Kind thoughts for Meghan Markle

Covered in this podcast are the following 3 topics: 

1.  Prince Harry's participation in the WIRED – RE: WIRED conference,  when he was part of a panel discussion about the dangers of misinformation and hate speech in the media, whether printed or on-line. What are superspreaders?
2. Harry's and Meghan's appearance at the Salute to Freedom Gala in New York City, when Harry had the honour of being asked to present the inaugural Intrepid Valor Awards, and the  heartfelt speech Harry gave in support of all veterans, servicemen and servicewomen, and recognising in particular those dealing with mental and physical injuries as a result of their service. 
3. And,  the continuation of the UK Court of Appeal case in which Associated Newspapers are appealing Meghan’s win against them, with new evidence revealed which does not help Meghan's credibility, but which may not be relevant. Meghan's lawyers started to make their arguments in the appeal. 

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili.  You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

• Meghan's involvement in the Paid Leave campaign in the U.S. and whether she was anxious about seen as being involved in a political issue;
• Meghan's views on social media and media in general; and
• The progress of Meghan's U.K. court case versus Associated Newspapers. 

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Meghan and Harry, who in the past have been criticized in the media for using too many aeroplane flights, continue to advocate – using the more environmentally friendly means of letter writing, emails and phone calls –  to push for Paid Leave to be included in the U.S. social spending Bill,  as well as continuing to press wealthy G20 countries to share COVID-19 vaccines with low-to-mid income countries.

As other members of the UK Royal Family attended at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Meghan and Harry’s Archewell organization took action and announced that they pledged to a sustainable future, aiming to become net zero by 2030. 

In their announcement that is published on their Archewell website, Meghan and Harry speak of their long-standing commitment to the planet, both together and prior to their marriage, with global projects and partnerships dating back over a decade. 

Meghan and Harry say that they will work with an independent consultant to track all Archewell-related activities to understand what their current carbon footprint is, then using 2022 as a baseline year, they will develop a plan for Archewell that aligns with the latest guidance from leading organizations, like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Science-Based Targets Initiative, saying they will be offsetting remaining emissions until they achieve net zero in 2030 and beyond. 

As well as this work, we hear that Meghan will soon join a panel discussion as part of the two-day New York Times DealBook Summit. Meghan's event is titled "Minding the Gap" when she joins Mellody Hobson, the Co-C.E.O. and President of Ariel Investments, to ponder the question - How can women reach economic and professional parity? 

It has also been announced that Prince Harry is participating in a conference being put on by the  https://re.wired.com/c/re-wired  (WIRED) organization, which will discuss all things technology and how it affects the way that we live, work, and connect. The November conference is being described as a series of conversations between technologists and people who think hard about the consequences of technologies on society, economics, sustainability, and our future.

Prince Harry will be part of a panel discussion called The Internet Lie Machine – looking into what is called the real cost of a lie on the internet—to ourselves, our communities, our societies.

More details of both of these events and links to them as well as other stories that don’t make it into this podcast can be found on my twitter account @Jeanette Songolo  https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

During a period in which there is increasing pressure for social media platforms to do more to curb on-line hate speech,  and when there are more and more reports about the connection between inflammatory speech online and violent acts,  this week a report was released into the hate speech on Twitter directed against Meghan and Harry.

The report (click here to see it   https://botsentinel.com/reports/documents/duke-and-duchess-of-sussex/report-10-26-2021.pdf ) was produced by the Twitter monitoring organization called Bot Sentinel. 

In their report into the Twitter hate directed at Meghan and Harry since they stepped down from Royal life in early 2020,  Bot Sentinel report that a relatively small number of what they term single purpose anti-Meghan and Harry accounts create and disseminate most of the hateful content. 

Bot Sentinel report that they analysed 114,000 tweets and they isolated about 55 single purpose account as the primary hate accounts, with about 28 secondary hate accounts with these 83 accounts combined having about 187.5 thousand followed.  These 83 accounts were responsible for 70% of the original and derivative content targeting Harry and Meghan on Twitter, with the potential to ultimately reach approx. 17 million twitter users.

Bot Sentinel state that the hate messaging was not confined to Twitter. The accounts would often Tweet links to private blogs, Instagram accounts, and YouTube focused predominantly on Meghan and Harry. 

Bot Sentinel name and shame these 83 accounts,  and conclude that in their opinion the users were violating Twitter’s rules on platform manipulation and spam, abuse and harassment policies, and in publishing private information. Twitter’s terms of service forbid abusive behaviours and engagement that harasses or intimidates or is otherwise intended to shame or degrade others, and they prohibit coordination between accounts that results in harm to others.

Bot Sentinel CEO and founder Christopher Bouzy was interviewed by BuzzFeed News about the Meghan and Harry report. He told BuzzFeed that when Bot Sentinel announced they would be launching an investigation into anti-Meghan and Harry accounts on Twitter, he became the target of a fully-fledged harassment campaign unlike he said, anything that he or his team had experienced before. Bouzy described the harassment that he and his team received as different and personal with false allegations being made against him to try to pre-emptively discredit the report’s findings. 

Mr. Bouzy emphasized that the negative Twitter activity towards Meghan and Harry is not being done by automated BOT accounts but by real accounts run by humans.  He added that these people know how the manipulate the algorithms, manipulate Twitter and stay under the radar to avoid detection and suspension. 

BuzzFeed approached Twitter about the findings in the Bot Sentinel report who informed BuzzFeed they were actively investigating the information and the accounts referenced in the report, saying they would take action of accounts that violate the Twitter Rules. 

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

In an open letter to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, Meghan asks for all politicians, be they Republicans or Democrats,  to unite to enact a Paid Leave Policy as part of what is being considered under the latest U.S.  budget bill negotiations.

Meghan wrote, she said,  not as an elected official nor as a politician,  but as a mother - advocating alongside groups such as  https://paidleaveforall.org/ for rights for parents and caregivers to be able to be able to spend the first few months at home with their babies,  rather than having to rush back to work, due to the fact that they need their wages to financially survive.

In her letter Meghan writes of her own humble upbringing and how her family appreciated the value of money. Meghan says how lucky she and Harry now are in their own lives such that after the birth of Archie and Lili, when they were both overjoyed and overwhelmed, they did not to have to face the dilemma of having to choose between staying at home with their baby without pay, versus going back to work - this being the harsh reality for many parents in America. 

Per the Paid Leave for All website, the U.S. is one of the only countries in the world without a national paid leave policy , which meant that when the pandemic hit, the U.S. were unprepared.  They add that nearly one in four employed mothers return to work within two weeks of giving birth,  and one in five retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill family member. 

Meghan adds her voice to this campaign writing that  "paid leave should be a national right, rather than a patchwork option limited to those whose employers have policies in place, or those who live in one the few States in the U.S.  where a leave program exists".

Meghan’s letter was written as the same time that a group of Democrats in the Senate and House sent their own letter to President Biden, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, urging them to include a more robust family and medical paid leave program in the legislation.

This group of Democrats argue that a national paid leave program must cover “all workers” because “at one point or another, nearly everyone will need to take leave from work to give or receive care, whether it’s to welcome a new child, be there for an aging parent or loved one, or to recover from their own major surgery, serious illness like cancer or substance use disorder." 

Something that Meghan did not point out in her own letter but which was mentioned in other reports on this issue,  is that workers who do currently have access to paid leave in the U.S. are disproportionately the higher-paid employees at large companies and that Black and Latino workers are likely not to have access to the benefit. 

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

In a week when the Queen was said to have berated unspecified world leaders "for too much talking and not enough doing" on climate change issues,  Prince Harry has joined up with the non-profit conservation group   https://www.rewild.org/  in a campaign  to try and protect southern Africa’s Okavango River Basin. 

The river basin is home to hundreds of thousands of people many of whom are indigenous to this area, as well as endangered wildlife, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  We are informed that the Okavango ecosystem is being threatened by corporate oil exploration that could lead to devastating ecological consequences.

Prince Harry, Re:wild, local communities and others in Namibia and Botswana are asking members of the public to sign an open letter to the governments of Namibia and Botswana calling for an immediate moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Okavango River Basin, including by the Canadian oil and gas firm ReconAfrica, and seeking an impartial and independent commission to be established to analyse the effects that oil and gas exploration will have on the area. 

Re:wild report that since the end of 2020, when ReconAfrica obtained a license for exploratory drilling across a 13,200-square-mile area that covers part of the Okavango River Basin, local leaders and activists have publicly expressed their concerns that the company did not adequately consult local communities, that it may not be implementing sufficient environmental safeguards to prevent the pollution of the region’s sole source of water, and that it may be putting endangered wildlife at greater risk. 

In an op-ed published in the Washington Post, Prince Harry and a local Namibian activist call on the World to stand in solidarity with the communities in Namibia and Botswana. They write that they believe profit is being put ahead of the protection on an important ecosystem, and say that ‘some things in life are best left undisturbed to carry out their purpose as a natural benefit. This is one of them.’

ReconAfrica say on their website that they have been selected to work with the Namibian government and local officials to plan and drill three conventional exploratory stratigraphic wells in Namibia. Results from the first well have now confirmed there is an active petroleum system in the basin. They go on to say that ReconAfrica is using proven, safe, and effective technologies and applying rigorous safety and environmental protection standards in all aspects of their operations in Namibia.

In terms of sustainability ReconAfrica states that it is developing plans to address international Net Zero carbon emissions targets but say ultimately, the people of Namibia and Botswana, through their traditional authorities, elected governments and regulatory agencies, will determine how the countries will manage their natural resources.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Move over tabloids as today Meghan and Harry were making news in the business and financial sections of the press.  This followed the announcement that Meghan and Harry are becoming what is described as Impact Partners for a sustainable investment firm called Ethic.

It is not totally clear what the role of Impact Partners will be. Ethic in their press release state that Meghan and Harry are committed to address the defining issues of our time, such as climate, gender equity, health, racial justice, human rights, and strengthening democracy and the couple understand that these issues are inherently interconnected. 

In their press release, Ethic goes on to say that with Meghan and Harry’s partnership, a shared vision for the world in which all investing is sustainable investing can reach millions around the globe.

The New York Times reports that Meghan and Harry want to encourage young people to carefully consider investing in more sustainable companies.

On their own Archewell website,  Meghan and Harry post that when we invest in each other we change the world… They continue …  be it through the investment of time (as with mentoring), investment in community (as with volunteering), or the investment of funds (for those who have the means to), our choices—of how and where we put our energy—define us as a global community. 

By all accounts, ethical or sustainable investing has been growing in popularity. The firm Ethic was established in 2016 and according to an article in the New York Times currently manages about $1.3 billion in the ESG or Environmental, Social, and Governance space.

I am not a financial expert and would not even start to give out any investment advice and admittedly I am somewhat cautious when it comes to investing.  Investments can go down as well as up. With that in mind,  I personally see the news of this partnership and how the news of the partnership has been posted and released as risky for Meghan and Harry for a few reasons. I will tell you about my own thoughts in this Podcast.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Meghan and Harry’s three-day whirlwind visit to New York City has ended. So, what did we learn from their visit?

1.  I am out of practice in keeping up with the speed of the news when Meghan and Harry get going.
2. Meghan and Harry are no longer worried about appearing to be involved in political issues. 
3. We learned that certain UK, US, and Australian tabloid news services will never love Meghan and Harry. 
4. Meghan did show some back to work nerves. 
5. Meghan and Harry adopted the style of their former Royal Tours - for now.
6. It was good that Meghan and Harry still combine that element of Royal / celebrity,  with the common touch that we like so much.
7. What did their visit achieve? – well they gave us a harmless distraction from the almost constant stream of bad and depressing news that we get right now.  And they reinforced the serious message of getting the COVID-19 vaccines to everyone around the world, a message that you would think other members of the Royal Family would also be pushing.

All in all during their New York visit Harry and Meghan showed us that they continue to make a good team. 

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Day 2 of Meghan and Harry’s working visit to New York City started off with a visit with some of the City’s young children,   with Meghan and Harry receiving and dispensing lots of hugs. The couple joined NYC Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter at the P.S. 123 Mahalia Jackson Elementary School in Harlem. The stated aim of the visit was to promote early literacy. 

As Meghan and Harry arrived at the school's playground they were asked how their children, Archie and Lili were doing. "They're good!" Meghan responded adding that Lili was beautiful and giving a thumbs up for Archie. 

Meghan and Harry’s visit mostly took place outside in the sunshine on the playground and under a marquee. They viewed a flower power mural painted by fourth and fifth grade pupils. The school children swamped Harry and Meghan reaching out for hugs from them both. 

Meghan read her book "The Bench" to a group of mainly 2nd Grade schoolchildren gathered outside. Prince Harry joined the kids on the ground, sitting among them as Meghan read.

Meghan explained that she had dedicated her book to "the man and the boy who make her heart go pump-pump," and she told the children that the phrase came from teaching her then 2-year-old son Archie how the heart works. She also explained to the children the idea of representation saying she wanted everyone to be included in her book.

Asked by one of the students if she planned to write another book,  Meghan said: “At the moment I don’t plan to write another children’s book, but never say never.”  The students were all given a copy of her book to take home.

The children had drawn pink paper hearts with their personal stories and dedications on them and Meghan went through these and engaged with the students by name.

Meghan and Harry had been shown around the school by Principal Melitina Hernandez. Meghan and Harry donated two garden boxes filled with vegetables and herb planters to support the school's ongoing community efforts and support the need for fresh food. 

Through Meghan and Harry's Archewell Foundation's partnership with Proctor & Gamble, they are also providing health products for families at the school as well as a washing machine and dryer for students' uniforms.

Harry was very relaxed as he always is around children and it was cute seeing him sitting cross-legged amongst the children engrossed in Meghan reading her story.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ and through twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/

Looking much better than I ever did just 3 months after giving birth,  Meghan with Prince Harry kickstarted their 'tour' of New York City. Whilst Meghan and Harry have both individually spent time in New York City on many prior occasions, this was their first ever joint official engagements in the City, arriving a few days ahead of the Global Citizen LIVE concert that is taking place on Saturday September 25th.

Meghan's  and Prince Harry's itinerary of events began with a visit to the rebuilt One World Trade Centre. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife and their son posed for photos with Harry and Meghan at the observatory on the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a bright and sunny day for their visit but the panoramic view was still impressive. Videos of the event show us what goes on behind the scenes with cameramen asking for Meghan and Harry to remove their face masks and to look this way and that to ensure the best shots were obtained. 

For those of you who are interested to see some less well published behind the scenes photos of  Meghan and Harry’s visit go the New York City Governors website and click on the governors Flickr account.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/govkathyhochul/ 

During their visit, during which Meghan and Harry were pictured smiling as well as holding hands. They responded to one question from the press about whether they were enjoying their trip to New York, with Meghan responding, “It's wonderful to be back, thank you." And with Harry saying “It's wonderful, thank you.”

Harry and Meghan then visited the neighboring Sept. 11 Memorial Plaza. Meghan and Harry spent some time in the tranquil tree-lined gardens looking at the twin waterfall pools and the bronze parapets accompanied by National September 11 Memorial and Museum President Alice Greenwald. Thereafter, Meghan and Harry were given a private tour of  the 9/11 museum. 

Meghan and Harry’s visit in New York City will be give a boost to tourism, with the public encouraged to see that these venues are back open albeit with health and safety restrictions in place. Meghan and Harry’s visit is certainly attracting the attention of the World’ media. 

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili. You can reach out to me through my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/ or through twitter https://twitter.com/JeanetteSongolo

Show written and produced by Jeanette Songolo.

Please keep listening for future podcasts on all things Meghan, Harry, Archie and Lili and in the meantime watch out for other posts on all things Sussex on my blog at https://www.kindthoughtsformeghanmarkle.com/