The things I miss by not watching CNN....

I suppose everyone else caught the video of Paula Zahn doing something tragic with China's new adoption rules, like hosting a show without anyone from adoptive families on the expert panel -- a panel who were saying stuff like:

ZAHN: One more time. Cenk Uygur, Roland Martin, Solangel Maldonado.

Obviously the Chinese government is making it... more

Is there a word for something that's repeated like a canard but that's not necessarily false?

Because there's some familiar speculations (China is running out of brides!) coming from some unusual sources (The Times and, apparently, the Chinese government itself).

Here's the skinny, straight from The... more

One thing I've noticed is that with the stricter regulations for adopting from China, quite a few paperchasing parents have switched from the China program to Vietnam, which just started issuing visas for intercountry adoption again last January.

The regs seem a little simpler...

According... more

It's Christmas. A sweltering hot Christmas, actually. The candy on the gingerbread house has melted in a way nearly completely unlike snow, and I've gotten a sunburn from making a flowerbed as a gift. (Bouquets die, you know.)

One of the odd things for us during the Christmas we spent meeting Daughter was that it was *cold*. That and the slender Santas with jet black eyebrows -- there were lots of them, standing in shop doorways, hovering anxiously and merrily on sidewalks, ringing bells and looking bundled up and maybe a little hungry. I never expected to see quite so many Santas anywhere... more

Brian Stuy has an interesting take on the new adoption rules -- the tightening of China's requirements might have more to do with other countries that American families adopt from, not children in China.

But is is also interesting to note the number of visas that were issued to other countries.

Russia fell from the number two exporter of children to the U.S. by declining 21% from 4,639 in 2005 to 3,706 in 2006. This continues a decline that began in 2004, and Russia is down almost 40% from its peak. Korea, Ukraine and several other "smaller" countries also saw declines. In fact, of the four... more

The mainstream media is paying attention to something I'd expect only adoptive parents (in our odd little world off the mainstream) to care about. The NY Times writes about the new adoption regulations. Front page of the national section, too....

China plans to tighten rules on foreign adoptions, barring people who are single,... more

The Rumor Queen is reporting quite a bit on the latest word from the China Center for Adoption Affairs regarding stricter requirements for adopting families and longer waiting times.

I always sort of assume if you're reading this and interested in this stuff, you've probably read it elsewhere, but this is a fairly big deal, so just in case -- here's what I'm talking about:

...[T]he number of dossiers is 2 times the number of children... more

By the way, reading the English-language China Daily front page today, my eyes were immediately drawn to the section titled "Do You Know?" because I like to know things.

There are three items in there, each chosen by the editors to be of interest to English speakers reading their newspaper.

Two are on adoption. One is on expatriate job seeking. Here, look:

So, reading the... more

The last mail-out from Blessed Kids had a link to this pretty interesting blog entry. It's by Dirk Hohndel, a German-American adoptive dad (and open source fan!), who was interviewed by the Chinese press about adopting his twins from China.

Adele at Blessed Kids translated the article from Open Source iWorld Monthly, and Mr. Hohndel stuck it up on his blog over yonder.

Worth a read from the other side of the looking glass....

However,... more

Over at Brian Stuy's blog, he's reprinting a three-part feature from the Chinese press on the Hunan baby-trafficking scandal. Translated into English.

From his intro:

But a survey of orphanage directors reveals that little has changed -- a few staff meetings, an official memo or two, but fundamentally the policies and procedures remain unchanged from those in place over a year ago. No significant safe-guards have been installed to keep trafficked, or abducted children for that matter, from being adopted through the highly lucrative foreign adoption program.

In... more