook. As I learn more I’ll post it here. BJ’s husband Bob, posted this on FB tonight I am Robert Jay Lifton, and write to convey the extremely painful and deeply sad news that BJ, my wife of 58 years and lifelong partner, died on Nov. 19 in Mass Gen Hosp of complications of pneumonia. I want to thank you for your overwhelming outpouring of loving testimonials. We are planning a memorial and will notify you of its date. Also on Facebook Cathie Hanlon has organized A Moment in Memory of BJ Lifton: Stop for a moment, say a prayer for her family. Remember BJ’s fortitude. She spoke for us all! She was our voice who sought the truth for us all! Click on the link to “attend.” Of course, you can do this on your own, too.

We Lose Another One: B J Lifton

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At 11:45 tonight B J Lifton died. I don’t have the details but I know she had been hospitalized with pneumonia for the past week. I haven’t seen any details yet, but I’m sure some will be forthcoming tomorrow. I first read BJ’s books in 1980, right after I got I got my obc. I took Lost & Found out of the Ohio State University Library. It was old and beat up having undergone numerous readings. I was stunned that somebody was actually writing about adoptees from an “us” POV. ” Although I didn’t agree with everything she said, I was hooked. For the longest time I was convinced that nobody else would ever write about adoption, at least not that way. In a way I was right. I didn’t meet BJ until about 17 years later during the AAC Seattle conference. She had joined Bastard Nation. And boy, were we excited to have such a prominent member. Alfie and I were in the hospitality suite. Alfie was dressed as a cow and I was wearing a big red devil’s tail. Shea was with the band. BJ took my hand. I didn’t know what to say. All I could think Continue Reading →

Exclusive Video from the Willard: What the American Adoption Industry Doesn’t Want You to See

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This afternoon Bastardette and her news team arrived in Washington to cover the National Council for Adoption’s 30th anniversary festivities at The Willard. Earlier this evening, we shot this exclusive footage of what happens behind the closed doors of adoption industry privilege and money– where the industry believes it is safe from the prying eyes of the public. We believe this expose of the industry and it sycophants frolicking and fighting while our birth certificates remain sealed will shock the public into action. We have had an exhausting day. I need to retire to my $339/night room to clean up. I’ll resume resume regular blogging tomorrow.

Birth Certificate Webinar: What the Adoption Industry Thinks of NJ’s Compromise Bill

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I was going to write about something else tonight, but then this came along on Facebook (thank you Claud!). I couldn’t resist: Adoption – The Open Birth Certificate Webinar sponsored by the New Jersey State Bar Association. Don’t expect to catch a break. The NJ Bar opposes your right to your own birth certificate The webinar will be held Thursday (November 18) from noon to 1:00 PM. The Convenor is Daniel M Serviss, a family law attorney in New Jersey with Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith and Davis. He is not a member of Quad A (The American Academy of Adoption Attorneys) which also hates bastards except when members can make a bag of money facilitating their transfer from inappropriate birther wombs to appropriate adopter cradles. Bastard Nation leaves no one behind, and it’s no secret that BN and Bastardette oppose the current NJ piece-a-crap AB1399/1406/S799. But we also oppose the NJ Bar’s bright bulb (see below): the Confidential Intermediary System. You know, when the state hires low-paid functionaries and contractors to hunt down parents in hiding so you don’t have to. Even compliant compromisers hate this. Here is Bastard Nation’s policy paper on CI’s, The Intermediary System is not the Solution, Continue Reading →

National Council for Adoption Saves Adoption in the US!

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As you may remember, Thursday marks the National Council for Adoption’s 30th anniversary bash at The Willard. Black Tie and Pearls will serve up (we assume) a high class menu and honor several adoption merchants. One of the lucky winners is Fred Riley, former NCFA board member and project director for L-d-S Humanitarian Services who’s being inducted into the NCFA Adoption Hall of Fame. I guess Mormons consider keeping our birth records sealed an “humanitarian” mandate. Tonight I found a NCFA press release printed in the Deseret News (Utah) regarding Mr. Riley’s induction. I say press release because it reads like one and refers readers to “our” website as in “More information is available on our website” Mr. Riley, of course, is thrilled to be honored by the organization he has served so well and has done so much to keep bastards in thrall of state and (his) church. In case you’re wondering he joins such HOF luminaries Bertha Holt, Sen. Tom Delay, Rep. Tom Bliley, Sen. Larry Wide-Stance Craig, and a bunch of Mormons most of us have never heard of. To be fair, a number of relatively normal people, who may have no idea what they’ve been sucked Continue Reading →

Boaz: Adoptees as Merchandise, a Video

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Forgive me, but OMG! I’m still strapped for time today and decided to post a video. So I went over to YouTube, and typed in “Edna Gladney” to give me some ideas. There’s the usual Dame Emma luv bombs, but suddenly: How to Have Amazing Customer Service featuring…. the Gladney Center. produced by Boaz for Boaz PowerTV. Taking your life to the next level. Standing in front of the Fort Worth Gladney “campus.” mic in hand, the other one hanging free to pick your pocket. Now, I’d never heard of Boaz until I spotted this YouTube curiosity. Googling, I found that Boaz is motivational speaker Boaz Rauchwerger (American Airlines, Xerox, and other Wall Street corpos). Like Madonna and Slash, he prefers to go by one name. Not surprisingly, Boaz, the motivational speaker, is perpetually cheery and loves adoption. Some years back, he and Mrs. Boaz acquired two infants from Gladney: Rena and Adam. You just know where this is going. Gladney Boaz in his best D. James Kennedy voice, tells us, is #1 in customer fulfillment. I picture a phone bank of pretty and prego CSR’s standing by to answer your calls now. Images of baybees sliding down chutes on Continue Reading →

Chinese Adoptions to the US: Older Than You Think

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The history of adoption, like our own individual history as adoptees is often hidden, forgotten or never recorded. While we recover our own pasts and the rights taken from us, it is also important to recover the lost history of adoption. It is part of us. We own it. When we think of Chinese-US cross border adoption, for instance, we think of the 1990s and beyond. The truth is, the “placement” of Chinese children to the US began much earlier, in the 1950s, when Chinese refugee children from Hong Kong were sent to the United States to be adopted by Chinese-American and American couples. News to you? It was to me! Google “Hong Kong Project” and see what you come up with. Friday I attended a lecture at Ohio State by Catherine Centiza Shoy, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at UC-Berkeley. The lecture was part of OSU’s Center for Historical Research’s ongoing seminar The Intersection of Diaspora. Immigration and Gender in World History. Choy’s topic: “The Hong Kong Project: A History of Chinese International Adoption in the United States.” Prof. Choy is not adopted. She developed an interest in Asian-US adoption when Korean-American adoptees, trying to fill in some Continue Reading →

Plug for Adoption Secrecy: Taking Off the Gloves

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I’m working on a couple long pieces and having a hard time getting a handle on them. So tonight I’m sharing with you the great news that Joanne Swanson is kickin’ out the jams with her new blog Adoption Secrecy: Taking Off the Gloves. Jo predates many of us in the movement. A long-time activist with a mile of filing cabinets, she knows where all the bodies are buried, and she’s digging them up. My favorite post so far is Joe D. Tennenbaum, Protector of Women’s Virtue. I was aware of most of adoption pimp Tennenbaum’s “problems,” but didn’t feel I had enough of a backstory to write something that made sense–if sense can be made of Tennenbaum and his management style. I’m so glad that there is now a proper repository we can all refer to. This is very strong, ugly stuff that goes to the heart of adoption corruption and beyond. I took the above picture of Jo at the AAC in Falls Church back in 1999 . She’s selling her infamous buttons.