It's not international adoption, as only 19,000 foreign-born children are adopted each year, mostly because of the prohibitive cost. And it's not even the fact that some kinds of children are more "desirable" than others. 521,400 people said they were willing to adopt black children, compared to 41,591 black children in foster care; 351,600 people said they would adopt children between the ages of 6 and 12, compared to 46,136 children between those ages in foster care; 185,400 people said they would adopt children over the age of 13, compared to 30,654 teens in foster care. Katz believes the discrepancy is related to an entirely unwelcoming bureaucracy.

Katz founded an organization called the Listening to Parents project, and he found that "Far too many agencies view their primary response in adoption as screening out 'bad' parents rather than recruiting good ones." For example:

Contrast two of the locations we studied for a 2005 report: In San Jose, everyone calling to inquire about adoption was invited to a meeting designed to inform prospective parents about the children available and to get parents into the training program. In Miami, everyone calling to inquire about adoption was required to fill out a two-page questionnaire, over the phone, that included sensitive personal and financial information. Those who "passed" the call were invited to an information meeting that began with an announcement that all attendees would be fingerprinted at the front of the room. Is it any wonder that a prospective parent in San Jose was 12 times more likely to adopt than a prospective parent in Miami?

In the U.K, non-traditional parents say they find judgment from some social workers who are still looking for the ideal heterosexual married couple as adoptive parents, the Independent reports. However, parents in the UK are less colorblind than those in the U.S. as adoption agents say they have difficulty placing black children, particularly black boys. According to family lawyer Nina Hansen, "As for black boys, the media really works against them; people believe the future will bring serious trouble with the police. It is much harder to place boys, especially those over five, but little black boys? Well, you can pretty much forget it."

Adoption's Numbers Mystery [Washington Post]

Adoptive Parents Believe Boys Are 'Too Much Trouble' [The Independent: UK]

Us
This cover, showing a beaming Michelle and Barack Obama emblazoned with the words "Why Barack Loves Her," is perhaps part of the subtle image makeover we referred to earlier. Us seems very concerned with portraying the clearly awesome Michelle as a non-threatening soccer mom, and more importantly, differentiating her from Hillary. Says a friend: "[Michelle] is not the least bit interested in being a co-president or participating in policy decisions…Her first priority as a first lady would be that the girls are OK, and to continue to be the outstanding mother that she is." We always go straight to Us for astute political coverage. In other news, Hollywood wags think Katherine Heigl's career will be fine despite her ankling the Emmys. Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee are back together for the umpteenth time. They're like Bobby and Whitney but with exponentially more body modification. Finally, here's some news for all the hipsters out there: supermodel Helena Christensen has been "cozying up" to Interpol lead singer Paul Banks for over six months!
Grade: C (a timeshare in Cleveland)
In Touch
Rut roh! Angelina and Brad's CRISIS AT HOME in huge pink letters! They have a lot of babies, it's exhausting, it's possibly pulling them apart, and so on, and so forth. The only good part of this four page spread is the sidebar where Dr. Drew gives Angelina the business about her whole Mother Theresa routine. "I've never seen anyone remit heroin completely," Dr. Drew said. "Is she in recovery? If she's in recovery, I don't seen any evidence of it, because people in recovery invest themselves in simple, selfless acts of service, not global self-serving acts." Burn!!! On to matters of life and death: Did Mariah Carey have plastic surgery? Survey says: Probs. Her yo-yo dieting is well known and after her most recent weight loss, she has mysterious, Tara Reid-reminiscent ripples on her tummy. The liposuction of Mimi! Bret Michaels bonded with Sherri Shepherd when he went on The View because they both have diabeetus, but he wants to do it with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. "Barbara Walters was pretty hot," Bret admitted, "but Elisabeth Hasslebeck and me, I'm just telling her, if her husband ever falls out of the picture…" Scariest tabloid news of the week: Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt spent $10,000 on guns because Spencer wants to be "prepared for anything." Can't wait for the Branch Davidianish FBI raid on the Speidi compound…
Grade: C+ (an unheated shack on the coast of Maine)
Star
More Brangelina business. Angie has panic attacks due to the stress of her pregnancy and Shiloh's terrible twos. Apparently she's worried about how she's going to handle "two more needy little ones in an already chaotic household." Uh, probably with the army of nannies she already employs. Miley Cyrus reportedly gets thousands of love letters from prisoners, "who claim they've taped her picture up in their cells." Creepy to the max!! Was Matthew McConaughey macking on strange ladies during a recent trip to Nicaragua while his super-pregs girlfriend Camilla Alves languished at home? If the photos are any indication (see Fig. A below), the answer is yes. An amused onlooker tells Star, "He grabbed the DJ's microphone, crawled onto a table and screamed 'I lost my flip-flops!' in broken Spanish!" Britney and Jamie Lynn are none too pleased about mom Lynne's forthcoming memoir, Through The Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, which includes such revelations as Britney bit her nails as a kid. Shocking! And lastly, Jen wants boyfriend of thirty seconds John Mayer to marry her, but he's not down. Hmm, sounds dubious.
Grade: D+ (a metal trailer in Death Valley)
Ok!
Jeebus. Even more Angelina news. This time she's not stressed. In fact, she's so into all her babies, Ok! says, she's looking to adopt another boy. She'll get the lucky young tyke from the same Ethiopian orphanage where she found wee Zahara. Ange wants to "balance the races" in her household and since Maddox has Pax, now it's "Z's turn." Speaking of babies, Britney will charter a jet to Kentwood, Louisiana, the second lil' sis Jamie goes into labor. There are rumblings that Prince William and on-again, off-again flame Kate Middleton will be married next summer. Why did Anne Hathaway stay with scuzzy Raffaello Follieri for so long? Because he's a baaaad boy, of course. "[Women] believe that if we are wonderful enough, beautiful enough or sexy enough, we will cure them of their bad ways, and make ourselves all the more beautiful," Dr. Jenn Berman tells Ok!. Ugh. In other douche-dating news, David Spade says "girls date me because I'm normal." Good to know.
Grade: D- (a motel room on Three Mile Island)


Life & Style
Just when you thought she was getting better, L&S dredges up some old dirt: Britney tried to off herself twice, says a new book. Ian Halperin, an investigative journalist who is writing a bio of Brit tells L&S, "I can't divulge too much, but I will say the suicide attempts are true. I know all the details of both of them>" The book is also about how "sleazy and destructive" her handlers were, and how Britney is obsessed with Marilyn Monroe's tragic fate. The formerly self-destructive Nicole Richie is "back to her old ways" and is losing weight. She and Joel madden are fighting a lot and she's stressed out by baby Harlow. Unlike Nicole Richie, another Nicole (Kidman) is trying to gain weight. She thinks her baby bump is too small and wishes it were bigger. She also wishes that her jugs were bigger. Are Mariah and Nick already on the rocks? "I give the marriage six months, tops," says an insider.
Grade: D- (a teepee in Chernobyl)
Fig. A:

• Mary-Kate Olsen went to the emergency room yesterday and has been hospitalized with a kidney infection. She is currently "resting comfortably" and should be released in a day or so. [People]
  
• Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and the brood will head "home" for Thanksgiving: Missouri, where Brad's family is. [MSNBC]
  
• Oh, and the Ethiopian biological mother of Zahara Jolie-Pitt says she conceived Zahara after being raped at knifepoint. Tragic. [Reuters]
  
• Heather Mills (McCartney), an adamant vegan, suggests we drink rats' milk instead of cow's milk, since livestock creates carbon emissions. Yum? [Telegraph]
  
• Apparently this rat milk idea was in an episode of The Simpsons but may not be viable. [Telegraph]

• Kate Moss gave Sienna Miller at talking-to regarding her new beau, Rhys Ifans, who is one of Kate's friends. "If you hurt Rhys, you'll have made an enemy for life," Kate warned. [Mirror]
• So you know how Amy Winehouse's tour manager quit because he claimed he tested positive for drugs, just from inhaling her secondhand smoke? Doctors say the chance of that actually happening is "a long shot." [ABC News]
• "Nearly broke" Michael Jackson is "struggling to put a roof over his head." The "sad-sack artist" and his kids, Prince, Paris and Blanket, stayed with billionaire Ron Burkle last week. Weird weird weird. [Page Six]
• Superman star Brandon Routh is getting married to longtime girlfriend Courtney Ford. Not on the registry: Kryptonite. [Page Six]
• The woman working the door at the American Music Awards afterparty didn't know who anyone was and didn't let anyone in, which resulted in a party of one: Chris Daughtry. Sad! [Page Six]
• Ashlee Simpson asked a photographer not to take a picture of her having a cigarette break outside Pete Wentz's East Village bar last week: "I don't want my fans knowing I smoke!" Haha, "fans." [Gatecrasher]
• The photographer Nicole Kidman testified against took the stand in Australia today, telling the court that when Nicole saw him trying to snap her picture, she told him to "fuck off." [Sydney Morning Herald]
• The government of Malawi is applauding Madonna's efforts to spotlight and raise money for AIDS orphans. Madonna is working with Gucci to raise $2 million for the one million orphans in Malawi. [Reuters]
• Blind item! "Which celebrity 'girlfriend' turned up solo at her actor beau's recent party because, several wags joked, he was still busy with his boyfriend?" [Gatecrasher, last item]
• Director Tim Burton on Johnny Depp's hair in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: He modeled it after that Vogue editor. Anna Wintower." [Rush & Molloy]
• Britney Spears is hiring a private eye to investigate ex-husband Kevin Federline, hoping to turn the custody battle around. Uphill battle, baby. [TMZ]
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing cable network Showtime over their show Californication. The RHCP had an album and song of the same name in 1999 and say the show is trying to "steal [their] identity." [TMZ]

• NY Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn (left) ate Cheerios, ran into a bunch of famous people she knows, got coffee, saw a Vera Wang show that was supposed to be about "Rome" and she totally didn't see what was so "Rome" about it. Her blog is sort of like Cory Kennedy's blog, only with better punctuation.[NYT]
  
• Speaking of Horyn, she was banned from designer Carolina Herrera's show, happening today, after trashing her collection even more viciously than Vera Wang's last season. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Fashion Week (which in case you hadn't realized, we're currently in the middle of) has just struck a deal enabling it to keep itself in Bryant Park for two more years. Bryant Park has been very vocal about wanting the fashion folk gone, presumably because they're tired of cleaning up all the barf. We credit our barf bags for the park allowing the shows to stay! [WWD, sub req'd]

• Angelina and Zahara have matching Valentino handbags. Long sigh. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Almost as exciting as the fashion week currently underway in Boston, Japan Fashion Week is also happening in Tokyo. [WWD, sub req'd]
• We like Michael Kors in a brand new way: He opened his show to the sounds of "Xanadu"! [WWD, 1st item]
• Behnaz Sarafpour missed her own show on Friday because she was too busy passing a kidney stone. If there's one thing more excruciating than enduring Fashion Week, it's probably getting a limb amputated, but passing a kidney stone is still pretty rough. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Meanwhile across the pond, London-based designer Christopher Kane's Spring/Summer 2008 has been stolen! If you know anything, please call Scotland Yard's fashion department ASAP. [Vogue UK]

[Southern France, August 1. Image via Bauer-Griffin]