#and ends up playing a major supporting role in her spouse's career using her own strengths instead of fully going off on her own

[starlit-mansion]

one of the annoying things about playing stardew valley for the first time since like 2018 is that i forgot all the character arcs and did not realize........ that haley and evie's arcs are not dissimilar

[blamebrampton]

Any chance you could explain to this non-Brit how Boris Johnson went from Emily’s secret Tory crush and Draco’s genial uncle in blythely’s fic to actual Voldemort?

I will give it a red-hot go, with the caveats that it is very late in Sydney, I have managed to live on the other side of the planet for his entire political career and only crossed paths with media Boris and I am so enraged I have no interest in any notions of balance for balance’s sake.

Boris occupies a very particular place in British public life. He is a charming man, as even I will admit, and he is well read and gifted at Latin. That is the extent of the good I can say. When he is not doing anything important, that is enough: as a dinner guest, he would be entertaining. As an MC at a retirement function for a Classics professor, ideal. Cosplaying a mediaeval monk in a well-constructed LARP, utter perfection.

However, when it comes to actually doing useful things, the man is an incompetent buffoon whose only genuine talent is self-promotion. He was president of the Oxford Union, but widely considered useless in the role. He was sacked from his first media job for making up a quotation. He should have been sacked from his second media job for making up endless Euromyths (one of the few times I have agreed with John Major was on how much bullshit Boris wrote in his columns) and delivering nothing but blather in his political commentary. He not only flirted with Nationalist arses, he emboldened them and created a narrative for them. He was involved in a friend’s plan to beat up a journalist who had exposed said friend’s corruption, shagged far too many people he wasn’t married to (I’m all for shagging, but not for extended cheating on spouses) and was far more about celebrity than anything else, adding TV to his growing media gigs (NB editorial staff considered him over-rated, over-paid, and possibly an even bigger wanker than Giles Coren, which, when you consider Giles’s form (beautifully summed up in the linked blog), is damning).

In the early 2000s he finally succeeded in being elected as an MP. While nowhere near as good as cosplaying a mediaeval monk, MP was a fine position for him. He could be entertaining, he was kept ‘busy’ most of the time, he felt as though he was important without anyone taking anything he did the least bit seriously and his utter uselessness was covered up by the usefulness of other MPs, Peers and public servants. This is the Boris that appears in my For the Public Good and Blythely’s Corridors of Power, the affable uncle, who you might consider shagging if you were a particular type of girl and very, very drunk indeed.

Coralled in Westminster, the charm was highlighted and the damaging narcissism controlled. This was Boris’s Finest Hour. Alas, rather than doing the sensible thing and devoting his career to staunch backbenchering, a minor shadow ministry and then possibly ministry or two, and excellent late-career memoirs a la Alan Clark, he decided that he was The Great Man of our time and decided to set himself on a Churchillian pathway, which later included one of the worst biographies of recent decades on Winston himself (though, and here I will be fair, nothing like as lacking in all merit as Rees-Mogg’s The Victorians).

He won election as Mayor of London, where he came through on buses but nothing else, ran through at least one more marriage of his own, and reinvented himself as a major Eurosceptic, having previously treated the idea as good fodder for magazine columns (hastily cobbled together, often fictional, up to £5000 a pop columns, I remind you). He shouted a lot, but was, as my favourite Australianism has it, as useful as tits on a bull. This is the Boris that appears very thinly disguised as Draco’s boss in Little Red Courgette. He returned to being an MP before he finished his term as mayor, with a target on David Cameron, then Prime Minister.

Cameron himself won Prat of the Century when he basically announced a vote on Brexit rather than have an argument with Boris and co, Boris followed this up with more of what he does best: lies and self-promotion. Ironically, there was a bus involved: his one actual accomplishment bastardised with the lie that leaving the EU would return £350 million (I accidentally left of the million when I first published this, coincidentally making his lie something closer to the real figure) a week to the struggling NHS (struggling, like the police, thanks to Tory underfunding and gutting of support).

When the Brexiteers actually won, Cameron walked rather than deal with the mess he had created, and Boris balked at the prospect of running for leader, given the amount of thankless work on the horizon. He left Theresa May to struggle through three years of hopeless negotiations (not forgetting his hapless stint as Foreign Minister where he was most notable for getting a British charity worker convicted of spying in Iran) before feeling his time had come and destabilising her utterly to sweep the prize of the leadership from her hand. In his head, he may consider this having played a good long game. In actuality, he is about to take the country so far backwards so fast that it is possible he may actually end up meeting his hero Churchill in some sort of weird Doctor Who-ish time slip.

In a best-case scenario, his months as PM end so ignominiously that even his lack of shame is bested and he slinks off into a quiet retirement in Sardinia, reappearing in the headlines only as the victim of an exasperated girlfriend, who receives a lenient sentence given the circumstances. I would also accept crushed in a tragic wooden-box bus accident.

People draw parallels between Johnson and Trump and there is good reason for some of them. I will say that Boris is cleverer; I will also say that from his track record, this is almost impossible to tell.

[disappearingground]

The Jenny Lewis Experience

The New York Times July 24, 2014

A version of this article appears in print on July 27, 2014, Page 18 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: The Jenny Lewis Experience.

By Jeff Himmelman

“They’d put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on,” Jenny Lewis said. We were sitting in a restaurant in Laurel Canyon, not far from her home, and she was describing her early childhood with parents who made their living performing as an itinerant Sonny-and-Cher-style lounge act called Love’s Way. “We lived in hotels,” she said. “My sister and I, they would just keep us in the hotel room, and they’d go down and play.” When Lewis was born in 1976, her parents were doing a stand at the Sands. They split up when she was 3, and her mother — herself the daughter of a dancer and a vaudeville performer — took Jenny and her sister to Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley, where she worked as a waitress and struggled to keep her family afloat. “We were on welfare,” Lewis said, before describing the day their fortunes changed, when an agent picked young Jenny out of a crowd at her preschool. “I think mostly because I was a redhead,” she said. “And I was a weird little kid, a weird little tomboy.”

She soon landed her first commercial, for Jell-O, and came under the wing of Iris Burton, an eminent children’s agent who represented River and Joaquin Phoenix and Fred Savage. Lewis started working steadily in commercials, television (“The Golden Girls,” “Growing Pains,” “Mr. Belvedere”) and film (“The Wizard,” “Troop Beverly Hills,” “Pleasantville”), living the surreal and somewhat communal life of a child star in the ‘80s. She spent her days being tutored on set and her evenings at places like Alphy’s Soda Pop Club in Hollywood, which catered exclusively to kids in the industry. At a party there when Lewis was 10, the actor Corey Haim handed her a cassette tape with Run-D.M.C. on one side and the Beastie Boys on the other. “There have been a couple of cassette tapes that have changed my life,” she said, “and that was the first one” — the tape that got her hooked on hip-hop, which eventually led her to songwriting.

I asked Lewis when she first fully realized the role she played in her family, the depth of their dependence on her. “Eight years old,” she said. “I remember the moment. That’s a pretty big thing for a kid to realize. And I remember the power in that.” By the time she was 14 or 15, with nobody to answer to, she could be as wild as she liked as long as she showed up to work and hit her marks. “I was up for it, honestly,” she said. “I loved the work and I loved the people, and it kind of prepped me for what I do now.”

What Lewis does now, the music she makes, is hard to characterize. She is often compared with Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris, and there is a kind of timelessness to the way she writes and sings. But the throwback stuff doesn’t quite capture her. Among some music fans — including many other well-known musicians — Lewis is considered a kind of indie goddess, a stylish performer who defies genre and salts her songs with a sly and off-kilter intelligence. Her first band, Rilo Kiley, signed a major-label deal with Warner Bros. Records in 2005; her first side project, the Postal Service, led by Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, sold more than a million copies of its debut; and she has released two well-received solo records since then. Next week, she will release a third, “The Voyager,” her first solo effort in six years. It has been a battle to get it out. Among other things, she has dealt with the death of her father, writer’s block and bouts of insomnia so severe and debilitating that she said they left her almost unable to function for nearly two years.

You’d never guess that from meeting her, though. She talks like a true child of L.A. — the “bro"s and “dude"s flow freely, without affectation — and her go-to traveling costume is a vintage Adidas track suit, Adidas shell-top sneakers and, on the day I first met her, hot-pink lipstick and oversize sunglasses. She lives with her longtime boyfriend and collaborator, the musician Johnathan Rice, up a long canyon road in the hills that separate the San Fernando Valley from downtown Los Angeles. Her house (called “Mint Chip” for its brown-and-light-green exterior) is set into the hillside, looking out over a ravine. There is a rehearsal space with a drum kit, a P.A. and some vintage gear, an old piano in the living room and a vinyl edition of James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” propped up beside the fireplace. Beyond the small pool in the back yard there’s a windowed gazebo that Rice uses as his songwriting space. Whatever you are imagining of the California light and the laid-back lifestyle: yes.

Historically, nearby Laurel Canyon has been synonymous with a certain kind of lush ‘60s acoustic-and-multipart-harmony sound, but Lewis’s musical roots spring from the ‘90s and the smart indie rock of Elliott Smith and Pavement. When she was 20 or so, her acting career wasn’t where she wanted it to be, and she saw that she needed to make a change. “I was the best friend,” she said. “I was the friend, forever. I wanted the big, juicy roles, and they didn’t come to me.” (She read for the part of Bunny in the Coen brothers’ film “The Big Lebowski,” for one, but didn’t get it.) She had known Blake Sennett, another former child actor, since she was 17, and they began writing together and eventually formed Rilo Kiley.

She and Sennett dated and broke up and kept playing together. The relationship was always fraught (Gibbard remembers Lewis screaming at Sennett over the phone during the first Postal Service tour), but Lewis said it gave her the confidence she needed to become a real songwriter. “Through my partnership with Blake, I found a voice within myself that I didn’t know I had,” she said. “It sounds kind of cheesy, but I figured out who I was.” From the first lines of the first song on Rilo Kiley’s debut record, a track called “Go Ahead,” you can hear the DNA of the musician Lewis has become nearly 15 years later — a floating, distinct voice, an unpredictable melody, a wryly subverted rhyme.

The link between songwriting and autobiography is a tantalizing but tenuous one, and Lewis prefers to preserve as much mystery as she can. But she affirms that she has never written anything more personal than “Better Son/Daughter,” one of the strongest tracks off Rilo Kiley’s second record, “The Execution of All Things.” The song is about waking up in the morning and being unable to open your eyes or get out of bed: “And your mother’s still calling you, insane and high/Swearing it’s different this time.” Eventually it opens into an anthem of wounded fortitude, the kind you can imagine cars full of young women screaming along to. The actress Anne Hathaway, one of Lewis’s close friends, told me that she still turns to that song whenever she’s struggling. “It’s become almost like a prayer,” she said.

Outside whatever veiled references she makes in her music, Lewis doesn’t talk much about her mother. She acknowledged that it was a “difficult relationship” and that she didn’t have a “traditional upbringing,” but that was about it. At one point, I referred to a report in The Boston Globe in 1992, when Lewis was 16, noting that she owned a house in Sherman Oaks and a townhouse in North Hollywood. “We lost all of that,” she said, with a blankness I hadn’t seen from her before. I asked her why. “We just lost ‘em,” she said. “I achieved a lot as a child, I supported my family, but in the end we lost it all.”

In 2004, Rilo Kiley toured with Coldplay, but Lewis was still scraping by, living in a small apartment in Silver Lake with an Iranian rockabilly musician she found on Craigslist. In her bedroom, when she wasn’t on tour, she wrote the songs that would become “Rabbit Fur Coat,” her first solo record. The idea for it came from Conor Oberst, the songwriter (also known as the frontman of Bright Eyes) who helped form Saddle Creek Records, which had put out “The Execution of All Things.” “I encouraged her,” Oberst told me. “You know, why don’t you step away from this thing that is obviously causing you a lot of distress and make a record on your own?” Sennett had already made a solo record, which upset Lewis. “I was so jealous if someone else got Blake’s musical attention,” she told me. “I was shattered by it.” She made “Rabbit Fur Coat,” she said, in part to prove that “I can do it too on my own — I don’t need you.”

The songs on “Rabbit Fur Coat” are ethereal and haunted, rooted in deep Southern and gospel-inflected melodic traditions. On the record’s title track, Lewis’s lyrics again invite comparison with her family life:

Let’s move ahead 20 years, shall we? She was waitressing on welfare, we were living in the valley A lady says to my ma, “You treat your girl as your spouse You can live in a mansion house.”

And so we did, and I became a hundred-thousand-dollar kid . . . But I’m not bitter about it I’ve packed up my things and let them have at it And the fortune faded, as fortunes often do And so did that mansion house

Where my ma is now, I don’t know She was living in her car, I was living on the road And I hear she’s putting stuff up her nose . . .

After the record was done, Lewis went on tour with Rilo Kiley. When the band played the Showbox in Seattle in 2005, Gibbard picked her up after sound check. They’d become friends during the Postal Service tour a few years earlier. As they drove around in Gibbard’s car, Lewis played the new songs for him. “I just remember, all hyperbole aside, being completely blown away,” Gibbard said. “It was undoubtedly the best thing that she had done.” The press shared Gibbard’s reaction, and Lewis got more attention on her own than Rilo Kiley had ever gotten as a band. “Everything was so easy for the first time,” she said. “It just unfolded so naturally. And then going out on the road and touring was the most fun I’ve ever had on tour. There was no tension for the first time.” Rilo Kiley would put out one more record, but it soon became clear that it would be their last.

“I want to show you something,” Lewis said. We were talking in her kitchen about her second solo release, “Acid Tongue,” which she recorded over three weeks in 2008 at the legendary Sound City Studios in Van Nuys. The record had a bunch of special guests on it — Elvis Costello, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes — but the most meaningful one was Lewis’s dad, who died in 2010. In the living room, she pointed out a glass vitrine on top of the piano that held one of her father’s chromatic bass harmonicas. Before the “Acid Tongue” sessions, she hadn’t spoken to her father in years, but she felt comfortable enough with the musical family she had created around her — Rilo Kiley’s drummer, Jason Boesel; Johnathan Rice; some other musicians from the Laurel Canyon set — that she thought she could handle having him around. He played on the track “Jack Killed Mom,” and the reunion helped Lewis forgive him for leaving the family all those years ago. “He was playing lounges in Alaska,” Lewis said of when she tracked him down and asked him to play on the album. “That’s why I never saw him. It was not a malicious thing. My dad was a savant. He never drove a car, he never had a bank account,” she said. “I don’t even know if he realized that he wasn’t around, you know? I think he was just playing his gigs, trying to make a living.”

“Acid Tongue” was also a step toward recording everything all at once, live, to an analog tape machine — instead of in pieces to a computer. It’s a process that Lewis has developed a devotion to, and one that the songwriter and producer Ryan Adams would push to an extreme on “The Voyager.” (After “Acid Tongue,” Lewis and Rice released “I’m Having Fun Now” in 2010, an underrated duo record that failed to get the kind of traction they hoped for.) For the last few years, Lewis had been sitting on many of the songs that would make up “The Voyager,” battling insomnia and struggling to get them down. She ran into Adams in Los Angeles and told him she had some songs she was working on, and he invited her to come by his studio, Pax-Am, on the Sunset Strip. She played a few of the tunes for him on her acoustic guitar.

‘My dad was a savant,’ Lewis said. ‘He never drove a car, he never had a bank account. I don’t even know if he realized that he wasn’t around, you know?’

“My initial impression was there were some really minimal but necessary things that had to happen,” Adams told me. “I could tell that she had sat with them a little too long.” (Lewis agrees: “I was like: ‘Dude, go for it. Help me.’ ”) On the first song that they worked on together, “She’s Not Me,” they changed the key to relax Lewis’s voice, and then Adams and his production partner, Mike Viola, strapped on electric guitars and rolled through the full song, three times, with Lewis playing and singing live with a backing band. Adams pronounced the track finished for the time being and said they would move on, without even listening back to what they’d done. “For Jenny, revisionism wouldn’t have worked,” Adams said. “The version she would play on the couch in the control room, we would just stand there, like, ‘Wow, this is classic songwriting.’ Every time. So that was sort of my mission. How do we get an ‘unmind’ vibe here and then go back later and look at these beautiful raw takes and just splash a little bit of watercolor on them.” Lewis ended up recording the bulk of the record with Adams over 10 days. (She worked on the single, “Just One of the Guys,” separately with Beck before she and Adams went into the studio together.)

“The Voyager” is an older and more direct record than her previous two. Her characters are still drinking and doing blow and cheating on each other, but there is a kind of weariness to it all. One line in particular has caught the early attention of some of her many female fans, during the bridge of “Just One of the Guys”: “There’s only one difference between you and me/When I look at myself all I can see/I’m just another lady without a baby.” She has been hesitant to acknowledge what that line specifically means to her. “I wanted to communicate some very basic things,” she told me, without saying what they were. She was already starting to regret having talked about some of her other struggles while making the record, including open discussion of the insomnia that plagued her. “Now everyone’s asking me about insomnia, which I’m terrified is going to happen to me again,” she said. “You can’t think about it too much, and everyone’s asking me about it, and I’m like, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ But, [expletive], am I not going to get to sleep again?” You could hear the fear in her voice. “It’s my fault for putting it out there,” she said.

The video for “Just One of the Guys,” which got more than a million views in its first 24 hours online, was made with the actresses (and Lewis’s friends) Anne Hathaway, Brie Larson, Kristen Stewart and Tennessee Thomas. It’s an entertaining video, part Robert Palmer, part Beastie Boys, with the women spending half the time playing a sleek female backing band and then switching into male roles, clowning around in Lewis-inspired Adidas track suits and fake mustaches. Lewis, as herself, holds up a positive pregnancy test, to which Lewis-in-drag-and-fake-goatee responds, “It’s not [expletive] mine.” When she gets to the “just another lady without a baby” line, she smiles at the camera and then dances. It’s a house of mirrors, a romp through emotionally treacherous terrain.

When I visited Lewis in June, she and Rice (she calls him “Rico”) showed me an early cut of the video in the bedroom of their house, with Lewis calling out “bra shot” whenever we caught a glimpse of her cleavage. Driving down the hill toward dinner later, we got to talking, if somewhat obliquely, about the expectations of her female fans and the sexuality that is inseparable from who she is and the music she makes. She didn’t like to talk about feminism, she said, and in particular the trend of women criticizing one another for not being feminist enough: “What does it matter what I think of Lana Del Rey?” In the months before the release of “The Voyager,” Lewis has taken to wearing airbrushed suits for her live shows, rather than the sexier get-ups she used to wear onstage; she has said she feels “androgynous” these days and wants her costume to reflect that. But not always. As we made our way down the ravine, she told a story about the day President Obama came to visit a compound not far from Mint Chip. She wanted to go out for a run, but a Secret Service member stopped her and told her she needed an ID if she wanted to get back through the security cordon. “I was like, ‘Dude, I’m wearing short shorts,’ ” Lewis said. " ‘You’ll remember me.’ ”

After recording and touring mostly with men in the early days, Lewis now consistently seeks out women for her band and even tried to put together an all-female crew for the “Just One of the Guys” video, which she also directed. She said her desire to work largely with women was a response to the dissolution of her relationship with her mom. “The more I surround myself with women, the easier it is to reconcile my past in a way.” It seems to be serving a kind of psychic need, to replace the female relationship that once dominated her life with a kind of surrogate family of her choosing, a family that has stood behind her through the struggles of the last few years.

“I’m happy to see her making records,” Beck told me. “I just feel like music needs her. It needs someone doing what she’s doing. She’s got a special voice, as a writer, and then as a musician. She’s this great combination of so many things.” Conor Oberst shares that view, describing Lewis as one of the most important songwriters and performers in contemporary music. “Go see her play,” Oberst said. “Because we should all feel lucky to be around while she’s doing her magic.”

On a night in early June, at a sold-out show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, Lewis had her magic all lined up and ready to go. Backstage, she was relaxed, joking with her band and casually doing her makeup in the mirror on the wall. Just before show time, one band member disappeared, but Lewis was unperturbed. “It’s O.K.,” she said with a smile when he showed up, apologizing, just as they were about to go on. “You made it!” She took a sip of red wine out of a plastic cup and then walked up the steps to the stage.

‘I just feel like music needs her,’ Beck said. ‘It needs someone doing what she’s doing. She’s got a special voice, as a writer, and then as a musician.’

To watch Lewis perform live is to understand what Beck and Oberst and other musicians admire in her. “She turns into this other person on stage,” Gibbard said, “this unbelievably powerful performer” — and it’s true. Lewis is both a natural and a pro. Throughout the night, she had big middle-aged guys and teenage girls — “teeny little chickens,” as she called them later — singing along to every word. During the encore, Lewis sang the ballad “Acid Tongue” accompanied only by her acoustic guitar and the rest of her band grouped around a microphone behind her. “To be lonely is a habit,” Lewis sang, her voice ringing out in the near-silent room, “like smoking or taking drugs, and I’ve quit them both. . . . " The audience and her band belted along with her as she finished the line: “But man was it rough.”

It was one of those lovely moments you hope for in live music, when everything in the room connects. But it was also a kind of emblem of where Lewis has been and of where she is now. She has overcome all kinds of obstacles to get here, often with great style, but it hasn’t always been pretty. Whatever demons stole her sleep for these last few years, they’ve surely been with her forever, in one form or another. But they are also what gives such depth and soul to what she does. “I’m not looking for a cure,” Lewis sang, and as she stood in the spotlight at the 9:30 Club, nobody there would have thought she needed one.

[globalpeacefoundationindia]

Topic-

Up to what extent women can open up about their problems they face in the day to day life.

• Women in India have to face a lot of issues. They have to go through gender discrimination, harassment, sexual abuse, lack of education, dowry-related harassment, gender pay gap and much more.

• We must come together to empower women. They must be given equal educational opportunities. Furthermore, they must be paid equally. Moreover, laws must be made more stringent for crimes against women.

The lack of respect for caregiving Women in the United States who are caregivers—for children, parents, spouses, siblings or extended family members—have two full-time jobs, while trying to compete with men who have one. And over half of us are the primary breadwinners in our households. The standard response is to persuade men to “help” more. But we need a sea-change, one that can happen only with a normative revolution around the value of care.

Navigating career and motherhood According to the World Health Organization, 830 women die every day from “preventable causes related to pregnancy.” These statistics are even more staggering in developing countries and among women of color in the United States. Black women in particular are the most affected, dying at a ratio of 25.1 deaths per 100,000.

The economy is not working for women

Women are the primary or joint breadwinners for a majority of American households. But right now, this economy and our government is not working for them and their families.

Women play a very significant role in the overall development of any society and Kashmir is no exception. But what is ironic is that despite her equal share in the human development she remains at the mercy of men at least in our part of the world.

The silver lining however is the recent surge in women led protest movements across India.

She is out there to challenge the well established gender biased norms and deeply entrenched patriarchal stranglehold over the fairer sex.

Woman is a very strong character than a man as she not only has to take care of herself but whole family as a daughter, granddaughter, sister, daughter-in-law, wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, etc. No mean task by any stretch of imagination. Add to this her role as an active member of the society as a working lady in different spheres of life. Woman has come of age.

Earlier women in India were facing problems like child marriage, sati pratha, parda pratha, restriction to widow remarriage, widow exploitation, devadasi system, etc. However, almost all such old practices have almost vanished. But that doesn’t mean an end to the challenges women face. New and modern day challenges have cropped up making life uneasy for women.

Issues facing women still consume the attention of researchers in social sciences, governments, planning groups, social workers and reformers. Approaches to the study of women’s problems range from the study of gerontology to psychiatry and criminology. But one important problem relating to women which has been vastly ignored is the problem of violence against women.

Firstly, violence against women is a very grave issue faced by women in India. It is happening almost every day in various forms. People turn a blind eye to it instead of doing

something. Domestic violence happens more often than you think. Further, there is also dowry-related harassment, marital rape, genital mutilation and more.

Next up, we also have the issues of gender discrimination. Women are not considered equal to men. They face discrimination in almost every place, whether at the workplace or at home. Even the little girls become a victim of this discrimination. The patriarchy dictates a woman’s life unjustly.

Moreover, there is also a lack of female education and the gender pay gap. Women in rural areas are still denied education for being a female. Similarly, women do not get equal pay as men for doing the same work. On top of that, they also face workplace harassment and exploitation.

• Not enough women at the table Kamala Harris is a Democratic U.S. senator from California. She is running for president in 2020.

I don’t think it’s possible to name just one challenge—from the economy to climate change to criminal justice reform to national security, all issues are women’s issues—but I believe a key to tackling the challenges we face is ensuring women are at the table, making decisions.

••Trauma-centers

The threat of harm is a human constant, but by any reasonable measure, American women

are among the safest, freest, healthiest, most opportunity-rich women on Earth. In many ways, we are not just doing as well as men, we are surpassing them. But everywhere, especially on college campuses, young women are being taught that they are vulnerable, fragile and in imminent danger. A new trauma-centered feminism has taken hold.

Access to equal opportunity

Education, these mothers believed, would provide their daughters with opportunities they, because of their gender, were denied. Unfortunately, even with adequate education, women here in the United States as well as women across much of the world still lack equal access to opportunity.

Ways to overcome women related issues

1. Raise your voice

Voice amplifies, directs and changes the conversation. Don’t sit silent in meetings or conversations with friends when you have something to contribute to the conversation.

2. Support one another

Recognize inherent dignity in oneself and all other human beings through acceptance of identities different from one’s own.

3. Share the workload

Share the responsibility of creating safe environments for vulnerability to be freely expressed.

4. Get involved

Acknowledge that your actions are crucial to the creation of fairness and accountability.

Identify your commitments. Speak about them, and act on them.

5. Educate the next generation

Listen actively and seek understanding. Share experience and knowledge to grow wisdom.

6. Know your rights

Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights. At their most basic, human rights concern reciprocity in human relationships that extend to all humanity and beyond.

7. Join the online conversation

Human beings express their identities and their aspirations through what they say. Join the

IWD Conversation #TimeIsNow and #IWD2018. Social media amplifies women’s voices and emboldens their collective agency.

8. Give to the cause

It takes time and effort for the gender equality conversation to reach everyone. Consider giving to the cause by donating money or time

In short we can say that following steps helps in achieving our goal:

Enabling the political empowerment of women

Uplifting the role of women in society through entrepreneurship. Educating women.Contributing to the education and skills development of women. Education and skills development is one of the most important and sustainable interventions needed to effectively assist women in restoring their lives and positively influencing the future of young girls.

Developing women as entrepreneurs and mentoring them.

Businesses operating internationally have an ethical responsibility to contribute to the empowerment of people, so that they at least live above the breadline. Multinational companies are better positioned to mobilize greater resources in the form of financial aid, proper governance, project management and expertise to bring entrepreneurial programmes to women in conflict or post-conflict regions. However, local companies must also bear some of the responsibility.

- Pooja

[bethebestyoucanbe]

A Leaders Personality Can Undermine Succession Planning | Business Coach UK

Once upon a time, there was an enlightened organisational leader who spoke candidly about his upcoming retirement. “I am afraid about the next phase of my life” he would say, continuing “I’m not sure what my life is or will be without my job, without my career. How will I spend my time? How will I face the fact that I am replaceable, that the world can and will go on without me? How will I derive a sense of identity, power, agency and meaning once I am retired?” He would even add, “I married my spouse for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, but not for lunch. How are we going to spend all that time together?”

Through deep self-reflection, this leader found answers to these questions, made peace with the turning of the great wheel of being and becoming, designated a talented successor whom he readied to take the reins of power, and retired. Then he, his spouse, his successor, and his organisation all lived happily ever after.

Unfortunately, in the real world of work this is basically a fairy tale. Most organisations are packed with leaders who can’t come to terms with the idea of retirement. Based on research one of us (Chamorro-Premuzic) has conducted with his firm, Hogan Assessments, and the consulting and coaching work the other of us (Dattner) has done, we have identified four all-too-common succession scenarios. In each, the personality of the needs-to-retire leader can help illuminate and explain what is happening.

Having no successor or succession plan. Some organisational Executives simply deny the reality that they need to retire, so they fail to designate a successor. They refuse to discuss their plans and go about their business as if they will remain in their role until the end of time. This pattern is commonly seen in executives with low levels of adjustment, the psychological term for being calm and even-tempered. Low-adjustment people are likely to experience more dread and anxiety at the possibility of having to make a major life adjustment, and are also less likely to trust that anyone can fill their shoes. To get over this, the leader will need to reframe accomplishment as being about his or her long-term legacy rather than being about short-term results or extending his or her tenure.

Leadership may also struggle with succession planning simply because they are bad at planning, period. They might be “big idea” people who struggle with execution in other areas of their work and life. Leaders who are less organised and disciplined may need additional encouragement and support throughout the entire process.

Regardless of the reason for leaders’ hesitancy to designate a successor, organisations need to have iron-clad and exception-free succession policies wherein every senior executive has at least one successor ready, or at least almost ready, at any given time.

Going through the motions of designating a successor. While leaders who do not make any pretence of creating and implementing a succession plan can be challenging, leaders who pretend to be on board with succession but who are actively or passively resisting the transition process can be even more difficult. As meta-analytic reviews have shown, leisurely  (a more polite term for “passive aggressive”) leaders act on the surface as if they are complying with the mandate to identify and groom a successor, but come up with myriad excuses as to why they can’t do so. Sometimes they even interview multiple internal and external candidates to “prove” that they are trying to find a successor, but then find reasons why no given candidate is good enough. They may suggest that it would take more than one person to replace them, or they may make offers only to candidates whom they know will not accept, to provide further “cover” for not hiring anyone. This kind of leader thinks to him or herself, “If I’m not replaceable, I won’t be replaced, and then I can retire at a time, and in a manner, of my own choosing.”

Stakeholders need to pay extra attention to leisurely leaders, making sure to monitor their progress and to hold them accountable for both their efforts and for results. Organisations need to tell leaders, “If you’re not replaceable, you will actually be more likely, not less likely, to be replaced sooner and on our terms rather than later and on yours.”

Designating the wrong successor. Leaders who are encouraged or induced to designate a successor may pick the wrong person, and certain kinds of leaders are particularly susceptible to doing so. Bold leaders, who are naturally more self-centred and narcissistic, often pick staffers who are less qualified or talented than they are so that they will not be upstaged. For example, Sir Alex Ferguson, the legendary Manchester United coach, famously recommended David Moyes as his successor even though he had never managed a big club or won a trophy. The team’s subsequent results reflected Moyes’ inexperience and lack of preparation.

It is also quite common for bold leaders to pick people whose main skill is their ability to “kiss up” and provide admiration, so they can remain influential even once they are no longer officially in control. Bold leaders are more concerned with their own self-esteem and social standing than they are with organisational outcomes, so they may unconsciously pick potential successors who will fail, either retroactively proving how indispensable the bold leader was or necessitating that the bold leader never actually leaves and is required to periodically step back in to save the day when the inevitable crisis occurs. Or they may pick a successor simply based on the successor’s similarity to themselves rather than based on actual competence. Organisational stakeholders need to have a voice and a vote in who the successors for key roles are, to prevent leaders from using the wrong criteria and standards in making their decisions.

Undermining or discrediting the successor. When a leader either consciously or unconsciously undermines his or her successor, there are several possible causes. One is simply low agreeableness – obviously, to designate, develop and coach a successor, it’s important for a leader to have a good degree of interpersonal sensitivity to provide the support that is necessary in a high-stakes succession situation.

But excessive diligence can also cause problems — leaders who are prone to being excessively diligent will micromanage their direct reports and won’t let their successor find his or her own way. Enlightened leaders know that saying “that’s not how I would do it” is not helpful, while “here are the specifics of what you need to achieve” is.

Another root cause for undermining behaviour can be scepticism. Leaders who are overly sceptical may create negative, self-fulfilling prophecies, sometimes called the “Set up to fail” syndrome. Unfortunately, in our experience, male leaders often have particular difficulty with female successors, who are often required to work much harder than a male successor would in order to prove their readiness and capability at a much higher standard of performance. Boards need to monitor succession across the organization to make sure that there is a level playing field and that women and members of minority groups are not asked to jump through additional hoops to get the brass ring.

In order for everyone to live happily ever after in the real world, key stakeholders such as the board chair, the Chief Human Resources Officer, investors or others need to say to the leader, “We empathise with you and understand how fraught and challenging retirement and succession planning can be. We will do everything we can to provide the tactical, coaching, and emotional support that you need during this time. We honour your talents and value your service, and, by passing on the baton and gracefully exiting, you will leave on a high note, with your legacy secure.”

Knowing the particular personality traits that may be driving destructive behaviour can help both the departing C-Suite leader and the members of the board to find a happy solution – both for the executive, and the company he or she is leaving.

I have successfully helped many Executive Coaching clients to manage the succession process, often 2nd or 3rd generation family businesses which are owner managed and being handed down. If your looking for a business coach to help with succession planning I’d be happy to help.

[dipulb3]

More than a second lady: How Gisele Fetterman came to serve Pennsylvania's neediest

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/more-than-a-second-lady-how-gisele-fetterman-came-to-serve-pennsylvanias-neediest/

More than a second lady: How Gisele Fetterman came to serve Pennsylvania's neediest

A former undocumented immigrant who became a citizen and used her platform to help all manner of Pennsylvanians, she is far more than a figurehead or a lieutenant governor’s spouse.

That anyone would be called the n-word during a quick trip to the grocery store for golden kiwis is unsettling — all the more so once you learn what Fetterman overcame simply to give back to others.

The mother of three was at a grocery store in Braddock, a PIttsburgh suburb, Sunday evening when a woman recognized her and began haranguing her, saying she didn’t belong, calling her a thief and referring to her as the n-word that Lt. Gov. John Fetterman married, she told Appradab.

Gisele Fetterman’s family fled the violence of Rio de Janeiro in 1990 and grew up poor in New York City. Her mother told her and her brother to, “Be invisible,” and she has regularly shared childhood anecdotes of looking over her shoulder and fearing every knock at the door.

“So even though I’m 38 and I’m second lady and I have a family and career, I was immediately again a scared 9-year-old undocumented little girl at that grocery line,” she said of Sunday’s encounter.

“It was a hard reminder for me that it doesn’t matter what I’ve overcome, what I’ve achieved, that to some I will always be viewed as inferior simply because I was not born in this country,” she said.

Fetterman’s record runs deep. She has spent most of her adult life in the United States helping others, whether they’re impoverished, immigrants, LGBT, minorities, imprisoned or hungry. She’s also spoken out on the importance of wearing masks and participating in the Census.

She’s lighthearted, preferring the titular acronym, SLOP, over Second Lady of Pennsylvania, which she feels is “stuffy” — and is one of the foremost purveyors of positivity on social media, once quoting Rumi: “Even if from the sky, poison befalls all, I’m still sweetness wrapped in sweetness wrapped in sweetness.”

She told a writer this month she would never seek public office because “politics is mean and I am not.”

Here are some snapshots of what she’s achieved and overcome:

Her marriage was born of caring

In 2007, she read about the Rust Belt town of Braddock and learned that steel from Braddock and other communities was used in the Brooklyn Bridge, one of her favorite landmarks.

Fetterman had had her green card for a few years, and though only in her mid-20s, she was already an activist, focusing on nutrition and food equity. She wrote then-Mayor John Fetterman to find out more about the town, whose declining population numbered around 2,000 at the time, and his efforts to improve his community. After he wrote back, she began visiting Braddock.

“Of course he fell in love with me,” she told a women’s luncheon earlier this year, the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre reported.

They were married in 2009, the same year she earned US citizenship. Since then she’s used her platforms as a naturalized American and second lady to help others.

She opened a free store for low-income families

On their fourth wedding anniversary, John Fetterman asked his wife what she wanted as a gift and she told him, “I want a shipping container.” He didn’t ask why, she told the Under the Radar entertainment blog earlier this month.

Gisele Fetterman had local artists paint the container, spruced up an abandoned lot and began doling out household goods, baby items and bicycles to those in need.

The store’s motto is “Because the best things in life are free.” It has spread to several locations and served hundreds of clients.

“We dream of a community built on relationships based on mutual aid and cooperation,” Free Store 15104’s website says. “We use the distribution of free items as a catalyst for change. We encourage recycling and reuse as a means to counteract excessive waste and consumption. We aim to eradicate food and clothing insecurity.”

She helped develop a clever way to fight hunger

412 Food Rescue, which she co-founded, sends volunteers to retailers who have surplus food that risks going bad and delivers it to nonprofits that serve the hungry.

“With the help of 2 trucks, 1 van, and thousands of volunteers, we are able to rescue perfectly good but unsellable food that would otherwise be wasted and redirect it to people who need it,” the nonprofit’s website says.

Based on the premise that it would take only one-third of the nation’s discarded food to feed its hungry population, it also strives to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from food waste, which the organization says is almost double that of aviation and the iron-and-steel industry combined.

The Pittsburgh City Paper cited both the Free Store and 412 Food Rescue in naming Fetterman 2017’s best activist.

The Fettermans opened the ‘The People’s Pool’

When John Fetterman took office, the couple opted not to move to the 2,400-square-foot state residence in Fort Indiantown Gap, instead opting to live in a remodeled car dealership in Braddock. Fetterman told Pittsburgh magazine this year that it was “not appropriate” to live in a taxpayer-funded mansion with staff. Plus, he said, Braddock is home.

As a result, the property’s 30-by-40-foot swimming pool was going unused, so Gisele Fetterman opened it up to nonprofits and summer camps and instituted a program to teach water safety because federal statistics show African American kids have a 3 times greater risk of drowning than do White chlidren.

“We can have a direct role in changing those statistics,” she said. “Swimming comes with a painful legacy of racial segregation. If my children can swim in that pool, so should every child in Pennsylvania.”

She came to Antwon Rose’s defense

After an East Pittsburgh police officer fatally shot Antwon Rose during a 2018 traffic stop, Fettermen revealed that the “very goofy” 17-year-old volunteered at Free Store 15104 and appeared in one of her husband’s campaign commercials. She also spoke at the teen’s funeral.

“He looked you in the eyes and gave anyone speaking to him total attention and respect,” she said in her tribute. “He would look at you with his big sweet smile, and you would feel, deep in your heart, that this was someone who would make the world better.”

“Antwon’s death shakes my heart, it rattles my faith that things will ever get better or that injustices will ever end. Slowly, too slowly, things will get brighter, even though they’re now so dark,” she said.

A jury cleared the officer who shot Antwon of all counts the following year.

She does little things, too

In addition to tackling major issues like hunger and inequality, she knows smaller improvements can make big differences in a community, as demonstrated by her Braddock Bench Building project, which created places to sit at public bus stops — using repurposed materials from homes slated for demolition, of course.

She also sought to brighten Braddock’s primary thoroughfare with uplifting signs, such as “Eat More Vegetables,” “Believe in Yourself,” “More Hugs Needed,” “Follow Your Dreams,” “Be Kind Always” and “Hug a Tree.”

“The signs you see along the streets are always so negative — ‘Don’t park here,’ ‘Don’t loiter there,'” she told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “We wanted to counter those with signs spreading cheer and kindness, signs with uplifting messages.”

The Fettermans spent $1,000 of their own money on the signs, the paper reported.

Inclusion is a major thrust of her work

For Good PGH, which Fetterman co-founded, drives numerous initiatives in the Braddock community.

Under the group’s umbrella, the Helping Out Our People coalition, made up of families in the Woodland Hills School District who lost a child to gun violence, mentors young people in hopes of “disrupting the disease of violence.”

The Foster Good program provides foster kids with unique suitcases rehabilitated by artists, Green Initiatives works to counter Braddock’s blight, Girl Code Woodland Hills introduces high school juniors to businesswomen in greater Pittsburgh, the Hollander Project serves as an incubator for “women-powered businesses” and Hello Hijab makes tiny Muslim headscarves for Barbies and other dolls to promote inclusion and fight stigmas.

Last year, Rodef Shalom, a Jewish congregation, made Fetterman the first woman to receive its 2020 Pursuer of Peace award, citing For Good PGH’s work.

She’s an unapologetic advocate for immigrants

The Fettermans submitted a joint op-ed to several newspapers in August, recounting how Gisele “and her family lived in constant fear that they would be discovered and lose their shot at the American Dream.”

“No child should have to live with that kind of stress,” they wrote. “They deserve to feel secure in the knowledge that they can do normal things like go to school and play sports without living in constant fear that they will lose their family.”

In a 2019 editorial for the Tribune-Review, Gisele Fetterman, a Dreamer herself, wrote that she’ll always be grateful for her mother’s courage and how she took jobs cleaning houses and checking coats to support her family.

“She was routinely paid less than she was supposed to be, if she got paid at all, and she was even assaulted while at work,” Fetterman wrote. “She never complained — she just did what she had to do for her children.

The Brazilian immigrant also recalled how, at 8 years old, she broke her nose playing kickball and her family couldn’t afford medical care, but stories from her native Rio convinced her just how lucky she was to escape the violence.

“When I look in the mirror and I see my broken nose,” she wrote, “I am reminded of how much worse it could have been, and how grateful I am to have had the opportunity to grow up in the U.S.”

Today, she tears up when she hears the National Anthem and gets “super excited to vote,” and she geeked out upon being called for jury duty, she said.

“I wasn’t chosen for a jury, probably because I was so visibly excited to be there that the lawyers thought I was crazy, but for me, that was the sign that I truly belonged, and that I could come out of the shadows,” she wrote.

Appradab’s John Berman contributed to this report.

[dailykhaleej]

‘We are Khans, we are corona-warriors’: Muslim family of doctors at frontline of COVID-19 fight in India

Dr Mehboob Khan together with his spouse Dr Shahana and daughter Dr Rashika Khan being felicitated at their residence in Indian Airways Colony, Hyderabad. Picture Credit score: Equipped

Hyderabad: At nighttime and miserable occasions of coronavirus and communal hatred here’s a silver lining.

As Dr Mahboob Khan, together with two different doctors in his family — his spouse and daughter — entered their colony in Begumpet, Hyderabad, after a tiring day of attending to coronavirus sufferers in totally different authorities hospitals throughout the town, they have been in for a pleasing shock. A big quantity of their neighbours and colony residents had lined up exterior their residence, showering them with flower petals and applause. They have been there to say “Thank you” to a family that was combating towards an invisible enemy at an awesome private danger.

“People from all communities came forward to felicitate us and appreciate our role. That is the beauty of India”, Khan advised DailyKhaleej.

Rajinder, president of Indian Airways Colony Welfare Affiliation that was main the well-wishers, hailed the Khans as a family of “super heroes”.

“These are the real heroes fighting the deadly COVID-19 virus from the front. We are here to salute you,” Rajinder stated as folks lined as much as current bouquets and shawls.

Raghuram Reddy, one other resident, wished to hug Dr Khan had there been no social-distancing restriction. “They deserve every bit of this recognition. This is a brave family fighting for all of us”.

At a time when the menace of the coronavirus pandemic has seen a virulent and lethal marketing campaign of communal hatred towards Muslims and organised propaganda has been unleashed by some folks to stigmatise a complete group — following the Tableeghi Jamat episode in Delhi — the Khan family’s story has caught the creativeness of a typical man and a minister alike.

Khan advised DailyKhaleej: “For us, it was by no means a few Hindu or a Muslim. Everyone was a affected person and we at all times labored like skilled doctors to avoid wasting lives.” Picture Credit score: Equipped

Although it’s unhappy to see how some parts in society are making an attempt to provide a spiritual and communal color to the pandemic, Dr Khan stated he or his family by no means confronted any such slur. “In our case, people from all communities came forward to felicitate us and appreciate our efforts. That is the beauty of India,” he stated.

“For us, it was never about a Hindu or a Muslim. Everybody was a patient and we always worked like professional doctors to save lives. The prayers of a recovered person is all that matters to us”, he stated.

Propaganda falling flat

“Some people initially tried to project a particular community as the villain, but later, most of them realised that no particular group or religion could be responsible. If initially there were more Muslim patients, later, we also had patients from other communities and across all religions. That is how the propaganda fell flat.”

Dr Mahboob Khan, the superintendent and administrative head of a premier authorities chest hospital in Hyderabad, has spent the very best half of the final two months in protecting gear, operating from ward to ward, motivating and inspiring his colleagues and different workers members, mobilising the assets at hand and dealing and praying to avoid wasting each single affected person coming to his hospital.

Thus far, 400 instances of coronavirus have been reported in his hospital, with 300 of them being admitted there. All however two have been discharged after restoration and there have been no deaths to date.

His spouse, 48-year-old Dr Shahana, is the assistant professor at Gandhi Hospital in one other half of the town. Gandhi Hospital serves because the nodal establishment in the fight towards coronavirus.

Nonetheless, it’s the youngest and third physician in the family, the feisty daughter Rashika, a house-surgeon, who has made the story extra inspiring. She had her baptism by fireplace as she began her medical profession on March 26, in the thick of the pandemic. At Gandhi Hospital, Dr Rashika’s very first day at work was in a ward for coronavirus sufferers. “I was not afraid. I rather felt proud to get this opportunity to fight and save lives,” stated Dr Rashika. “May be it is in my blood. Both my parents are an example for me,” she added.

The Kerala mannequin

56-year outdated Dr Mahboob Khan has accomplished 25 years in service and the state authorities has used his wealthy expertise as a pulmonologist in charting out a method to counter the virus outbreak in the state. He was half of the workforce that the Authorities of Telangana had despatched to Kerala to check how the state had efficiently handled the primary three coronavirus sufferers and the way it was coping with the disaster. He got here again motivated and energised. “Kerala has always been far ahead of the other states in our country. Their three-tier health-care system and the well-oiled state machinery played a major role in this success. They have fought against COVID-19 the same way as they had faced other calamities, including the floods in the past”, noticed Dr Khan.

Again residence in Hyderabad, as the primary case of coronavirus was reported in the state on March 1, Dr Khan and his workforce was ready with a plan. 
“Initially, there were apprehensions among my staff members about their personal safety. However, after counselling sessions and assurances that they would be fully taken care of, they wholeheartedly joined in the efforts. Our focus was to save the lives of the people. In the end, what mattered was the result and the blessings of the patients”, stated Dr Khan.

He stated, the fightback was attainable, due to the advance measures undertaken by the Authorities of Telangana, with Chief Minister Okay. Chandrasekhar Rao main the fight from the entrance. “The government alerted us to the threat well in advance and sufficient resources were made available. Isolation wards were opened on a war footing with all the necessary equipment, including personal protective equipment (PPE),” he added. “Very soon, the fear and uncertainty among the health workers gave way to positive energy. Within four-five days, our staff members were fully geared up and mentally ready to fight back.”

For Dr Shahana, it’s ‘double duty’ as a health care provider and homemaker. Her 72-year outdated mom Azimunnisa additionally wants her care and a focus as she is diabetic and has hypertension. “These are stressful times and one has to face it,” Dr Shahana stated with a smile. With three doctors at residence and one other one in the making in the shape of their youngest son Rehaan, COVID-19 was certain to dominate all dialog at residence.

Private security

With so many doctors, nurses and health-care employees everywhere in the world falling sufferer to the lethal virus, did private security and safety ever fear them?

“As doctors, for us, the risk is always part of the game and we go out every morning with confidence and a prayer. We are aware of what is happening elsewhere, but there is no fear in our minds. Our extended families are concerned. Fortunately, most of them are doctors too. They cautioned us, but never discouraged us from working in the wards with coronavirus patients,” Dr Khan defined.

Who else, however a health care provider

In quite a few Indian cities, there have been cases of neighbours objecting to doctors and health-care employees staying in their residences and even residence house owners have requested such tenants to vacate their residences. The worry of an infection has led to the stigmatisation of a complete career, so to talk. 
“Fortunately, we did not have any such bitter experience in our colony where educated people and professionals live. Initially, there were some doubts, but gradually they realised the importance of the work we were doing. They realised that after all, only doctors can lead the fight against this threat and treat people. Who else can do it? So, gradually people started inquiring about our well-being. In fact, respect and support have gone up for us now.”

Nonetheless, for the Khans, the most important motivation has come from senior state minister Okay. Taraka Rama Rao (KTR), who has hailed them as his “heroes”.

“Today, I have not one but three ‘Citizen Heroes’, all from the same family”, KTR, the Minister for Municipal Administration, tweeted. “Unmindful of their own safety, Dr Mahboob Khan, his wife Dr Shahana Khan and daughter Dr Rashika Khan have dedicated themselves to fight Coronavirus at Gandhi, Chest and Koranti hospitals. Kudos to you guys,” he stated in his tweet.

“That was a very important recognition”, a beaming Dr Mahboob Khan stated. “We are thankful to the minister for the recognition. The local media was also very positive and it boosted our morale.”

Khans are fairly optimistic and hopeful concerning the future. “There isn’t any doubt we will win towards this enemy and shortly the state of affairs will change. Time is the most important healer. India will come out stronger from this disaster. However for now, we have to put up a united fight and all people ought to do his or her bit. We are popping out to fight for you, so that you please keep at residence. Strictly keep social distancing to win this conflict, is the message that the Khans have for folks.

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[thisdaynews]

Kamala Harris' Bobby Kennedy

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/kamala-harris-bobby-kennedy/

Kamala Harris' Bobby Kennedy

Maya Harris, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ sister, has served as a loyal confidant in her sister’s campaign. | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

2020 elections

Maya Harris is serving as chief adviser and alter ego to her big sister.

Kamala Harris’ campaign held a pair of intimate fundraisers last week in New York and Connecticut, where two dozen or so guests gathered at each event to hear the headliner offer a glimpse of the inner sanctum.

The featured guest, however, was not the candidate; Kamala didn’t attend. It was Maya Harris, her campaign chairwoman and younger sister.

Story Continued Below

Since Kamala launched her White House bid, no figure in her orbit has loomed so large. A regular presence on the trail, Maya has been involved in virtually every facet of the race, from soliciting donors and recruiting the most diverse staff of any Democratic hopeful, to helping draft policy and talking up early-state politicos.

A no-nonsense boss who became a single mom at 17 and earned a law degree from Stanford before embarking on a long career in progressive activism, she’s emerged as a primary attraction in her own right. Aside from standing in for Kamala at fundraisers, Maya can be seen at campaign stops posing for pictures with selfie-seekers who recognize her from social media and her time as an MSNBC talking head — a gig she landed after advising Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Maya is often the first point of contact for her sister in early states, where officials and operatives said she frequently touches base to gauge the lay of the land. In South Carolina, Marguerite Willis said she was eager to meet Maya because she speaks with authority for the candidate. Willis’ sister was the No. 2 in her campaign for governor last year.

“It’s as close in the world to having a double as it gets,” Willis said of Maya.

Willis reached out to Maya on Twitter, and they met in Columbia, S.C. She ended up endorsing Kamala, as did others who first connected with her sister: Willis’ running-mate, state Sen. John Scott, and Constance Anastopoulo, a past nominee for state attorney general.

On a recent swing though South Carolina, Maya left the trail to lead a call with women’s health organizations on Kamala’s newly released abortion plan.

“If Kamala Harris isn’t part of it, it’s Maya Harris,” said Juan Rodriguez, Kamala’s campaign manager. “Our constant job is finding out where she can help us expand our bandwidth.”

Political families have long been a public fixation, with spouses and siblings filling official and unofficial roles, from confidant to security blanket and everything in between. But the fascination seems to have reached new heights in the Trump era: The president has appointed his relatives to posts they probably wouldn’t have landed if not for their ties to him.

Maya, who headed up the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California on her way to becoming a well-known civil rights advocate, is a different story. The 52-year-old — who has the same job John Podesta had for the Clinton campaign, and has been aspirationally referred to by political types as Kamala’s Bobby Kennedy — would almost certainly be serving in a Clinton administration had Clinton won in 2016.

“Everyone is used to relatives that are doofuses,” said Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, who brought in Maya as a senior fellow in 2013. There, she authored a prescient paper on politics titled, “Women of Color: A Growing Force in the American Electorate.”

“When you have a relative that is competent and capable, what does that mean?” Tanden said.

Maya’s close relationship with her older sister hasn’t shielded her from internal disputes about the direction and message of the campaign. Kamala fosters an environment of creative tension that aides describe as part Socratic method, part mock court. Aides on opposite sides of an issue present their cases — backed up by research, because anything less is dismissed — and the former prosecutor acts as judge.

Maya, according to campaign sources, is acutely aware of the liabilities that her sister’s law enforcement record poses with Democratic voters who’ve moved left on criminal justice reform. She’s given voice internally to those concerns — and how to address them politically — while serving as a conduit to activists on the outside with hesitations about Kamala.

The candidate herself has shown sensitivity about her record, including on school truancy and independent investigations of officer-involved shootings. As her campaign has unfolded, she’s offered more nuanced — and at times contradictory — stances than she did as California’s top law enforcement official.

But in backing away from her past, some aides and advisers believe she risks weakening her main argument: that she has the backbone to take the fight to Trump. Along with Maya, family input comes from her husband, Doug Emhoff, and Maya’s spouse, Tony West, chief legal officer at Uber and the Justice Department’s No. 3 official under President Barack Obama.

“Family members — if used right — can play a big role,” said a Kamala confidant familiar with her campaign’s dynamics. The person added that campaign aides have used family members to deliver messages that Kamala wasn’t immediately receptive to. “It’s a matter of utilizing them strategically and in spots where it makes the most sense — and not as the center-point of campaign strategy.”

Kamala declined to address a question about the advice she’s receiving. Asked about Maya’s role in the campaign, Kamala leafed through her sister’s résumé — from her time as one of the youngest law school deans in the country, at 29, to being a vice president at the Ford Foundation, for which she worked on social justice and democracy issues.

“I think most people who know Maya will tell you she’s one of the smartest people they know,” Kamala said. “The fact that she has volunteered to work on this campaign at such a high level, and she’s exactly who she’s always been—she works around the clock and she’s probably the hardest, if not one of the hardest working people on the campaign—I feel very blessed.”

Maya’s own “radical, left-wing politics,” as one friend affectionately put it, appears in her work and through an extensive contact list that’s outside her sister’s sphere: “She has activists, radicals and revolutionaries on her speed dial,” the friend said.

At PolicyLink, which advocates for racial and economic equity, Maya wrote about community-centered policing practices and was the lead author of an activist’s guide to police reform. She helped edit manuscripts of the New York Times bestseller “The New Jim Crow,” in which legal scholar Michelle Alexander argued that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

Yet it was her policy work for Clinton that transformed Maya into a major player in electoral politics. She won Clinton’s trust by taking on difficult issues around criminal justice reform, recalled Minyon Moore, a senior adviser to the 2016 campaign. Moore insists Maya is not an ideologue despite her progressive beliefs.

“Maya was the one that was always asking the tough questions even when Hillary was embracing issues that would make you go, ‘Huh, OK,’” Moore said, keying on the adviser’s skill in framing complex issues. “Maya is not the type of person that is going to pull you left. She is going to pull you to the right position.”

“Hillary loved her. She loved her,” she added.

Maya, who declined to be interviewed for this story, later headed up Clinton’s platform committee, a group composed of people aligned with the 2016 Democratic nominee as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders.The draft includedlanguage opposing the death penalty and calling for legislation similar to the largely repealed Glass-Steagall financial laws. Maya, who worked alongside Sanders’ policy director Warren Gunnels, at the time called it “the most ambitious and progressive platform our party has ever seen.”

Reflecting on internal Clinton policy discussions, Moore said Maya would often raise the possibility of unintended consequences when a particular position was floated as the obvious choice.

“Sometimes that wreaks havoc and people don’t like it. People don’t want to be questioned,” she added of her friend. “But her unique combination of being a lawyer, a policy wonk, and understanding politics causes her to be a lot more layered than people give her credit for.”

Maya has had a hand in every facet of the campaign’s ramp-up, both behind the scenes and on the trail. On the fundraising front, she’s focused on New York-area donors in the African American and Indian American communities, with an eye on engaging what political fundraisers call “new-prospect” targets who weren’t previously active.

She traveled to Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia ahead of Kamala’s trips to New Orleans and Atlanta, meeting state Rep. Erick Allen before he threw his support behind Kamala at a stop in Atlanta. And Maya is in regular touch with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly women in the group.

Publicly, she’s often at the candidate’s side. At a soup dinner earlier this year in Iowa, Kamala walked one side of a long table shaking hands, answering questions and posing for pictures, while Maya paced the length of the other side doing the same. She appears in nearly every one of her sister’s stump speeches (“My sister, Maya, is here,” Kamala often says) as a kind of narrative bridge to stories about their late mother, an Indian-born breast cancer researcher who friends attest instilled in her daughters a fierce loyalty and abiding bond.

“When you’re being raised by a single mom, your sister is your best friend and confidante,” said Lateefah Simon, who was introduced to Maya by civil rights lawyer Eva Paterson, then went to work with Kamala before learning the two were related. Like Maya, Simon was a young mother, and Maya became like an auntie to her. When Maya was at the Ford Foundation, Simon said she got a no-B.S. reply to a poorly done grant application she had drafted.

“Don’t you ever send anything that is not perfect to this foundation,” she recalled Maya telling her.

“Maya, like Kamala, she has a surgical precision of management,” Simon said. “She is absolutely not easy on the people that work for her, especially young black women. She wants them to do their best. She demands perfection from them.”

Simon remembers seeing the intensely private sisters in their downtime, in one moment laughing hysterically, and in the next their foreheads touching as they strategized. A years-old interview of the two talking together, which was posted online, underscores their sibling dynamic.

In the clip, they joke about how Maya refers to Kamala, then the attorney general of California, a title that’s sometimes shortened to “AG,” or “general.” Until she’s president of the United States, Maya says, “she’s just Kamala.” Kamala interjects, swatting aside what she seemed to view as a ludicrous suggestion at the time.

“No, I’m ‘Big Sister,’ Kamala says, pausing before landing her punchline—‘Big Sister General!’”

They break out in laughter.

“Maya is not going to sugarcoat Kamala,” Simon said. “But running for president of the United States as a black woman is almost unprecedented. You can’t buy that kind of loyalty, the kind of confidante who is also your best friend.”

Carla Marinucci contributed to this report.

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[newstfionline]

Four challenges work-from-home parents will recognize, and how to keep them in check

By Masha Rumer, Washington Post, February 6, 2018

Telecommuters used to get a bad rap, seen as folks who lounge by the pool with a trashy magazine and a margarita on a Tuesday afternoon.

But technology is making working from home a viable option for many industries. A Gallup poll found almost half of employed Americans, or 43 percent, spend some time working remotely. “Flexible scheduling and work-from-home opportunities play a major role in an employee’s decision to take or leave a job,” the report said. Today, more than 60 percent of organizations allow some type of teleworking, compared with a mere 20 percent just two decades ago.

Not everyone is on board with telecommuting or even knows how to define it.

A company where I once interviewed touted a “very flexible work schedule.” When I asked if this meant employees sometimes worked from home, the hiring manager said no. “We’re all in the office before 8 a.m. and try to leave by 6 p.m. But if you need to go to a doctor’s appointment in the morning or something, we’ll let you, and you can make that time up later. We’re very flexible.”

WordPress.com, owned by Automattic, recently closed its physical San Francisco office because hardly anyone showed up in person. On the other hand, in 2013, Yahoo ended its work-from-home policy, and so did IBM last year, for thousands of its staff.

Telecommuting has lots of perks, especially for parents. We get to spend more time with family while staying on a career track, retaining an income and holding on to the jobs we love. No more two-hour commutes, no more of that pumping soundtrack echoing through the fluorescent-light-flooded conference room and the entire office. Remote work, however, isn’t without challenges.

Isolation. It’s incredibly important for people--and take heed especially you, parents--to interact with other people. Working from home can be surprisingly isolating. Some days, it may be possible to have not spoken to a single human, despite a ton of work correspondence and other “humanlike” contact, which may have, in retrospect, been just a scroll through Facebook and texting about dinner plans with a spouse. Even with a part-time schedule, I found that library singalongs and playdates often conflicted with work calls and deadlines.

Although introverts are said to generally do better with remote work, extroverts can manage, as long as they schedule social activities after hours and even during the day: lunch or a coffee meeting, a trip to the gym with a neighbor, socializing after the kids are in bed.

These solutions aren’t perfect. It sounds dandy, having lunch dates or plugging away at a technology-friendly coffee shop for eight hours. But adding up the cost of that fancy cafe salad, coffees, transportation and child care can seem like a buzzkill. A guilty-conscience buzzkill. And speaking of …

Guilt. Okay, parents, I don’t need to tell you about guilt--we all experience it some way or another. Working from home as a parent often feels like falling behind in both, even if multitasking is our motto. The little voice in my head screams: “What about dinner? Here’s the fridge with ingredients in it, and you plan on feeding your children frozen pizza again? What’s with this dust under the couch?” I try to explain that I’m working all day, but the voice goes: “Work is when you wear heels and go inside a big building with people in it and eat microwaved lunch out of plastic containers.”

(For the record, stay-at-home moms are estimated to put in a 40-hour workweek and 52 hours of overtime.)

Guilt runs deep if there’s work to do at odd hours and kids are in the house. (Just think of that dad during a BBC interview, video-bombed by his little cherubs on live TV.) My heart breaks thinking of the times my baby watched videos while I had my back turned to him, drafting an urgent email. Or when my toddler invited me to join her doll’s tea party in the other room and I declined in order to finish a client report.

Likewise, even if you’re exceeding goals at your job like nobody’s business, you might feel the need to overcompensate. It’s easy to forget that office people often take lunches and coffee breaks, too, and that these things are not only okay, but also necessary.

“Working from home can be laden with all the ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ one could possibly imagine, thoughts I guarantee never enter our heads at the office, [like,] I should respond to every email within 12 seconds so everyone knows I’m working,” says Lori Mihalich-Levin, founder of Mindful Return, a support program for new mothers returning to work from maternity leave. “Or perhaps, I should not take a five-minute break to run downstairs and put the laundry in. When I hear that little ‘sh’ word in my head, I know guilt is in the picture. Acknowledging it … helps it to move on. No need to compare yourself to someone else’s situation.”

Develop a work schedule and stick to it. Making super-detailed task lists at least a day in advance helps me recognize accomplishments and cut down on gratuitous guilt. (I like the TickTick app for its “checkoff” feature.)

Always on. When you work from your home, you work all the time and everywhere. No, really. It’s incredibly hard to draw boundaries between your personal space and workspace, and the same goes for your time. You’ve probably worked in the kitchen. Taken conference calls in the preschool parking lot. Typed emails in the grocery store and during dinner, checked email in the middle of the night--and maybe in the bathroom. You are always available.

I’ll never forget my day off, when I finally made it out on a playdate. The host, a fellow mom, later shared event photos. The photos capture an idyllic scene: 1-year-olds finger-painting or waddling around with toy trucks as their mothers chat on the nearby couch. And then there’s me. I’m standing at the top of the staircase, away from everyone else and yelling something into the phone, as my son is grabbing my leg to get my attention.

It’s crucial to create realistic boundaries, preferably informing your partner, too. Even if these rules will be broken, which they will. Some examples are stashing the phone and computer away from the time you pick up the kids to when you put them to bed and designating times when you are offline, barring an emergency or a deadline.

Identity. You’ve probably worked in pajamas. Maybe you thought, I’m just gonna power through and get this thing done, and then I’ll put on my nicest “outside” outfit, do some downward dogs and feel spiritually whole again. Except you look at the clock and it’s already time to pick the kids up in three minutes. And the significance of the day’s activities may have not sunken in the same way as it would in a more traditional environment.

Our professional identities are often tied to the physical manifestation of an office, colleagues and even work clothes. In absence of that community, I found it’s important to retain hobbies, get involved in organizations and stay socially connected to avoid feeling like an untethered balloon. Admittedly, it isn’t an easy feat in between deadlines, dishes and diapers.

Though working from home is practical and rewarding, it requires discipline and self-awareness to ensure that our work works for us.

Masha Rumer is a writer and a communications professional, as well as a mom of two toddlers.