Condoleezza Rice Comes Out of Hiding: USA Today Gets All Up in Her Personal Business

Back in the days of the 90s and the early part of this century when Black women got to be cabinet secretaries :) (Sorry,  UN Ambassador and EPA Administrators kinda don't count- and don't give me any grief or else I'll start talking about Supreme Court nominations too! Can a Sista get Solicitor General?). Anywhoo, Condoleezza Rice is going to keep us all waiting to hear about her time as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.

Instead of doing a memoir, she wrote a tribute to her parents called Extraordinary,Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family.  USA did a write up about her.

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When Time Inc. Employees ATTACK with "Astroturfing" !!! What Are they Afraid of?

Folks we've been doing this blogging thing for a while, so we've mastered a thing or two. One thing I've mastered is the predictability of my comments section. There is an ebb and a flow. Lurkers undoubtedly have the greatest understanding of the WAOD comments section because they have the good sense to steer clear of the rhetorical roller derby :) I LOVE my lurkers! I read every comment posted... every one that makes it past my sophisticated filtering system. One group of people that ALWAYS sticks out in the comments are "interested parties" attempting to appear as something other than what they are. Let me start by saying that I assume that at least 50% of the people that read this blog don't agree with me. It is my expectation that the people who I name specifically in a post will take issue with my criticism. I post it anyway. If they come to the blog and identify themselves and choose to publicly disagree with me, I bump their comments up to post level because that's the fair and honorable thing to do. So I admire the people who have the guts to claim their stuff and confront critics openly. I even admire those who choose to remain anonymous and confront the substance of my posts on the merits of the argument and don't try to lob some lame weak-kneed, CATTY, junior high lunch room personal attack. Roland Martin claimed his criticism. Karen Stanford claimed her criticism.  Reggie WhatsHisname claimed his criticism. Even the oft ridiculed Tamika Mallory (bless her heart) claimed every ounce of delusional ranting that she stuffed into my email box. Sure, I didn't agree with these folks, but they claimed their stuff. You knew who they were. You knew their motivations. I would even go so far as to say that when they responded, they never once implied that we didn't hold a genuinely held  belief, they just took exception with what we believed. What I do not admire are deceitful, insecure, cowardly, duplicitous, dishonorable, unprofessional, neurotic employees of one of the largest media companies in the world PRETENDING to be someone else by using a pseudonym and a FAKE email address to try to defame me on MY OWN BLOG in the comments section I PAID FOR and have the audacity to do so from said LARGEST MEDIA COMPANY IN THE WORLD'S COMPUTER NETWORK! I believe its called ASTROTURFING:

Astroturfing is a word in English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf. The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations.

Just a little bit about Time Inc.

" Time Inc., a Time Warner company, is one of the largest content companies in the world. With a portfolio of 23 U.S. magazines and more than 25 U.S. Web sites, including some of the world's most popular, powerful and trusted brands, it is the largest magazine publisher in the U.S., and a leading publisher in the U.K. and Mexico. Time Inc.'s popular brands and successful franchises extend to online, television, cable VOD, satellite radio, mobile devices, events and branded products. Each month, one out of every two American adults reads a Time Inc. magazine, and one out of every seven who are online visits a company Web site."

No, I didn't delete your comments TIME Inc. employees, they've been sitting in the moderation cue for 48 hours while I decide what to do with them. So all the Time Inc. cubicle keyboard warriors can ponder which two of their coworkers were so shiftless and lazy that they didn't bother to do their astroturfing from home, a BlackBerry or some other mobile device that would not leave such an obvious trail ( 8 lane highway) leading back to their employer. Was it a Golf Magazine employee? Or maybe it was someone from Southern Living? InStyle? Or was it someone who works for magazine I recently suggested you BURN! These questions and more on the next edition of WAOD vs Utter Stupidity, Part LXX. Y'all have a nice weekend!

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Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Today featured an interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who spoke about her mother's battle with breast cancer. Rice describes her mother as a fierce advocate and her best friend. Here is the video. At the end of the interview Hoda Kotb revealed that Rice plans to return to Stanford and teach following the conclusion of her time as SOS.

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Michelle Obama's Hair and Pot Shots at Single Barren Black Women

How about I come out of my post-braid blogcation with a story about hair; Michelle Obama's hair. Rikyrah, a devoted Michelle Obama Watcher posted this link called The Politics of Michelle Obama's Hair. It ends up being Patricia J. William's convoluted superficial critique of Condoleezza Rice, political spouses and UNMARRIED BARREN BLACK WOMEN (oh the horror). So what the heck does hair have to do with it? I mean was it necessary to create an analogy between Black hair and the monsters of Greek mythology? Seriously, comparing our hair to Scylla and Charybdis?

Scylla was a creature who dwelt in a rock, and regularly ate sailors who passed by too closely. Her appearance has varied in classical literature; she was described by Homer in The Odyssey as having six heads perched on long necks along with twelve feet, while in Ovid's Metamorphoses, she was depicted as having the upper body of a nymph, with her midriff composed of dogs' heads. Charybdis had a single gaping mouth that sucked in huge quantities of water and belched them out three times a day, creating whirlpools.Source

I think this is one of those cases where this writer wanted to be DEEP and whatnot and went off into left field.

She seems unbothered by hair hang-ups, make-up issues, clothing crises. She always seems minimally but perfectly made up; she isn’t afraid to wear flats; she lends a certain class to the most inexpensive of outfits. And even her hair—usually such a politically fraught subject for women of color! Between the Scylla of Condoleezza Rice's good-little-girl page-boy, and the Charybdis of Angela Davis's 1960's Afro, Michelle Obama’s looser style provides a breezy, refreshing kind of Golden Mean..... Iconic black female faces in public life are few and far between, and they’re usually not married. They’re widowed, like Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz; or they’re single and childless, like Condoleezza Rice. It’s hard to be seen as a trophy wife, or a beauty queen, when you’re simultaneously figured as strong as an ox, epically tragic, and pious enough to curdle the promiscuous streak that supposedly runs hot in the blood of “your kind.” Patricia J. WIlliams, The Politics of Michelle Obama's Hair

First of all, I am single and childless.A whole LOT of Black women are. So what is this woman trying to say? Just what Black women need.--- To have our uteri, ring fingers and ringlets pitted against each other. It's like six flat-irons of separation. Condoleezza's and Michelle's hair have more to do with the hair stylist than the hair styl-ee. Let's get one thing straight. No matter how many husbands and children women have, women will be taking care of women. Uteri and ring fingers, notwithstanding. Look around your churches and your neighborhoods. The Black men that stay around tend to die early. In the end when we are all old and scooting around in our walkers, women will be taking care of each other. Kids, no kids. Widowed, divorced, spinsterhood, we all end relying on a family of women in the end. Aunts, nieces, cousins, daughters, mothers. Women will be taking care of women. Second, honest to goodness, for a whole lot of Black women our hair is serious business, but IT AIN'T THAT DEEP! I tend not to ascribe any political meaning at all to Black women's hair. I used to, but you can't tell a great deal about politics based on natural vs. relaxed. It's hardly a "political" contrast to pit one Black woman with a relaxer against another Black woman with a relaxer. Where is the contrast? Michelle gets and Affirm and Condoleezza get a box perm? Michelle forgoes spritz? Condoleezza likes a roller set? It's relaxed hair. How it looks is greatly dependent on the one wielding the flat iron. It ain't that deep. I want to go natural because chlorine and relaxer are just a bad combination and if given the choice between my heart and my hair, I'm going to lean on the side of reducing stroke risk by sticking with water aerobics. It's not political. Its convenient. Third, Condoleezza has plenty to be taken to task for based on her job performance. And yes, on more than one occasion during the "terrible flip" years I wanted to send her a short email to let her know that the students at Dudley's Beauty College on Rhode Island Avenue do wonderful work, but somehow ascribing Michelle Obama status for being married with kids by comparing her to the and barren Condoleezza Rice seems to undercut your lament that Black women icons in the political realm are few and far between. Are the only Black icons we can have married Black women with relaxed flat-ironed hair? Of course the author selected Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice because she didn't expect anyone to take exception to her broadside against single barren Black women by hiding behind the skirt tails of Condoleeza Rice. The author would hope that an aversion to Rice's politics and policy and horrific job performance as National Security Adviser would make us tap dance with glee at her hair being described as some horrific beast. Black women love Michelle Obama for many reasons. She ought to be given a lifetime achievement award for putting herself out there and acting as a foil last week on Larry King Live and the Daily Show to undo the damage of the premiere of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" . Please don't try to separate the sisterhood based on marital status and flat irons. There are so many other substantive differences between Michelle and Secretary Rice that this superficial analysis sounds like something Vanessa Grigoriadis would write.

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Condi for VEEP?

Speaking of Black women in popular culture, in what will be an endless summer of speculation about who John McCain will select for his Vice Presidential running mate, over the weekend Dan Senor said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. That has about a snow ball's chance in Honolulu of happening, but it was nice to imagine the possibility for a moment of a Hillary vs. Condi Vice Presidential debate. I just can't see Condoleezza kissing babies, shaking hands, ad answering questions in townhall meetings and everything she has ever said indicates that she finds the thought of campaigning unappealing. I think John McCain kind of nipped this one in the bud.

Sen. John McCain said Sunday he hasn't seen signals Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is interested in running as vice president.

"I missed those signals," McCain told reporters on his campaign plane. "I think she's a great American. I think there's very little that I can say that isn't anything but the utmost praise for a great American citizen, who served as a role model to so many millions of people in this country and around the world."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also denied Monday Rice was interested in the job.

"If she is actively seeking the vice presidency then she is the last one to know about it," he said. "She plans on going back West of the Mississippi to Stanford when she's completed her work as Secretary of State." CNN.com

Not to mention the fact that she isn't a social conservative. This is just a preemptive strike to say she was "considered" Clinton did the same thing with Barbara Jordan and the Attorney General position I want to say it was in 92.

There is an entire blog ( an unflattering one)dedicated to covering Secretary Rice 24/7 ( Not Safe For Work). Princess Sparkle Pony, America's Favorite Princess Diplomat. If you look at the comments section, I am pretty sure most of their readers are not Black women or women for that matter. I am convinced they will do the same thing to Michelle Obama, only worse. prepare yourselves.

You say what?

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