Who Is Leecia Eve?

First time I am coming across her name.

I opened up the Google News page to do a quick search on the Russian guy at Google, Sergei Brin, because a few days back he came out saying Google is not working on an Office competitor which can read like a direct rebuttal to one of my recent blog entries (Google's To Do List Keeps Growing), but then I got distracted.

Can She Be New York's Barack Obama? New York Daily News

I immediately fired off a teaser email to our own DFNYC Leila Warrior Noor, even before I read the news article. Because one of the first thoughts that occurred to me after I met her was that
she meets the Barack Obama profile. He father was Somalian. (Me, Ethiopian) Her mother is Long Island white. Leila is a lawyer. I know, those corporate types. She is cute. She is political, hence the nickname Warrior. She speaks effortlessly. That is how I described Obama after I watched an Obama-Keyes debate on TV. And at the last event I met Leila, I heard Norman Siegel (A Not So Little Norman Fact, A Great Mixer, A Little Siegel Incident) telling her he thought she should run for office. "I don't feel like I know enough."

That is the standard reply of all the power women at DFNYC. Razzmatazz Tracey, Sunshine Heather. (DFNYC In The News, Tracey Denton Of DFNYC) All these amazing people who have this amazing organization going. When women lead things are different. The leadership style is different: these is a much lesser tendency towards hierarchies. The edges are smoother. Women and men are different, if anyone needs reminding. And there are these late 20s, early 30s women whose leadership is totally cool to members twice their age, and more. And not in a polite way either. And it is okay to not run for office. I myself don't see me doing it. Not that it is okay because I am not doing it either.

I have a formal excuse: I am not a citizen. So don't ask for my vote either! That aside, I feel like I can do more for global democracy through Dean 2008 than through any other endeavor. And global democracy is the best gift that can be for the dollar a day crowd, all those cheerful, poor people. Where would you rather be, on the Mall, or inside the White House? I am gunning for the White House, yo! JFK advice: "Never settle for second, when first is available." (2008: Some Themes, 2008: Some Thoughts, Dean 2008)

I mean, I so totally could. I have done it before, I can do it again. (Possibly Moving To NYC) But the question is what is your public service goal, and what is the most effective way to get there. Dean 2008 is it.

Running for office is like deciding to become a doctor, unless you really, really want to do it, don't do it: you are going to be unhappy. So I don't begrudge these power women comrades of mine. But I wish they were a little more militant on gender issues. Expand it beyond the pro-choice talk. How can you be a progressive if you are not aggresive on the gender issues?

Anyways, some from the article on Eve.

.... a four-year star turn as Hillary Clinton's lawyer
.... the bright, confident optimism of an A-student who studies hard and has all the answers.
.... the power pantsuits that are the standard uniform of Clinton's female protégés
.... 41-year-old
.... government and law degrees from Harvard
.... learned the retail side of politics at home: her father, retired Buffalo Assemblyman Arthur Eve, served in the state legislature for more than 30 years and took Leecia on the campaign trail every other year
.... political street smarts and book smarts
.... leaves a lot of time for lieutenant governors to grow bored, restless and ambitious - and that's where the trouble starts
.... In the 1980s, Lt. Gov. Alfred DelBello, who served under Gov. Mario Cuomo, quit after 24 months, citing boredom.
.... The A-student has already held private meetings with Krupsak, DelBello, Stan Lundine and Mario Cuomo, the four living Democrats who once held the position
.... to begin releasing position papers on ways to begin reversing the capital flight
.... thinks she can break the old patterns and become the first black woman ever elected to a statewide office in New York
.... Like Obama, she is betting voters will look past race and vote for a whip-smart candidate with a great smile and confidence to burn.

Come to think of it, Leila did allude to someone of this profile during my first real conversation with her. I now realize. She beat me to it.

2008: Some Themes

2008: Some Thoughts

Family Values

The Republicans are people with a limited vocabulary. They use the family values phrase to cover up their sexism, their homophobia, their social superstitions.

Progressive family values are different from regressive ones. Regressive ones imagine a woman's place to be at home, alone. Career women are hard to digest. Marriage is an institution, a prison. Women should get in and then stop asking questions. And women can not wait around too long to get in.

Progressive family values are not anti family values, they are superior family values. Because women in sexist families must be suffocating.

So there is sexism, there is homophobia, and there is the case of broken down families, dysfunctional families, abusive families, and evil families. Let the social scientists talk. Is it 5%, is it 10%, is it 20%? Show me the numbers. People who themselves might be lucky enough to not be part of such non-existent families should not preach family values upon those less lucky. The family is not always the best option. There are children awaiting rescue. That also applies to abusive husbands. Don't stick to them, get out. Yes, you heard me. But conservatives would rather you stuck around and became a poster child to their failed ideology.

That show me the numbers talk applies to abusive families, it also applies to gays. If only domestic partnership will sail through politically for now, so be it, gay marriages can stay in the works. And I am very much a student of the matter: there is a lot I do not know. And I spend more time thinking about things like vaccinations than gay marriages, much more. But that numbers thing is key. Say if only 2% of the population is gay, then how fair is it for the 98% to push their idea of marriage upon them? Just like how fair is it for those within non-abusive marriages and families to push their stick-around message to those less fortunate? The approach has to be scientific.

The family as an institution has to be reimagined, like the FBI had to be reimagined: a FBI that hounded Martin Luther King was not good for society. That is the progressive challenge. There is no avoiding the topic. And attempts to parrot the conservatives are an even worse choice. They are wrong, they are regressive, they are limited in scope. They want to turn the clock back on gender relations, for one.

Progressives need to go on the offensive, because the conservatives really are anti family values. Their clever talk does not cover up that fact.

People fundamentally hostile to cross-cultural, inter-racial relationships and marriages are not family values people. People hostile to and dismissive of families from other cultural backgrounds are not family values people.

And there are alternate families. Social acceptance has to be cultivated. There is no one right way to do it. Single moms may not be demonized. They need policy level help. And if they down the line wish to no longer be single moms, that would be their personal choice, it is not for the state to preach them dating and marriage. Maybe they just dumped some jerk, and are not in any mood to hook up too soon!

Abortion

If there is a civil war in America today, it is on this issue. Many people on opposite sides are not on talking terms.

This debate has to be expanded way beyond foetus talk. Because as long as the conservatives can reduce it to foetus talk, they get to hide their real regressive agenda on gender relations. This heated discussion is about gender relations, broadly speaking.

Women and progressives who have the guts to talk this issue and organize around this issue should have the same to talk about gender relations in general. And they are everywhere. We deal with them every waking hour. Women are all around us. They are in homes, they are at workplaces, they are out in the streets walking around. It is about personal space, about glass walls and ceilings.

Rush Limbaugh's "feminazis" need to come out of the closet. I never understood that. It is cool to be a civil rights leader, but it is not cool to be a feminist. Why is that? The take back the night people need to come out the closet.

Faith

Same as family. The Republican Party houses all those people and organizations that are fundamentally hostile to people of the non-Christian faiths. These are anti-faith people who need to be exposed. We need to go on the offensive.

The Spectrum Concept

On these topics of family values, abortion and faith, we are dealing with social progressive issues. We have not been too skillful here. And I would like to introduce a spectrum concept. On each social issue, create a spectrum. There would be a scale of 1 to 10. Say on race relations, a 1 would be someone who commits hate crimes. A 10 would be someone whose ideas we might be able to use in the year 2030! They are cutting edge, but not politically salable here and now.

You consolidate 5 to 10. You organize to identify them, and get them out to vote. And if that progressive half of the spectrum does not give us the majority to win, we think of ways to get some of the 4s to move on to 5. We act hostile to the 1s and 2s because they do not deserve any less. We stand amused by the 3s. They might not come along, but the views they hold sure are exotic. And we do not restrain the 10s. Let the dreamers dream. Let them glow like the core of the earth. The plate tectonics need to stay on the move.

We just need a majority, we don't need a total sweep.

The Three Pillars

Overheard In New York

This site is outright hilarious, so original: http://www.overheardinnewyork.com.

Here are some samples:

Chick: You talkin' to me like I'm retarded! I can read between the lines...I can read under the lines and above the lines! But you're talkin' like I have a mental condition!
Guy: Sorry, baby...

--5 train

Overheard by: Brian Vitunic

Guy #1: "Leibovitz, Phederson, Yushuvayeva"--
Guy #2: Whatever happened to Ellis Island changing people's names so we can say them?

--68th & Lexington

Overheard by: Dina Pirutinsky

Queer #1: She's kinda bummed...Her parents split; her dad's marrying another man. Queer #2: Luckily, that's not atypical.

--Elevator, 14th Street & 8th Avenue

Overheard by: zac

Queer: I don't care about my boyfriend like I care about you. I am buying you these things because I love you.

His phone rings.

Queer: Hello?...Aw, I love you, too.

He hangs up.

Queer: That was him.

--Barney's, Madison Avenue

Girl #1: You know when I goes out with a boy, I like to make sure that I am all clean and shit.
Girl #2: I know, me too.
Girl #1: Come to think of it, I like to be clean when I go out with the girls, too...Ya know, one of them always ends up touching ya.
Girl #2: I hears ya.

--2 train

Overheard by: jonathan

Queer #1: We are going to the Kelly Clarkson concert in two weeks, you should come.
Queer #2: I have to go home that weekend. They are having a memorial for my grandpa who died. Maybe I can get out of it.
Queer #1: Seriously. I mean people die all the time, but Kelly Clarkson only comes to New York like twice a year.

--Splash, W. 17th Street

Hobo: You like rap? I started that shit. I did. I started that rap shit. Way before hip-hop. You don't like rap, you ain't shit.

--4 train

Overheard by: Aaron

Chick: Have you ever heard of that website, Gawker.com?

--Larry Lawrence, Williamsburg

Overheard by: Fairest

Chick: Is that woman pregnant and drinking a beer? Oh wait, that's just her gut. Probably from all the beer!

--Yankee Stadium

Old guy: Yeah, here today, gone tomorrow. I want to come back as a Polynesian prince.

--Astoria

Overheard by: sara

AMNew York Guy: Free Spanish newspaper! Assimilation doesn't mean you have to give up your heritage!

--Park Slope

White girl: That's terrible! The only thing I want my kids to be that I'm not is half-black.

--Columbia University

Guy: God, hipsters will nod their heads to anything.

--Central Park SummerStage

Southern woman: Why George, I'm just so proud of yew; I thought yew'd be grossed out by the Blue Man Group.

--Marriott Marquis, Times Square

Overheard by: Beantown Interloper

Old lady: Oh! That's a cute dog, what's his name?
Woman: Billy.
Old lady: Oh really? It's not Rover? Most people name their dogs Rover.

--Foodtown, Sunnyside Overheard by: Nate B