Angelina Jolie

"In Touch" magazine reports the tale of Mentewah Dawit Lebiso, 24, the mother of Zahara with a stunning photo of the young woman in which anyone can clearly see that mother and daughter are almost identical.


The article tells how a middleman lied to authorities that Mentewah was dead and is now threatening her and her mother for revealing the truth.

Jolie's supporters quickly point that she truly believed the lies told to her, though they reported as lies almost immediately. Does it exonerate purchases of stolen merchandise if they believed the merchandise was not stolen? Furthermore, they neglect to mention that Jolie was adopting from people who were later charged with fraud. Did she lack the resources to check and be sure she only dealt wit reputable adoption agencies?

Nor was this the first time. Lauryn Galindo, who helped Jolie adopt her Cambodian son, Maddox, pleaded guilty to visa fraud and money laundering as part of a ring that paid poor Cambodian women as little as $100 or less for their children. The agency which handled hundreds of such adoptions charged fees of $10,000. In that adoption, too, she feigned shock to find out that Maddox's mother was also not deceased as had been reported.

Coming to Jolie's support are such notable adoption "experts" as Rosie O'Donnell and people such as Bill O'Reiley quotes as saying: "I would not give the baby back" when that is not even the issue at had.

The issue is quite simply allowing each of her chidlren to visit their families as they have requested and were promised. The only dingbat with anything sensible say on the subject odd;y enough, is Joan Rivers who laments all the US kids going ignored as people "shop" overseas for their souvenirs.

Actually, it's not too surprising that of all the children in all the world that Angelina Jolie chose to adopt, two - at least - were not orphans. Worldwide 8-0% of chidlren in orphanages have family who visit and hope to be reunited, as was the case with Madonna's adoption of David Banda. People who cannt read and or write and who's language does not contain the word adoption as we know it - are easily convinced that their chidlren are being taken to the US to be educated and returned. Their ignorance is thus exploited by those who pat themselves on the back for "rescuing" them...claiming them to be AIDS orphans, or starving, or whatever...

And, to add salt to these open wounds, Angelina's brother, James Haven lets all the world know that only of Angie's kids is his true niece, sporting a license plate with Shiloh's name!

MOMS LIVING CLEAN - Documentary

Good News: The documentary MOMS LIVING CLEAN has just received a small grant from the Open Meadows Foundation toward completion. I am also pleased to tell you that steady progress is being made with editing this feature length film.

MOMS LIVING CLEAN chronicles the two year journey of six moms in a women and children’s residential substance abuse treatment program as they transform their lives and re-enter the community. Their stories unfold against the myth that they are untreatable, and America’s war on drugs, which has sent record numbers of women to prison and their children into an overburdened foster care system. The film reveals the women’s childhood exposure to drugs, alcohol and domestic violence. These intimate portraits explore the challenges of addiction and recovery, economic hardship and motherhood. Through group work, writing assignments and the rehab program’s 20 concepts for living, the moms gain confidence, pride and integrity, develop parenting skills and become self-sufficient. This groundbreaking film makes the case for whole-family treatment, where mother and children stay together, as an alternative to incarceration and breaking family ties. For more information visit: http://www.momslivingclean.org

Our goals are to combat the stereotypes and stigma surrounding mothers with substance abuse issues, promote more whole-family residential treatment programs, and inspire women and men in recovery. There are less than 40 programs like this in the U.S. today. That’s not even one per state.

“I have viewed a rough-cut of MOMS LIVING CLEAN and am moved by the deeply personal and engaging stories of vulnerable mothers powerfully committed to their sobriety and to their families. The film shines the light on effective interventions for parental addiction. MOMS LIVING CLEAN will help turn the tide of stigma and punitive laws by generating community support through education and understanding about the real lives of mothers in recovery. Public opinion is critical to influencing funding of programs for family-oriented treatment, as an alternative to sentencing mothers to prison and their children to foster care.”
Malika Saada Saar, Executive Director
The Rebecca Project for Human Rights
Washington, DC

Please help us finish MOMS LIVING CLEAN in 2008. We are currently seeking $30,000 to complete editing and prepare the film for public television broadcast. While I continue to research and apply to foundations for funding, they are limited in number and very competitive. So individuals like you can make a significant difference to keep the project moving forward. A donation in any amount will go a long way.

With a $100 donation your name will be in the credits of the film. You can make a donation right now on the film’s website at http://www.momslivingclean.org . Just click on the Donation button and type in the amount you want to contribute. You will receive a Thank You letter for your generous donation from the filmmaker, Sheila Ganz.

The non-profit fiscal sponsor for MOMS LIVING CLEAN is Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco, CA. http://www.filmarts.org If you want your donation to be tax-deductible make your check out to “Film Arts Foundation” and send to:

Sheila Ganz, Producer/Director
Pandora’s Box Productions
1546 Great Highway, Suite 44
San Francisco, CA 94122

A few facts: Since the 1986 federal government ‘war on drugs’ mandatory sentencing, the number of women in prison has risen 400 percent and 800 percent for African American women. Most of the women and mothers incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses are suffering with substance abuse issues. The underlying reasons for addiction in 97 percent of women with substance abuse problems are untreated post-traumatic stress and/or depression precipitated by sexual and domestic violence. When a newborn tests positive for drugs they are taken away from their mother and put in foster care. Termination of parental rights has outrun actual adoptions, creating a generation of legal orphans. The children bounce from foster home to foster home, with no ties to their birthparents and no hope of adoption.


Mothers in a similar rehab treatment program attended a recent work-in-progress screening. I have a note on my computer which says, “Make them feel like they can do it.” In the written feedback from the women… four out of nine wrote that if the women in the film could do it, stay clean, then she could do it, too. The film isn’t done, yet the message is getting through!

People ask me, why am I making this film? In 1969, I was an ‘unwed mother’ and resident in a home for unwed mothers the last two months of my pregnancy where I was given no choice but to relinquish my daughter for adoption. For years I wondered, “Why can’t there be homes to help mothers keep their children?” So, after my first documentary UNLOCKING THE HEART OF ADOPTION launched on public television, I decided to find a program that does just that. Since it was completed UNLOCKING… has been distributed to adoption agencies and colleges worldwide, screened at numerous conferences around the country and changed many people’s lives. I hope that MOMS LIVING CLEAN will be even more successful. For info visit: http://www.unlockingtheheart.com .

Experts now agree that the most productive way for society to deal with substance abuse is to treat it as a health issue rather than punitively. By helping the mother to stay in recovery and become self-sufficient, she will be able care for her children and end the cycle of abuse and neglect. We hope you will join us in supporting whole-family treatment programs for mothers who want a chance to make a better life for themselves and their children. Thank you!

Wishing you and yours Healthy and Happy Holidays!

Best wishes,

Sheila Ganz
momslivingclean@att.net
http://www.momslivingclean.org
http://www.unlockingtheheart.com

PLEASE FORWARD FREELY. THANK YOU!

Compassion: Part II -- Caring About Crack Whores

This is a follow up to my Nov. 29 Post. It focuses specifically on women's meanness to women.

“Mean girls don't stay in high school forever. They're at college, at work, and even at church. The hurt from gossip, insults, and cutthroat competition doesn't stop after high school, either. In fact, the kind of meanness experienced by adult women can cut to the core just as quick, if not quicker, than it did when they were teenagers.” From the description of Mean Girls all grown Up: Surviving Catty and Conniving Women by Hayley DiMarco.No longer online is a column from the Orlando Sentinel (Jan 05) "Cliques not Just for Kids: Being Snubbed Hurts Women." But you can still access: “From Mean Girls to Mean Women: 5 Tips to Surviving an Impossible Work Environment: Dealing with Female Coworkers”

Although geared to the work place, meanness, competitiveness and jalousies have no limits. “Woman's Inhumanity to Woman” by Phyllis Chesler makes it clear that women can be vicious tone another in families, and betray their friends. Chesler draws on the most important studies in psychology, human aggression, anthropology, childhood developmental theory, primatology, evolutionary theory, psychoanalytic theory, myths and fairy tales, literature, plays, biography, autobiography, memoirs, and studies of revolutionary movements, including feminism. She also shares the findings of hundreds of original interviews conducted over a period of more than twenty years.

As I mentioned in my previous blog on this subject, it is human nature to look around and say to oneself: "I'm not like him; he has had dozens of DWIs, I've only had one." "I'm not like her, she has slept with so many men she can't even count them" or "I've never had an STD." We do this almost instinctively to feel better about ourselves.

And so -- sadly -- even among mothers who have been so denigrated, shamed, put-down, humiliated, and totally misunderstood by the general public...that mothers put one another down whether overtly or covertly.

Who amongst us has not whispered to a friend, "How could she have..." about some aspect of a mother's story that was not within the typical stereotype? Who amongst us have not said or heard it said that someone was not a good candidate for as campaign to help someone in a contested adoption because her boyfriend was in jail or because she had other children taken from her?

Amazingly, even those working toward family preservation...which by definition means helping families in crisis are picky and choosy about what types of crisis we will dirty our hands - and soil our "reputations" by associating with. Secind to poverty, drugs is the biggest cause of mothers loosing custody. And yet many small trial programs have proven successful in helping such fmailies. Family Preservationists need to let go of their haughty attitudes and embrace our sisters who need our support. Instead, we label mothers "abusers" though many are just as victimized as any mother who "voluntarily relinquished." But our need to feel better about ourselves causes us to categorize and make ourselves "better" than "others."

And our final insult is to call a mother a "Crack Whore" even while we get hysterical if someone else does!

So, as Bastard Nation has taken the worst thing said about adoptees and wear it proudly...as gays have taken queer as their own...I too embrace all so-called "Crack Whores" and beseach my sisters...she amongst us who is without sin, let her cast the first stone. For myself, I spent the 60's doing what most young people alive then did...guess that makes me a Crack Whore!


If you want to celebrate you inner crack whore with me, you can get groovy tee shirts and other goodies at Cafe Press.

Broken Family Leads to Murder Once More

In 2002 he was made a ward of the state and later bounced from foster care to his father’s home to jail. Last year state supervision was terminated by agreement of the court, the state, his therapist and his father.

His foster parents threw him out, he was fired from his job at McDonald's and his girlfriend broke up with him.

One report described him as "a young man facing depression, alienation, abandonment, rejection."

His name is Robert A. Hawkins. He was 19 when he shot and killed eight people in an Omaha mall, and himself.

His suicide note sad “he was sorry for everything, that he didn’t want to be a burden to anybody, he loved his family, he loved all of his friends. He was a piece of shit all of his life and now he’ll be famous....

"I'm so sorry for what I've put you through. I never meant to hurt all of you so much and I don't blame any one of you for disowning me," he wrote.

His friend's mother, Debora Maruca Kovac, told the Associated Press news agency that when he first came to live with them, "he was introverted, a troubled young man who was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted".


“The tragedy was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate quality services for a youth who needed it,” said Todd Landry, director of the Division of Children and Family Services.

No End to "Legal" Abandonment

Just in case there's not a firehouse or hospital near you - not to worry...as long as you've got a computer.

Now it has been deemed NOT illegal to post unwanted tots on Criagslist!

"This beautiful newborn baby boy of age 9/10 months old, is reported as healthy and calm, A family with approved home study is preferred but all others are accepted on a case by case basis."

Reported healthy? Who is advertising the infant?

State child welfare officials say they’re not investigating a Central Texas family who put their child up for adoption on the Internet. But according to the AP report, "While officials say it’s a risky move, it’s not illegal unless the couple was soliciting money."

Why is snot abandonment if it is in fact the child's mother, or kidnapping if it's not?

Compassion

May we see through the eyes of the Buddha that God is
everywhere: "God is asleep in each stone, God dreams
in the plants, God awakens in the animals and God
becomes conscious in the human form."

Buddhism teaches that all living things are
interconnected. The joy and suffering of others is our
own, just as our thoughts and feelings touch everyone
else. With this understanding we can embrace all
living things in the manner that we desire to be
embraced. When we are one with all, we are one with
God. This is the true essence of compassion. Let us
all follow the example of the Buddha, and may we
dedicate ourselves to being compassionate in this
world.

Loss is anger producing. Whether you've lost your keys and are storming around the house cursing and beating up yourself or blaming someone else for having moved them...or whether a loved one has died. Hurt is also at the base of most anger. Hurt and loss are deep emotions and no matter how much we 'deal' with them, they resurface.

Self-doubt, criticism, and control - or feeling lack thereof - are likewise universal triggering emotions.

To judge is inborn. We need to make judgments all the time to survive. Is it safe to cross the street? Is that pill gonna help me or hurt me more? But we get into splitting hair judgments like the lyrics of the Rolling Stone: "He can't be a man 'cause he desn;t smoke the same cigarettes as me."

All of these are issues for those who have experienced adoption loss, and all are anger inducing. Some of us have better coping skills than others. Some of us keep them bottled up, or even in total denial for years, decade, or all of our lives. Many of us are very acutely in touch with our anger just below the surface.

It never ceases to sadden me when our anger gets let loose on one another - on our sisters and brothers who have suffered the same or similar loss as we have and instead of being able to get in touch with our compassion - we lash out with anger instead.

It's a constant struggle, but one we must never give up on.

Divided we FAIL.

There are far too few of us on the side of adoption reform and family preservation. We cannot afford in-fighting to divide us and reduce our numbers further.

In the 1960's I was involved a therapeutic group situation in which one of our many mottoes was "act as if until the act as if becomes real." This is the basis of behavioral modification. If we meet someone who's situation or circumstances are different from our own and we do not fully understand that person, act as if we do and remember that they too deserve COMPASSION. part of being compassionate is taking people on their word, believing the best of them rather than the worst.

Sometimes asking, in itself, can feel like a judgment or a challenge, as opposed to just taking the time to get to know someone who's life experience is different from your own. Just listen and learn with an open mind, looking for the similarities, and not pouncing on the differences.

I have also learned that it is common in self-help and 12-step groups which are the coming together of people with "issues" - that it is human nature to look around the room and say to oneself: "I'm not like him; he has had dozens of DWIs, I've only had one." "I'm not like her, she has slept with so many men she can't even count them" or "I've never had an STD." We do this almost instinctively to feel better about ourselves.

This happens all the time in face-to-face support groups. Now, in 2007, so much of our "interpersonal" communication is neither interpersonal nor communication. It's letters and words typed by our fingers and sent through cyberspace without the benefit of voice or facial expression...devoid of 85% of what communication is. This adds yet anothe layer of difficulty. Instead of feeling oneness with our sister and brother in the same boat with us, we are fighting with them for the oars and life preservers and the right to even be in the boat!

All of that triggers the anger that brews and stews so close beneath our surface at all times; like a tiger ready to ounce at any given second....and you have a very explosive situation that leads to more misunderstanding and divisiveness than cooperation.

It's a challenge. I know it is for me! I have often gone back and re-read something I had initially reacted to and saw things I did not see it in it at all. I have also re-read my own replies and seen how they were misinterpreted.

Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

If we are to use these means of communication, we need to be hyper vigilant to try not to interpret everything in a negative way and allow it cause divisions between us when we share a common goal.

We get so much misunderstanding and judgment from "others" it is epsecially cruel to feel as if we are getting from one another...

'Tis the season...

The WHOLE Truth

I have read several articles lately blasting Reuters for revealing that Angelina Jolie's adopted daughter Zahara's mother was raped. the writers of these blogs and letters claim that the child will be scared by this revelation. That is was an invasion of her privacy. That she would be "taunted" because of her mother's maltreatment.

The belief that lies are better than truth...that we need to be "protected" from our own reality never ceases to amaze me.

Zahara will be far more scarred knowing that her mother and grandmother were victimized, not just by her mother's rapist...but by the cut-throat baby brokers who stole her form her family when they sought help.

there have been lies and counter-cover-ups from the day Zahara was adopted. Now, the Mail, the UK newspaper that first revealed the lie that Zahara's mother was alive not dead ahas gone back and filled in all the details with the whole truth in the article: "Why did an adoption agency tell Angelina Jolie I had died of AIDS when they gave her my baby?"

It has likewise been revealed that 1,000 of the 3700 Guatemalan adoption in 'the pipeline" by US prospective adopters...are "questionable" in the dame way...mothers lied to, duped, babies kidnapped against their wishes...

The question begs to be answered: If people like Angelina Jolie and Madonna with all their wealth and reosurces believe that they are ding good by being the recipients of stolen babies...albeit unbeknownst to them at the onset...how can anyone be sure that thy are doing good in internationally adopting?

And...with all their wealth and resources why have neither of these women brought their babies back to visit the family who begs ot see them? Or even sent photographs?

Those concerned about what Zahara will think when she grows up ought to ask how she will feel about those questions.