Does this Woman Look Like an Ax Murderer?

All we have to do is get through Monday - now confirmed as our court date. The BS is never-ending. I think the trick is to convince yourself that you will never know why things are happening and that so long as everything works out, it doesn't matter why. This, of course, is completely contrary to David's and my nature.

Today, Galina gave us our lecture on how to behave in court, what to say, and what not to. In addition to such obvious advice as, "Dress well," which, even though I know we shouldn't, it's really hard not to bristle at, we heard the following..... that the Washington Post had a big article yesterday about a woman who adopted a baby from Russia and in some horrific child abuse situation, killed the kid.

The important context here is that, as Russia goes, so goes Kazakhstan, at least as far as emerging civil law is concerned. International adoption (i.e. adoption by Americans) is becoming a big political football in Russia, with the anti-Putin forces using his support of the concept against him. Bear in mind that, of course there is child abuse in Russia just as there is everywhere else, that Russians have little tradition of domestic adoption (same as in KZ), that as in KZ they rely on an orphanage rather than foster care system, and that American parental abuse of internationally adopted children is self-evidently rare. Nonetheless, continued international adoption of Russian children is viewed by some as being in jeopardy. And, therefore, there is concern about what will happen in KZ.

Most importantly, from our point of view, one might expect some tough questions - on the order of "When did you stop beating your wife?" - in court on Monday.

Sunday morning edit: For those of you who read this post last night, please note, we did some more/better searches this morning, and discovered that unfortunately, the Post story appears to exist/be true.

C&O, yet again
Originally uploaded by jakeyd.