Who dressed these children?
After quake, many inquiries from Chinese about adoptions
Already, the survivors of China’s earthquake are putting together their own makeshift families. In the Jiuzhou Stadium in Chengdu, where thousands are being housed, volunteer Melody Zhang says she met a “nice-looking” one made up of a mother, a father, a grandfather and two children—from four different families.
“They just naturally took care of each other,” says Ms. Zhang, the associate director of adoption agency Children’s Hope International, who has been delivering supplies in Sichuan province.
As the focus of the earthquake relief effort in Sichuan turns to aiding survivors, China is witnessing an outpouring of requests by other Chinese to adopt children orphaned by the disaster. The provincial Sichuan Internal Affairs Bureau has set up an adoption hotline and says it has received hundreds of enquires from elsewhere in the country. So many people were trying to call it on Friday that the hotline almost always gave a busy signal.
What is one thing you’ve never done that you would like to do?
Got a question for ya’…
What is one thing you’ve never done that you would like to do?
I’ll start.
My father was a B-29 bomber pilot in WW II. The little island of Tinian was captured by the United States in July 1944 and converted into an airbase from which many bombing runs originated including the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dad flew from Tinian and I would love to visit that island.
‘Electric Company’ returning to the air
Sesame Workshop is developing a new, updated version of the 1970s kid’s show The Electric Company for PBS. Shooting on the new program, which will run weekly, probably starting next January, started this week in Manhattan.
The original show, which featured Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno, ran original episodes from 1971-77, and aired reruns through 1985. The new series will consist of 26 half-hour episodes and plans to move into books, games, and digital media.
A hair experiment
Pearle Vision’s Mother’s Day commercial
There was a huge stink on Friday over NBC’s current ’America’s Favorite Mom‘ contest.
On the contest website, moms were categorized as military moms, working moms, single moms or COE “Chairman of Everything” moms. Oh yeah, there was one more category. Grandmothers, stepmoms and moms to adopted children were under the category of “non-mom” moms. No lie.
Those idiots at NBC and Teleflora may not get it but Pearle Vision does. This company ran a 30-second commercial on Mother’s Day with a mother and her two daughters - one biological and one adopted from China. The mother says, “I have seen tears in the eyes of an abandoned child in China. And even though I knew I was taking her to a better place, all she knew is that she was being taken away. I have seen my daughters, born on opposite sides of the earth, become true sisters. But most of all, I have seen that being a mother is not in the blood - it’s in the heart.”
Preach it.
Watch the commercial here and tell Pearle Vision “thank you”.
I think they’re up to something
Twenty is enough
Back in 2003 when my Gospel quartet was traveling around the eastern half of the U.S., we had opportunity to sing along the beautiful Eastern Shore of Virginia one particular weekend.
For our Sunday morning service, we presented a concert at Belle Haven United Methodist Church. This was a memorable little church because there was a husband and wife present who had adopted 12 children from Russia. At the time, the children ranged in age from 3 years up to 16 and they were all there except for one. As you can imagine, the family literally took up an entire pew.
I ran across an online article this morning from November 22, 2007 about a family who had adopted 20 children. As I began reading the article, I quickly discovered that the family in this story was the same family we sang for 5 years ago. Only now they’ve added 8 more children including 2 from from Uzbekistan and 2 from Vietnam!
New rules and economy strain adoption agencies
Faced with a tightening of federal regulations governing foreign adoptions, and suffering from a downturn in business, international adoption agencies in the United States are finding themselves in financial straits and closing their doors in unprecedented numbers, experts say.
At least 15 percent of agencies that specialize in international adoptions have recently shut down, are expected to do so this year or will probably merge with other agencies to survive, according to the National Council for Adoption, an advocacy and education group in Virginia.
In some cases, the closings have come without warning, leaving people without the thousands of dollars in fees they paid to an agency or the child they had thought would finally be theirs.
They have also led to lawsuits and criminal investigations, as some struggling agencies have apparently turned to more desperate business practices to stay afloat.
Iron Man
I went to see a matinee showing of the movie Iron Man this afternoon.
This was one of those flicks that Carmi had no interest in seeing. My brother-in-law tagged along even though he had seen it just a few days ago.
I thought it rocked and it will definitely be in my Christmas stocking.
There were several previews of interest. Let’s see...the new Indiana Jones movie, the new Chronicles of Narnia and The Incredible Hulk. Man, it’s going to be a busy summer.
