Seems these days that just about everything I read ends up having something to do with children/adoption/orphans in one way or another.

I wrote the other day on my personal blog a back-handed tribute to Marcel Maceau ... back-handed only because I am so not a fan of mime ... but learn today that as part of his work in the French Resistance during WWll he evacuated Jewish children hidden in a Paris orphanage to Switzerland.

He... more

A couple of announcements need spreading today.

First, the National Council for Adoption has one out about an upcoming national summit to address parent recruitment and training strategies for children in foster care.

It's to be held in Washington D.C. on the 3rd of October ... Rodney Atkins will be there. The idea is to put together a consensus statement to widely desemminate to educate, policy makers, the media, and the public about the need for adoptive and foster parent recruitment and foster care financing reform.

The contact for info is lallen@adoptioncouncil.org.

Next... more

Yet again, the fabooooolous world of celebrity ... where ever and what ever that may be ... is spreading its imposing ripples into the adoption community pond, and since this is a news blog I suppose I might as well take some of my finite time and energy and waste a bit on disseminating the attention those wavelets demand in the their wet, pathetic little way.

(Can you tell I write this celeb stuff grudgingly? Oh, yes you can!)

The coin toss with this sort of thing is always which way to go ... sublime to ridiculous -- yeah, like the first is possible -- or vice versa.

Okay ... that's settled ...

... more

With open adoption records in the news in Ontario ... a situation we've looked at here and here recently ... this take from the editorial board of a news organization in the Province may be of interest.

Pleased that the Ontario Superior Court struck down the new law that opened adoption records, the article goes into some detail on their position.

Adoption... more

A listening opportunity for those that may be interested, and have a good enough connection, is available on NPR, and I'm hoping they do a better job with this adoption-related story than they did with the All Things Considered ... yeah, right ... mess on Guatemalan adoption that aired recently.

With Elizabeth Bartholet as the guest, I'm guessing it will... more

Continued from the previous post.

It's funny how some topics can get people all up-in-arms excited, indignant, and ready to buy just about anything that's chopped up finely enough for immediate digestion upon swallowing.

What's not funny is what this costs.

This report in the Washington Post does a great job of illustrating just how political maneuvering, posturing, media spin and the like that present a Kilimanjaro... more

Lisa's latest blog on the situation in Guatemala concerning the kids snatched from Casa Quivira started me thinking this morning about political maneuvering, posturing, media spin, and all that rotten business that so often passes as steps in a direction that many are massaged into assuming is a right one.

On the Casa Quivira case, we know that the grab happened just before elections, and that alone should be enough to put questions of timing in everyones' mind, but with a combination of coordinated... more

I am not feeling well this weekend ... all achy with a thumping head and a dodgy stomach ... and perhaps that is why all the news I'm coming across is annoying the dooky out of me, or maybe it's just that we're in a dooky news phase. Either way, consider yourself warned before taking the time to read: you will come to the end of today's blog either annoyed with me, or annoyed with me ... if you get my meaning.

Few global circumstances are as guaranteed to raise my hackles as frustratingly repeatedly than news out of Darfur. It doesn't change. Not even the numbers change, as it seems those counting refugees and dead got tired of the practice a couple of years ago so just keep regurgitating... more

Washington State is looking for foster parents, saying that the gap between kids and potential placements is worrying. As it is now, there are about 8,400 kids in care, but only 5,800 foster homes.

Not only concerned by a lack of available local placements that often results in kids having to be moved to far-flung parts of the state, Washington is also dealing with a legal obligation to increase the number of foster parents by 10% per year as the result of a legal settlement in 2004 filed on behalf of the state's foster kids who had been bounced around, separated... more

Big news out of Canada ... the Ontario Superior Court of Justice struck down the province's new adoption disclosure law that came into effect earlier in the week as a civil rights lawyer launched a constitutional challenge on the grounds that the new legislation 'infringed on privacy'. The law was reportedly challenged on behalf of three adult adoptees and a birth parent.

On his decision, the judge wrote: "A small minority of adoptees and birth parents that wish to protect their privacy ... have every right to do so."

One big issue appears to be the fact that the law was retroactive, according... more