OCR Text |
Show Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Views&Opinion Page 13 | NEW PRICING AT TOP TEN VIDEO Madonna, Malawi and adoption madness he controversy surrounding the attempt by Madonna to adopt a second child from an orphanage in Malawi brings to light the confusing situation in international adoption. On Friday, a judge in that nation rejected the singer's adoption request on the grounds that waiving an 18-month residency requirement would set a dangerous precedent. Madonna was granted such an exemption when she adopted a Malawian boy in 2006. This is just another example of how the intricacies of each country's legal system, cultural mores and poverty level intersect with the guidelines of The Hague treaty on intercountry adoptions. .The result has been a decline in the number of orphans from developing countries being adopted by Americans. While adoptions become more difficult, the number of orphans grows, especially in Africa because of the tragedy of the AIDS crisis. Malawi has an estimated 1 million orphans, and untold numbers of orphans languish in other African countries as well as in Romania, •Russia, China and Latin America. In addition to the systemic impediments, there is a rising attitude of nationalism, which holds that children born in a country "belong" to that country and should not be adopted by foreigners. This stance is T a form of modern-day slavery, which in effect holds individuals hostage to nebulous ideas of culture and race. The needs of human infants and children are universal and have no relationship to what country, racial group or political system one is born into. These orphaned children do not have a voice and are therefore used as political, financial and cultural pawns. Research led by Charles H. Zeanah Jr. of Tulane University and Charles A. Nelson III of Harvard University and Children's Hospital in Boston and published in 2007 found that institutionalization of children results in serious adverse affects on IQ. Each day spent in an orphanage compromises the individual's long-term quality of life and exposes him or her to disease, malnutrition and severe neglect. There is no legitimate rationale for keeping a child in an orphanage when a viable alternative exists, and yet the wait times for adoptive parents have been growing in many countries - with adoptions from China, for example, taking as long as three years to complete. Among the Chinese regulations is one that an adoptive parent cannot have a body mass index above a certain level. Perhaps a new study could compare people raised in orphanages with those raised by overweight people, just to make sure the priorities are correct. The concerns about Madonna's latest adoption request seem to focus on superficial aspects such as what she was wearing when she toured the orphanage, her wealth, her race and her celebrity. What difference could these things make when weighed against the reality of the life the little girl she sought to adopt might face if left in the orphanage? The questions that should be asked - "Does a viable alternative to the orphanage exist for this little girl in Malawi, and does it exist now? Is there someone there who is willing and able to give her the love and care that is needed by all children?" - are subsumed by ridiculous snarking about clothes and statements about what Madonna "should" do instead of adopting this child. Meanwhile, a fleshand-blood child waits for someone to come to his or her senses and consider her legitimate and immediate needs. In discussing the findings of the study by Zeanah and Nelson, Seth Pollak of the University of Wisconsin noted, "The evidence seems to say that for humans, we need a lot of responsive care-giving, an adult who recognizes our distinct cry and knows when we're hungry or in pain." Notwithstanding the fact that it has taken centuries of human evolution and a multi-university study to come to such Millions of reasons to be mad I f you pay even cursory attention to the financial commentators these days, you've probably heard a lot of muttering about "populist anger" that could push Washington into "overreacting" to the nation's financial and economic crisis. Populism is a slippery noun, but so far anyway, nobody seems to be demanding a silver-backed currency or arguing for the single tax. What we are seeing, in fact, is popular anger, and if you want to better understand why, consider a couple of sets of numbers released Friday. The first is the national unemployment rate, which stands at 8.5 percent, the highest level in more than a quarter of a century. Most economists believe the figure actually understates the jobs crisis because a record number of unemployed workers have simply stopped looking, and those who continue to search are taking a record amount of time to find a job. Moreover, according to labor economists, when people do find new employment, it often pays less, in part because an oversupply of jobseekers is exerting downward pressure on wages. That has further depressed consumer spending, which is required for any real economic recovery. To make matters worse, the average workweek in sectors paying hourly wages has shrunk to a record low of 33 hours. If you really want to cringe, consider those statistics against the historical picture that's been developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Frank Levy, called "a leading scholar of income trends" by The Wall Street Journal. His work shows that although American families' incomes more than doubled in the years between the end of World War II and 1980, they haven't - when measured in constant dollars - risen since. In fact, during the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, they actually fell. Meanwhile, from 1986 to 2005, the median annual income of the nation's wealthiest 1 percent of households actually increased by $250,000. Nice work, if you can get it. The other set of numbers that help explain some of the anger circulating at the moment came in an annual survey of CEO pay commissioned by the Journal. For only the second time in two decades, the median compensation paid to people who run the 200 largest U.S. companies fell - though you're unlikely to run into them at the local food pantry, because the average CEO still makes $2.24 million a year. That represents an 8.5 percent decline over last year. But burrow into the numbers a bit and you'll discover that the decrease was entirely attributable to smaller performance bonuses and the falling value of stock given as direct compensation. The CEOs' base salaries actually grew by 4.5 percent. In other words, the very people who laid off millions of American workers, involuntarily furloughed hundreds of thousands of others, demanded that their employees take pay cuts and froze pensions and benefits gave themselves a raise. These are the people who helped run the world economy into a ditch - is it any wonder the rest of us are angry? This column was written by Tim Rutten, a Los Angeies Times columnist. a no-brainer conclusion, it is heartening that the need for love and care is being acknowledged as the pre-eminent issue when making decisions about what is best for an individual child. The vast numbers of orphans suggest that adoption will be the answer only for a small minority of individuals, and for those individuals it is a blessing. But it is clear that the institutionalization of children must end and a new system must take its place. And that will happen only by honest discussion of the true realities of life lived by a child in an orphanage today. $ 1 PER MOVIE HEW RELEASE MOVIES • 24 HOUR RENTAL - $1.00 each ALL OTHER MOVIES (30,000 MOVIES) • 7 DAY RENTAL - $1.00 each Rent «s many movie* (DVD or VMS) as you 8ke a«d keep them one week - only one dollar each! 87 North Main • Open 10:00-8:00 p.m. This editorial was written for the Los Angeles Times by Beth Nonte Russell, author of "Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China" and the founder of Golden Phoenix Foundation. Happy Graduation! Free Apple Care $30oftaniTouch With the purchase of a new MacBook LEI UtahStateUniversity BOOK SlORE Single Student Apartments Across the Street from Campus Fully Furnished Private Bedrooms and Bathrooms Desk, Bed, Bookshelves in Bedrooms Large Closets - Vacuum Living Room with TV, DVD, and VCR Modern Fully Equipped Kitchens Cable TV with Outlets in Bedrooms Washer and Dryer in each Apartment Central Heating and Air Conditioning High Speed DSL Internet Service Private Parking • No Hassles Fire Places |