This morning …

… another rotation of moms and dads arrived at work to discover that they should have blocked POTUS on their tween sons’ Twitter accounts. What an example for boys the age of his own son!

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

 

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Women’s History Month – Getting it Right: Sparring Syndromes/Dueling Dominance and Revolution

This article is interesting for several reasons.

THE BLOG

Hillary Clinton, Melissa Harris-Perry and the Opposite of Imposter Syndrome

03/27/2016 Anna Kegler Creator, Feminist Messaging Project; Content Marketer, RJMetrics

To fit into male-dominated spaces, women are told to fix a lot of things: stop using “sorry” and “just” in emails, avoid vocal fry and upspeak, and “watch your tone” at all times.

But more than anything else, women are told that it’s a lack of confidence that’s really holding us back. If only we could get over imposter syndrome, and internalize our successes instead of feeling like serially lucky frauds, we’d be unstoppable.

Too bad it doesn’t work like that. There is a very real external bias against women’s competence, and nobody gets around it by being more confident. In fact, as we see through the experiences of Hillary Clinton and Melissa Harris-Perry, being more confident can result in harsh pushback when you’re pursuing leadership positions within male-dominated environments. Because how dare you.

While we’re so busy focusing on what women should and should not do, there’s a big problem going undiagnosed: entitlement syndrome. The opposite of imposter syndrome, entitlement syndrome is the problem of overconfident, mediocre white men. After I break down competence bias, I’ll get into what entitlement syndrome looks like, and what some concrete solutions might be.

Read more >>>>

First: The odd pairing of Hillary Clinton and MHP in a header.  No comment from Hillary Clinton has ever indicated that she is aware of MHP’s existence, her show, or of the many negative remarks from MHP about her over the years. But MHP has gone after HRC enough to have made me quit watching her now-defunct show long before its demise.  More than three years ago this was the final straw for me.

It Commences MHP’s Hillary-Hate: Out of the Closet and On the Record

February 4, 2013 by still4hill

When I posted this yesterday,  Hillary Clinton’s Kitten Heels Not Necessarily A Shoo-In,  it triggered a few emails from folks apparently not willing to post publicly in a comment thread  all of which took the same tone.  As if talking to a six-year-old afraid of the thunder, these presumably younger, less bitter and burnt voices assured Gen-Hillary, bitter, old Boomer me that no-no-no-no-no!  If she runs in 2016, Hillary will not experience the same nasty treatment she received in 2008, not at all!  Not with those high approval ratings!  Bill’s wife will not be treated as appendage of his now that she has blazed her own path (as if she had not already done that in the Senate before her presidential campaign).  It will be kinder, gentler campaign coverage.  Yeah, right.  And as if on cue, this.  I will let the video* speak for itself.

“Rebecca, author of “big girls don’t cry.” she is the Hillary fan I like to bring to balance out the Hillary hate that will emerge from me if i am not careful.” – Melissa Harris Perry, MSNBC, 02-03-2013

*Vodpod videos no longer available.

Noooooooo, of course they won’t trash Hillary again.  Of course not.

***********************************************************************

At the time I originally posted this, I did not know about this article.  I have no idea how this flew below my radar in 2008.

Read articles by MHP >>>>

MHP’s imaginary relationship with Hillary Clinton has always, oddly, been based on Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind despite Hillary Clinton having very few, if any, personality traits in common with Scarlett O’Hara and MHP continually casting herself inexplicably as some variety of anti-Mammy despite her contention that Mammy is the actual brain of the O’Hara clan.  Choosing Rebecca Traister as her “pro-Hillary” foil on that broadcast was most befuddling, first because Traister was not especially pro-Hillary in her opus Big Girls Don’t Cry, and second because MHP had access to several truly pro-Hillary women among her own colleagues and connections at MSNBC at the time.

The second  reason the Huffpo article is interesting  is MHP’s claim that she lost editorial control over her show for wanting to discuss Beyonce’s Formation video.

The day after Super Bowl 2016, everybody was talking about Beyonce’s Formation in terms most amazing to me.  As someone who spent time visiting the Black Panther HQ in New Haven somewhat regularly in 1970 and 1971, it would never have entered my head to draw any kind of parallel between what Beyonce and her ensemble performed and the men and women I knew in New Haven who provided a breakfast program for kids, day care services, and after-school tutoring for school kids in a colorfully painted basement room along with a laundry list of community services for neighbors behind the walls of a sandbagged, two story clapboard house.  They did not wear black, leather, or cartridge belts. I never saw firearms or ammunition in that house, if there were any.  So references to that performance as representing Black Panther women were, to me, uninformed and misleading.  Apparently, though, that conflict with history was not the intended focus of MHP’s treatment of the video.

When I saw the movie Black Panther Woman around the middle of this month, I had planned to do a post about Kathleen Cleaver and put it on hold as other women organically came into the spotlight.  In light of this HuffPo article, now is the time – I’ll seize it.

Many know of Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information of the BPP and author of Soul on Ice.  His wife,  Kathleen Neal Cleaver, is a woman we should meet, recognize, and give her due.  She’s a very impressive person!

Read her bio here >>>

The Black Panther Party

She was in charge of organizing a student conference at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. At the conference, Kathleen met the minister of information for the Black Panther Party, Eldridge Cleaver. She moved to San Francisco in November 1967 to join the Black Panther Party. Kathleen Neal and Eldridge Cleaver were married on December 27, 1967. Cleaver became the communications secretary and the first female member of the Party’s decision-making body. She also served as the spokesperson and press secretary. Notably, she organized the national campaign to free the Party’s minister of defense, Huey Newton, who was jailed. Kathleen Neal Cleaver was among a small group of women that were prominent in the Black Panther Party, which included Elaine Brown and Ericka Huggins.^[1] In 1968 (the same year her husband ran for president on the Peace and Freedom ticket) she ran for California‘s 18th state assembly district, also as a candidate of the Peace and Freedom party. Cleaver received 2,778 votes^[2] for 4.7% of the total vote, finishing third in a four-candidate race.

Read more >>>>

INTERVIEWER: In retrospect, what was the Civil Rights revolution all about?

CLEAVER: By the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed by the United States Congress, the process of legal change and elimination of official racism was legally completed, but it was not socially completed.

The government that was interested in encouraging the end of restrictions on voting and education on the basis of race didn’t do very much on the level of changing basic attitudes. So where you have a cessation of the implementation by law of racist practices, you really have never seen any major effort on the part of the government or the larger institutions to transform attitudes. And that is where we’ve failed.

INTERVIEWER: What was it that was appealing to you about the Black Panther Party?

CLEAVER: I encountered the Black Panther Party when I was in SNCC. I had gotten involved with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee at the same time that it articulated black power as its position. I was a student in New York, and I started working in the New York office. The Black Power Movement challenged all the preconceived notions of blacks not being able to determine their own destiny. It was essentially a very nationalistic self-determination position. And what appealed to me about the Black Panther Party was that it took that position of self-determination and articulated it in a local community structure, had a program, had a platform and an implementation through the statement of how blacks should exercise community control over education, housing, business, military service.

INTERVIEWER: Why did the Panthers-SNCC coalition fall apart?

Read more >>>>>

And read even MORE >>>>

Memories Of a Proper Girl Who Was A Panther

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Published: June 17, 2000

Kathleen’s story is testament that we do not stay where we started out.  But we stay with the struggle.

Kathleen is featured in the movie Black Panther Woman.  It is a must see!

In the days of the New Haven trials, I drove around with my homemade “Free Ericka” sticker on my car window. The point was that Ericka Huggins was unarmed and thus could not have committed the crime of which she was accused.

What MHP was planning to do with Beyonce’s video appears unrelated to the BPP and what they represented and accomplished.  That might have qualified as informative, relevant, and appropriate to  news media. But MHP never was a true member of the fourth estate, and a cable news hour is not an elective course in political theory.

It should be noted that Eldridge Cleaver ultimately endorsed Ronald Reagan and joined the LDS Church. Kathleen is a graduate of Yale U and Yale Law and a longtime professor of law. “By any means necessary” turned out, very quickly,  to be working within the system and never had anything to do with guns and ammo belts.

It is important to get the history right.  It is also important to learn from history.  Three years ago Millennials and Gen-xers emailed me condescendingly to assure me that there was no way Hillary Clinton would ever again be the target of biased, sexist media.  Maybe they thought that the revolution was over.  If those same Millennials now follow Bernie Sanders and his call to revolution, they misunderstand the nature of the American Revolution. It is never over. The American Revolution has continued for what will be 241 years next month.

It is one revolution that continues and progresses in extending equal rights to all.  It is not a new thing invented in the lifetime of 20-year olds. The American Revolution is the establishment.  It is the system. It is the way we have made progress given the right leadership – i.e.- leadership that understands how all aspects of inclusion and participation in our democracy intersect.

There are imposters and the entitled.  It is important that we discern them correctly.

***********************************

Edited to add:  And now this from HuffPo today.  Millennials and Gen-Xers needn’t bother to email me with any horse manure.  Been through this before, as I said this first time.  If you pull again what you did in Feb. 2013, I will publish the emails and your email addresses.

It’s Time for Hillary Clinton to Concede the Democratic Nomination to Bernie Sanders

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Rush’s Crush on Karen Finney: The Beat Goes On

Rush Limbaugh simply cannot resist Karen Finney!  Now he wants her to be his nurse and put him in a straitjacket!  Oooohhhhh the fantasies abound!

Rush’s crush on Karen took on new dimensions on Thursday when he implied that she,  in defense of her honor and the rights of women, had put him in some imaginary male version of a chastity belt.  He may just have graduated from the fourth-grade pig-tail-in-the inkwell level to the sophomoronic “words I need to know for the SAT” niche.

Limbaugh grumbles about women’s forum, MSNBC host Karen Finney’s ‘testicle lockboxes’

By David Edwards
Thursday, September 26, 2013

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday slammed a Washington women’s forum because he said that MSNBC host Karen Finney and the other “testicle lockboxes” were attacking him.

At the “Fair Shot: A Plan For Women to Get Ahead” event last week, Finney had noted that many elected Republicans were afraid to speak out against Limbaugh or the tea party.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) agreed that Republicans needed to “take him on” because “people don’t support fear.”

“Women of Washington,” Limbaugh said on Thursday. “I mean, how many testicle lockboxes do you think were at this forum? Washington women? Ha!”

SNIP

“She doesn’t come across as friendly,” he said at the time. “She doesn’t — she, you know, she’s like — my favorite name for her is Nurse Ratched.”

Read more >>>>

Well, not friendly to you, Rush!  For reasons obvious to all.

Now I am not exactly sure of what a “testicle lockbox” is, but when it comes to Rush, I am pretty certain his should be in one.   Clearly he has an obsessive case for Karen (understandably – she’s gorgeous and brilliant) as he did/does for the woman who he claims precipitated the term (Karen’s former boss Hillary You-Know-Who, also gorgeous and brilliant).

I sort of wished I had Karen’s phone number when I read this, but it would have been a waste because you shouldn’t call somebody just so that both of you spend all of your air time laughing too hard to speak.

You can catch Karen, and her gracious response to Rush’s grab for attention (should she choose to acknowledge it) at 4 p.m. ET on Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC.  She really deserves a better spot.

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Best News of the Day: Karen Finney’s New Show on MSNBC

Karen Finney has shown herself to be fair and balanced, strategically sophisticated politically, and kind enough to share campaign advice with the opposition (even though they have not been wise enough to take it).    Ever since she began appearing as a commentator on MSNBC her fan base has steadily grown (as witnessed by the many hits this post receives every time she fills in for Bashir) and become increasingly insistent that she be given a show of her own.

Regularly seen on Bashir Live, where she has also filled in for Martin occasionally, as well as on Weekends with Alex Whitt,  Now with Alex Wagner, and Lawrence O’Donnell’s prime time hour among other MSNBC offerings,  Karen’s pleasant humor,  incisive intellect, and ability to put issues in an historical perspective have made her an ideal guest.

Her ability to get ahead of the pack on back stories and bring in fresh perspectives will make her a stand-out host as  seen when she filled in for Martin Bashir and exposed ALEC as the organization behind “stand your ground” laws in many states.  Thus it was most welcome news when we learned today that Ms. Karen Finney has been given a spot to call her own at MSNBC.

02 Apr 2013 1:37 PM

KAREN FINNEY NAMED MSNBC WEEKEND HOST

KAREN FINNEY NAMED MSNBC WEEKEND HOST

Finney to Host Weekends 4p-5p ET

NEW YORK –April 2, 2013 – Karen Finney has been named host of a new MSNBC program to air on weekends from 4-5 p.m. ET. More details about the program, including the launch date, will be announced in the coming weeks.

“Karen’s rich background in both education policy and politics will add a unique point of view to our expanding live weekend programming,” said Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC.

Finney has been an MSNBC political analyst and guest host on the network since 2009.

Read more >>>>>

We will all be watching, Karen! We know you will do a terrific job and are looking forward to your debut. Congratulations! It’s about time!

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FOX News Attacks Hillary and ClintonLand Bites Back

In the continual tornadic swirl surrounding Hillary Clinton which is borne of clashing fronts of information and misinformation,  you really need to be careful, Dorothy.  The storms could stir up a nest of bayou vipers.  Or a goddess might rise from the furious clouds and throw lightning at you.

While those of us here were worried sick about our Hillary this week,  FOX News* continued, in fact worsened, their outrageous attacks on our girl saying she would go to any length, including developing a life-threatening blood clot, to avoid testifying about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

Since we were all preoccupied with her condition,  I left those attacks on the sidelines earlier this week.  We just wanted her safe and healthy, so my attitude (and probably yours) was “Screw them!”   We simply wanted not to lose her!  God, I was worried!  Now that her condition has improved and she is looking forward to returning to work (an understatement according to Victoria Nuland who said today, “…she is raring to go… “), we can take a step back to the atrocious remarks that echoed all over FOX News about the genesis of Mme. Secretary’s health crisis.

The malicious and cold-hearted comments did not sit well with those who know our Hillary.  James Carville rose like a cottonmouth from the bayou, as Politico reports.

James Carville: Hillary Clinton haters ‘inhumane’

By KEVIN CIRILLI | 1/4/13 5:57 PM EST

James Carville slammed the “inhumane, idiotic” critics who questioned the legitimacy of Hillary Clinton’s recent head injury and said it was “duly noted” inside Clinton-land.

“What kind of human being is going to think like that with everything going on with concussions, head injuries? The fact the woman was dehydrated from the fact that she’d been overseas so much — I just don’t know, and some of these people I know and I get along with,” Carville said Friday in a CNN interview.

Read more >>>>

With Lawrence O’Donnell on The Last Word,  the goddess, Karen Finney,   let loose with a torrent of well-aimed lightening bolts to insta-burn to a crisp each and every opprobrious sound bite, and she was glorious!
Vodpod videos no longer available.

Wasn’t she magnificent?

Having realized that by polishing my second floor furniture (a rare occurrence) two days earlier,  I may well have caused Sandy to blow through that area, breaking windows and walls, and that by moving the shovels we used to scoop the plaster up back to their rightful place in the cellar I probably caused last week’s snow dump, I think I just might be a witch and  Hillary attackers should beware of me too (as soon as I can fine-tune my powers not to backfire on me).  You just don’t want Hillary’s people (especially Hillary’s women) mad at you.  Anything can happen.

Cross-posted at Still4Hill.

*Exception: Greta van Susteren

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Karen Finney: Catching Flies With Honey On MSNBCTV

If you have had enough of the blowhard, bloviating, spewing, anger of anchors (the usual suspects and a few new ones) during this electoral season you might find Karen Finney a pleasant change-of-pace.   Filling in for Martin Bashir on Bashir Live this week at MSNBC’s 4 p.m. (EDT) time slot, she she been a breath of fresh air.  Sure, she addresses many of the same issues as the loudmouths do,  but there is  a lot to be said for a musical voice, a dazzling smile,  and graciousness.  If you have not caught up with the beautiful job she is doing, there is still time.   One more round tomorrow at 4.   If you cannot be home, set your DVR.

MSNBC should give her her own time slot.  Ratings would soar!

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Karen Finney on Evolution

On MSNBC  this past weekend,  Columbia University linguist Jonathan McWhorter, upon whom I have long harbored an intellectual crush,  differentiated slow (small step) evolution, from sudden (giant step) evolution and proceeded to recommend Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter by Terrence W. Deacon which I now have on order. That mind/matter question has fascinated me since my undergrad days when I delivered an extensive oral and written report on Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man for a  philosophy course.

De Chardin made a statement that blew my 18-year-old mind when he pointed out a difference of a single atom between the structures of largest macro-molecule and the smallest micro-organism calling whatever existed in the margin between the two the true “missing link,”  thereby implying that he expected the progression to be a small step rather than a giant leap.  He spoke of a “pre-soul” in rocks, implying that all that is organic has some form of a soul – music to the ears/eyes of a pet owner.

A Jesuit and long-time missionary in China,  de Chardin’s work was refused the imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church.  Consequently, he left his papers to Julian Huxley who published them after de Chardin’s death.  As time went by,  I did encounter Catholic clergy and religious who, like me, found in de Chardin’s brilliant work a way to accept the theory of evolution within a decidedly religious, and I would even say Catholic,  framework.

McWhorter prefaced his remarks on evolution by stating that he does not believe in God but thinks there is some kind of catalyst that activates giant steps in evolution.  I think it is God, Jonathan will have to figure out his own explanation.

Whenever we are in a political season, the subject of evolution arises in some form.  In the past, we have heard Christian fundamentalists decry the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools.  This season, however,  it has appeared in a metaphorical form, and not from the right, but rather from the incumbent Democratic administration.  We are told by spokespeople that the president’s position on gay marriage is “evolving.”   He, himself, has said as much.  This has been a small step evolution over a long period of time.  One wonders what catalyst the president requires to come to full blown evolution on this issue.

Karen Finney’s latest column in The Hill,  Evolve on marriage addresses the question with her typical balance of brilliance and empathy.  There is a cool strategic approach tempered by a heartfelt personal argument based on her own background.

One part of Karen’s personal story that always tugs at my heart is her delayed introduction to her grandfather’s home.  I just cannot imagine a granddad not being delighted with a granddaughter such as she,  so I was more than pleased to come across this paragraph in her column from yesterday.

When I was a teenager, my grandfather explained to me that the reason I wasn’t welcome in his Greensboro, N.C., home was his belief — on legal and moral grounds — that mixing of the races was a sin against the laws of nature. (He did come to realize he was wrong.) The legal and moral arguments made today about same-sex marriage being against the laws of nature or threatening the institution of marriage sound hauntingly familiar to the bigoted excuses of my grandfather and others.

Read more>>>>

There are early summer days coming.  The sun will be warming and the water in the pool will still be cold.  There will always be that one kid sitting on the edge of the pool who will not just jump in and get it over with.  In some cases, he might wade in gradually.  In other instances, his friends might simply push him in.  Sooner or later, we expect him to end up in the water.  Karen hopes the president jumps in sooner rather than later based on a background she feels she shares with him.  I have never been certain that he sees himself quite the same way that Karen sees herself.  Certain formative experiences have been different – have even occurred in different cultures on different continents.  My take is that Obama would do well to listen to her experience and reasoning on this issue.  She has, as has the Rev. Dr. William Barber (NAACP,NC President) placed the issue in the ethical/moral frame.  It is time for President Obama to take a giant step much the way Karen’s grandfather did on mixed marriage.  If he does not do this soon, he will be left behind.  As I have said before, I prefer to follow those who lead from the front lines – like Karen.

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