Duh

One Good Thing mentions her Mao calendar. I can't say I'm totally opposed to Mao kitsch, but it's an inconsistency for people to forgive Commie kitsch but not Nazi kitsch. Anyway via that I discovered column fodder with a post on early Min guo advertising posters, which follows this one about adoption classes:

I couldn't bring myself to write about them. Remember how the social workers were supposed to never stop slapping us? Well, I think it's going to be mutual.

As the details recede (as much as they can, considering all the notes we took), what remains, in brief, is guilt-mongering and more guilt-mongering, multi-cultural-sensitivity variety. What do we, the prospective adoptive parents, have to feel guilty about? What have you got? Being white. Being "rich." Being American. Being infertile. (No way, right? What kind of an asswipe would try to make people feel guilty for being infertile? We'll get back to that). White and Western is Bad. We are Bad.

I've heard about adoptive parents of Chinese children trying to give them some Chinese culture, and it's so pathetic, as any waiguoren who has learned Chinese knows. I didn't realize it was social worker theory. The logic is so strange. So if you adopt a Jewish kid or a Catholic kid, you have to get all Jewey or Catholicky? What if the kid's parents were gay, do you have to act all gayish? And for the normal child of blind parents, put on a blindfold? (Bang! Ouch!) Or for the normal child of retarded parents, you have to act retarded? Well, on consideration, that wouldn't be such a stretch for me.