Brad Pitt And The Skipper Too

Happy New Year all!

OK I know many want this topic ended but here goes:

As a mom of children adopted from Asia and Africa, I can totally empathize with Angie’s remarks (if indeed she made them). The person (people) who brought up the fact that especially Zee almost died was right on…..there is no way that such an experience doesn’t affect how a mother feels about a child forever after.

My daughter was seven pounds at five months of age when I first got my hands on her in Hanoi. It was an absolute miracle that she was still alive the day I got her, and altho she is seven and fine now, I will NEVER NEVER forget my shock at first seeing her, all bones and scabies and heaving chest, coughing up her formula and gasping for air. Not a day goes by that I don’t think what a miracle it is that she is healthy and happy and with us.

My Ethiopian son was so lethargic when I adopted him (he was 12 or 13 or 14 months; we’ll never know his exact birthday. He had been found abandoned at eight months in Bati, a day’s drive north of Addis. ) I was scared to death and thought he was autistic…turns out he was severly anemic and had so little oxygen in his blood that he was drifting off to sleep way too often. Add to that his body-wrenching giardia and the molluscum all over his face….all of this was curable, but he too could have easily died of the diarrhea caused by the giardia, or of malnutrition. Many many children do.

Zahara’s situation appeared to be much worse than that of my son and daughter.

Imagine Angie keeping vigil day and night in the hospital in New York while Zee fought for her life. How can you come through something like that as a mother and NOT celebrate every day how strong and loud and funny and full of life your daughter is??!! My Ethiopian son is exactly the same….SUCH a life force, defintely the biggest personality in our family (to quote Angie), and altho I have no bio kids, I DO feel differently for him than for my other adopted son who did not almost die. I love all three of my kids, but two of them FEEL (to me) like an even greater miracle, because they have survived even more. Because they could have so easily died and not be here today. That moves you in ways you can’t imagine until you have been through it.

And, although I can hardly imagine it, if I were a famous movie star (ha ha) coupled with an even more famous movie star :), and we happened to create the “world’s most anticipated child since Jesus,” as I have heard Shiloh called, living in this country that has so many issues with race and adoption and inter-racial adoption, you bet your sweet bottom I would be overly protective and defensive of my other children, to the point of coming across strange to some. Good thing it’s Angie in the press and not me; I’m not sure I could handle it as well as she does! These are really complicated issues…..race, poverty, adoption. All of the feelings that go along with those issues are very complex as well. They don’t exactly benefit from being splashed in the tabloids or taken out of context.

new thread

500 leetle UN Says: January 6th, 2007 at 10:01 pm

^^^^

Amazing, and so happy to hear that your babies are happy and healthy. I don’t want to presume about other posters, but maybe if they came from, or know similar experiences like you, I and others who’ve shared their stories yesterday and today, then maybe it would be easier for them to understand were Angelina is coming from.

jpf

502
leetle UN and lucky, thank you both for your posts.

i cant boliave everebody is still talking about this okay maybe not everybody angelina has always been very open and honest about herself real fans know this about her you cant censor angelina and people who dont andurstand her always find something or think or want to get her wrong they twist her words and when they cant get her to admit something they lie and say she said it if you are areal fans wont call her names the haters do that we should go to the jennochio chinniston sites and leave the same hateful messages they leave for jolie but we dont why becuse we are not obssed with her as the haters are with jolie we jolie-pitt fans dont need to spend time on hate rants on every site of that woman 2 year morons give it up leave the jolie-pitt family olone

511
you fools crack me up Says:

January 6th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Dumb Assssssssssssssssssss!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It’s obnoxious to refer to yourself in the 3rd person.

creativegirl Says:

January 6th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thank you so much for posting the link!
If you click at the “360 degree TOUR” it’s of cottahe 7 where Brad and Angie stay. Gorgeous.

My, my…looking at these photos…Brad is getting hotter by the hour…gorgeous…chiseled, lean, so much more interesting that when he was a glowing pretty boy.

And oh brother! smartness and intelligence matters a lot when you are in cyberspace. Looks, status, power and money does’nt mean a thing here. That’s why i love internet blogs. You are solely judged on your comments and thoughts you present here. And that’s why ‘you fools crack me up’ it’s time for you to pack your bags and go get smarter before you can take on with the smart ladies on this blog……….lol…………..

**********new thread *************

Some of you are so words-believer. You should understand thing in the context. Just for example, saying in one interview that you don’t like grey and rainy days, and in the next interview you would say, the (same) weather is good, as you can play with kids at home. It does not that you are inconsistent, but it means, that in general you don’t like rainy days, but sometimes it could be good, etc. So what Angelina said in one ore in other interviews for example concerning parenting, Shiloh, etc., it does not mean she is inconsisten. You should understand things in that context, how she is interviewed, what was the question, the intention of the question, etc.
We keep interpreting things in her words, our interpretation is our projection what we want to hear!!!
One thing I really admire her. Angelina is honest and open, though she has made these very bad experiences for years since becoming famous, that whatever she is going to say could be misunderstood, even intentionally misused against her… This does not prevent her from being honest to herself or she tried to pretend being something else just to please the media or to those who want to hear her saying this and that. She is not slave of words made by others for her.
We should learn this honesty from her!

Will the real Angelina Jolie please stand up
From ‘punk with tattoos’ to demure mother of three, the actress presents many faces

Jamie Portman
CanWest News Service

Thursday, January 04, 2007

When you encounter Angelina Jolie, you also face a variety of choices about who she really is.

There’s the actress who won an Oscar for her unsettling portrait of emotional instability in Girl, Interrupted and then behaved as though she was transferring that behaviour to real life.

There’s the tell-all celebrity who has admitted to bisexual inclinations, talked about stashing vials of blood after her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, speaks bitterly about estranged father Jon Voight, and sometimes concludes that she’s still just a “punk with tattoos.”

There’s the tabloids’ favourite femme fatale — portrayed as the woman who helped destroy lover Brad Pitt’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston (a charge she denies) and who recently had a child by him.

There’s the adoring mother who is determined that her three kids — two adopted, one biological — will always come first.

There’s the human rights crusader who has clocked hundreds of thousands of miles as Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.

And then, of course there’s her current image as the demure 31-year-old who manages to dodge the paparazzi thronging the sidewalk outside the Regency Hotel so she can talk to reporters about her role as the sad and alienated wife of CIA agent Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd.

“Thanks for having me,” she says huskily as she seats herself behind a mass of microphones and recorders. False modesty? Who knows? What is irrefutable is Jolie’s readiness to face a media which can be relentless in placing her private life under a microscope. That’s also a reflection of a toughness and resilience often reflected in the characters she portrays on screen.

Those qualities show up when she talks about the continuing onslaught of the tabloids and the paparazzi in the period since she and Pitt began their relationship.

“I’ve made a point not to let it change the way I live my life, other than that I carefully plan my holidays — where we go, where we stay, things like that — and try to ensure some kind of quality of life that’s private and nice for the kids. But we simply don’t let it affect us.”

Still, she sadly admits to some constraints. “The only time it is hard is when the kids want to go somewhere . . . I’ve had so many people offer to take my children to Disneyland or places I can’t take them, and they don’t understand how upsetting that is.”

She presents herself as a contented young woman who has succeeded in managing a complicated life.

“I plan a lot — excessively. I’m very, very lucky. I love the different elements in my life and I love working abroad and I love being with my kids and I love being with Brad . . . . This is the life I chose to have and I’d like to add many more children — and many more obstacles.”

Jolie is quietly in control of this press conference, showing a poise and confidence markedly different from earlier times when she was so inarticulate and troubled that reporters had trouble pulling her fragmented thoughts together into a readable story.

Her current self-assurance is such that, even when talking about The Good Shepherd, she’s prepared to find personal parallels. The film chronicles the early years of the CIA through the prism of Matt Damon as Edward Wilson, an obsessive young agent whose patriotism towards his country not only turns him into a relentless, sometimes murderous instrument of government power, but also into a neglectful husband and father.

Doing the film, she found herself comparing her situation with that of Clover Wilson in the movie.

“I live in a time — we all do — where as a woman, I can say: ‘I’m leaving, I’m getting a divorce,’ ” she points out. She adds that today’s woman can speak out harshly and defend her interests if things are going wrong, but that things were different half a century ago. “She had to maintain a certain kind of composure and quiet decency. and just settle into that life.”

It was not only that particular era. It was also the fact that Clover had a husband in the CIA. “The idea of getting out was just impossible.”

Asked how it was to play a rejected, unloved wife, Jolie laughs.

“Well, I do have two divorces behind me but I’m still good friends with them, so it’s still okay,” she explains.