If you believe the California Adoption Reform Effort, (or C.A.R.E.”) is going to gain full Bastard access to records in CA I’ve got a bridge to sell ya… .

In C.A.R.E.’s case, apparently the Brooklyn Bridge, as they for a time, could not be bothered to even find a picture of a California landmark bridge, instead they pitched their California effort with a picture of the famous bridge from New York!

But hey, good news, they’ve finally updated their page with a spankin’ new picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. (Welcome to California, C.A.R.E.)

Suffice it to say, reading through the C.A.R.E. materials and the public face of the effort to date, I am monumentally unimpressed.

Both Ron and Marley have been carefully deconstructing the materials as well.

For the moment, rather than reinventing the wheel, I urge my readers to carefully go through their takes on this latest CA non-grassroots (by their own admission) effort.

There’s plenty of writing that certainly could be done, tackling any given piece of it, such as the nonsensical notion of a “triad” in relation to such. Allow me to quote Ron here for but a moment (this is from his post If You’re a California Adoptee, C.A.R.E. Has Plans For YOU!)

Next is the Join page. After your name you may enter your “triad” position; “Adoptee”, “Birth Parent”, “Adoptive Parent”, “Birth Sibling”, “Support Person/Spouse”, and then six categories of adoption professionals. Six. If you wanted to see a graphic of why the “triad” is a trick on the natives, just let your gaze linger on that for a while… But then go to the meat, the “ask” as we like to say in polite politesse. To become a member you’ve got to pony up 85 clams. 40 if you’re a senior. Considering the times and the following-trend that are our unemployment figures they might want to consider a donor category for hobos… Agencies and the like are expected to give 200… This isn’t an “ask” designed to generate a lot a support, only the serious donors will feel welcome. Well, not that serious, if they were serious they’d have a category for $10K and over… I suppose at this point it’s fair to inquire if C.A.R.E cares about the support of California’s adoptees… They don’t have a portal for information gathering other than the Join page, for those uncounted unwashed masses who have time or energy to donate in-kind, so what C.A.R.E. really wants is cash.

I’ve certainly written and taught about how there is no triad, there is an adoption pentagon, or what Ron likewise has termed a “Five-legged Stool” but few things make the reality of such clearer than looking over an effort such as C.A.R.E..

Events in CA have gotten bad enough to pull BB Church/Ron back from his retirement into some bastard blogging, (damn good thing, too, his analysis is well worth the read!)

From BB Church’s FunHouse–

If You’re a California Adoptee, C.A.R.E. Has Plans For YOU! ( Friday, February 06, 2009)

The plot thickens: CARE’s email to its supporters… (Monday, February 09, 2009)

Does CARE care? Nope… (Monday, February 09, 2009)

Marley/Bastardette is also right on it having written a two-part post. See her analysis on the Daily Bastardette–

WE’VE SCREWED UP YOUR STATE, NOW WE’RE COMING TO SCREW UP YOURS: CALIFORNIA ADOPTION REFORM EFFORT– THE LETTER

WE’VE SCREWED UP YOUR STATE, NOW WE’RE COMING TO SCREW UP YOURS: CALIFORNIA ADOPTION REFORM EFFORT–COMMENTS

Undoubtedly we’ll be hearing more about this mess in the months to come.

Let’s just say there are plenty of darn good reasons the California Adoption Reform Effort (CARE) is NOT being linked in my right hand sidebar under the “Work for adoptee rights- State by State” heading, BUT California Open is.

Gee maybe it has something to do with the “No Compromise” sign on California Open’s myspace page… ya think?

Or perhaps the California Open promise-

OUR PROMISE TO YOU

WE LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND!

NO SELL-OUT!

NO RESTRICTION!

NO COMPROMISE!

Well, ok, all that and the California Open myspace page has such a nice picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.