Actress CCH Pounder’s new art exhibit at Xavier explores black female beauty and power
Updated Dec 20; Posted Dec 20
By Susan Langenhennig
slangenhennig@nola.com,
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Actress CCH Pounder stood half-hidden in a doorway at the Xavier University Art Gallery and watched as a student, backpack over one shoulder, hurried through the spacious hall, then abruptly stopped and turned on his heel, as if dragged by gravitational force. Shifting his body 90 degrees, the student tilted his head and studied a large painting on the wall. “The Birth of Oshun” by Harmonia Rosales.
The painting is striking for many reasons. The scene is familiar, a play on Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” but Oshun is a black woman, beautiful with cropped hair, rising from a seashell, flanked by other African figures portraying deities and surrounded by tropical foliage in earthy colors.
“She stops everyone,” said Pounder, as the student stared at Rosales’ tour de force. “I love watching people walk through here and see what catches them.”
“The Birth of Oshun” is among 42 paintings in “Queen: An Exhibition,” which features works from Pounder’s private collection now on view at the Xavier University Art Gallery in the Administration Building at 1 Drexel Drive. The exhibit is open to the public, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, free of charge, and will be on display through Feb. 26 as a satellite site for Prospect.4, the citywide exhibition of avant-garde sculpture, paintings, photos and installations.
Art lovers should not miss this chance to see “Queen,” a rare opportunity to view just a small fraction of Pounder’s vast private collection. Many of the works — paintings, sculpture, mixed media pieces — still fill the walls and shelves of Pounder’s condo downtown while she renovates a house she recently purchased in New Orleans. Still more pieces remain in storage.
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Blistering but great Thread by Propane Jane
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Love and Peace :)
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If this true, then the Democrats, the justice dept.,, and everyone involved with government is complicit in said criminal enterprise.
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2 WORDS:
KUSHNER & MERCERS
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THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/26/17
New Republican tax plan explodes the deficit for a purpose
Bruce Bartlett, former Ronald Reagan domestic policy adviser, talks with Joy Reid about the expected fallout from the new tax plan and the Republican strategy to blow up the deficit with tax cuts for the rich so they can later argue a need to slash benefits to address the deficit.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/26/17
Trump immigration policy distinguished by fear and cruelty
Jacqueline Charles, Caribbean correspondent for The Miami Herald, talks with Joy Reid about the fear that grips the DACA community and other immigrants in the face of Trump administration cruelty and Donald Trump’s broken promise to the Haitian community.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/26/17
Disinformation basic to Putin’s playbook; Americans take heed
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, talks with Joy Reid about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s use of disinformation and distortion both at home and abroad as a standard matter of course, not just in 2016.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/26/17
GOP’s anti-FBI campaign of limited use beyond political spectacle
Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney, talks with Joy Reid about how Republican efforts to discredit the FBI are being received within the bureau and how little those efforts will matter in a court of law.
https://twitter.com/NigeriaNewsdesk/status/946032480347287555
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/26/17
Trump Republicans a receptive audience for Kremlin attacks on FBI
Del Quentin Wilber, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, talks with Joy Reid about the Republican attacks on the FBI and its leadership as they try to weaken any potential case against Donald Trump.
Trump ally in Congress wants ‘purge’ of FBI, Justice Department
12/27/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.), a congressional ally of Donald Trump, talked to MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson yesterday, and went further than most in trying to discredit the Justice Department and the FBI. Sure, plenty of Republicans have attacked federal law enforcement in recent months in the hopes of providing cover to their party’s president, but few have called for a “purge.”
After casually throwing around a couple of far-right conspiracy theories, Rooney made the case for “purging” federal law enforcement of Trump’s critics.
Rooney didn’t specify how, exactly, agency directors would identify and root out officials who are disloyal to Trump, though I’ll certainly look forward to hearing more details.
The Republican congressman may have a limited understanding of the history of such rhetoric, but as USA Today noted, “purge” is “a term more commonly associated with authoritarian dictators than democratic societies.”
TPM’s Josh Marshall had a good piece along these lines, noting how Rooney’s rhetoric is emblematic of “the Republican right’s broader embrace of authoritarianism,” which isn’t limited to the president’s alarming instincts. “We focus on Trump’s antics. They remain erratic and unbridled,” Josh wrote. “But equally important, probably more important, is the absence of any overriding respect for the rule of law or democratic norms among his supporters.”
https://twitter.com/axios/status/946026684473593858
When hand-carried signs are a ‘safety hazard,’ but guns aren’t
12/27/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
State lawmakers in Tennessee are settling into a newly renovated office building in Nashville, though as the Tennessean reported the other day, the new policies for the building are not without controversy.
The newspaper quoted Ken Paulson, who serves as president of Middle Tennessee State University’s First Amendment Center and dean of the school’s College of Media and Entertainment, saying, “Any rational person would have to suspect that this is an attempt in part to limit dissent and to avoid embarrassment to lawmakers.”
In other words, don’t be surprised if there’s a lawsuit challenging the policy on First Amendment grounds.
But it’s the selectivity of the “hazards” that stands out as especially notable. According to the Tennessean’s reporting, guns aren’t allowed in the state Capitol itself, but they will be allowed in the Cordell Hull State Office Building, where state lawmakers have their offices. To see hand-carried signs as “a serious safety hazard,” while simultaneously allowing firearms, seems difficult to understand.
It is, however, part of a lengthy pattern.
In 2012, for example, ahead of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, officials banned everything from water pistols to masks to metal pipes from the areas outside the venue. Concealed, loaded firearms, however, were permissible.
For Trump and Republicans, these red flags are hard to miss
If a Democratic wave ends up washing over Republicans in 2018, history will record that 2017 was full of warning signs for the GOP.
It started in Kansas back in April, in a Wichita-area House district that Donald Trump carried by 27 points over Hillary Clinton. The special election to replace Rep. Mike Pompeo, who’d resigned to become Trump’s CIA director, produced a Republican victory but by just seven points. This marked both a shift of 20 points from the presidential result and the closest a Democrat had come to winning the district since 1996.
It set in place a pattern — of high energy and significant post-2016 strides for Democrats — that would be repeated throughout the year:
A 21-point victory for Trump in Montana became just a six-point Republican win in May’s special election for the state’s at-large House seat;
A 19-point Trump romp in South Carolina’s 5th District turned into a three-point squeaker for the GOP in June;
A 28-point Trump margin in Alabama turned into an outright victory for Doug Jones in December’s Senate special election — the first time since 1992 Alabamians chose a Democrat for the Senate; and
Double-digit Democratic improvements were common in special elections for state legislative seats across the country.
https://twitter.com/TrendingReport/status/946022690971844608
Trump partly blames Sessions for Republican loss in Alabama: report
President Trump reportedly blamed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for Republican Roy Moore’s loss in Alabama earlier this month because his departure from the Senate to lead the Justice Department necessitated the race.
Trump lamented the loss of the Senate seat to the Democrats and partly put the blame on Sessions for taking up the position at the Justice Department, which triggered the special election, according to a report from the Associated Press on Tuesday.
Doug Jones became the first Democrat in over two decades to win a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, the deep-red state that Trump carried by about 28 points during the 2016 presidential election.
He won the race by a margin of 21,000 votes against Moore, the embattled Republican candidate tainted by sexual misconduct allegations, despite receiving a resounding endorsement from Trump in the run-up to the voting day.
Flynn’s brother calls for pardon from Trump
The brother of President Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn called on the president to pardon Flynn in a now-deleted tweet.
“About time you pardoned General Flynn who has taken the biggest fall for all of you given the illegitimacy of this confessed crime in the wake of all this corruption,” Joseph Flynn said in a tweet on Tuesday.
The tweet was in response to a tweet from Trump, in which the president complained about the unverified dossier detailing his alleged ties to Russia.
WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.” And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017
Flynn deleted the tweet shortly after it was posted, but confirmed to Newsweek he drafted and sent it.
“I said it, and maybe he’s listening,” Flynn’s younger brother said.
The elder Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States earlier this month.
The former general was fired in February after it was revealed he had misled administration officials, including Vice President Pence, about foreign contacts.
Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄
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