MELE KALIKIMAKA; MERRY CHRISTMAS

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

Admittedly, Bastaradette has a warped view of Christmas. Whenever we think of Christmas we think of Hawai’i. This comes from an early and incessant exposure to the Andrews Sisters hit Christmas Island. We also like Leon Redbone’s version, but somebody stole our tape at an office Christmas party years ago, and the version isn’t on YouTube. Despite knowing better, we spent the other evening on YouTube looking for a good video of Christmas Island. Unfortunately, none we found were acceptable for a high class blog like The Daily Bastardette. What we did find, though, is Puka Shells by Ukulele Ray and the KoKoNutz: Puka shellsPuka shellsIt’s Mele Kalikimaka time in the islands… (not to be confused with Arthur Lyman’s Puka Shells) So, kick back with a Suffering Bastard, or two or three, and enjoy.

NCFA HITS UP BASTARDETTE FOR MONEY

Posted on by — 8 Comments ↓

The National Council for Adoption sent me an e-beg letter today. Can I help NCFA raise $60,000 by the end of the year? Tax deductible, of course! I wouldn’t mind this end-of-the-year shill so much (everybody does it), except for this claim: For thirty years the National Council For Adoption has been the authoritative voice for orphans around the world as well as U.S. infants and children waiting to be adopted out of foster care. Today the need to advocate is greater than ever. Consider that intercountry adoption has plunged 27% since last year, 123,000 children in foster care are waiting to be adopted, and the adoption tax credit–which makes adoption affordable–is scheduled to end next year. Something like this can only come from the under-30 crowd that predominates NCFA today who are either unaware of their company’s history or are intent on reinventing it. Ignorance is bliss. Those of us who have been around adoption deform longer than some of the current NCFAnoids have lived can tell you that until recently foster care lived on food stamps in NCFA’s basement. NCFA was formed specifically to keep bastards and their records separated by state fiat and push HWIs into the Continue Reading →

ADOPTEE RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN ISRAEL?

Posted on by — 6 Comments ↓

Does anyone know about the adoptee rights movement in Israel? I didn’t know there was one until tonight when I found this video –Israeli Adoptees in own voices– on YouTube. It’s all in Hebrew, but I’m guessing by the graphics (inlcuding the use of the Origins logo) that records or the treatment of bastards in some other way is problematic. This article in the May 31, 2007 Haaretz Searching for Alma, about Rony David Schwartz’s search for his first mother, doesn’t mention anything about records access, but Schwartz had his mother’s name all along. There’s an email addy with the video and I ithink I’ll follow through on this.      

WHILE GERMANY DEBATES, LITHUANIA LEGALIZES ANONYMOUS ABANDONMENT

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

While Germany debates the ethics and legality of anonymous baby dumping, Ecumenical News Service reports that the Lithuanian government, in conjunction with the country’s Catholic bishops, has opened baby hatches in the capital city Vilnius and Klaipeda, the country’s only seaport. The first hatch is located in a “special room” in the Vilnius Babies’ Foster Home. Babies left will be cared for on the premises. Parents and family members will have three months to visit and reclaim the infant before the state takes permanent custody. Although the “windows of life,” as the hatches are called, were instituted in response to four alleged cases of neonaticide in 2007, they are clearly being marketed as an anti-abortion measure. Richardas Doveika (right), assistant to the secretary of the bishop’s council says, “The church, as a preacher of life, always blesses every pro-life initiative.” The bishops, he says, are considering adding “windows” in church-run hospitals throughout the country, but offers no evidence of need. In fact, I have been unable to find any statistics on the number of abandoned newborns or neonaticides in Lithuania other than the reference to the 2007 cases. Petronele Valatkeviciene, director of the foster home, unaware or uncaring of the Continue Reading →

GOING OUT ON A LIMB: A POST A DAY–MAYBE

Posted on by — 7 Comments ↓

As I wrote on FaceBook yesterday, Bastardette is going out on a limb and will attempt to post an entry every day until the end of the year. There’s certainly enough to write about. And even with the November NaBloPomo, I still need to catch up. Today’s is up, though I may post a second one if I start now. The picture to the left is my Mad Men Yourself self-portrait. I don’t smoke, but if things keep going the way they are in AdoptionLand I may take it up. And Mad Men withdrawal is wiping me out. Still.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM NCFA

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

Bastardette wants to share the Christmas card she got from the National Council for Adoption the other day. Who ARE these people? We used to say don’t trust anybody over the age of 30. Most of NuNCFA is under 30. It almost gives me the creeps. Shouldn’t they be out organizing troops for Sarah Palin or auditioning for Fox News readers? Chuck and Rodney (both over 30) are the only ones we know amongst the happy Santas. BTW, NCFA missed a big photo op by not featuring Rodney, the Red Nosed PR Flack. I heard from a errant sugar plum mouse that Rodney likes it when I call him that. PS: I’d overnight some Krampus gear but New Jersey CARE got all of it.

BASTARD NATION SHOUT OUT!

Posted on by — 6 Comments ↓

Away with euphemisms! Bastard Nation got a shout out today from Politics Daily Woman Up! blogger and poet Donna Trusell. Writing in The Difference between Skanks and an Escort (Thanks, Tiger!) Trusell says: There was a time when an advocacy group called Bastard Nation would have been unthinkable. No, instead you’d see an unwieldy, alphabet-soup name like Adopted Children Together for Open Court Records (ACTOCR, with ochre wrist bands, perhaps). Bastard Nation is a name for our times. Be bastard! Be bitch! Be proud! After all, half the world is an accident. It’s nice when somebody gets language. Now, let’s get some ochre wristbands! Thanks, Donna!

NEW JERSEY: MY CAUSE IS BETTER THAN YOURS. ADOPTEES V GAYS

Posted on by — 11 Comments ↓

A letter in support (I think) of A572 appeared in Thursday’s My NewJersey.com. The writer, Cpt. Peter W. Franklin, believes that adoptee rights are being run over by gay marriage rights. He writes: After decades of debate and compromise, adoption reform should not be sidelined simply because a few prominent Democrat officials insist that this is the “right time” for gay marriage. I simply cannot imagine that denying someone the right to a ceremony can be as cruel and reckless as denying someone their true identity and access to family medical history. The hierarchy of pain has been a big deal in AdoptionLand for as long as I’ve been around. We share Cpt. Franklin’s pain that adoptee rights is not a priority issue with Joisy politicians–or even for the NJCare Krampi who claim to be the voice of NJ adoptee rights. Pushing one cause against the other, however, doesn’t help anything. It only alienates. Who’s to say whose “pain” is greater, or even if there is any “pain?” (Bastardette knows lots of painfree bastards,) There is no relationship between obc access and gay marriage for Pete’s sake. Whining about somebody trying to get something that you have by default is Continue Reading →

BASTARD NATION’S LETTER TO NJ HOUSE SPEAKER JOSEPH ROBERTS, JR–PLEASE OPPOSE A 752. ADOPTEE DESERVE RIGHTS NOT FAVORS!

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

December 10, 2009 Dear Speaker Roberts: Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America opposes A752. We ask that this bill be left to die in committee at the end of this term, without a hearing. If it is heard and passed out of committee, we ask that the bill be voted down on the floor. If passed, this bill will permit some New Jersey adopted adults to receive their true and accurate original birth certificates. Others, through the compromise language of this bill, will receive only a false and mutilated certificate with the name and address of the parent(s) bureaucratically excised by the Department of Health and Senior Services by order of the birthparent(s). Bastard Nation rejects the special right of birthparents to remove their names from the birth certificates of their own adult offspring. No other parent has that right. Why should birthparents have different rules? Since 1999 four states have restored to adoptees the unrestricted right to records and identity access: OregonAlabama, New Hampshire, and Maine through legislation. Why should New Jersey buck the tide and pass a bill that continues to treat adoptee access to their own birth certificates Continue Reading →

NEW JERSEY: ANYTHING TO GET A BILL PASSED. WE LEAVE EVERYBODY BEHIND!

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

Just in time for Krampus (see below) we have New Jersey’s A752 “adoptee rights” bill. Sponsored by NJCare, (aka The Krampi) A752 (aka The Krampus Bill) is one of the worst throw-our-rights away bills on record. The bill, of course, contains the compromiser’s favorite compromise, the “birthparent” disclosure veto. But wait, there’s more! In order to make this veto work, the state extorts a family/medical history from closeted parents. Kind of a pay to play scam. If parents don’t submit the government mandated snoop form in 60 days, then The Bastard gets the obc. Sounds like a violation of HIPAA to me. But wait, there’s more! A752 also contains the whiteout “alternative” that will give adoptees, slapped with a veto, an “original birth certificate” that’s been mutilated by a government censor with a glob of white-out smeared over identifying information including their own names, and the parental addresses at the time of birth. But wait, there’s more! The Krampus Bill automatically seals the obc of all persons anonymously dumped under the state’s “safe haven” law, even if one or both parents are identified on the obc (one of baby dumping’s dirty little secrets). See, a safe haven dump, coerced out Continue Reading →