Nordette's blog

The Washington Post Nixes Pay-to-Play Salons with Lobbyists

2009-07-02T12:53:17-05:00

Within an hour of its editorial staff posting its side of the story on an influence-peddling mini-scandal, the Washington Post has added an update saying its publisher, Katharine Weymouth, has canceled plans for "off-the record salons." Earlier this morning The Post responded to a story from Politico on a flier circulated Wednesday by the newspaper's business arm to lobbyists and association leaders that seems to announce a pay-to-play model for meetings with Obama administration officials, Capitol Hill legislators, and the paper's editorial gatekeepers.

According to Politico, a lobbyist from the healthcare industry gave a reporter the "astonishing flier" that markets "off-the-record, nonconfrontational access" for $25,000 to $250,000.

... the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff." (Politico)

The website also quotes part of the flier:

"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders." (source)

In its own story, WaPo said the newspaper's editorial staff would not participate in the July 21st salon hosted by Weymouth.

The Washington Post's executive editor said this morning that the newsroom will not participate in a plan by the paper's publisher to charge lobbyists as much as $250,000 for off-the-record gatherings with Obama administration officials, members of Congress and the paper's reporters and editors.

Marcus Brauchli knocked down the idea after fliers were circulated by the paper's parent company ... "We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning," Brauchli told the staff in an e-mail. "Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable. ... There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values." (WaPo)

The Post's article concluded with a brief discussion of the potential hypocrisy of such an editorial model, a paper that reports on the questionable ethics of influence peddling in the nation's capital while dabbling in such exchanges itself.

Political and media analysts suggest the flier indicates a move by The Post's business side to generate revenue and it's actions are another sign of how the newspaper industry is scrambling to remain financially viable. Indeed WaPo staff writer Howard Kurtz's final words on the first flier response story are "The Post Co. lost $19.5 million in the first quarter and just completed its fourth round of early-retirement buyouts in several years, prompting Weymouth to look for new sources of revenue."

BlogHer CE Kim Pearson has chronicled the changing face of news and its impact on newspapers, asking "What if We Lose the Boston Globe," and reporting on the Christian Science Monitor abandoning print, and Clay Shirky's "thinking the unthinkable" about the future of the news industry." In addition, in March the nation watched the end of another major newspaper hard copy editions, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

From The Post's update on the salon's cancellation:

"Absolutely, I'm disappointed," Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. "This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren't vetted. They didn't represent at all what we were attempting to do. We're not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom."

Twitter has been flapping on this story all morning with tweets such as "WaPo cancels embarassing plans for paid-access "salons." How many other elite media outlets are selling access?" (RTM) and the hash tag #WapoDeals.

And finally, but probably not, this gem, a YouTube parody is already online.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE and the African-American Literature Examiner. Keep up with her writing at Her411.com

Mixed on Michael Jackson's Children Redux

2009-06-30T21:07:57-05:00

Each day the media cloud over Michael Jackson's death mushrooms broader and wider with rumor, speculation, and tidbits of fact. Yesterday morning the big story was that Katherine Jackson, Michael Jackson's mother, has been awarded guardianship of all three of his children, Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. aka Prince; Paris Michael Katherine; and Prince Michael Jackson II aka "Blanket."

By yesterday evening it was Jackson's former wife Debbie Rowe's bombshell that he is not the biological father of the older children, "Prince" and Paris. Rowe, who used to work as the assistant to Jackson's dermatologist, was married to Jackson for a time, and has reportedly said that she doesn't want the two children to whom she gave birth.

Now it's alleged that the biological father is Jackson's dermatologist, Rowe's "former boss," Arnold Klein. Furthermore, the gossip website, TMZ, has even reported that Rowe herself is not the biological mother either. The site claims, "All three children were conceived in vitro -- outside the womb."

According to the Huffington Post, Rowe's attorney has denied the TMZ allegation and asserts that she is the children's biological mother. The TMZ story also claims, "Michael was not the sperm donor for any of his kids." Years back, Jackson himself admitted he used a surrogate to carry the youngest child, "Blanket," to term, but he never said he was not the sperm donor.

This is all gossip. Painful gossip. Should we be talking about this at all?

Some in the black community don't mind rehasing this topic. They say Michael Jackson's children appearing to be white is further evidence that Jackson did not want to be black and gives people of African descent the opportunity to address self-hatred and issues with eye color, skin color, and obssesions with "good" hair in the open. The King of Pop's changing hair, face, and skin color alienated some people of color. BlogHer CE Lainad echoes the frustration:

They were our princes....through a 9 year-old's eyes. But when the plastic surgery and the skin lightening appeared, and much later, the allegations of sexual abuse of young boys, that childhood fantasy seemed distorted. How could I have a crush on a man who clearly hated himself, his blackness.....the same blackness that I had? If he hated himself so much, he would never love me. I felt betrayed, as I imagine other black girls did. As a kid ,when the white boys my age called me an animal and never gave me the time of day, it was the Jackson boys and the fantasies that there were boys, that one day, might like us, was destroyed.

He was a talented man, and a very disturbed man. It's unfortunate that his life was cut short. (Lainad)

Others defend Jackson vehemently, declaring that he didn't hate his race, he hated himself, yes, but not his race. They cite Jackson's claim that he had Vitiligo, a disease that causes the skin to lose its pigment, and they blame the singer's plastic surgeries on his father Joe Jackson, for making him feel ugly. In an interview Jackson once said that his father criticized his nose and called him ugly.

The body's not buried, but the gloves are off, if they were ever on, when it comes to talking about Michael Jackson, and in the midst of adoration, scrutiny, and intermittent vitriol are his children. The picture of Jackson's two sons and daughter comes from CNN. You can see the youngest, "Blanket," walking beside his sister, Paris.

I knew coverage of Jackson's death would get crazy, and as a journalist, I also understand that you can't ignore a story this big, but I'm troubled that his children will continue to be part of that circus. I hope their grandparents can protect them. Before the stories surfaced that Jackson is allegedly not their biologial father, folks were already openly debating their parentage, and you can read people talking about it starting at one of Field Negro's posts in the comments section here, also here, and on this one as well.

I said in the original post "Mixed on Michael Jackson's Children" at my blog:

Eventually the media will pick this story up too, if not the MSM, then the tabloids, and what can come from this except more psychological pain for Michael's children?"

Their parentage is something people have debated for a long time, but the masses should let the debate rest with the King of Pop in the grave and leave these children in peace. He said they are his children, and so, they are his children. (WSATA)

Elsewhere, I wrote about a message MJ wrote on hotel stationery in 1995, which I as a writer consider the equivalent of leaving a desperate plea on a napkin, anything you can find to pen words that must come out. Here is part of that message, which likens mean-spirited critics to animals:

Animals strike, not from malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood, not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.

But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now." (Written by Michael Jackson, 1995. Read more commentary on his plea for mercy here.)

Sunday night, Janet Jackson spoke at the BET Awards on behalf of the Jackson family. She asked people to remember what Michael was to them, family. With that reminder, she too is asking for mercy, a measure of respect for human feeling and a loved one's memory. "To you Michael is an icon. To us Michael is family ...," said Janet.

This back and forth about the children, the circumstances of his death, and the potential problems with the will, which has been located according to CNN, could make any family crumble.

The world awaits the results of the autopsy toxicology tests, and his family has asked for an additional autopsy. In the meantime, we hear over and over that MJ may have been addicted to prescription pain medication. If that's repeated enough, after a time, people will assume it's true no matter what the toxicology report says later. All this and we haven't had the funeral yet. Plus, discovery of his assets will be a mess for the history books.

Make it stop!

I say that knowing it won't stop in my lifetime. Like Elvis, Michael Jackson's legacy is eternal, eternally praised and eternally smeared. But to his family, for those of us who were blessed by his music and appreciate that blessing, I paraphrase the rest of Janet Jackson's quote and say, he will live with dignity in the hearts of those who loved him

Nordette Adams is a Blogher CE and the African-American Books Examiner. You may keep up with her feeds at Her411.com

The Curious Case of Brad Pitt for Mayor of New Orleans

2009-06-23T19:21:24-05:00

Brad Pitt. The tabloids won't give the gorgeous man a rest. Every detail of his relationship with Angelina Jolie is constantly under scrutiny, and with the release of Inglorious Basterds in late summer and today's stories about the hitch for his movie Moneyball, we know we're going to be Pittched at least weekly in the next few months. But Brad Pitt for Mayor of New Orleans? Come on!

Did that news escape you? I can't run from it. I'm in New Orleans. Like anyone else, however, I wondered is it true and if so, how did this happen?

Let's see. Brad Pitt has helped the city tremendously. His Make It Right foundation is helping to build green homes in the Ninth Ward here, and his high-level celebrity status helps keep New Orleans's need to rebuild from fading from the public eye. But, wait! Don't you have to live in a city to be its mayor?

Technically Pitt is a resident of New Orleans. He and Jolie bought a the house for $3.6 million here in the French Quarter two years ago and enrolled one of their children in school here. The pair bought the house while Pitt was filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an Oscar-nominated film that at least one BlogHer CE called "dull," but others have called "a love letter to the city."

Chris Rose of The Times Picayune in "Give the people what they want" tells the history behind the hype, reminding readers that some notable Hollywood stars such as Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Ronald Reagan have moved successfully into politics. However he also says that Pitt running for mayor of the city is a little "far-fetched."

It would be a stretch to call the Brad Pitt for Mayor campaign a "grassroots movement" or really an "organization" of any kind. It's actually a couple of guys who had a conversation, printed up some T-shirts and unintentionally set the Butterfly Effect into motion.

The Butterfly Effect, of course, is a guiding principle of chaos theory that suggests the beating of a butterfly's wings in Rio de Janiero could set off a series of random meteorological phenomena that could ultimately cause a tornado in, say, Nebraska.

Well, the butterfly in this case was Tulane art history professor Thomas Bayer. And what he set in motion was no meteoroligcal phenomenon but something much bigger, more uncontollable and even more random: Internet chatter. (Chris Rose)

Bayer wrote a humorous piece called "13 Reasons Why Brad Pitt Should Be the next Mayor of New Orleans" which is up at WearMyStory.com. My favorites are #7 and #11:

Reason #7 - City Council Relations

Stacy Head will be nice to the new Mayor.

Reason #11 - Rebuilding

Rather than relying on Aussie eloquence and narrative creativity or malfunctioning federal and state agencies, Mr. Pitt, as our chief executive will, instead, lead us, the local Pittwomen and Pittmen, in the fight against blight, crime, poverty and lack of humor. Dressed in period costumes and assisted by experienced producers, set builders, make-up artists, and camera operators, this cast of thousands will launch our Renaissance epic in weekly reality sequels. (13 Reasons)

You've got to be local and living the scream to get the Stacy Head crack.

Bayer's published his list, as Chris Rose explains, "led local entreprenuer Josh Harvey, proprietor of Storyville Apparel, to print up some Brad Pitt for Mayor t-shirts and then....well, then things went bat crazy."

The story went viral with hyperbole about New Orleans residents clamoring for Pitt to be mayor and spread all the way to the U.K. Mirror, "Brad Pitt asked to stand for Mayor of New Orleans," and so people are talking. Circe at Purrs & Scratches writes:

I will say that I am of the opinion that Brad Pitt's long term contribution to New Orleans will be the houses built through the Make it Right Foundation. ... Locals refer to them as "Brad Pitt Houses." ... I am going to find it hysterical if in 50 years we are still referring to them as "Brad Pitt Houses" as part of our local lexicon. ... He should build more of them. I would rather that than have him for Mayor. ... Anyway...Brad Pitt for Mayor... ... We could do worse. And have. Repeatedly. (Circe)

In the comments section The City Business Blog, people have questions. One reader asserts this is not the first time a story has crept into the news saying New Orleanians wanted Brad Pitt to be mayor.

I think Brad Pitt is a good actor, good looking, a great philanthropist, a good father, good looking, and a true humanitarian. Did I say good looking? I admire him for his work to rebuild the city, but Brad Pitt for Mayor of New Orleans?

New Orleans is a city notorious for valuing old blood, old families, old haunts, perhaps even the stubborn rejection of progress. Hurricane Katrina didn't change this state of mind upon which Lawrence N. Powell, Tulane historian, reflects:

"I think it was Bill Borah who said recently in The New York Times: 'Tourists come here to see the damage they've done to their own cities,"' he said. "Some of that has scarred our own city, but so much of it remains. In one way, our ingrained conservatism, our refusal to march lockstep with the forces of progress, has served us well." (AP story on reprint of WPA City Guide 1938)

We've embraced our share of non-natives down here and called them favorite sons--Emeril Lagasse, for instance--but if New Orleans residents elect Brad Pitt as mayor in the next few years, then run for the hills. The end of the world is near.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE who is also the African-American Books Examiner and the New Orleans Literature Examiner.

In the Name of Image: Abercrombie & Fitch Shoves Disabled Clerk to Stock Room

2009-06-17T18:24:00-05:00

Not the salt of the earth but the sugar of affluent youth, Abercrombie & Fitch with its image of sexy college prep gods and goddesses is the bastion of unabashed elitism, promoting the perfect clothes, the perfect fit, and the perfect body. It's alleged that this image goes beyond its slick print ads to the brick and mortar floor of its stores from which a disabled employee shouts that A&F discriminates against mortals such as she.

From the UK's Daily Mail:

A disabled law student is suing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch for discrimination, claiming it made her work in a stockroom because her prosthetic arm didn't fit its public image.

Riam Dean, 22, was just days into a part-time job at the U.S. firm's flagship London store when she says she was asked to leave the shop floor.

She claims she was told she broke the company's 'Look Policy', which dictates how members of staff are meant to present themselves.(DM)

Dean says that after she was hired she was given "a 45-page handbook listing in minute detail the company's strict Look Policy." The look is "a 'natural, classic American style'."

"Miss Dean, who normally wears long-sleeved tops to disguise the join between her upper arm and artificial limb, says she was told to buy a plain white cardigan to wear over her uniform," according to the Daily Mail's story. However, one day the store's look police came through and asked her to take the cardigan off. Shortly after this incident, her manager sent her to work in the stockroom because she was not following "the look policy."

In an exclusive interview with ZeldaDaily.com, Dean says her A&F experience caused her to question her self-worth, and she called her manager's attitude "combative and aggressive."

It made me feel as though she had picked up on my most personal, sensitive and deeply buried insecurities about being accepted and included. Her words pierced right through the armour of 20 years of building up personal confidence about me as a person, and that I am much more than a girl with only one arm. She brought me back down to earth to a point where I questioned my self worth. My achievements and triumphs in life were brought right down to that moment where I realised that I was unacceptable to my employer because of how I looked. I have never before encountered the stark reality of this attitude, but deep down I have always feared this, and in that moment my worst fears were realised. My entire perception of my own my self worth was shattered. It was a moment of clarity and pain. (Direct quote from Dean to Zelda.com)

A&F has been sued before, the last time for racial discrimination. In 2004, among some minority groups it still had the image of being "just plain racist." And when it's not being accused of racism or sexism, it's being charged as "too risqué."

Dean's claim is gaining momentum on the Net. With no love lost, a writer at Jezebel opens Dean's story guns blazing:

Just in case their racism, sexism, and general awfulness hasn't been enough to turn you away from Abercrombie & Fitch after all these years, here's another glimpse of the inner workings of the horrible store.(Hortense)

She continues telling of the store's obsession with thinness before sharing more of Dean's plight.

And teen blogger Steph at Reviewer X, a potential member of the very market Abercrombie & Fitch targets, cuts the clothier no slack.

Do you like the idea of your money being used to keep a company perpetuating these ideas alive? Do you want that?

Me? I sure as hell don’t, and even if I had the money to buy things at A&F, I’d still stay far, far away. If I was interested in that look I would find somewhere to get it. (Reviewer X)

Gee, it sucks to be the promoter of unapologetic white wealth, natural youth, western beauty standards, and sleek, stylish sex. You can't send blacks and the disabled to the dungeon at will, and the ungrateful peons you hire just won't give you a break.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer.com CE who is also the African-American Books Examiner at Examiner.com

Serial Cat Killer: Don't Ignore This Crime

2009-06-16T03:54:59-05:00

I suspect there are some people who don't think this is a serious crime, the serial killing of pet cats allegedly by Florida teen Tyler Hayes Weinman, 18. However, mental health professionals and researchers have long associated cruelty to animals with antisocial personality disorder. This disorder should never be taken lightly. If you have a child who is cruel to your pets or others' pets and animals, you may be nurturing a sociopath or psychopath.

To give you an idea of the level of cruelty of Weinman's alleged deeds, here's a quote from CNN.

Pet owners and police began discovering disfigured cats May 13. One pet owner, Donna Gleason, said her family cat, Tommy, was "partially skinned" and left dead in her yard. ... Weinman, who works odd jobs but spends most of his time at home and unemployed, had been a person of interest for several weeks, Miller said. He was arrested Saturday.(CNN)

National Institutes of Health states, "Fire-setting and cruelty to animals during childhood are linked to the development of antisocial personality." At 18, Weinman is long past childhood and if he committed this crime, this is probably not the first time he's done something like this, but this is the time he got caught.

Blogger Peggy Rowland at BlissTree shares this picture of Weinman and asks, "What does an accused serial cat killer look like?" She continues, writing, "If the teen ... were standing beside me at a Ben & Jerry’s, I certainly would never guess… cat killer."

People who have antisocial personality disorder can look like anyone, and frequently they are also charming. Remember serial killer Ted Bundy, described as good-looking? He's often considered a perfect example of the sociopath, which is the word we used to give to people who lacked conscience before the mental health community switched to antisocial personality disorder. Bundy killed women, but a thief like Bernie Madoff may also be a sociopath. They're people who don't care about anyone other than themselves.

BitterQueen at Friends of Ours connects the dots from cruelty to animals to serial killers:

In all seriousness, if the allegations against Weinman are true, then obviously he's a very disturbed boy. Anyone who discounts the seriousness of animal cruelty charges, keep in mind that a lot of serial killers and other psychopaths got their start with animals. (Bitter Queen)

Antisocial personality disorder, as suggested earlier, is associated with a lack of guilt or remorse. Harming animals may only be a temporary power fix along the way. While people who have the more severe forms of antisocial disorder may not always escalate to harming people, under circumstances that they feel it's in their better interest, for instance to get money or to not be caught, they will kill humans. But again, their crimes are not necessarily violent. A CEO who raids a company, knowing people will lose their life savings or a con artist who takes money through guile, not caring what happens to his vicitms, is also a sociopath, which is why I mentioned Madoff earlier.

Weinman needs, help, you most likely think. Sadly, there may be no help because there is no known effective treatment for the disorder, but as people who live by hope, we always look for solutions. Here are some of the symptoms or signs of a person with this disorder, according to NIH literature:

A person with antisocial personality disorder:

Breaks the law repeatedly
Lies, steals, and fights often
Disregards the safety of self and others
Does not show any guilt

People with antisocial personality disorder may have the following signs:

Anger and arrogance
Capable of acting witty and charming
Good at flattery and manipulating other people's emotions
Substance abuse and legal problems

Lying is on the list of symptoms. What that means is repeated lying often for no obvious reason like avoiding punishment or to get out of chores. It means lying sometimes for the sake of lying or to see how people react to the lie, if they can get away with it.

As one psychologist has said antisocial personality disorder is more about acts of cruelty and manipulation than craziness. The person is what some of us would call mean, lacking a conscience. Think of the cruelty it takes to kill a small animal, especially the cruelty to steal a pet from a family and kill it.

I remember when I heard Michael Vick's dogfighting and drowning dogs. I thought about the sheer determination it takes to drown a full-grown dog, and it gave me the shivers. Yet, people joke about it. We don't take cruelty to animals seriously enough sometimes.

Unfortunately, there's no human cure yet for plain old cruel, but there are indications that the disorder is linked to nurture as much as nature. For instance, many people with the disorder are also victims of child abuse.

This is one of those disorders that reminds humans that we are not in control as much as we'd like to think. A pill and extra love won't make this go away once the disorder has taken root. Perhaps the best course is prevention. Parents must do right by their children from birth to the best of their abilities.

For mothers who tend to feel guilty about so much, one thing is true: If you feel guilt and remorse, you're not one of people with this disorder. This is one of those instances where we can rejoice in the ability to feel guilt. Reasonable feelings of guilt are good, the sign of a healthy emotional system.

I wanted to share this information because I think there may be people out there who've seen signs of this disorder developing in a child but are not making the connection that the child needs more than "a good talking to and structure." Nevertheless, please don't start spotting sociopaths on every corner. There are levels of this disorder and variations. Also, sometimes anger can make a person who doesn't have this disorder behave as though he or she has a textbook case, but what's going on is resentment and other issues that still require the help of a therapist, but may not be as devastating as antisocial personality disorder.

However, if you see someone you love showing repeated signs and an established pattern of cruelty and lack of remorse, you should seek mental health help for that person. Sociopaths rarely recognize they need help or if they suspect that they're different from other people in the worst way, they don't care enough to get help. Yes, I know I've relayed that treatments seem to be ineffective, but some help is always better than no help when a person's in trouble.

What is the hope for Weinman? The highest hope is that he didn't do this crime, but that doesn't leave us with the hope we'd like because if he didn't do it, someone else did and that person is still walking the streets.

This post was adapted from a post at the Whose Shoes Are These Anyway? blog.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE and the African-American Books Examiner for Examiner.com.

Washington, D.C., Holocaust Museum Shooting, 2 wounded

2009-06-10T15:30:52-05:00

Update: The security guard,Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, has died, news sources report. More information is surfacing about the alleged shooter, his criminal record, virulent antisemitism, and white supremacist philosophy.

A man armed with a rifle entered the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., about 10 minutes before 1:00 p.m. today and fired on a security guard, wounding him. Two other security guards returned fire, wounding the gunman. Both men have been "transported to George Washington University Hospital with serious injuries," U.S. Parks Public Information Officer Sergeant David Schlosser told media.

The security guard's condition is "grave," according to a museum spokesperson. The alleged gunman is in "critical" condition.

The police think only one gunman was involved and have secured the museum, but the shooting appears to be linked to antisemitic sentiment.

Law enforcement sources tell ABC News the suspected shooter is 88-year-old James Von Brunn of Annapolis, Maryland, who has been linked to websites with racist writings.

Von Brunn's website was identified as holywesternempire.org, which was listed in 2008 as a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Von Brunn has a long history of associations with prominent neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. (ABC News)

According to the same story, Von Brunn is the author of Kill the Best Gentiles, a racist conspiracy book that posits the "White Race" is being systematically destroyed.

... "today on the world stage a tragedy of enormous proportions: the calculated destruction of the White Race and the incomparable culture it represents. Europe, former fortress of the West, is now over-run by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels." A raging anti-Semite, von Brunn blames "The Jews" for the destruction of the West. The book is dedicated to prominent neo-Nazis and racists including Revilo Oliver and Wilmot Robertson. (ABC news)

The Huffington Post reports similar information and includes White House reactions, that President Barack Obama has been informed and is "obviously saddened by what has happened."

In addition to these reports, the Washington Post has audio of a mother, Suzie Towater, who was taking her family to the museum when her husband said he heard gunfire. She and her family saw the shooter who she said seemed to be an older man. WaPo audio also includes a grandfather from Wichita, Kansas, who was at the museum with his wife and their grandchildren when they heard someone yelling, "Hit the floor! Hit the floor!" He said he heard five shots. Later they were told to run and, with other museum visitors, fled the building.

Update. The security guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, has died:

The guard, an African American identified as Stephen Tyrone Johns, had worked at the museum for six years.

The museum issued a statement saying it would remain closed tomorrow to honor Johns's memory. "There are no words to express our grief," the statement said. (the Washington Post)

CBS news has more information about the alleged shooter's history and white supremacist beliefs. WaPo has also updated von Brunn's profile

In 1983, a D.C. Superior Court jury convicted Von Brunn of attempting kidnapping while armed, second-degree burglary, assault with a dangerous weapon, carrying a pistol without a license and possession of a prohibited weapon. A Washington Post article on the conviction describes the incident, saying, "Von Brunn entered the board's headquarters at 21st Street and Constitution Avenue NW with a bag slung over his shoulder. He was captured by a guard after running to the second floor, where the board was meeting. He was detained outside the board room and was carrying a revolver, a hunting knife and a sawed-off shotgun." (Salon, "When James Von Brunn Tried to Arrest the Fed")

This story broke early on Twitter with members expressing outrage, sending out wacko alerts, shock at the alleged shooter's age, and unfortunately, in some instances, jokes.

News Links:

CBS News on alleged shooter's history
ABC Local News, D.C.
CNN has full stories and video.
The Washington Post coverage includes maps and video, eye witness reports
Bitten & Bound had early reports

Nordette is a BlogHer.com CE who also writes at Examiner.com.

If It's Bad News, My Mind's a Trap: Finish Your Novel 2

2009-06-09T20:01:49-05:00

At the end of part one of this post, I asked "Am I the dupe of a snobbish literary education?" It's a snobbishness that encourages one to be picky about the definition of good writing, not just what is good writing but also what type of novel may be called literature, who deigned to publish your work, whether you have an agent or schlep along sending work to the slush pile. This is sad.

It's very sad because unlike many writers currently being published by what the snobbier literary critics would call hack houses or worse--print on demand and vanity presses--I, frozen with a bout of literary paraysis brought on by good-taste rules, have failed to do the one thing all novelists must do: finish my novel. Any novelist who's fiished a book, good or bad, trumps me.

Rejecting the temptation to make excuses for my failure to finish, I think that I suffer from too much navel gazing, omphaloskepsis, which includes partly the self-pressure to write it right. I am the victim of my own worst imaginings, the sucker of fear, and more than likely systemic pessimism.

In part one I gave a big clue to my malady, leaving readers with video of Sesame Street's Don Music, "Oh, I'll never get it! Never!"

Part of my problem has been that in my head I recall the stories of novelists like New Orleans writer John Kennedy Toole who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book, A Confederacy of Dunces.

The title derives from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." (Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting) [Wikipedia]

If I believed Swift's quote for myself, that I am a genius in a confederacy of dunces, and could confidently assign every naysayer to that confederacy, I probably would have written more than one novel by now, and if anyone called my body of work "bad," I'd huff and say "Those who can do. Those who can't become critics." But in my heart, I don't believe that. I think art, all art, should have a standard.

If you read my comments to LoveBabz on my post regarding a distrust of self-publishing, you'll get an idea of the magnitude of my ailment. Jane--possibly Friedman of Writers Digest--left a comment and probably has it right: I'm the kind of writer who feels the need to be vetted by the publishing industry. But this need still doesn't explain why I haven't finished my novel, why I've put blogging and other types of writing and work ahead of my supposed first love?

It's not fear of criticism because I've sat through some brutal writing critiques. I think it's a trap in my own convoluted thinking, fear of wasted time--possibly the fear and depression that gripped John Kennedy Toole--that a life's work may mean nothing.

In my 20s I learned that Kennedy's life as he knew it was a tragedy. He wrote this wondrous book and sent it around to publishers who rejected it. One day, he killed himself. It was his mother and a Loyola University professor, Walter Percy, who managed to get the book published. Then comes the praise, the Pulitzer, when poor Toole was long ago dust.

His story stuck with me in the worst possible way. Instead of internalizing it as the lesson "persevere because a change is gonna come," I think I let it burrow down as, "Don't waste too much time on anything that's not a sure thing." Or was that my father's voice in my head? He's the man who talked me out of attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts after I was accepted, saying "Theater is not practical. Go to school and get a real degree to fall back on." From that I surmised "Always go for the sure thing."

Is it me and the fear of looking like the dreaming fool?

It's me. I see me even as a young mother, feeding my baby girl, and watching Sesame Street, me identifying with Don Music, the poster boy for "It'll never work."

A friend who's written at least eight books, including one novel, told me one day, "Nordette, you need to stop worrying. Your mind leaps ahead to every potential road block. You over-analyze. Don't think about whether anyone will buy your book. Finish your book."

That was three books ago for him and no books ago for me. Sure, I've had some big life challenges in that time, but still ... ugh. I think I suck! My son, my own flesh and blood, even sees this. He recorded me talking one day about one of my books and kept the recording in which I said, "Come hell or high water, I'm going to finish this book."

It was a novel about a black woman who through single-minded obsession triggers a gene in her body that makes her literally younger. I was well into this novel when my children and I were at the movie theater and this preview for a new movie ran about a baby born as an old man in New Orleans who grows younger, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which as it turned out is based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story set in Baltimore. Brad Pitt, I think, wanted to set in my town.

My mouth, my daughter's mouth, and my son's mouth dropped simultaneously as we watched the preview. It wasn't that it was the same idea because same themes and ideas are often repeated in books. It was that it took place in New Orleans, as did my novel, and that the movie would plaster the idea everywhere and whatever I was writing would be compared to Benjamin Button.

Later at dinner I told my offspring how mature I was, and that it didn't matter, and that my book and the movie were nothing at all alike, which is true. Nevertheless, I became paralyzed, filled with gloom that I was working on something that would go nowhere, that I was wasting my time.

So, in my own house, I no longer speak of finishing novels. Dare I speak of such dreams, my son comes up behind me and plays my voice in my ear, "Come hell or high water, I'm going to finish this book."

Elsie Still Haunts Me

In part one, I mentioned Elsie B. Washington, a woman I met in 1983 who died recently and is now known as the first author to sell and have published a black romance novel. She and I stood in the same conference almost 30 years ago contemplating the same dreams, to make a living as a novelist.

Years passed and I stopped reading romance novels. Marriage exorcised me of my romantic spirit, and I gravitated more toward literary fiction writers such as Toni Morrison and Isabelle Allende as well as speculative fiction authors like the late Octavia Butler and Practical Magic author Alice Hoffman.

Nevertheless, as I've watched the African-American romance novel market boom and urban fiction grow, I've thought of Elsie, going against the odds, completing and selling a novel, and of our meeting in 1983. I didn't keep in touch with her, but would sometimes wonder if another book by Rosalind Welles, her pseudonym, would turn up. It never did.

I think she wrote one and felt discouraged to write more because initial sales seemed unpromising. All that work for so little pay off. The industry was young, and she didn't need to make a name as a black romance novelist at the slow-speed of the genre's eventual success. It was 25 years after Elsie sold her first novel before any black romance novel hit a mainstream best sellers list. As a working journalist, perhaps Washington's writing dreams had already been fulfilled, and hearing that the publisher was unimpressed by her book sales, she moved on until cancer and multiple sclerosis made moving faster and higher impossible.

When I her name in the obituary, I searched for a picture to see if the deceased was the woman I met in New York that day. Dead at 66 was too soon. When I saw her face and read that she was the woman who attended the Romantic Book Lovers' Convention in 1983, the rest of my evening slipped into a gray mist of regret. She wrote three books in her life, and one was the romance novel Entwined Destinies. The other two were non-fiction works.

I could say, "Well, it was only one novel." But my own voice would come back, "At least she finished one."

I stood next to Elsie B. Washington in the midst of a historic moment not knowing who I was or who I may be, but now iI know. It's my time to ignore the biggest obstacle my path--me. It's time to finish.

Writer's note: I hope you've been motivated to finish your own novel while reading part one and part two of "Omphaloskepsis for the Midlife Writer." If you sometimes need to push yourself away from blogging, Twitter, and Facebook in order to concentrate on fiction, you may also enjoy "Twelve Meditations for Writers in a Twittiful Age."

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer Contributing Editor who also writes at Examiner.com.

Omphaloskepsis for the Midlife Writer: Finish Your Novel

2009-06-05T08:36:22-05:00

The ghosts of novels past are coming to me nightly, paging me daily. They come as my own voice poking me to finish what I once started, but a few days ago a more unnerving ghost appeared, and her presence was louder and clearer than any self-recrimination. Her name was Elsie B. Washington.

Elsie is credited as the first African-American romance novelist to write and sell a romance novel with a black hero and heroine. Her novel, Entwined Destinies, was published under the name Rosalind Welles by Dell in 1980. She only wrote one. Elsie died in a geriatric home in Manhattan at age 66 last month from cancer and multiple sclerosis.

She would never have known this, but she has followed me around for the last 26 years. While others are writing about her death as author of a first, I remember her as a flesh and blood, attractive black woman with cropped natural hair, a poised and polished writer more than 15 years my senior who I met at a romance writers convention in the early 80s.

I went because of the buzz that publishers like Dell and Harlequin were interested in publishing African-American romance novels. While hers was the first, I don't think either of us grasped the implications of what she'd accomplished. She shared with me concern that her publishers were still a little skittish. Her book, Entwined Destinies, had sold 25,000 copies, and Dell was disappointed, hoping it would have sold more.

"But it seems 25,000 is not bad for the first," she said to me.

I told her that considering most African-American women weren't even aware that anyone had published a "black romance novel," 25,000 copies were good indeed. Her novel may have sold more copies later. I don't know.

As I studied her next to me, I saw a woman who was living the life I'd dreamed I'd live since I was child. She was a writer for Newsweek magazine, which to me made her a black goddess. She'd cracked a ceiling working for a major mainstream magazine, while I had gotten married, left college, had a baby, and put my life on hold.

But I was at this conference hoping I could write a romance novel. God knows I had started more than one, and had read enough of them to possibly write one in my sleep. In addition, I was a member of a romance writers group in Charlottesville, Va., which is how I'd heard about the convention in the first place. I'd also taken a class at U.Va., not for romance novel writing but for non-genre fiction. A woman who'd earned her MFA in the school's prestigious creative writing program taught the course, and I knew you could move on to take classes in the MFA program without a bachelors if you submitted your work and was deemed talented enough.

Hearing that I wanted to enter the program, the teacher told me to go for it, but as far as she was concerned my fiction was already "better" than some of the people graduating from the program, she said. That made me feel good, and I'm not telling you that to brag, but to say that she was one in a line of people to come who would make similar observations about my fiction writing, and yet I never cracked down and dedicated myself to fiction the way I'd always thought I'd do.

Later my family moved from Virginia, northward, and then moved again farther south than Virginia to a place where I finished my degree. One semester was paid by a fiction writing scholarship. I'd decided to apply at the last minute and wrote the winning short story, which was later published, in one night. The man who made the decision to award the scholarship to me said, "I think if you'd keep writing and start submitting your work, you'll be published."

WOW! I thought, and then when I took a literature course through him and realized that he was one of the pickiest English professors I've ever known (he only read books that had managed to stay in bookstores for at least 10 years, I think), I remembered his vote of confidence in my fiction and danced on a cloud a little longer.

And we moved again and the next person to tell me something similar to the professor was a published novelist who used to work at the William Morris Agency. Oooh, pat me on the back six ways to Sunday. But again, I didn't settle down and finish anything, and I've got excuses.

First, I would like to blame my ex-husband, next motherhood and sickness and death of loved ones, add hormonal imbalances, Hurricane Katina wiping out New Orleans, and the number of angels who dance on a pinhead, but I can't do that. Nevertheless, my biggest excuses are some my fellow writers may recognize: Fear, worry, and the tendency to over-analyze, seeing every flaw in my work and the worst possible outcome around every corner. For me the worst outcome is to find out I've spent my life working toward a goal but will die self-deluded, believing that I had a talent I never possessed. Yes, it's sad, but here I am 49 still worrying more about what others will think, that I look like a fool in others' eyes. I would rather cringe in my corner than follow my passion. Critics be damned.

See, I'm one of the people who watches American Idol and thinks, "Oh, my! Can't that person hear that she can't sing." As people laugh and call these folks idiots, I concede that they are indeed victims of self-indulgence and folly. I am the person who picks up the self-published novel and feels sorry for the poor sucker that got taken by the vanity press and embarrassed herself, revealing to the world her ignorance of grammar, flat characters, and penchant for predictable denouement.

Later I've been surprised to see these same authors get picked up by "real" publishing houses after proving somebody will read their books. Some of them have improved, some have not. Am I the dupe of a snobbish literary education?

This post will continue next week with "If it's Bad News for the Writer, My Mind's a Trap."

Until then, I leave you with Sesame Street's Don Music, who channels the voice of the fearful writer, and I'm sorry to say, sometimes I may think just like him.

Blogger's Note: O.K., all right. I can see it's killing you because if you're a writer, you probably have varying levels of word obsession. Omphaloskepsis from Dictionary.com: noun ... contemplation of one's navel as part of a mystical exercise." It pays to watch the national spelling bee.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer Contributing Editor who also writes at Examiner.com.

Oprah's What Can You Live Without Challenge, Are You Game?

2009-05-26T23:32:27-05:00

Dear Oprah, I have a confession. I can do without my cell phone, and I've gone days without turning on the TV, and in order to save money, I've cut down on eating out before, but if I had to give up my Internet connection, I might need anti-anxiety drugs to make through. Even when I'm not surfing the Net or tweeting or updating my blog or Facebook page, I still use the Net to research topics for my writing.

So, I won't be fully joining your "What Can You Live Without" experiment, Part 2. However, I applaud you for tossing down this gauntlet to America to get back to basics, focus on each other, and not material goods. Sincerely, Nordette Adams, BlogHer CE.

Based on the number of people who raised their hands saying they could not give up what Oprah's recent challenge requires, I'm not alone when I say I could not give the experiment my all, and Oprah seemed to not expect many people to give up everything listed in her rules. Nevertheless, she shared a statistic that may disturb many parents.

"Each year the average American child, 14, spends 2,372 plugged into technology. ... That's on their computer, watching TV, playing video games or texting," said Oprah. "Now, if you add up all those hours, that's 3 and a half months of their lives."

I can't give up my computer because I use my computer for work, but I could do the rest of her challenge. Could you? Here are the rules as listed on her website:

For the next seven days, follow the guidelines ...

The Ground Rules

Cut out all technology—no televisions, video games, cell phones, computers, MP3 players or anything else you may use on a daily basis.

No eating out. Everyone must eat dinner at home as a family and brown bag it for lunch.

Curb your spending! The only items you can buy are groceries, and try to buy what you need for the week for $125.

Plan an inexpensive, creative family outing. You may spend a small amount of money on this if necessary.

Choose one family activity that gives back to others.

Mom and Dad: Plan one date night so you can connect as a couple.

No working late.

The show put the challenge partly into context of our learning lessons during the recession such as appreciating the simple things and learning to enjoy life with less of what we assume brings happiness. Oprah's big on people not buying too much stuff, such as food, and how buying too much or living with clutter creates waste. Clutter often means we're hoarding items that other people can use. Last year she had a similar challenge, "Live with Less," part of which encouraged going green or doing better by the environment.

In this year's challenge, the Haynie family amused me most. The son almost burst into tears when Oprah's people took away the televisions and the video games. The teen daughter lay on the floor and later said she'd changed her mind, that it wouldn't work, and she would die, while the father came close to a nervous breakdown without his cell phone or TV.

Prior to the challenge, the family ate out regularly and even texted each other while they were all in the house. That changed during challenge week. They had to cook at home and also eat together. When it was over, nobody had died, and it seemed the Haynies were better for participating. Then the Oprah show challenged them to go another week. To the mother's chagrin and surprise, the father said, "Yes." By the end, they learned to be grateful for each other. They also learned how to cook, and they told Oprah that they don't watch TV as much anymore.

The Ladwig family seemed more eager to try the experiment. By the end the mother, Michelle, was all about giving back. She seemed to empathize with people who are struggling financially in the country and wanted to teach her children that it's not about what things you have but about feeling happy on the inside. She's decided to keep her local food pantry for the hungry in mind whenever she does her grocery shopping.

However, in the first challenge week, she cheated when she didn't come home from work at 5:15 as promised, meaning she worked late. Her son wasn't having that at all.

Oprah reminded Michelle that it's nice to call your family to say you'll be late. She said calling to say you'll be late is a courtesy we show to business associates, but too frequently not our families. Michelle learned that she was using technology to not face the areas of her life that need work. At the end of the experiment, both families had decided to make more time for family beyond Oprah's challenge.

In the blogosphere, at least one member of the Ames Family at These are the Days of Our Lives found the strength to try Oprah's challenge and do what I cannot do:

In an attempt to save money and to force myself to spend my time doing something more fulfilling we're canceling internet and cable. ... but this will be a huge change for me. I'm going to give it a week and see how it goes. I watched an Oprah recently about "What can you live without?".....where a family was forced to give up all of their technology for a week. They freaked out at first but actually started spending time together in meaningful ways...etc. I always think about things like this but never actually go through with them. (Ames Family)

If you read the post, you'll learn that the writer has Internet through a school, and if necessary will surf there. So, I guess the person's already decided to not give up Internet completely, but promised to let readers know how the experiment goes otherwise.

Pretty Green Girl wrote that Oprah's challenge prompted her to think about what she's given up to go green.

... it got me thinking about what I can and do live without and have given up for environmental, health, ethical and other reasons. Some things have been harder than others – bananas, for example, which I’ve (somewhat guiltily) started to incorporate back occasionally. Coffee, tea, coconut and chocolate are all staples in my life, and I can’t give them up completely, but I do look for organic, fair trade, shade-grown, sustainable, and all the other green buzzwords. Other things have been easy – using a Sigg water bottle instead of bottled water, walking or taking the bus or working from home when I can (I still have a car but would LOVE to get rid of it some day), ditching high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. (Pretty Green Girl)

That blogger seems to have more willpower and social conviction than the average American.

MissBliss at Chocolate Shoes and Coffee wrote about Oprah's "What Can You Live Without Challenge," as well, and said she thought the family giving up electronics would be better off. On that post, Alissa of Grace's Birdcage left the following comment about her personal experience with life without things that go beep.

this is so funny - i just took a week off (i was on vacation) but no cell phone, computer or tv for a week. its weird, the first day it bugged me (enough that i started to realize i had a problem haha) but after that i didnt even think of it. i recommend it to anyone. but getting out of town made it easier! (Alissa commenting at Chocolate Shoes and Coffee)

Oprah's challenge, while beneficial to the wallet, seemed to emphasize personal growth. However it could be that the outcome of giving up material posessions is naturally personal growth. I suspect if we interviewed some of the people discussed in previous BlogHer posts, such as those who have made the extreme sacrifice of "living with their exes" to survive this recession, we'd discover they'd experienced personal growth despite the experience of living with an ex being uncomfortable.

Perhaps the personal growth experienced by those who work hard to live with less proves what Oprah has said and others have indicated, "Where there is no struggle, there is no strength."

At Blogher we've tossed around the living with less concept before, especially since America entered its financial crisis. Yours truly took the spiritual way out of answering, "What won't you cut from your family's budget?" and listed the non-tangibles she refuses to give up. Before that BlogHer had asked others "What Will You Cut?" and received poignant responses such as there's "nothing left to cut."

BlogHer's "Backtalk Tackles the Recession, Mom-Style," also examined how to cut corners with a post that listed of money-saving websites.

Near the end of Oprah's show, which aired Wednesday, May 20, she talked to a widow who, after losing her husband, became a shopaholic. Her husband had died trying to save their son from drowning. She felt the world had taken her husband, but no one could "take her stuff." Through Oprah's show she nearly emptied her closets. E-Bay came and took away a lot of her purchases and she earned $2,000. The company then gave $10,000 to a scholarship fund for her children, but the lesson she learned by freeing herself of too many clothes and shoes appears to have been invaluable, that her family doesn't need "things," it needs her.

So, are you up to Oprah's challenge or some variation? Have you done it before?

Nordette is a BlogHer CE and the African-American Books Examiner who of late has been overwhelmed by social media. You may keep up with much of her work through Her411.

10 Things I'm Too Overwhelmed to Write About, but That's O.K.

2009-05-19T00:57:48-05:00

You've heard of writer's block? I think I may have writer's flood. While reviewing potential writing topics for BlogHer this week, something I generally start considering within 24 hours of publishing my weekly BlogHer post, I had lots of ideas, but soon realized that I did not want to do the kind of research I feel a BlogHer post deserves, didn't feel like figuring out the back story so I could write the front story.

Some of this sense of being overwhelmed has to do with last week's family event. My son graduated from high school. I was happy, but I was also not in the mood to plan anything or figure out the logistics of house guests.

But a lot of what I'm feeling is what we all feel sometimes--that general sense of life spinning out of control and beyond our reach. Our minds feel suddenly pulverized by too many new computer applications, social media networks, family obligations, ex-lover/ex-spouse, divorce-recovery drama, or always-and-forever spouse needs, the pets, the car note, screaming children, clutter, and dust bunnies. Welcome to the centrifuge where the only thing split is your brain.

So it kept coming back to me that what overwhelms me, the topics I don't wish to write at the moment, may be the story itself.

I'm too overwhelmed by the raging crime and rising deaths of school-age children in Chicago, Ill. I've written about it before at WSATA, and I've also written at The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers about the young dying or killing in my own city, New Orleans. The tragedies bum me out and make me cry. But it's okay that I don't want to write about violence and grief again this week. Someone at Phenomenal Women on Facebook saw my post and started talking about solutions. Plus, Kim Crouch in African-American Moms at Twittermoms, with absolutely no help from me, broached the topic. Murder and mayhem is covered. If I want to write more about darkness, unfortunately there's always more to write.
I'm too overwhelmed to blog that other people feel overwhelmed by Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and fill-in-the-blank with some other social media monster. And I'm also too through with copyright infringement nonsense from AP to write about how it doesn't want me or you to link to its story on the matter. But that's okay. Professor Kim at BlogHer long ago covered AP's concerns, and if anyone is confused about copyright and plagiarism, that topic will be hammered again online as everyone dissects Maureen Dowd's faux pas.
On social media overload, I've touched on the twitterversy before as well, mentioning people who complain about too many celebrities on Twitter or posting what Beyonce said about Solange's addiction to Twitter, if you care. But if you're really fed up with Twitter, blogger Kristen Nicole tells you "5 Ways to Stop Using Twitter."
Also, I'm struggling to not become a menopausal, irrelevant woman who sometimes can't remember how to spell, and so I'm not surprised that hordes of people smoking electronic cigarettes have crept upon me unawares. I heard about E-cigarettes for the first time on a local news broadcast Monday night only to hear my son say he sees people using them everywhere. Have I been asleep?
Well, I'm too overwhelmed to write about E-cigarettes and the potential war building with the FDA over possible health issues as well as the possibility this new gadget may encourage more children to smoke. But that's o.k. Cindy Casares at Guanabee's tackled the topic, sharing that she didn't know about them either until she saw Perez Hilton puffing on a strange thing at SXSW.
I'm too overwhelmed to discuss Obama's Notre Dame visit. I've said what I have to say, and I've moved on. Neither do I care to debate torture and Obama's flip-flop on the photos and why it doesn't bother me. But that's o.k. People all over the Net are talking about this topic, both anti-release and pro-release. With all the flipping around of the people flipping out about the flip-flop, I'm done.
And speaking of transparency issues, I'm sick to death of hearing about our local public records and email mess, featuring the mayor, a Civil Rights attorney, the media, and an insane councilwoman or two, but lately just one fruit loop, Stacy Head. I've given enough time to the foolishness, but that's o.k. Other local bloggers don't mind telling you about NOLA's political dysfunction.
No, I don't want to talk to you about diets, eating properly, or other healthy choices because I'm overwhelmed by the diet news that drowns us, including the recycled diet news. It's not because I don't believe we should be healthy, but because I feel guilty about not doing more to get healthy. But that's o.k. Catherine Morgan's got my back, in the digital sense, and she'll keep me updated.
I don't have anymore time for spoiled football players aka James Harrison. But that's o.k. Enough people are talking about him, and that was his end-goal anyway. God bless him.
I was too overwhelmed to write about African-American children's books, but thank goodness other bloggers came to my rescue, sending me their recommendations.
Writing platforms anyone? It's the "big thing" now for people who want to land a book deal. I'm drowning because I had a good one and dismantled it. Thank god for Jane Friedman at Writer's Digest blogs who's also on Facebook and Twitter. She's approachable.
I'm classified as a life blogger. Unfortunately I'm too overwhelmed by life to write about it today. But that's o.k. I'm still smart enough to seek balance and know when it's time to rest and let others wield the pen while I find the juice for tomorrow.

So, now that I've covered what overwhelms me this week, who's ready to solve global warming?

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE but you can find more of her stuff through Her 411.

What Joan and Melissa Rivers Can Teach You About Codependent Behaviors

2009-05-12T14:14:58-05:00

This post is not about comedian Joan Rivers winning Celebrity Apprentice, even though it was good to see a 75-year-old get hired, not fired. Neither is it a treatise on whether reality TV is real or not, scripted or improvisational, nor an analysis of whether Joan and her daughter, Melissa Rivers, were acting the night of their foul-mouthed meltdowns. This post is about spotting unhealthy codependent relationships between parents and their adult children. Do you know the signs and symptoms?

I don't watch Celebrity Apprentice regularly, but I saw it a few times this season, including the night comedian Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa went nuts on the show after Melissa was fired, and I also saw Joan Rivers win, beating poker player Annie Dukes. I like Joan. I'm not always fond of her kind of humor, but the person. And while I suspect much of what viewers saw was spectacular acting from a funny lady and a natural drama queen, I still favored her over Annie Dukes and Dukes' BFF on the show, Playboy pinup Brande Roderick.

Nevertheless, the night Donald Trump fired Melissa Rivers, I saw the drama coming, but I did not foresee this much drama:

Joan and her daughter spewed venom all over ... Duke and ... Roderick. Joan called Duke a Nazi and Roderick a "stupid blonde" being manipulated by Duke. I think Melissa, while refusing to be interviewed, called the two women "whore pit vipers," and Joan told Duke that poker players are worse than white trash and that Duke takes blood money. (WSATA)

WOW! They would have been so checked at BlogHer for violating community guidelines. Here's the YouTube video of the end of that April 26 episode that I also posted at my blog, WSATA.

In comments on my post I wrote, "I think they may be too co-dependent." And as I looked around the web last night, I saw others had applied that adjective to the mother-daughter duo as well.

People commenting at PopWatch really gave them hell. Bianculli at TV Worth Watching thought Dukes would win and called Joan and Melissa, "stubborn, abrasive and co-dependent," and at Bitch Magazine, the writer, while concerned that a man set up two or more women to "fight each other," also saw "... a mom righteously defending her child" but also "a child going crying to Mommy for no good reason."

It's the description of Joan as "a mom righteously defending her child" and Melissa as "a child going crying to Mommy for no good reason" that gives us insight into the consequences of an unhealthy, codependent, parent-adult child relationship. When mothers run to defend their children, people tend to excuse it as "a mother's love," but when does do we mothers of adult children cross the line to doing too much? What's the difference between an adult child rightfully seeking help from a parent and an adult child whining too much, behaving like an infant, and is it ever helpful to encourage bad behavior?

Rivers, in all the episodes that I saw, reminded me a little of an older Blogher post I wrote about "helicopter parents." I have an adult daughter and an 18-year-old son, who sometimes tell me "Mom, don't hover," and I also put myself in check and them as well, refusing to help them sometimes in situations in which I know my mother would have helped me.

I think my mother and I, though we had plenty of discord, had moments of unhealthy codependency in which she did too much and I let her do so, thinking that was a good and normal thing. Andwhether you think Joan and Melissa are acting or not, the scene in the video is an excellent example of codependency on steroids within a parent-child relationship.

You've probably heard the term "codependency" before. It used to be used mainly to talk about relationships in which a nonaddict lover or relative enables an alcoholic or drug addict, but over time psychologists clarified that most relationships have an element of codependency. What we must monitor is its depth.

"Signs of a Codependent Relationship" by Jeanie Lerche Davis at WebMD, which has the tag line that "unhealthy dependencies, repressed anger could just be a few of the signs that you are codependent" has a list of red flags. The article begins with the example of a mother repeatedly bailing her 35-year-old son out of financial trouble and then broadens the definition of codependency to include any unhealthy emotional dependence, giving these initial clues:

"Family secrets. Guilt. Shame. Repressed anger. Low self-esteem. Compromising your own values to avoid another person's rejection or anger. Those are just a few red flags of codependence."

The red flags I've highlighted from the article are those that I think relate most to what I saw in the Rivers's relationship:

Red FlagsRed Flag No. 1: Do you become obsessed with fixing and rescuing needy people?

"Codependents are more oriented to other people's reality than their own," Cannon explains. "They can tell you what everybody else is feeling or needing but have no earthly idea what they want or need. They are the finder, fixer, and Mother Theresa. That is how they see themselves, and where they get their ego fix."

A person's motive for "doing good" indicates whether they are codependent or not, says Cannon. "Are you literally giving for fun and for free -- or to get some kind of payoff?" she asks. "If you're codependent, you're trying to be someone's savior to make yourself feel good. You give to them with an expectation of return. After all I've done for you, I get to tell you what to do with your life."

Red Flag No. 2: Are you easily absorbed in the pain and problems of other people?

"Codependent people can be obsessed with the pain and suffering of the other person," Cannon tells WebMD. "That allows them to sacrifice themselves. It's really learned self-defeating behavior."

It's why women in helping professions burn out, McKee adds. "They get super absorbed in the pain of others. They have trouble setting limits in taking in that pain. Some empathy is wonderful. But when you can feel the pain more than the person in pain feels it, it hurts you." (Read all flags/signs at WebMD)

Joan Rivers showed that fierce mother love, a desire to rush in and protect Melissa, who clearly needed something she wasn't getting from her team members, but given Melissa's age and the nature of the game, was Joan's behavior appropriate? She seemed motivated by the perception that Dukes and Roderick were hurting her daughter beyond the wounds of reasonable competition.

If you saw the show, then you probably heard Melissa say more than once that Dukes and Roderick's behavior reminded her of "being in high school," a place where some of us experience tremendous heartbreak and peer rejection. I agreed that the two women did seem like the Queen Bee and her drone, but Melissa seemed to be sucked into a teen's emotions. We may not outgrow feelings of rejection, but how we should mature in how we handle them.

RedFlag #5: "Are you always seeking approval and recognition?"

Melissa desperately wanted Annie and Brande's approval and recognition.

Many a mother has spent time with a child crying on her shoulder, "They don't like me!" As mothers, sometimes our anger surges because we remember those boys and girls who were mean to us as well. We may wish we'd had someone to rescue us from the bullies and the stuck-up mean girls, and so naturally, we want to rescue and protect our children because that's our job.

However, this urge to protect and rescue is one we must balance in wisdom as our children grow into adulthood. When they're younger, we should help them accept themselves as well as help them see that they have the power to sculpt and be responsible for their own lives, a power they must use while strengthening their self-esteem themselves in love. When they're grown, we should help them recall what we've taught them if we know we've taught them well.

As Dr. Dale Atkins said in an NBC segment on letting go of our children, what parents should do is try to "work yourself out of a job." (MSNBC Video)

In an interview at Nourishing Relationships, Alison Bottke, author of Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children, answered an important question:

How can we determine whether we are helping versus enabling our children?

ALLISON: Helping is doing something for someone that he is not capable of doing himself.

Enabling is doing for someone things that he could and should be doing himself.

An enabler is a person who recognizes that a negative circumstance is occurring on a regular basis and yet continues to enable the person with the problem to persist with his detrimental behaviors. Simply, enabling creates an atmosphere in which our adult children can comfortably continue their unacceptable behavior. (Bottke)

In a popular post at BlogHer, "My Son and the Get Out of Jail Sheet," I said that "the only job of a parent after protecting a child from harm is to prepare a child to take care of him or herself honestly once the child is grown. If the child does not understand how the world works and cannot fend for himself wisely, then the parent has failed, producing a being no good to himself or others." And I meant it.

My children and I went through some difficult times during my divorce, and I had my antenna up for my son's behavior in particular, who was 12 and 13 during some of the worst moments. What I looked for were patterns that indicated he was using emotional misery to not move forward. I put a time limit on mama-coddling because I know that I won't be around forever and he must learn to stand on his own two feet and learn how to soothe himself.

Lately I've been wondering if I went overboard with that because I notice increasingly I don't hear about some of his life's storms until he's navigated successfully through them. So, while I'm glad he's standing on his own, I may also advise him of the value in asking for help. Life is about balance, I try to teach him. Knowing when to fight alone and when to call for back-up.

For parents, it's the same, we must find balance, knowing when to jump in and when to shut up. I think if it's an adult child, we should shut up far more often than we do. Practicing zipped lips and hands off, however, is not that easy.

Before I close, there's another television show that gives insight into the problems with being too codependent at times. If anyone reading watches ABC's Brothers and Sisters with Sally Field and saw it this past Sunday when the whole family ended up in Mexico trying to rescue Tommy, who didn't really need to be rescued, then you know what I mean about knowing when to stop interfering. It made sense to look for Tommy, but once the mother hen found him, well ... Look in the dictionary under codependent and there sits The Walkers, "a collection of five enmeshed and somewhat damaged adult siblings and their strong but passionately devoted mother," but they're still a fictional family that people envy because they love so hard. Yet, the show is a case-study in the consequences of overstepping boundaries.

Unlike the Walkers, Joan and Melissa Rivers, are real. Acting or not, their performance on Celebrity Apprentice nailed one example of codependent behavior to the wall. Did you see any of your own tendencies or a loved one's tendencies in either of the women?

Links:

A post on codependent parents at Boomer Yearbook
Laura in Michigan writes about breaking the cycle of enabling an adult child addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Joan Rivers appeared with Donald Trump on Larry King live and did not take back saying Annie Dukes was "worse than Hitler." She said it's just a saying to use on someone who's running you in the ground. She also said she's against gay marriage: "Gay marriage, I am so against it because all my gay friends are out. And if they get married, it will cost me a fortune in gifts." She also said, "Oh, yes. Clint (Black) is a chauvinist. My joke is now he wouldn't even let his wife have Equal in her coffee." That Joan, such a comedian! Donald Trump said he loved the ratings bonanza.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer.com CE and The New Orleans Literature Examiner. Her personal blogs are WSATA and UMBOP.

For Mother's Day, It's Swarming Termites

2009-05-05T09:36:40-05:00

I wish I could say that I moved back to Louisiana, bought a nice house on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, and now sit on my porch in the evenings drinking Mint Juleps as I'm fanned by a sexy, shirtless man. But that's not what happened.

This summer I will have been back in the New Orleans metropolitan area for nearly two years and what do I have to show for it? Lizards, tree frogs, black snakes, and swarming termites for Mother's Day.

Tonight I will not step outside. Around 10:00, my son came in and said, "Mom, I just want to warn you that I'm hearing lots of talk on Facebook about termites."

"Oh, that reminds me. Your grandfather told me to get the house treated for termites," I said and thought no more of it. Twenty minutes later I heard the WDSU TV anchor team talking to weather reporter Margaret Orr.

It was all good, they said, until the termites. And then Orr goes into how we're being plagued with swarming Formosan subterranean termites that show up as soon as the ground gets warm. Hmm. I don't remember those growing up.

I remember the stinging caterpillars, but not the swarming termites. I recall the cockroaches, mosquitoes, salamanders and "Lizard, lizard show me your blanket." I remember the toad that jumped on my foot and peed when I was 8, the nutria, and the mice. The ticks. The fire ants and chiggers/red bugs eating me up on the levee.

I recall the black snake in my garden last year, the wasps that took up residence by my front door, the swarms of black "love bugs," the bright green tree frogs that like to come and watch us while stuck to the living room window at night, and the alligator I almost ran over on I-10, but I do not remember swarming termites!

So, I looked the little nuisances up and found this 2008 article.

Heavy rains recently triggered the swarming season for Formosan subterranean termites in Louisiana. These evening swarms typically start around Mother’s Day.

According to LSU AgCenter entomologist Gregg Henderson, Formosan termites can swarm up to 100 yards from their nests.

"If you see swarms, try to locate where they are coming from," Henderson said. "And most importantly, are they coming from your home or a tree nearby your home?"

An infestation in the home should be treated right away, he said.

For 20 years, the LSU AgCenter has been monitoring termite swarms and population shifts.

Believed to have entered Louisiana and other Southern coastal states in wooden crates that were returned from the Pacific Rim during and after World War II, Formosan subterranean termites have steadily increased in number over the past 60 years. They have moved north from New Orleans and Lake Charles and now have been found in all parishes south of I-10 and I-12 as well as in some areas of Central and North Louisiana.

"Weather patterns and climate changes affect the termite population," Henderson explained. "A drought will reduce their numbers."

Following Hurricane Katrina, Henderson started looking for areawide control measures around levees. (Extension Service, 2008 article)

What? They start swarming around Mother's Day? That's this Sunday. So, I think this must be an accurate article from last year.

I also found this video from which I determined the termites will meet me in daylight.

And perhaps my memory's not so faulty after all. More than likely they weren't quite as bad 20 years ago, which means when I moved away nearly 30 years ago, they may not have been so prominent in the city.

I'll just add this new information to my notes from The Exterminators on A&E. While watching it I learned Louisiana is flush with black widows and brown recluse spiders.

Wait, my daughter just walked in. "Mom! I've killed two termites in the kitchen and three in the bathroom." ... Lovely. Just lovely.

Links:

This article is cross-posted at WSATA.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer.com CE and The New Orleans Literature Examiner. Her personal blogs are WSATA and The Urban Mother Book of Prayers, where she's recently posted a mother's poem, "Song of the Near Empty Nest."

Two Children Bullied to Death--Sacrifices to Our Homophobia

2009-04-29T01:24:19-05:00

We hear of cases such as the the 13-year-old who committed suicide after being bullied online, and then scream our outrage at the bloodless brutalities of virtual harassment, but should we expect anything else when we haven't stopped bullying in the brick and mortar world? In the last month we've been notified by bloggers and mainstream media of two deaths being called "bullicides," the suicides of two middle-school boys both taunted at school, labeled "gay."

The slang word "bullicide" is inaccurate because it implies the bully was killed, but we get the message. People feel the suicides are death by bully, and the taunts of "you're gay" and "that's so gay" lead us to believe the boys suffered death by homophobic bully. And yet, we're talking about 11 and 12 year-old children here, tormenting other children into emotional pits with a word some of them may not even grasp--an awareness of sexual orientation the victims may not have yet explored.

The obvious question is, "So, what if these boys were gay?" If we knew for a fact that these boys were gay would that make the teasing acceptable in the eyes of some adults?

That's a question many parents, teachers, and spiritual leaders should be asking themselves. These are the people who have the first opportunity to influence how children feel about other people who may or may not be like them.

However, whether we speak of gay children or straight children or transgendered children, America has a problem with bullies in the school yard. The suicides of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera tell us so.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera woke up on April 16 acting strangely. He wasn't hungry and he didn't want to go to school.

Jaheem Herrera's mother thinks he hanged himself because he was perpetually bullied at school.

But the outgoing fifth grader packed his bag and went to school at Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia.

He came home much happier than when he left in the morning, smiling as he handed his mother, Masika Bermudez, a glowing report card full of A's and B's. She gave him a high-five and he went upstairs to his room as she prepared dinner.

A little later, when his younger sister called him to come down to eat, Jaheem didn't answer.

So mother and daughter climbed the stairs to Jaheem's room and opened the door.

Jaheem was hanging by his belt in the closet. (CNN, "My Bullied Son's Last Day on Earth")

I was bullied as a child, but not for being gay or anyone thinking I was gay. I was targeted for being fat or smart or dressing differently or talking "proper." There's no need to go into the details of bully tactics because many adults around the world have experienced the same and worse as children. Still, when I was 9 years old, I took one of my mother's Valium pills, sure it would kill me because she'd warned me not to touch them. She'd told me "just one" would kill me, and I believed her. So, I took one at 9 years old.

Also, I remember my friend Raymond Myles, a brilliant musician, being called a "fat faggot" and a "sissy." I don't know if Raymond ever went home and tried to kill himself. Perhaps his music saved him until the day he was gunned down on the streets of New Orleans, the victim of a carjacking. Recently I learned a movie's been made, The Heartbreak Life of Raymond Myles.

I have Raymond's music, but some days I can't listen because it takes me back to dark places I don't want to go. His music is not the depressant; the memories it triggers are downers.

Targeting the kid who doesn't fit the norm is old school ugly with new school savagery. What were we told then but "Toughen up," and "Stop being so sensitive" or "Sweetie, you've got to learn to stop wearing your heart on your sleeve."

Today's children are told the same. Good advice, but why is it that the bullies rarely get the lectures or sent to therapy? Why is it that bullies rarely are made to endure the corrections they deserve for making words bullets?

Yes, programs have been implemented. Indeed, Jaheem Herrera's school supposedly has a model anti-bullying program, as you will hear in the video below. But I think many of us adult humans secretly think the bully is strong and the person being bullied is weak and it's that victim who needs to "stop whining" and grow up.

Perhaps those thoughts come from the child in me joining her voice with 65 percent of today's children who believe adults won't help them. They probably figured that out the first time an adult told them to "Buck up!" and never challenged the bully's keeper or if the adult did complain to the school or the bully's keeper, the result was the bullying escalated and everyone threw up their hands as though there was nothing to be done. What a screwed-up species we are, deluding ourselves that we are enlightened.

Pam at Pam's House Blend shares some details about Carl's death, and then quotes from an interview with Carl's mother by The Advocate. She follows with her outrage at homophobic groups and the school for failure to act sooner:

Eleven-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover did not have to die. He wrapped an extension cord around his neck and hanged himself, leaving this earth because of months of anti-gay taunts by his classmates at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield, MA. ... [excerpt from not included] ... I want to ask a question (speaking of some Christian groups) -- How can these homophobes sleep at night knowing this little boy -- and so many others like him -- was so tormented by others in his school that the only way out was to kill himself? That school officials didn't do anything to stop the bullying, essentially blaming the victim "student immaturity," that Carl should just "buck up" and take it, and ignoring his fear that naming those who tortured him would label him a snitch. (Pam)

Here is part of the interview with Carl's mother from The Advocate posted April 13:

Walker said her son had been the victim of bullying since the beginning of the school year, and that she had been calling the school since September, complaining that her son was mercilessly teased. He played football, baseball, and was a boy scout, but a group of classmates called him gay and teased him about the way he dressed. They ridiculed him for going to church with his mother and for volunteering locally.

"It's not just a gay issue," Walker said. "It's bigger. He was 11 years old, and he wasn't aware of his sexuality. These homophobic people attach derogatory terms to a child who's 11 years old, who goes to church, school, and the library, and he becomes confused. He thinks, Maybe I'm like this. Maybe I'm not. What do I do?"

His birthday, April 17, falls this year on the 13th National Day of Silence, a day on which individuals observe vows of silence for students bullied at school. (writer William McGuinness at The Advocate)

At This So-Called Post-Post-Racial Life, blogger PR_Scribe dedicated her Old School Friday post to young Carl and told her readers about the National Day of Silence, an action day that students and bloggers observed on April 17 of this year and that will be observed on April 16 next year.

Founded in 1996, the Day of Silence has become the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. From the first-ever Day of Silence at the University of Virginia in 1996, to the organizing efforts in over 8,000 middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities across the country in 2008, its textured history reflects its diversity in both numbers and reach. (DayofSilence.org)

PR_Scribe, a mother, imagined what a living Carl's day would have been like:

Had he not taken his life, today his mother would be waking him up with a welcome to his last year of childhood before his teen years. He probably would have had a nice breakfast, maybe one last look at the mail to see if any other relatives had sent him a birthday card with a five or ten dollar bill in it. His mother would have told him the embarrassing story, for the umpteenth time, about how he used to cross his eyes when he was a baby and giggle so hard he passed gas. Or about how he used to hate wearing a diaper as a toddler and once streaked through the living room, bare-bottomed and free, where Pastor and several other church members were seated. He would have rushed at the last minute to locate his math book or his science homework, and been ushered back into the bathroom to wash a bit of toothpaste from the side of his chin. He would have left his house with a big smile on his face.

But then, likely even on the anniversary of his birth, he would have gone to the New Leadership Charter School and would have once again been taunted for not conforming to other kids’ strict narrow ideas about what a 12-year-old Black boy should look like and be like.

Besides what would have been Carl’s 12 birthday, today is the 13th Annual National Day of Silence ... (PR_Sribe at This So-Called Post-Post-Racial Life)

Could Carl's birthday falling on the Day of Silence be strange synergy between a tragedy and the cosmos seeking justice? We don't know, but we do know his death and Jaheem's gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we need to do better, educate ourselves and help our children to honor compassion and the beauty of difference.

These words from Feministing are true:

It shouldn't have to take this person's death for folks to realize that bullying - specifically, anti-gay and transphobic bullying - is a very real and very serious problem that absolutely must be addressed in schools. (Posted by Vanessa)

I first learned of Carl's death through Field Negro, who was obviously angry at the school and communities that encourage homophobia, creating the climate for children to suffer. He wrote that he had planned a post about the Republican TEA party. When he heard about Carl's suicide, he knew it was more important than people not wanting to pay taxes.

While not participating in the Day of Silence, I wrote the following at my blog:

With the tragic suicide of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, 11, a child who killed himself because children at school bullied and taunted him and called him "gay," we've had to look at ourselves again, our promotion of homophobia. Carl's story rips me apart. We adult humans must get over ourselves before we poison all of our children. (WSATA)

Later I heard about Jaheem. It's too much, really. Too much. We have to do something, and whatever that is, it must be more than the campaign against "That's So Gay" targeting only suburban teenage girls and starring Hillary Duff.

Finally, two questions linger, accusing us of our failure to guide society toward openness, compassion, and a respect for our differences: "What if Jaheem and Carl weren't gay?" and "What if they were?"

Additional Links:

Shakesville for comments

"Easy to Be Hard: Boys Will Be Boys or Else" by Craig Washington

The Sex Change of Zyax II written by Liz Henry when she was 10, posted at Can I Sit with You? -- The Stormy Social Seas of the School Yard

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE and The New Orleans Literature Examiner.

Oprah Asks Are You Prepared to Buy Teen Daughter a Vibrator?

2009-04-22T14:43:21-05:00

Stephany who blogs at Crooked House is not having an easy time of it. She's a couch potato by her own description, tired and dragging through her days, and ready to give Oprah expert Dr. Laura Berman the thumbs up for telling moms to tell their daughters about masturbation, maybe even given them vibrators for Christmas. It's understandable. Stephany is pregnant and says tongue in cheek, "If only I'd had a vibrator seven months ago, I wouldn't be stuck on this couch right now."

Ahh, but there's a disclaimer:

I'm kidding. (I mean it, Mom, I'm really kidding! I never heard about vibrators until yesterday! Honest!) But I'm not kidding about how informative this particular Oprah show was on a difficult parenting issue. (Crooked House)

She's funny, but her words strike truth: Most parents don't want to think about their little darlings knowing anything more about sex than the male penis is like your car cigarette lighter and a woman's vagina is like the hole into which the lighter goes.

I've never used that analogy with a child, but that is what my ex-husband told our son when the boy was about 10. The ex, who was not yet the ex, was reluctant to tell him that much. I had to lobby him to speak to our son, but I had already given the child a book that explained sex in plain English, including masturbation, for boys in his age-range. My work was done!

If my mother were still living, I may have had to tell her what Stephany said to hers at the end of her blog, and this after I've birthed two children in marriage, am nearing 50, and am single again. If you're a mother and think it would be easy to talk to your daughter about how to use a vibrator, then I'll bet you're a highly unique mommy.

My daughter's 28, and while I can mention vibrators in passing, I cannot see myself sitting down and telling her about the pleasures of masturbation, not now and probably not when she was 14. I've been patting myself on the back for being brave enough to find the juiciest condom I could and then telling her how to put it on an erect penis.

Nevertheless, I think there's value in Dr. Berman's advice, and mothers across the web are talking. Dr. Berman's advises teaching your daughter about the joy of masturbation so she will feel in charge of her own body and not have sex with the first boy that makes her hips gyrate and legs turn to Jello while giving her a hickey.

So, did you see the show? Have you talked it over with friends, read blog posts, um, approached your teen to have "the talk"? Watch selected video and read summaries at Oprah.com. It's too much to cover here. The talk-show host did two episodes on "How to talk to your children about sex." The first one went from toddler to tween. The second focused on teens.

I thought when I looked for bloggers talking about these shows that I'd find only outrage because Oprah's audience looked like they all needed Valium when Dr. Berman suggested they give their daughters vibrators and talk to them about clitoral stimulation. Oprah's BFF Gayle, as Stephany says in her post, looked like "she needed smelling salts." That was during the first show. During the next show when Dr. Berman talked to a 14-year-old girlfriend and boyfriend, Courtney and Pierce, who wanted to have sex, I thought Gayle would have a stroke.

Gayle seemed to believe that too much would be interpreted as approval of teens having sex just because they think they're in love. Interestingly, however, after Dr. Berman finished talking to the teen couple, the girl's eyes opened. Courtney realized that she thought she and her boyfriend would be together forever or at least a few years because to her that's what long-term relationship means. Pierce, however, figured six-months to a year tops should do. After their talk with the doctor, Courtney wasn't quite so hot to go for it, but they've already done everything but have intercourse.

Do Pierce and Courtney understand sexually transmitted diseases? Courtney says they've had presentations in school about them. "Quite a few times, from sixth grade till now," Pierce says.

Dr. Berman says that's good news. "For the past eight years at least, most schools—if they do have sex education—it's abstinence-only education," she says. "They teach you about sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, but they don't necessarily teach you about prevention." (Oprah.com)

Jen will not go the abstinence-only route with her child, I concluded after reading Serenity Now! According to Jen, her daughter is about "2-3 years" away from needing the first "talk," probably the one about the mechanics of sex. But of vibrators, she's not buying it, "... for the part where the Dr. suggests that as a parent, you offer your 15 year old daughter the possibility of a vibrator. Um, sorry no- prudesaywhat?" she writes.

But she's not as uptight as that sounds:

At any rate, I've always tried to create an environment where my kids are not ashamed of their bodies. We call their "stuff" by its real name and when my kids are um, "exploring" I usually turn a blind eye.

The other day, Jack was in the bathtub and Megan and I were in the bathroom with him talking about other things, not really paying attention to him. I could hear him chattering away to himself but I didn't pay much attention until he called out something that sounded like, "penis control".

Megan started to giggle and I looked over at Jack who was sprawled out on his back in the tub and clearly had a handle on his, uh...appendage. (Serenity Now!)

I remember those days.

Another aspect of talking to our children about sex is to talk about emotions, how being in love or thinking we're in love feels, and according to a join-study by Oprah Magazine and Seventeen Magazine, parents fail to do that. We're focused on making sure nobody pops up pregnant. Find more about that study here.

Other bloggers discussing Oprah's show on talking to children about sex:

Big Update! Resources from the Show

The focus of this Blogher post is teens and the suggestion that mothers should talk over masturbation, including vibrators, but I'm adding information for the mothers of younger children and the parents of teens who may be starting this discussion later than Dr. Berman suggests as a resource for the interested.

At Oprah.com, you may watch video here of a mother talking to her 10-year-old daughter about sex with Dr. Berman's help.

Also, you may download Dr. Berman's handbook, The SexEd Guide For Parents also at Oprah.com as well as additional visual aids.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE and the New Orleans Literature Examiner for Examiner.com. She has two personal blogs, WSATA and UMBOP.

The Ebony Experiment: Stop Asking 'Is it Racist?'

2009-04-14T13:17:17-05:00

When John and Maggie Anderson of Oak Park, Ill., started The Ebony Experiment on January 1 of this year, they thought of it as "an academic test about how to reinvest in an underserved community and lessen society's burden." For one year the family has pledged to buy everything they possibly can from black-owned businesses--health and beauty supplies, gas, clothing, food, books, medical services, etc.

They moved their personal accounts to Covenant Bank in Chicago, but have been unable to switch their mortgage and student loans to black-owned financial institutions. And they haven't changed utility companies. (The LA Times, Family buys black for one year)

The Andersons hope to strengthen African-American communities, to build wealth in black neighborhoods, and encourage economic independence and responsibility. John Anderson told the LA Times last month, "When a thriving African American or urban community is realized, certainly as a society as a whole we all win."

From The Ebony Experiment website.

So, you'd think everyone, seeing the crippled state of many black communities in America--hearing of the crime on the nightly news, reading about the higher rates of unemployment, learning of the crisis in inner-city education--would cheer the Andersons on, but you'd be wrong.

In addition to watching the CNN video above, you may also see at Electronic Village an MSNBC interview with the Andersons in which the couple addresses common criticism of the project. In it Mr. Anderson says it's not about exclusion but about self-help economics and that he and his family are guinea pigs in a study. The Ebony Experiment website has other interviews posted, including one with the Urban League that's also at YouTube. In that interview they stress that they hope to dispel the myths about black-owned businesses. I assume they mean the stigma of inferior services and quality associated with black businesses.

While some people wonder how can they join the Ebony Experiment, others off-handedly declare it racist and against the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Limiting yourself to stores based on the criteria of race and not quality of service or merchandise is, of course, racist but also runs the risk of supporting stores that might not be worth saving. That's one of the reason I avoided the Christian stores, I would rather base my purchase on quality, not some claim to kinship that may or may not be true. (Reformed Chicks Blabbing)

I don't think the writers at Reformed Chicks Blabbing, a blog on Belief.net, are women of color, and so the call to participate in the Ebony Experiment is not made to them. You know, sometimes you have to know if you are the person to whom others are speaking, and if you're not and what's being spoken of doesn't harm you, then let it go.

Ironically, the declaration that The Ebony Experiment is racist is the knee-jerk response of people who see in black and white and think to be color-blind is to be free of racism. They are wrong!

Another faith blog written by an African-American male shares a broader, more informed view:

In today’s crippled economy, is there a place for the Kwanzaa principle of Ujamma, or cooperative economics? ... This issue elicits many questions, particularly the one alluded to in the excerpt above concerning the criticism that if members of the white community promoted something as brazenly separatist and racialized as this, they would be immediately castigated as racists. And that suggestion of a double standard is understandable. Yet, whether we agree or disagree with that contention, I think it’s important to acknowledge the complexity of our national history around the issues of race, slavery, segregation, and social justice. Though we’ve long since repudiated and attempted to move forward from our nation’s biggest failures on the matter of race, a lot of the residue of our failures continue to inform our personal and institutional relationships today. To ignore that fact only hinders our efforts toward true progress and reconciliation. (Ed Gilbreath at The Reconciliation Blog)

A note at the end of the full post attempts to put this topic in the perspective of Obama's win and so-called "post-racial" America.

I keep hearing about post-racial America in the Age of Obama and while I loathe the "Obama the Magic Negro" song, as I listen to people go on about the end of racism in the Obama age, I see the validity of some points David Ehrenstein made in his opinion piece, the one that supposedly inspired the offensive jingle. There are Americans out there, mostly not people of color, who think Obama's election induced a mystical exorcism of all things racist. They're deluding themselves.

Since I've mentioned Ehrenstein, let me add that people who can't separate the insulting song from Ehrenstein's commentary seem to be stricken with a Boolean logic mentality that strips them of complex thought. There is no magic potion for racism and the evils it births, and under magic potions and fairy tales fall notions of a color blind society, one black savior, paternalistic white knights, benevolent plantation masters, that American economics is pure capitalism, and the ideology that all humans are tubs that must only sit on their own bottoms and never get help from other tubs. But back to the Andersons' undertaking.

I appreciate Ed Gilbreath's reference to the Kwanzaa principle Ujamaa, with the exception that invoking Kwanzaa gives the impression that cooperative economics within the black community is a concept as young as Kwanzaa. In the early 1900s Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant, built the largest African-American organization in history promoting black economic independence. Before Garvey, educator Booker T. Washington, author of Up From Slavery, was "an advocate for African American economic power" in the late 1800s, reports a scholar quoted at the LA Times.

Today the world has shrunken, and so it's unlikely any group can ever claim true economic independence again unless it's in its own nation behind impenetrable walls. We are all connected, as the current global economic crisis makes clear, but prosperous black communities is a dream that can be followed and claimed. Yet, how can it come to pass if more African-American men and women don't succeed at owning their own businesses and use their business skills to cater to the needs of African-American communities the same way that the Italians have, the Irish have, the Jewish people have, the Asians have, etc.?

Comments from Jack and Jill:

Yes, whites of a certain mentality hear that black people seek to strengthen their communities through mutual support and they scream foul, charge racism, and say blacks have a double standard? For those who know American history, however, it's clear that critics of black self-help have a double standard. As the commenters at Jack and Jill Politics say, other ethnic groups have always done in their own groups what the Andersons propose. Why is it wrong when African-Americans do the same? More curious, I suspect some of the same people who call the Ebony Experiment racist also say at the dinner table, "Black people are always looking for a hand out from the government. When are they going to solve their own problems themselves?"

Slavery, Segregation and Economics

Slavery prevented African-Americans from having the experience of building the ethnic economic base that other groups have built in this nation. Upon their arrival, blacks were immediately stripped of cultural identity--language, customs, family connections, control of their own bodies, and whatever material wealth, even the grit of African sand--was stolen. The abolition of slavery, the demolition of segregation, did not magically restore these losses. Neither does the election of a black president.

So, when I saw the Andersons' story and read that the family has received hate mail accusing them of racism and threatening to not ever buy from black businesses again, I wasn't alarmed. Boycott, I thought, Princess Bride revisited, joins the word "Inconceivable!" Boycott ... "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

A white person supposedly speaking for other white people threatening a boycott against black business is the perfect example of a fool speaking and removing all doubt that he is a fool.

The threat sent to the Andersons reminded me of hearing Pat Buchanan on a local talk show, The Austin Rhodes Show, in Augusta, Ga., in the 90s, ranting about either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton calling for a boycott of businesses. Buchanan blustered, "I think that we (whites) should boycott black businesses!"

I asked for a tape but was told, just minutes after the show ended, that they'd lost it; however, hearing Bucahanan say whites should boycott black businesses was enough to convince me he may have mental issues.

If you're not African-American, tell me now how many times have you purchased your car, clothes, groceries from a black-owned company? How often do you open a copy of Black Enterprise magazine?

If you exclude Motown, even much of the music you may have purchased by black recording artists did not come from a black-owned recording studio and distributor. Motown itself is no longer a "black-owned" business. So, unless you buy lots of HipHop from independent producers, it's unlikely that even your entertainment comes from a "black" company. How can you boycott something you don't use anyway? And no, Oprah doesn't count here. The point being made is not that white people should feel guilty for not "buying black," but that white people who make stupid statements like "I'm not going to buy anything from black businesses" because the Ebony Experiment is racist or label it racist show that they're out of touch with reality.

Just as any specious "white power movement" is a redundancy of the predominant social system, attempts to assert "buy white only" is a redundancy of the predominant economic system despite the rise of China. The perception of some whites that the Ebony Experiment is racist is another example of blindness to privilege. Having no conscious sense of the power of white skin and wealth, some whites misinterpret black empowerment and any search for black independence as racism, meaning the same method of oppression white institutions have employed for years against people of color, but it's not the same.

A blogger who seems to have a similar view is Renee at Womanist Musings. After posting objections to The Ebony Experiment she found at The Black Informant, she writes:

The resounding theme in the above commentary is white panic and a denial of white privilege. I personally love the question of what if whites only supported white owned businesses? Since the majority of the business in the United States are owned by white people chances are you already do. You will further note that the WET (white entertainment network) argument made its usual appearance. When I see this supposition, I often want to ask about the status of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and in particular FOX news; they clearly are not devoted to promoting diversity either in their news, or entertainment programming and BET which is barely managing to stay in business is a threat. The bottom line is that unless something unfairly promotes whiteness it is deemed racist by those that are determined to maintain undeserved white privilege. (Renee at WM)

Just how many people slept through history class is what I've been wondering. Since I first heard about the Ebony Experiment in March, history and how we arrived at this point in time, has poked me.

America was once a legally segregated nation. As a result, there were businesses within the black community owned by black people that thrived, but a stigma clung to them. Blacks went to black-owned establishments because they had no place else to go that wouldn't force them to sit in the back or enter through the kitchen door. Entry into white establishments was forbidden and as a result white businesses carried the mystique of a wonderland. Conversely, black businesses were viewed as inferior.

When segregation ended, blacks could shop and eat wherever they wished and so flocked to what had once been taboo, abandoning black business owners who had served them for decades, assuming they had arrived at a better place. Or, as scholar James E. Clingman told The Times, blacks "began patronizing white-owned businesses under the misconception that buying white signified blacks' upward socioeconomic mobility."

Another casualty of segregation was the reputation of the black professional who had been educated in black schools. Separate was not equal. My parents and grandparents could see that with the raggedy books that landed on their school desks, torn and worn by white children who used them first. The perception grew that white children received a better education, which was true in many ways, and the consequence was that white professionals educated in white schools were assumed to be superior to black professionals educated in black schools.

I remember my grandmother saying that she wouldn't go to a black doctor. Later I understood it was because she believed the white doctor was not necessarily smarter but that the white doctor had access to the latest in equipment and the best medical schools.

But let's go with the positive side of the Anderson story. According to the LA Times, the hate mail they've received is a small part of the Anderson's correspondence. Most of the comments have been supportive--"people see the endeavor as beneficial to all."

The Andersons' story also appears in the Chicago Tribune. This BlogHer post is cross-posted at The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE who is also the NOLA Literature Examiner at Examiner.com. Her personal blogs are WSASTA and UMBOP.