hello, chickens. like your roost?

Speak correctly, or build a big bunker -- chicagotribune.com

Poor conservative Kathleen Parker. She's shocked - absolutely shocked - that today's political discourse has devolved so much. Oh, the invective hurled at her for suggesting Palin isn't fit for the Republican ticket. Goodness! The insults. The ire! The death threats!

Such extreme partisanship has a crippling effect on government, which may be desirable at times, but not now. More important in the long term is the less-tangible effect of stifling free speech. My mail paints an ugly picture and a bleak future if we do not soon correct ourselves.

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn't sound American to me, but Stalin would approve. Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different than one's own, then we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

I'm sorry folks said her parents should have aborted her, but the disingenuity here is a little hard to swallow.

Where has Ms. Parker been for the past 8 years? Where was she last month, during the GOP convention, and Amy Goodman was pitched in jail for covering it? Where was she decrying the national trashing of our political discourse when non-Republicans were called appeasers, traitors, terrorist collaborators and folks on the Hill were forced to eat those silly Freedom Fries; where was she when folks who objected to the unconstitutional reach of the Patriot Act, who correctly thought the Iraq war was full of bullshit, who said Guantanamo was a blight to our democratic legacy were called un-American; where has she been as American Muslims continute to suffer racial profiling, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and have had their loyalties called into question because of their religion or heritage; where was she for the last two elections when two pretty smart presidential candidates lost their races because her party accused them of being soft on defense while backing a mediocre guy whose sole act of mental agility was cooking up ways to get out of military service; and where has she been for the last 18 months as her party, and its lapdog punditocracy, made a point of racially Othering the Obamas?

And, yes, where has Kathleen Parker been for the last 20 years as her party got all comfy in its bed next to the Christian Right, who have no problem wearing the robes of a Pharisee.

Spare me the concern, Ms. Parker. Spare me your disappointment at how the nation's political discourse has become vile, limited, intellectually bankrupt and savage. Your party built this roost and I'd say it's about time you saw exactly what your chickens look like.

It's the stupidity, not the skirt.

'It is going to be so good,' I said.
'I know. I cannot wait,' Roomie said.
'Utter trainwreck.'
'Disaster,' Roomie agreed.

I cannot help but thrill at the upcoming debacle that will be the VP debate. I'm heady with it. I shiver when I think of it. If this was a Roman arena, I'd be one of those barbaric spectators, with my thumb turned down.

It's unseemly, isn't it? Unlike other feminists who've been writing about their conflicted feelings toward Palin and how her running for the 2nd in Command makes them feel bad about their feminism, I have never felt bad about wanting to see this woman get shoved off the political stage, never to be seen again. But until today, I had no idea why I was getting more and more ginned up to see Palin destroyed so publicly.

I saw a glimmer of a reason yesterday when I watched one unbearable minute of the Couric interview. I tried, I really did. I tried to sit through them but the incoherence, the plain cluelessness, the vacuity - it all did me in! Aargh! I couldn't take it and stopped the video. I still haven't seen the whole thing. I can only read it in transcripts, in short spurts.

I couldn't bring myself to watch the Gibson interview, either.

But today, when I was talking to Roomie, I realized that watching Palin get plucked out of nowhere like a modern day Courtney Cox in a Bruce Springsteen video has made me suffer a high school flashback, back to a time when I hated seeing charming mediocrity succeed. There's no good way to explain it without sounding like a bitch so I'll just shrug and admit it: smart people make me swoon, stupid people make me angry. Especially deliberately stupid people.

And Sarah Palin is deliberately stupid.

I count her among the people who refuse to learn; people who refuse to research (or at least do a little digging); people who refuse to think critically or ask good questions; people who refuse to explain things in clean, elegant ways; people who refuse to speak without using jargon, cliches or sentimental shorthand - ugh! I cannot stand seeing these people in positions of authority!

For the last 8 years, such a person has been our President and it has triggered every single one of my snobby, brainiac issues. It infuriates me to see such a person leading our country and if someone like Sarah Palin, a woman several degrees dumber than Shrub, gets into the White House, I might as well lose eternal faith in the benefit of higher education.

LeBlanc at Bitch Ph.D. says it a bit more elegantly than I but the point stands: I can't stand Sarah Palin because she epitomizes everything I don't respect.

And I can't WAIT until Biden wipes the floor with her.

The Debate: Finally!

I'm sitting here, with my girls and amid a fab spread of cheeses, pate and chips/dips (as well as a hell of a lot of beer), watching the debate. And we're taking a drink everytime we hear the words: war, POW, Main Street, and hope. We won't get as plowed as watching the Orientalizing opening cermonies of the Olympics, but maybe we'll get a nice buzz on.

Consider this your space to share your thoughts, reactions, funny asides and observations during this debate.

Carry on!

[I've also opened a thread at Bitch, PhD if you wanna take part over there.]

student voting: a handy legal guide

[crossposted at Bitch, Ph.D.]

So I'm at work, trying to put together communications for GOTV and I am realizing that there is a huge gap in my knowledge re: the voting process for students. I know the rules for early voting, absentee voting and registering and what to do if you're challenged at the polls here in Illinois, but what about for students?

Everyone I've spoken to has drawn a blank when I try to develop a guidesheet for students voting in this election. The best I can come up with is, 'Uh, be familiar with the laws of the state you're going to school in or, uh, vote absentee.'

Not good enough. I had no idea there were so many barriers to student voting - and it's no wonder that previous elections have seen younger voter turnout remain so flat. We make it virtually impossible for them to vote!

Some states have flat out refused to recognize students' residency as valid (hello, Texas, Virginia and New York); some states don't recognize student IDs as valid identification, making it impossible for students to comply with HAVA (Help America Vote Act) guidelines; some states require drivers licence addresses to match voter registration card addresses, which unfairly burden students from another state; and then there are those state officials who claim that students voting where they go to school could endanger financial aid or scholarship awards.

So what are the rules? Where can student voters go for clean information?

Thank goodness I didn't have to do much legwork.

The Brennan Center has developed a web tool that provides a handy legal guide for students during this election year. They code states according to how student-voting friendly they are - green is friendly, red is not. (Just guess which states aren't friendly.) They give you what the regulations are and what maze of red tape you'll have to navigate to come out the other side. They also dispel all the myths WRT losing financial aid, imperiling parents' taxes and endangering tuition.

The guide does not say that students merely have to show up to vote, but helps prepare students for whatever bullshit their state throws in their way. Forewarned in forearmed.

So, professors and grad student instructors, or anyone who knows a college student voter who's fired up - do your students a solid and tell them about this guide so they can prepare themselves for what they need to do to vote without too much issue. They don't have a lot of time.

Updated: to add that Jack (from Jack & Jill Politics) has created a Voter Suppression Wiki. They have an action page that is pulling information together from voter suppression watchgroups, contact information to report irregularities, different campaigns and legal actions already in progress to halt voter suppression.

john mccain = bad judgment

i think today should be john mccain=bad judgment day.

make it the title of whatever blog post you write and then write whatever you want. it's up there; it's sending the message.

for this post, i have about 30 minutes before i leave for the airport and i wanted to vent a little about this election (as if i'm the only one going through fits.)

to the american people - you're still a bunch of fekkin' idjits. really. you're like the apostle paul who was stuck on his anti-bacon thing. how many times did he need to have the vision of the sheet with all the food on it? 3 times before he got the message??

well, here we are, living the past two republican administrations and you're still willing to give those GOP fuckers a third try.

if we get stuck with Gramps and Hockey Mom for President, i'll blame you. you and your home schooled values. (anyone see that SNL skit? gosh, it was hilarious.)

i mean, i frakking give up, you know? you'd think the past 8 years was proof enough that the GOP is venal, corrupt, ideologically retarded and just plain bad for the country. but, clearly, most of us really are too stupid to vote in our own best, long-term interest.

so, as our country's banks fail, our industrial sectors fail, our economic indicators fall, and we wage war on more countries because the Hockey Mom doesn't know why the Bush Doctrine is a failure, i hope you're happy.

after all, you sure did stop those slutty girls from using birth control and killing teh babehs.

frakkin' idiots.
(yeah, i'm pissed off. i'm going to be sitting in an airport lounge while Fox News blares at me! frak!)

Community Organizing: Not a tea party

I live in Chicago.

My adopted city is one with a vibrant history of immigration, ethnic pride, migration, work, violence, poverty, ambition, and working class values (with a little head breakin' and racial segregation thrown in for good measure.)

It's also a city that has always taken part in community organizing, that thing the GOP sneers at. A better word for it would be grassroots community organizing.

The thing about grassroots organizing is that it happens outside of power. It goes directly to the folks being impacted by bad policies, by inequity, by disenfranchisement and it helps them fight against all that and work in their own best interest.

It's hard work helping people fight in their own best interest, especially when those in power say that the interests of the rich ARE the interests of everyone else. It's hard to mobilize folks to go up against big institutions and work for reform and actually win, especially when those institutions pretty much depend on the bafflement of the communities they exploit or neglect.

Community organizing does what government can't or won't.
Without community organizing, where would we be?

The organization I work for was founded in the 19th century by 13 women meeting in someone's home. They saw women migrating to the city from Illinois farms with no way to navigate this new environment and so they vowed to do something about it. These women helped with housing and employment; they helped these women build community with one another and, later, they integrated their clubs long before most other women's clubs were comfortable with the idea. They went on to agitate for women's sufferage and then helped organize Wednesdays in Mississippi, during the Civil Rights movement. In the 70s, these women helped mobilize the working women of Chicago to fight for sexual harrassment and gender discrimination laws that literally transformed the way thousands of working women were treated in this city.

These were ordinary women, hidden women. Wives, daughters, secretaries and students - going up against political disenfranchisement, racism, and sexual discrimination - meeting in lunch rooms, living rooms, libraries, churches, and community centers, sharing their stories, identifying deep systemic problems and dedicating themselves to solving them. These were women writing letters, crashing city council meetings, rallying in plazas, and riding buses to help other women fight police violence and racial conflict.

Who benefits from community organizing?

Mostly poor people, working people, elderly people, children, people of color, people who don't usually have access to power and influence.

Who doesn't the GOP care about, if they're so ready to be contemptuous of community organizing?

Poor people, working people, elderly people, children, people of color, people who don't usually have access to power and influence.

Ideally, grassroots community organizing allows for the flattening of power. Maybe, just maybe, this is a clue into why the GOP hates it so much. For some reason, the GOP just doesn't like the idea of ordinary people taking up the mantle of changing their circumstances - or the idea of anyone helping them do so. Though they say they're the party of 'personal responsibility,' when a community decides to take responsibility for itself and mobilizes to fight for its own interests, they characterize the effort as lazy or irresponsible and feckless.

It's funny. They say a lot about Christian values. They spend a lot of time holding hands (or kissing ass) with the Christian Right. But they don't have a firm grasp of the Golden Rule or the Beatitudes. To me, a woman who grew up in Sunday School and still remembers her lessons about the sermon on the mount, religious minded folks who express contempt for the poor and disenfranchised screams hypocrisy.

If you work as an organizer share your story here: what you do, who you fight for and what you're up against.
Tell the GOP exactly , and other folks who hate the idea of fairness, what community organizing is about.

Ohmigod.
They really did just throw a dart at a map to pick a VP.

palin: not a maverick!

this was funny (in a piece on the GOP possibly cutting back its convention):

As to Palin's lack of national security experience, Cindy McCain said, "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. So, it's not as if she doesn't understand what's at stake here. It's also about making decisions and be targeted in what she thinks. She has a great mind. And she has a very serious direction in where she goes."

Also defending McCain's running mate choice was Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, passed over by McCain for the No. 2 spot. He called Palin "a maverick with a record of reform."

1. Proximity does not translate into knowledge.
2. Do people know what 'maverick' means?

For the undecideds who are flirting with voting for a McCain/Palin ticket because you think they're somehow not as problematic as Bush (or any other Republican) or an improvement over Obama/Biden on the issues, here's how her image as 'maverick' (i.e., a lone dissenter who takes an independant stance apart from her associates) stacks up to her Rovian image on the issues:

Reproductive Justice: "I am pro-life and I believe that marriage should only be between and man and a woman." (her campaign website, 2006)

The Economy: She's looks like a budget bulldog and balanced Alaka's budget while Governor.

Crime & Punishment: she's pro-death penalty and her goal as governor was to beef up law enforcement

Civil Rights: she doesn't think gays and lesbians need them

Education: pro-No Child Left Behind; school accountability; building a strong work ethic in students; early child care education

Energy (she's on the record most about this): suspend AK 8-cent fuel tax for one year. (Aug 2008); Gasline Inducement Act: 1,715-mile natural gas pipeline. (Aug 2008); Commercialize Alaska's North Slope natural gas. (Aug 2008); Agrees with Obama on more Alaska oil & gas production. (Aug 2008); Windfall oil profits tax prevents investment. (Aug 2008); Lift moratorium on offshore drilling. (Jul 2008); Convinced McCain to drill offshore; not yet on drilling ANWR. (Jul 2008); Unlock ANWR; we're ready, willing and able to contribute. (Jun 2008); Fully fund for the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office. (Feb 2008); $250M for proven alternative energy, including wind & hydro. (Jan 2008); Gas pipelines are approved if they meet Alaska's needs. (Jan 2008); National energy policy not an either/or proposition. (Nov 2007); Fund cellulosic biofuel research in Farm Bill. (Oct 2007); Submitted legislation to build natural AGIA gas pipeline. (Mar 2007); Stranded Gas Development Act no longer applies. (Nov 2006); Get ANWR open. (Nov 2006)

The Environment: Sue US government to stop listing polar bear as endangered. (Aug 2008); We must encourage timber, mining, drilling, & fishing. (Jan 2008); Provide stability in regulations for developers. (Jan 2007); Convince the rest of the nation to open ANWR. (Jan 2007)

Health Care: Health care must be market-and business-driven. (Jan 2008); Take personal responsibility for personal health & all areas. (Jan 2008); Doctors should manage health care, not bureaucracies. (Jan 2008); Personal responsibility & choices key to good health. (Jan 2008); Flexibility in government regulations to allow competition. (Nov 2006)

Homeland Security/War: Armed forces, including my son, give us security and freedom. (Jan 2008); Visits Kuwait; encourages Alaska big game hunting to troops. (Sep 2007); Promote from within, in Alaska's National Guard. (Nov 2006)

Here's the GOP platform, which the Family Rights Council calls the most conservative, pro-family, and pro-life platform in history (you can see the full draft here):

Immigration: calls outright for English to be recognized as official language; thrws out any hope for amnesty; defines immigration as a national security issue (Palin does not seem to have any position on immigration - yet. How much you think she's going to veer away from this plank?)

The Environment/Energy: the platform weakly acknowledges there is some 'warming effect' in carbon emissions but also cautions against 'doomsday' scenarios 'peddled' by 'aficionados' of a centralized control/spend gov't (I guess that would be us. We're aficionados. Can't you just see the sneer?) It also calls for offshore drilling and avoids mentioning ANWR.

The War: interestingly, the GOP appears nearly to avoid any mention of Iraq - only aying that national security is the first priority of gov't and shouldn't be micromanaged by a platform or Congress (or aficionados, either, I expect.)

Social Issues: women, gays and lesbians get thrown under the bus again and there's the de facto protest against stem cell research. Yup. That's as much social issues as you get with the GOP. Nothing about poverty, healthcare, economic empowerment, equal pay - nothing. Just abortions and gays.

Do you really think Palin, an evangelical Christian, is going to oppose any of these positions?

picking palin: maybe not so crazy after all

the Democratic Strategist has given me pause about the Palin pick. his reasons why Palin is more than a bizarro attempt to woo female voters:

But what I saw in Dayton was (1) the "maverick" GOP presidential candidate introducing his "maverick" running mate, although Palin, even more than McCain, is actually a conservative ideologue whose selection thrilled both cultural and economic factions of the Right; (2) a direct appeal by Palin to HRC supporters to consummate Hillary's campaign by shattering the splintered "glass ceiling;" (3) a compelling personal story of a woman who (a) has one son with Down's Syndrome, (b) another who is being deployed to Iraq on September 11; (c) is married to a Native American (at least technically) union worker and athlete; and (d) has bravely defied her party and oil companies in Alaska.

yesterday i thought that Palin would be unappetizing to testosterone-obssessed GOPers but her conservative creds are solid: anti-choice, anti-gay, fiscal conservative, believes global warming is fiction, wants to teach Creationism in schools, dedicated evangelical - no wonder ralph reed loves her. (which should have been my first clue!!)

so what's a dem to do?
i'd say leave the gender thing alone. we're too far along to keep playing these identity politics games.

yes yes yes - she's a chick. but so what? her gender is incidental to her regressive social and political beliefs. but more importantly, she's a chick who believes in all the things that tanked this country for the last 8 years. rip the mask of her so-called 'freshness' and 'maverick' status and frame her this way: she's a good-looking theocrat who wants to turn the clock back, basically a george bush in a skirt. we've done bush before, remember?

it should be really interesting to see the Dems in conflict with their desire to win and their unwillingness to be the bully.

ohh, that's trump! McCain picks running mate

It's a girl!

ooh, way to trump the Friday news cycle, gramps (thus endangering any post convention bounce Obama's camp might receive)!

Sarah Palin...what do we know about her?

Background Information
Gender: Female
Family: Husband, Todd
5 Children: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, Trig.
Birth Date: 02/11/1964
Birthplace: Sandpoint, ID
Home City: Wasilla, AK
Religion:

(no religion?! how can she call herself an American??)

Education:
BA, Communications/Journalism, University of Idaho, 1987.

Professional Experience:
Media
Utilities.

Political Experience:
Governor, Alaska, 2006-present
Former President, Alaska Conference of Mayors
Former Mayor/Manager, Wasilla City
Former Council Member, Wasilla City Council.

Organizations:
Member, Alaska Miners Association
Member, Alaska Outdoor Council
Member, Alaska Resource Development Council
Member, Chambers of Commerce (Various)
Member, Iditarod Parent-Teacher Association
Member, National Rifle Association
Member, Valley Hospital Association Board
Coach/Hockey Team Manager, Valley Youth Sports
Member, Youth Court Steering Committee
Former Member, American Management Association
Former Member, Salvation Army Board.

Caucuses/Non-Legislative Committees:
Chairman, Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2003-2004
Former Member, Alaska Municipal League Board
Chair, Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission
Vice Chair, National Governors Association Natural Resources Committee.

Her record? Check out what Project Vote Smart has collected here.

Compare this 'bright shining star in the Republican firmament' to McCain on women's issues, economic empowerment issues and, other progressive issues (gay rights? racial justice?) and compare her to Bush on these things, too.

Good thing? Bad thing?

LeBlanc has this to say over at Bitch, PhD.:

I want you to hammer Sarah Palin on this stuff. If I were you, or if I were a reporter, or anyone who had a loud voice, today I would ask Sarah Palin the question:

If you were elected vice-president, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act came before the Senate once again, and the vote was tied, and you were called upon in your constitutionally-mandated role as tie-breaker, how would you vote? Would you, like me, vote that when women are denied equal pay for equal work, they should get restitution, or would you, like John McCain, vote that a Supreme Court decision making it nearly impossible for them to receive that restitution, should stand?

Don't let her get away with the "I'm a woman, of course I care about women" bullshit. Make her answer for the hypocrisy of her party.

This is the identity politics election sweepstakes, folks.
Who's feeling some conflict?

DNC08! Who's covering what?

You may or may not know that I now write for Bitch, PhD. Well, my sister Bitches got press credentials for the convention (I coulda been there with them but, eh, my travel schedule didn't work out.) But they have a plan for covering this historic convention and they're sticking with it! Check in with them for juicy tidbits, their trademark biting academic snark and for critical thinking skills that turn stupidity into wet toilet paper. (Did that make sense?)

Jack & Jill Politics - they are one of a 'could have been bigger' coterie of bloggers of color credentialed for the convention and they have a really neat convention coverage page. Get all your brown political coverage here - with additional links to other bloggers of color at the convention, too.

So far, this is where I'm going for my convention information.

Drop links if you have other sources!

Of VPs, Dates and Being the Other

First things first: Biden as Obama's VP pick.

I am not bothered by this.
I think it's brilliant, funny and totally expected. In fact, earlier this week, I called it while emailing with some friends. Friends called it for Bayh, Schweitzer and Webb but I went for Biden.

My reasoning:
As evidenced by an ample Google record, Biden has a long history of saying problematic shit re: people of color. I will not offer an opinion on Biden's racist tendencies - I'm just saying he says problematic shit.

The things he says are not that substantially different from what 98% of the general white population, conservative or self-identifying liberal, say/think about people of color in general, black people in particular. So, in effect, Biden is familiar to most of the population. He's easily recognizable; he is our American mirror.

By choosing Biden, the Obama campaign is saying to America, 'See? I get you. I know you're scared, but it's ok. Joe is just like you, and I like him! I'm not mad.' By signaling to the electorate that they're overlooking Biden's 'off the reservation' problematic racial shit, they are asking that we also overlook some things - primarily, the color of Obama's skin and all the weight it carries.

Yeah, yeah. Biden brings some bizarro 'connection' to 'everyday' people (pundits need to STFU) and foreign policy experience which is a good thing, but his biggest contribution to the Obama campaign is his whiteness. His benign, problematic, clueless whiteness. It's a gift and I hope Obama uses it well.

...
So I had a date today. Will there be a second? Just wait until the end of the story.

We went to the MCA for the Koons exhibit (which he didn't like at all because it had naked ladies and girly bits in it) and then talked for a bit on the patio while a wedding dinner was arranged. Our conversation, which I will spare you, reminded me of something a friend sent me from a Doctor Who recap:

In broad terms, the entire process of anima development in a male is about the male subject opening up to emotionality, and thus broader spirituality, by creating new paradigms as he encounters/projects new forms of femininity. The first is Eve, the Maiden: the emergence of the object of desire; has the troubling habit of simultaneously generalizing all females as evil and powerless. If you haven't met a guy stuck in this place... Well, trust me. You have. I don't know what else to say.

The second is Helen, as in Helen of Troy. In this phase, women are viewed as capable of worldly success and of being self-reliant, intelligent and insightful, even if not altogether virtuous. This second phase is meant to show a strong (untempered) schism in external talents but still lacking internal qualities (inability for virtue, lacking faith or imagination). You want the key to boys? This is it. Halfway through the rubric, and they're still not convinced women have an internal sense of ethics. Welcome to being the Other, if you hadn't noticed yet.

Brother Dude was stuck in Phase 2.

He asks me if I am looking for marriage.
I say, Not particularly.

He asks why.
I say, truthfully, that I don't think marriage particularly benefits me.

He asks me to explain.
I explain how the cultural construct of marriage is irrelevant to me and, frankly, I just don't see the social, financial or physical benefit for me. I've thought of this often and I've thought carefully about it; it's not a position I take casually.

His reaction? He says I must have suffered some kind of personal, abusive trauma to make me adopt such extreme ideas.

I explain that there has been no trauma, no abuse. These are my personal set of values and I'm sticking by them - because they're my values, you smug bastard, I thought.

He then called me inflexible and leaned back, saying that I'd change my mind.

A man telling me I don't know my own mind and I'll change it is a freaking red flag for me. He made me want to take my soda straw and plunge it into his frakking jugular.

The idea of a woman having real ideas and actually living by them is somehow stunning, apparently. Men are allowed to have Grand Theories and Values, but women aren't? This man is in his mid-30s; if he doesn't understand by now that there are women out here who actually live our lives according to our individual principles and ethics (which aren't ever up for approval by some dude) then he's not a guy I need to be around.

So, no. There won't be a second date for him. Smug bastard.

The Front-Runner’s Fall: the Clinton Campaign memos

The Front-Runner’s Fall

If you haven't read the piece in The Atlantic about the internal workings of the Clinton campaign, you really should. Oh, not because it gives you a little thrill to have all your bad feelings against the Clinton campaign reaffirmed (if that was your wont) but because of what you can learn about basic lessons of management.

For me, especially if I put myself back in the strategic communications firm I worked in a few years ago, the story of the campaign's implosion was a textbook lesson of what happens when an organization A) fails to ensure proper values and strategy alignment among its teams, B) doesn't address bad information flow and C) lacks trust.

Not to sound all Fast Company, but values and strategic alignment is the glue that holds an organization together. In corporate speak, it's what folks talk about when they say they're 'on the same page.' Folks in suits talk a lot about 'being on the same page' but there is usually a big gap between where the Leader says they are and what folks on the frontline see. Say what you will about the GOP, in every single one of the candidates they run, values and strategy go hand in hand.

In the Clinton campaign's case, HRC and her staff seemed to come from totally different directions: Penn wanting to go immediately negative (which I'll note later), other key staff resisting, the Leader being conspicuously absent from the final decision. Did HRC really believe that BO was 'un-American'? I seriously doubt that. Yet, what made Penn think she'd be open to that? What values gap existed between them?

(And sharing the same goal does not mean people share the same values.)

My biggest takeaway from the piece was how important information flow is to any successful campaign (not just political campaigns, either.) The memos reveal how information was plugged, or viewed with distrust, at various points. Information on budgets, tactics, shifting electoral landscape - all, at some point, went ignored by key people after being floated 'up' or 'across' the organization from people on the frontline. As a result, the leader was left without the tools she needed to do the work she needed to do. Does this kind of isolation make a leader trust her team or does this make her assume more responsibility because she can't trust her team to do what it needs to do to deliver? And, in return, does a team look at their leader's withdrawal and respond positively or panic, withholding bad news and leading to more distrust?

High performing teams don't have these issues; they see and act (quickly) through the same goggles, acting with flexibility to good and bad environmental factors; ideas are evaluated on their value-addedness (is this idea going to enhance our mission and vision, stretch it or take us outside of it?); high performing teams act with autonomy but there's always an honest touchstone with leadership, marked by free flowing communication.

If only someone on Clinton's staff had read a few issues of the Harvard Business Review.
...
Reading the Atlantic piece, I was riveted. Reading Penn's memos where he suggested highlighting Obama's Otherness and 'un-American-ness,' I thought, 'Wow, he actually said it.' If we take his suggestion and pair it with his note that the campaign was trying to 'neutralize' race as a major factor, then we get a picture of a man with his head very far up his ass. You want to take 'race' out of the picture but you don't mind telling a whole bunch of black and brown people that a man of color is un-American.

Talk about problematic - and talk about an opportunity for the Dems to ask themselves if that kind of strategic thinking reflects the values of their party.

This piece also makes me hope the Obama camp will be careful of values/strategy misalignment, mission and vision creep, or perceptions thereof. (In other words, no more FISA or offshore drilling shit!) But I'm almost positive Obama reads the HBR. Right?

asshat, special infidelity edition: john edwards

You heard me. John Edwards is an asshat.

What kind of asshat runs for President knowing his adulterous shit is probably going to be made public, very very soon? And what would this asshat have done if, by a miracle, he had nabbed the nomination?

What kind of asshat gets his ass caught by the National Enquirer?
(OJ Simpson, you say? Touche.)

What kind of asshat still has an affair with a campaign aide?
(At least try for something different - a lonely, blind schoolteacher from Fresno who fears she'll never know the heat of passion, or something.)

For that matter, what kind of asshat still has affairs?

(Dear political dudes, have you learned nothing from Bill, Eliot or the scads of other political dudes who've been caught ball walking? For the love of the citizenry, develop a chemical addiction or something. We will readily forgive a big ol' pipe smoking meth head over a guy who cheats on his cancer-stricken wife!)

Then again, we get the asshats we deserve. After all, what country still insists their public officials live like virgins?

So there you go. John Edwards, asshat.

yeah, no.

Obama asks supporters to help Clinton pay off debt - Yahoo! News

asshat: karl rove

Yesterday, Karl Rove called Obama 'cooly arrogant:'

"Even if you never met him," Rove said, "You know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Clearly, if making snide comments was all that counted I guess that makes all of Gen X 'cooly arrogant.'

Rove's comment prompts some deep thoughts:

1. how many black people actually belong to a country club?
2. of those black people, how many would actually make snide comments about their fellow privileged country clubbers?
3. how many country clubs actually allow smoking?
4. since when does 'cooly arrogant' mean something bad when pop culture/literature/cinema tells us 'cooly arrogant' men are frakking hot?

A Few Cooly Arrogant Men We (ok, I) Have Loved:
Mr. Darcy
Captain Wentworth
Toby Stephens
Cary Grant
James Bond
Daniel Craig, James Bond
Pierce Brosnan, Thomas Crown
Steve McQueen
Rupert Everett
Omar Sharif
Peter O'Toole (when he was less cadaverous)
Jean Reno, Swept Away
Morpheus
George Clooney
Clive Owen
almost every Regency romance hero ever written
Batman
Magneto
Bruce Willis
Prospero
Severus Snape
Nick Charles
Mr. Tibbs
Han Solo
Spencer Tracy
Paul Henreid
Humphrey Bogart
Spock

In the meantime, the GOP needs to resolve their collective cognitive-Obama-dissonance if the best they can come up with is calling Obama a milk chocolate WASP.

(Feel free to add your own 'cooly arrogant' object of desire in comments - male or female, all are welcome.)

not far enough

it's thursday and i really must get some work done so i'll just throw up some links to some articles i think you should read against one another.

Liking What White People Like - TIME is a rather soft piece that falls apart a little trying to problematize the word 'white.' or something.

then we have the blog Stuff White People Do, which takes a slightly different view of the 'empowering' laughter at white culture.

at the same blog, there's a post up about the 'mask' of whiteness that, though i think it could have gone a little deeper, touches on an aspect of white performativity that is very different from What White People Like ever imagined. (it also has a rather revealing clip of a very angry woman who, perhaps, might want to rethink some things.)

and then there is this, Tim Wise's strongly-worded post about that very mask of whiteness slipping in some circles. (is Wise's tone a bit sharp? yes. how else to get people to pay attention to anti-racism work?) there is a (very) brief discussion of it on Bitch PhD, but it's funny how the whole whiteness conversation gets swallowed by a discussions of gender, class and a 'heard it before' discussion of electoral strategy.

anyway, carry on.

rhetorical devices, 101: hyperbole

"This is the happiest day of my life." Really? Are you sure? I mean, out of all your days on earth you're sure that this day, this particular day, is the one that gives you the best feeling of happiness (well-being, satisfaction, contentment and joy) you have ever experienced? Can you measure that happiness and back that up with some sort of empirical evidence - and can you be sure that this zenith of happiness will hold firm in the future?

"Oh my god, that was the worst sex ever." Really? Ever? In your lifetime of sexual activity, this one instance was measurably worse than (and exceeded the badness of) the sex you've had before? So bad that it may put you off sex forever? If you run an analysis of all your lovers, taking into consideration their various techniques and the quality of the sexage, will this one lover top the list as the worst, or just one of the worst?

"For the first time in my life, I am really proud of my country." Oh, please. You mean you have lived in a state of perpetual and uninterrupted dissatisfaction with this country since the day you were born? I mean, you haven't even felt a little swelling of pride during the Olympics?? And what makes this particular moment so great for you it erases all other, potential pride-inducing moments a country could give, huh?

"Mission: Accomplished." Sigh.

So. Out of all these dramatic, hyperbolic declarations, which one is the most damaging to our civic psyche? Which one exposes the speaker as a liar or, at least, someone with only a glancing familiarity with the truth?

the media and the dap: or, how to tell who skipped diversity training

having had my Black Card revoked so many times before, i didn't know it had a name but i've at least seen the fist bump thing before. so imagine my total jaw-dropping surprise when the dap suddenly becomes 'a terrorist fist jab.'

again, i implore the heavens: do white people NOT have friends of color?? (or at least watch tv?) swear to god, listening to the MSM dissect the dap is like having some clueless white girl ask to touch my hair. it is tired, tired, tired.

i wonder what else will become signifiers for Otherness?

• as one blog put it, if the Obama girls start sporting corn rows, will that be dissected as too ethinic or perhaps a juvenile declaration of Black Power?
• will the mention of ashy skin suddenly become interpreted as code for 'terrorist derma disguise'?
• will photos of michelle obama with her hair wrapped become a sign of 'secret-muslim-ness'?
• will knowing the words to the Black National Anthem become a code for 'kill whitey'?

sigh.

this isn't anger. today, i am actually amused by our media's vanilla-ness. i will be angry another day. but, lord. shit is about to get triflin' real fast in this election.

[things to read: Too Sense: How American Culture Works

Jack and Jill Politics

MoDo's latest craziness]

who gets to be american? a jeremiad.

Well, according to Kathleen Parker, it's all about the blood.

From her column:

It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots. Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Fry’s political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.

It's the blood that somehow conveys heritage, values, national identity and civic belonging. If you don't have the right kind of 'blood' then you're not a 'real' American. You're a wannabe, a poser, a fake. You have no claim on this American birthright because you aren't 'pure-blooded' American. You're a mutt, impure, Other.

Is any of this ringing anyone's bells? Even without graduate degrees in history?

Because we should know about bloodlines and blood spilt for sacrifice. Sweet holy jesus, this Parker woman dares to tell anyone in this country (who isn't white) that the sacrifices their families were forced to make because they were Other in this great country of 'opportunity' and 'plenty' don't count.

Who hasn't sacrificed to be an American? Who?
Have black people not sacrificed?
Have the Chinese not sacrificed?
Have the Japanese not sacrificed?
Have the Native Americans, for god's sake, not sacrificed?
Have the Mexicans and the South Asians not sacrificed?
Who is shirking off the responsibility to sacrifice so that they can participate in and assume this twisted American identity of ours?

All our histories in the past two hundred years have all been litanies of the sacrifice and 'blood' of Others. Why does our 'blood' not count and other 'blood' does?

This column so infuriated me, the only thing that could make me feel good about my anger was this Lincoln quote:

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."

Oh, Abe. If you only knew.

I knew this election season would bring out people's subterranean ugliness, the thoughts that whisper around their heads they would never dare bring out into the light, but I thought folks would treat this historical moment with a little bit more class. How naive of me. Once again, the white supremacist underpinnings of this country have jumped the leash.

You are killing me, America!

I keep giving you chances; I keep thinking, this isn't everyone. It's the media; it's some snaggle-toothed nutter living in the woods; it's just some run of the mill white person who doesn't know any people of color so they're just sort of stupid; or it's Fox News (see nutter). But this came out in a nationally syndicated column. This piece of xenophobic, nativist trash (which reads no different from the xenophobic, nativist trash from the 19th and early 20th centuries) was approved by someone. Someone's lizard brain read this and thought, 'Eh, what's the big deal? It's just an op-ed.'

Gah! America, if you were a person standing in front of me I'd slap you!

Pat Buchanan wants me to 'be grateful.' He wants me to shut up and be grateful I live in a place that suffers from the worst case of degenerate racism, a place that makes no significant movement toward recognition of or reconciliation for its white supremacist past. But here's our chance! Here's a moment - a gorgeous, breathtaking moment! And what do we do with this moment? We say he is not (and by extension, we are not - I am not) a 'full-blooded American'!

Oh, America, you make we wanna holler!

I can't be grateful when I keep waiting for this country to grow. the fuck. up. I keep waiting for it to do some frakking introspection. Look back at OUR history and make some little effort to change. But this country, rather than look backward with a critical and regretful eye, looks behind like Lot's wife and can't feel its limbs turning to salt.

[h/t: Too Sense: Oh, Hell No.
And here's that excellent post back in March on the Buchanan 'black gratitude' mess at Obsidian Wings.]