Do you remember the story of "The Emperors New Clothes?" It's the Hans Christian Andersen tale about a vain king who only wore the most expensive clothing.

One day, two conmen came to town and told the king that they made the finest fabric in the world. In addition to being beautiful, the fabric was invisible to people who were unusually stupid or unfit for office.The king immediately ordered a new outfit and paid the men a lot of money. They set up their loom and demanded that they be provided with the finest silks and purest threads. Then they pretended to be weaving the fancy material.

The king went down to see how they were doing and, of course, couldnt see anything but also couldnt admit that he didnt see it because that would mean he was stupid and unfit for office. He sent his ministers down to look at it. They couldnt see it either but came back and told the king how beautiful it was and how great he would look when he wore it.

You know how the story ends. The conmen dressed the king in the nonexistent clothes and he marched proudly down the street. The crowds cheered his fine raiment until one little boy shouted out But he hasnt got anything on! At that, the rest of the parade goers said, But he hasnt got anything on! The king suspected they were right but thought, The procession must go on so he continued marching proudly naked down the street while his noblemen held high the train that wasnt there.

This story has always resonated with readers because it makes fun of the vanity and lack of self-awareness of public figures.

So here it comes…

Has anybody else noticed that our president, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. acts like a 79 year old man? Not that theres anything wrong with 79 year-old men. Im fast becoming one myself. But old men tend to lose a step or twoas they age. They dont walk as fast, they dont talk as fast and they dont think as fast. Joe Biden is displaying all those signs of old age. Agree with his politics or not, any objective observer cannot help but wonder about the competence of the leader of the free world.

Before we discuss what he says, just watch the way he walks. He meanders around, seemingly confused and not quite sure where he is or what he is doing. If you havent seen the videos of it, you are watching a cable channel that doesnt want you to see it.

Even before he was elected, Joe could speak pretty well when reading a script from his basement, but when he tried to improvise, his staff must have cringed. Remember when he called a person at an election rally a dog faced pony soldier?

After dodging the press for the first year of his presidency, Joe was very proud of holding an hour-long press conference. Thats the one where he said it might be OK if Russia made just a minor incursion into Ukraine. His staff had to scurry to clean up after that. During his State of the Union address, he confused Iranians with Ukrainians. People dont pay much attention to an old guy muttering on a park bench but the world notices when Joe goes off script.

One protector he has is the mainstream press. They are so happy that any Democrat beat Trump, they simply ignore the increasing number and frequency of gaffes made by the Befuddled Old Geezer of the U.S. (BOGUS). In case you wonder if the press is giving him a pass, remember when Gerald Ford, an All-America football player, slipped on wet steps while getting off a plane? The press and comedians branded him a klutz for the rest of his life. When Joe tripped not once, not twice but three times climbing up airplane steps, no one mentioned it.

Dan Quayles unfortunate misspelling of potato[e] forever branded him a dunce. When Joe mumbled We hold these truths… you know, the thing the press ignored it. Last Thursday, Joe started his White House remarks by saying, I may be Irish, but Im not stupid. There might be comedic material there if it had been reported.

About now, the MSNBC trolls are running to their keyboards typing IN ALL CAPS Trump was worse! Maybe so, but Trump isnt president and Joe is clearly out of his depth. Plus, the press pointed out every Trump mistake, even if it was imaginary. Biden is quick to blame every problem on Trump because he knows the press wont call him in it. Im an old guy, too, but, unlike Joe, I didnt ask America to give me control over nuclear weapons.

So the parade goes on. BOGUS is strutting out in front claiming hes done more than any other president. His sycophants in the media are holding the train to his invisible garment. Maybe its time for those of us who are objectively observing this farcical parade to say, He hasnt got anything on.

Harry Bulkeley is a retired Knox County judge and a local historian.

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Harry Bulkeley: Biden is the emperor with new clothes - Galesburg Register-Mail

AFTER GOD CREATED the heavens and the earth, he stood back to contemplate creation, like a painter standing back from the canvas. This is the moment we are living in the moment of God standing back. Who knows how long it has been going on for? So begins Sheila Hetis new novel, Pure Colour. Heti has made a habit of starting books with grand, philosophical questions. Her critically acclaimed 2012 novel, How Should a Person Be?, begins by asking the titular question. The Chairs Are Where the People Go (2011), co-written with Misha Glouberman, bears the subtitle How to Live, Work, and Play in the City and features chapters that explore existential questions underpinning daily life. Hetis recent semi-autobiographical novel Motherhood (2018) opens with a description of the I Ching, a method of flipping coins to divine answers a technique she uses to query her creative purpose. That Heti invokes the Book of Genesis on the first page of Pure Colour, then, feels fitting, if ambitious. With each book, her scope seems to widen, and Pure Colour ushers the reader further from roman clefor autobiography and closer to a kind of speculative philosophy or myth.

In narrative terms, Pure Colour tracks the emotional and psychic life of a protagonist named Mira. When the novel opens, Mira is young woman living in Toronto or, rather, familiar street names lead me to assume the story is set in Hetis own hometown. Mira left home, Heti writes in an early passage. Then she got a job at a lamp store. The lamp store sold Tiffany lamps, and other lamps made of coloured glass. Each lamp was extremely expensive. Miras tedious work seems simultaneously to dull and heighten her senses, an aesthetic perspective that is later honed when she is accepted into the American Academy of American Critics. Over the course of the novel, Mira also falls in love with a mysterious woman named Annie and mourns the death of a beloved father. Though her feelings toward Annie and her father form the storys emotional core, Miras focus oscillates between considering the details of her own life and broader questions about art and existence, giving the book a meditative and at times almost spiritual quality.

In many respects, summarizing Pure Colour by describing its plot, which is quite scant in conventional terms, misses the point. The narration shifts between describing Miras experiences and postulating more broadly about Gods intentions in creating the first draft of the world. In the opening pages, readers learn that there are three types of people: birds, fish, and bears. People born from these three different eggs will never completely understand each other, the narrator explains, subsequently confirming that Mira is a bird, Annie a fish, and Miras father a warm bear. Within this tri-species taxonomy,directionalperspective correlates strongly to how individuals literally and figuratively regard the world. Birds observe from a distance and are interested in beauty, order, harmony and meaning; fish are bound in a collective and concerned with fairness and justice here on earth; and bears care most about their immediate surroundings and are turned towards those they can smell and touch. The tensions between these different worldviews are central to the story and Pure Colours meta-subject is how different relationships to art and criticism allow humans to interpret, cope, exalt, and otherwise find meaning in life.

Pure Colours two sections the account of Miras life and the passages considering divine or universal purpose are voiced by similar, if not identical, omniscient narrators. In effect, there is a fable-like quality to the storytelling. Surreal events, such as when Miras spirit enters a leaf with her father after his death, are relayed matter-of-factly. This measured tone is also reflected in the syntax: Heti uses a mixture of short phrases and long sentences broken into multiple clauses to organize stream-of-consciousness ideas into causal observations, as in: The day after her father died, Mira saw that she could abandon her whole life, walk away from it, and it wouldnt matter. The direct prose, as well as the narrators tendency to circle back and reconsider ideas, evokes the process of mulling things over during a long walk or an extended period alone the parallels with isolated thinking during the pandemic are not lost on the reader.

Whether pondering metaphysical or minor topics, Mira often observes patterns and gaps in her own thought processes. In some ways, Miras gestures toward self-reflexivity and self-critique make it easy to read her as a product of the mindfulness era. Shes by no means perfectly self-aware or prophetic; rather, Mira comes across as genuinely curious. At times, drawing connections between seemingly abstract or historical topics and her present-day emotions or realities causes her to become overwhelmed. For instance, reflecting upon the Bronze Age as part of a stream-of-consciousness thought spiral, the narrator suddenly thinks: Because you know what, if we suddenly went back two thousand years, thered be nothing we could do to speed things along. I dont know how to make a steam engine. This rare first-person invocation, and the abrupt introduction of a new subject (on the previous page, Mira was describing her father, not historical progression or steam power), reveals a mind racing to find coherence in the wake of personal disaster. Whats unique about Miras self-reflexivity, at least within Hetis oeuvre, is that she searches for answers without a desire for action. Perhaps typical for a bird person, Hetis narrator seeks understanding, or at least interpretation, for its own sake.

Heti is known for experimenting with form as a means of representing self-awareness. How Should a Person Be?, her breakthrough novel, depicts intimate scenes from Hetis own life and incorporates transcripts from conversations with her friend and collaborator, the painter Margaux Williamson. Similarly based on events from Hetis life, Motherhood chronicles the authors conflicting desire and disinclination toward parenting and employs the I Ching to answer questions like: Will reading help my soul?; Is art at home in the world?; and [C]an a woman who makes books be let off the hook by the universe for not making the living thing we call babies? How Should a Person Be? and Motherhood are both voiced in the first person and feature narrators who learn about themselves through interacting with, and judging, others. Its notable, then, that Heti shifts to using a close third person for most of Pure Colour and that the characterization of the critic Miras voice feels less developed than those of the writer protagonists in Hetis earlier works. In an apt review in 4Columns, Jennifer Kabat observes that the writing is warm, deft, and strange, but the characters are thin and the plot is too. Im inclined to agree and initially struggled to articulate my response to the book. With time, though, Ive found a growing appreciation for Miras resistance to what a recent New Yorker article called main character energy and for Hetis own anti-novelist stance.

The more the story if we can even call it that develops, the more Pure Colour becomes a tale about grieving during the Anthropocene. The writings alternately rough and delicate slowness reads like a modern benediction. Now the earth is heating up in advance of its destruction by God, who has decided that the first draft of existence contained too many flaws, Heti writes. We learn that God, [r]eady to go at creation a second time, hoping to get it more right this time, [] appears, splits, and manifests as three art critics in the sky: a large bird who critiques from above, a large fish who critiques from the middle, and a large bear who critiques while cradling creation in its arms. For bird-descendent Mira, criticism is a means of apprehending not only culture but also human beings. Looking closely, however, risks opening the door to both beauty and despair. The narrator explains: Its true that the world was failing at its one task of remaining a world. Pieces were breaking off. Seasons were becoming postmodern. In this world, [t]he ice cubes were melting. The species were dying. Though Mira may have drawn on the rhetoric of art criticism to fathom abstract, global loss, her fathers death upsets her very sense of self and renders her unmoored, a bird flying through a storm.

By Hetis own explanation, she didnt set out to write about grief, but her fathers death in 2018 influenced the course of Pure Colour. In 2020, Heti published an essay in The Yale Review titled A Common Seagull: On Making Art and Mourning in which she shares a memory that may well have inspired Mira going into the leaf. Walking in the forest with my dog a few weeks after my father died, I noticed the green of the fir trees; the colors were so muted and beautiful, Heti recalls, continuing:

I felt in that moment as if I had never really looked at colors before, I stood wondering beneath the shadowless sky whether, when my father died, the spirit that had enlivened him passed into me, for I had held him as he died; as perhaps when his father, a painter, died, his spirit went into my father, so that now I had the spirit of my father and the spirit of my grandfather both inside me. And I wondered whether this influence the spirit of my painter grandfather inside me was why I was suddenly noticing colors.

This quotation reads like a map for Pure Colour, in which the father promises the child Mira that one day he will buy her pure colour not something that was coloured, but colour itself! Bird Miras childhood belief in her father, a bear who desires closeness and proximity, eventually gives way to a sense of guilt. As Mira got older, it became harder to love [her father] in the proper dimensions, or even to know what those were, the narrator explains, as any interest she developed in another person felt like it was taking something from him, since he had no one to love but Mira. Nevertheless, when her father dies, it is Mira who wishes to follow and [draw] him halfway back.

Hetis writing is sometimes described as strange, a description most often invoked in the context of praise. Pure Colour extends this fundamental strangeness in new directions, with varied results. At times, the tapestries Heti weaves to relay hyper-imaginative conceits feel overstretched: while reading, I kept picturing a loose mohair knit the kind of delicate, expensive garment often advertised to me on Instagram. The books metaphorical threads are glimmering and attractive, but the wide spaces left between some of its ideas create opportunities for snags. For example, the notion of a second draft of the world, and of God as a critic examining defects in the first draft (the world that Pure Colours characters and readers occupy), is exciting. The notion that arts vitality may no longer be appropriately measured by means of its endurance in this fast-dying world is also poignant. Some of the nuances of Hetis ideas, however, are lost or diminished due to a hazy internal structure. Is God a critic? Are all human beings? Is Annie, the orphan whom Mira claims to adore yet knows so little about, vaguely sketched because of the limits of Miras perspective or because character building is unimportant in Hetis novel-cum-mythology? Because Pure Colour is light on plot, losing the proverbial thread doesnt so much threaten our understanding of the text as our very engagement with it.

Heti is a question asker, and Pure Colour is rich in queries that link the personal with the universal. In the past, the conceptual richness of Hetis questions led critics to speculate about the influence of Judaic mysticism or forms of aesthetic philosophy on her writing. In a 2019 interview in Guernica, the author remarked: I dont think my characters actually make decisions based on what they get from mystical or supernatural sources; looking in that direction indicates a kind of desperation for meaning, but the final answers never come from those places. In Pure Colour, Mira isnt consumed with taking up or disputing specific intellectual or spiritual traditions. Instead she accepts the mutable nature of meaning and strives to hone a personal framework for interpretation. To this end, Pure Colours roving subject matter and looping motifs embody the surrealistic mix of clarity and discombobulation that accompany grieving. As a writer, Heti has a special talent for making the mundane feel magical this is key to the beguiling strangeness of her texts. The most moving parts of Pure Colour arrive when Mira seeks emotional and aesthetic truths in spaces between the profound and the everyday, inviting readers birds, fish, and bears alike to witness the depth of the protagonists (and the authors) mental perambulations.

Esm Hogeveen is an arts and culture writer based in Tkaronto/Toronto. She is a staff writer atAnother Gazeand a Film and ArtSeen contributor atThe Brooklyn Rail. Her work has also appeared inArtforum,Bookforum,The Baffler, BOMB, and Frieze, among other venues.

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Revising the First Draft of the World: On Sheila Heti's Pure Colour - lareviewofbooks

Most of Holly Harpers life seemed pretty traditional. She married at 24, had a baby girl and lived what she called the perfect picket-fence life. But even then, she never considered her approach to life to be conventional.

My personal life story is one of experimentation, travel, dabbling in everything, connecting people and dreaming, Harper shared. For as long as I can remember, Ive brainstormed ways to get my beloved community [and] chosen family to physically be in the same space whether living in the same town or vacationing together or retiring to the same cul de sac or assisted care community when we are Golden Girls.'

As a military spouse, she lived in seven states and Europe. During that time, she cultivated an eclectic group of friends and leaned into her unconventional side.

After 17 years together, Harper and her husband separated and sold their house. After living in an apartment for a year that never felt like home, she decided it was time to look for a place of her own.

Holly Harper

Harper had owned several homes throughout her marriage and was well aware of the expenses and demands of owning a home. Although she had contacted a realtor and started the search for her own home, she knew it would be a challenge to find one that worked with her budget as a self-employed single mom, especially in the Washington, D.C., area where she lived.

Then, in April 2020, she caught up with her friend Herrin Hopper during the lockdown. During their conversation, the women realized they were both newly single and shopping for homes.

In D.C., its common to have a duplex or condo, so we thought: What if we bought neighboring units? Harper explained.

They agreed to find a multifamily property with (at least) two units of similar size in a kid-friendly neighborhood close to public transportation. Another must was that neither family would sleep in a basement.

Holly Harper

They found a four-unit building and closed on it in late June 2020. Soon after moving in, they sought renters for the remaining units. Single mom of two Leandra Nichola replied and came in on a rent-to-own plan.

In December 2020, Jen Jacobs rented the top-floor studio unit. The single, childless friend of Hopper and Harper was looking for a change from the loneliness she experienced at the height of the pandemic.

The women named the home Siren House as a symbol of female empowerment.

Harper says that her co-housing partners are also unconventional.

We are free spirits, free thinkers, and open to building relationships with one another and others in general with transparency and compassion, she shared. Things are always going faster than we can keep up with, but it is much more like sisterhood than a Real World D.C. situation.

Holly Harper

Self-awareness, self-care and building firm boundaries are top priorities for the women.

We support one another in a number of ways, from one-on-one conversations, meetings, festive occasions and catching each other when we stumble, Harper said.

As with any family or community, issues arise. The group is mindful of handling practicalities, such as home repairs, as a team. They tackle emotional matters that come up head-on, making it a point to meet and talk things out.

The best part about it is we cant run away and hide from our own demons, our own triggers, our own bad behavior, said Harper. We hold each other with trust and empathy, but also hold each other accountable to being mature and healthy humans.

Holly Harper

And it doesnt stop with their cozy living quarters. They also help one another achieve their pursuits and goals. Together, the women opened the Takoma Park, Md. cafe Main Street Pearl in March 2021. Nichola, whose longstanding dream has been to open an eatery, manages the cafe.

The women said they all live as an extended family that genuinely cares for one another. The kids live like cousins, reaping the rewards of being surrounded and influenced by multiple unique, devoted adults.

Harper hopes that Siren House will encourage others to consider unconventional living arrangements no matter what the housing market looks like, citing the continuing decline of the traditional family, longer lifespans and environmental concerns as catalysts for change. In addition, she believes that smart co-housing communities can enable smaller living, less commuting and the advantages of creating your own family support network.

For all of us, the greatest benefit is having your biggest cheerleaders pushing you forward through imposter syndrome, hesitations, self-confidence dips, aging, dating, mom-shame, child-rearing, career growth to truly live a joyous life, Harper shared. We know its possible and we want to help one another so when we need help, we have someone to help us in turn.

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These Single Moms Bought A Group House Together And Created A Community - Simplemost

Watch Video: Rapper Kanye West legally changes his name to 'Ye'

Looking back at the 20-year career arc of any musician would be revelatory.

But when that artist is Kanye West, its compelling, confusing and maddening. In other words, pretty much on brand.

Those looking for salacious details about the recently rebranded Yes celebrity lifestyle or explosiveKardashian drama wont find it here. Instead, jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is a fascinating plunge into his relentless drive to succeed, his wavering friendships and the toll of mental illness.

DirectorsClarence Coodie Simmons started filming Ye in 2002 to document his signing to Roc-A-Fella Records and met Chike Ozah, a producer on MTV's You Heard It First, shortly after.

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Their film, which premiered Sunday at Sundance Film Festival and arrives on Netflix Feb. 16, is divided into three 90-minute acts: Vision, Purpose and Awakening.

Early on, Ye, now 44, saysdoing a documentary at the embryonic stage of his career shift from producer to rapper is a little narcissistic.

That self-awareness would, over the years, become clouded by hordes of enablers and adoring fans. The death of Yes beloved mother, Donda, caused a shift in molecules that Simmons captures withheartbreaking clarity.

He didnt seem like the same Kanye. We hardly ever spoke, Simmons says in a voiceoverexplaining a gap in footage from 2008 to 2014. Yes team told the filmmaker that there was no room for him to accompany the superstar on his Glow in the Dark tour.

But a call from Common askingSimmons to film his 2014 Aahh!Fest in Chicago proved fortuitous:Ye was booked as a surprise guest.As much as Simmons anticipated reuniting with his friend, it wasnt without trepidation.

It made me nervous because I knew Kanye, but Id never met Yeezy, Simmons says.

The pair renewed their friendship, and in 2017, he returned to filming the superstar.

Ye's altercation: Kanye speaks out about incident in L.A.

Simmons and Ozah have describedjeen-yuhs as a film rather than adocumentary. Its a notable distinction because there are no talking head interviews or footage other than Simmons' raw takes, aside from a few quick-cutscenes that include a Kardashian red carpet photo op andYes MTV Awards disruptionwith Taylor Swift.

Simmons'footage, culled from 330 hours of video, is unflinching. He thought the documentary was completed at various points in Yes life. But there was always another chapter.

This one ends with the rappers idiosyncratic unveiling of his Donda albumin Atlantalast summer, with his limp body being raised through the opening in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium roof at the end of the presentation.

Perhaps it was meant to symbolize a new beginning. But first, here are some jeen-yuhs highlights from the past.

After a twentysomething Ye teases his mother about the bottle of Zinfandel in her refrigerator, she notices the gold cherub hanging from his neck. You need an angel to watch over you, she says, flashing one of her infectious gap-toothed smiles.

The love and ease between West and her son is showcased in the most mundane moments, but its particularly sweet watching her rap Like Son, Like Mother beside him in her kitchen.

West is Yes compass and Simmons captures her dispensing poignant advice. A giant looks in the mirror and sees nothing, she tells him. Stay on the ground, but you can be in the air at the same time.

West died in 2007from heart failure following complications from cosmetic surgery.

I could tell Kanye was grieving, but he kept working, he refused to stop, Simmons says.

Ye never talks about his mothers death on camera, but there is a rare interaction captured with his father, Ray West.Following Yes admittance to a hospital for a psychological evaluation and his inflammatory 2020 presidential campaign speech about abortion, he is shown FaceTiming with his dad.

When you go out and say things like no abortion, you know how the medias going to be, Ye tells his dad. Thats a very strong Christian statement, and Christians are scrutinized and killed for our beliefs and following the word of God. And I use my voice and I wont not use my voice.

His father pauses. I would just say, write your speech next time.

Simmons was there after Ye, having justlanded a verse on Jay-Zs track The Bounce," crashed his car and broke his jaw in three places.

I was afraid hed never rap again, Simmons says.

But, as Ye lore goes, his ambition to finish his debut album, The College Dropout, couldnt be halted by having his mouth wired shut; instead, Ye had his first hit, Through the Wire.

Coachella 2022:Headliners are confirmed with Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Ye

Simmons camera accompanies the rapper to the dentist (look away, needle-phobes) to have his wiring removed, but the bigger story is Yes capacity to continue working. Jamie Foxx, Ludacris and John Legend are enlisted to join Ye in the studio to restart the momentum behind his debut, which arrived in 2004 to massive success, including a Grammy Award for best rap album.

By the third act of jeen-yuhs, Ye is designing sneakersandembracing Christianity with the advent ofhis Sunday Service concerts.

Ye also retreats to his Wyoming ranch, where Justin Bieber is among those in the giant garage/studio, laying down vocals and listening to Yes numerous soliloquies.

View Gallery: Kim Kardashian, Kanye West split: See the couple through the years

Its apparent as the film rolls on that Yes medications have slowed his speech his voice sounds deeper and more deliberate and Simmons is aware and respectful of his friends challenges.

A 2020 meeting with real estate friends in the Dominican Republic turns into a diatribe, even though Ye tells them, I took bipolar medication last night to have a normal conversation.

But the rappers discourse becomes so scattered, Simmons stops filming.

It was hard to tell how he was feeling, Simmons says. No matter what he was going through, he always buried himself in his work.

View Gallery: Kanye West, Tiffany Haddish, Common protest racial injustice

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What Kanye West documentary 'jeen-yuhs' reveals about Ye's mother, music and mental illness - USA TODAY

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Although faced with anger from agroup of conservative parents over what they claim is racisttraining, Brevard Public School officials show no sign so far ofreconsidering a summer program to teach staff about social and emotional learning.

Members of conservative parent group Moms for Liberty at Tuesday's School Board meeting criticized a contract to buy 53 tickets for the Conscious Discipline Institute, a summer program teaching school staff to implement social and emotional learning (SEL) in classrooms, at a cost of $79,500.

SEL techniques teach students interpersonal skills and self-awareness to help them deal with emotions and resolve conflicts. But Moms for Libertyparents at the meeting criticized a 2020 blog post on the website titled, Raising Antiracist Kids: 9 Steps from Ibram X. Kendi.

Kendi is an anti-racism activist, author and the director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. The organization linked to a free online seminar during which Kendi spoke.

This is $79,500 that is going to CRT training for teachers, Moms for Liberty member Katie Delaney said at the Tuesday meeting. This is continued racist training.

Increased review of books, instruction materials: Florida House GOP seeks to nix school board salaries, increase scrutiny of library books

'Critical race theory' on the agenda: Brevard School Board meeting peaceful, but political divides were still on display Tuesday

Ashley Hall, Brevard chair of Moms for Liberty, said her group wants more transparency from the district about the program BPS staff will attend.

We were just trying to bring up the concern basically, Who is this organization? Why are we spending so much money on this, and how are we supposed to know that these ideologies are not being inserted into this training? … I know that they've used Conscious Discipline for a while now. We have teachers in our group (who) speak highly of the program itself, but have also seen some of the changes that have been made over the last couple of years that have gone a little bit to the left.

As political debates around critical race theory and LGBTQ rights have taken center stage in school board meetings around the country, social and emotional learning has sometimes been caught in the crossfire.

In November, Asra Nomani, vice president of conservative group Parents Defending Education, called social and emotional learning a Trojan horse to bring critical race theory and LGBTQ+ curriculum to the classroom around America.This fall parent groups in states including Texas, Indiana and Washington have pushed back against SEL programs.

BPS spokesman Russell Bruhn said he isnt aware of any plans by the district to reconsider sending staff to the Conscious Discipline Institute, and School Board Chair Misty Belford said its unlikely the district would move away from the program. Belford added that the summer institute was approved by the state as part of BPS reopening plan and has nothing to do with critical race theory.

Conscious Discipline has been around for a long time, Belford said. And the elements of the program that we're teaching have nothing to do with the raising an anti-racist kid blog post on the website. It's really about how do you encourage good choices by children and how do you address when children make bad choices and a positive way so that you can redirect them.

I'm kind of baffled by how social emotional learning has been turned into what it has been by some groups. I think it's just a misinterpretation.

Belford said the training is especially important due to the disruptions and emotional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Students are dealing with a lot of big emotions that I don't think our students have had to deal with in, goodness, decades, Belford said.

On Tuesday, School Board member Matt Susin said the training isn't until summer, giving the district plenty of time to ensure the training is appropriate. He told FLORIDA TODAY in a Friday interview that he expects the best and hasn't seen any reason for concern with Conscious Discipline.

"Everything Conscious Discipline's done with our schools has been in line with rules and regulations, and no CRT's been taught," Susin said."And we hope to continue that with them and look forward to continued collaboration with them to help our kids."

Hall said her group isn't opposed to the training as long as it strictly deals with students' emotional health. For parents to be made comfortable, Hall said the district should share the materials or access to the training itself so that they can see that no critical race theory has infiltrated the teachings.

I think parents should have an open invitation to the training, Hall said. As long as we could see what the training materials are and see it for ourselves, so that we can feel comfortable that these ideologies aren't leaking in.

Bailey Gallion is the education reporter for FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallion at 321-242-3786 or bgallion@floridatoday.com.

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Brevard School Board: training accused of critical race theory has nothing to do with race - Florida Today

Versatile and overused, the colloquial "okay" conveys a wide range of expressions: an acknowledgment of one's well-being, an attitude of either support or indifference, a polite decline of goodwill offered, or an affirmation of someone's resilience.

Universally adopted, the term "okay" can seem both plain and mysterious, like in the case of Weike Wang's titular heroine in Joan is Okay.

Joan is a Chinese American doctor who feels most at home when at work. Wang's inside joke in keeping with the world's exhausted and exhaustive use of "okay" is to present Joan as an old stereotype: mousy, industrious, inscrutable, asexual. Joan's supervisor both admires and begrudges her robot-like dedication, "brilliant and potent, but with no interests outside work and sleep."

At the beginning of the novel, Joan appears pokerfaced after receiving news from China that her father has just died from a stroke. She takes Friday off to fly across the globe for his funeral, then comes right back to work the following Monday. The novel, in illustrating Joan's seemingly detached personality, satirizes the post-Enlightenment concept of self-determination as a blinkered worldview that actually impairs, rather than promotes, self-awareness. Reese, Joan's colleague, whose Teutonic image on the hospital's information brochure exudes strength and commitment, doesn't understand why his "reasonable" demand for sleep and holiday leave should hinder his career advancement. Mark, Joan's neighbor, while well-intentioned, holds facile assumptions about race, culture, and gender that prevent him from seeing Joan on her own terms.

Almost everyone Joan encounters would try to teach her how to live. To them she is an Eliza Doolittle, or a petite Frankenstein's monster, unformed but full of promise.

But Joan, whose name evokes "God's grace" in its subtle reference to her 15th century namesake, prides herself in being an unobtrusive but critical component in a well-run system a 5-ft. tall maestro who orchestrates breathing machines and brings order to the daily chaos at a New York hospital's medical ICU wing. As a teaching physician, Joan humbly compares herself to a "standardized" vessel, protected by emotional discipline and years of accumulated knowledge.

While Joan's ideal of medical efficacy seems closer to machine than the Romantic notion of freewill, it helps her appreciate her staff's core humanity: "If learning required mistakes, then teaching required watching different people make the same mistakes. Teaching was relentless dj vu but grounding. It cemented the idea that we are all the same height and weight did not matter, and the possibility of failure or (success) for anyone was never too far off."

Joan's belief in the universality of human resilience renders fluid the borders between native and other, home and exile, American Dream and Chinese Dream. In embracing medicine as her true home, Joan resists people's limited view of her as a cultural outcast. Likewise, her parents do not consider their condition of exile to be permanent. After years of struggle in an unyielding America, they return to China as soon as Joan goes off to college, and in time to establish themselves as members of Shanghai's upper-middle class.

Despite her parents' propitious homecoming and eventual success, their past sacrifices in what many often assume as the land of opportunity remind Joan of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, in which Santiago's dead, shark-infested marlin symbolizes the onerous American Dream.

But Wang's novel, in a way, is a sly correction of Hemingway's tragic individualism. Even at the novel's outset, Joan has already achieved her American Dream, and her parents have regained their Chinese Eden.

Throughout the novel, when thinking about her deceased father, Joan often meditates on the homonymic chung, which depending on the tone can mean either "to create something that never was, to forge a new path, to innovate," or "breaking down barriers and charging through." By espousing a pragmatic, resolutely untragic concept of agency as embodied by both meanings of chung, Joan at once pays homage to her father's legacy and affirms her Hippocratic oath.

Set during a six-month period from September 2019 through March 2020, Joan is Okay takes the reader through the inevitable rise of COVID in New York City, deftly showing the parallel between Joan's present calling and her parents' past labors. To be an effective physician in a pandemic is similar to being a hardy immigrant in an adverse environment: One must learn to go with the flow, put others before one's needs, accept suffering, and nurture hope.

By exploring the spectrum of commitment from doubts about one's career and cultural identity, as depicted in Wang's debut novel Chemistry, to a deep passion for one's calling that seems tantamount to faith in Joan is Okay Weike Wang has shown us myriad ways to build a sense of home, myriad ways to feel okay in our skin.

Thy inh is a freelance critic and literary translator. Her work can be found at thuydinhwriter.com. She tweets @ThuyTBDinh.

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Weike Wang's 'Joan Is Okay' explores the idea of home - NPR

Known as the It Girl on social media to her millions of followers, New York native Aaliyah Jay is expanding her resume as a beauty influencer into the fashion lane. As she prepares for the release of her upcoming clothing line Twisted Saints, the Los Angeles-based beauty is learning more about the fashion industry and herself as she spreads her wings into the world of fashion design and correspondence. The 27-year-old YouTuber is not abandoning her followers who know her for makeup tutorials and Girl Talk vlogs, but shes always known that her passion for fashion has burned inside of her and been a form of creative expression.

This is going to sound really cliche, but I think its me. Ive inspired my style as of lately, Aaliyah Jay told ESSENCE when asked about her personal style influences and how she fell in love with fashion. As of recently, Ive really found myself and Ive been doing a lot of self-work and Im like, Why dont I express this on the outside?. Ive been really trying to do that and I kind of just put on whatever I want.

While the influencer lives her life publicly and shows the Instaworld the glitz and glam of a day in the life of Aaliyah Jay, she does experience the dreaded imposter syndrome and finds ways daily to balance her mental health. I experience it all the time, she admitted about her experience with imposter syndrome. In times when she finds herself in bouts of negative self-talk, Aaliyah reminds herself that she is deserving of all the things that she has. Ive actually had to identify with it as of recently becauseself-awareness is very important.

To watch ESSENCEs full interview with Aaliyah Jay, check out the video above where the beauty influencer and associate editor DShonda Brown talk more about Twisted Saints, what the beauty industry has taught her, and her experiences with social media and imposter syndrome. Take a look!

TOPICS: Aaliyah jay beauty influencer fashion line

Link:
Beauty Influencer Aaliyah Jay's Personal Style Is A Reflection Of Her Self-Work - Essence

This January, its time to take it easy and hone in on healthy habits that you can live with for an entire trip around the sunand beyond. Weve enlisted the help of industry experts to put together three four-week plans designed to help you move your body, eat more sustainably, or show yourself some loving care. Pick a planor threeand hit refresh. Get the Program

I am a big believer in creating what you want to see in the worldthrough conversation, intentional planning, and by exuding the positive energy that you'd like to be returned to you. I dont spend as much time reflecting as I would like (its something I'm consciously prioritizing and mindfully making more time to do), but as I work on leveling up the skill, Ive realized how core doing so is for being able to effectively set up the life I want to live.

To round out the month of using self-care practices to facilitate the creation of foundational happiness and positive growth, this week is about learning how to design your dream future, both by dreaming and doing.

Its important to capture affirmations and reflections, since they'll steer you toward the future that's meant for you. Buy a new journalwhether it's a gratitude journal, a dream journal, or a general notebookand practice capturing your thoughts in small ways. You can start with prompts to get into a creative flow. For instance, try responding to the prompts "What do I know for sure?" or "When do I feel most authentically me?"

Journaling is a favorite resetting hack of mine, because its nice to flip back to previous entries and see how much youve grown since you began the practice.

In addition to providing the self-awareness power of orienting you to how you authentically feel, journaling is a favorite resetting hack of mine, because down the road, its nice to be able to flip back to previous entries and see how much youve grown and changed since you began the practice.

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Do you know where in the world you would most love to visit for a transformative, worldview-shifting trip? Dream up this locale you want to explore by reading, watching content, and connecting with others about their travels. Consider what you might see on this trip, who you might meet, delicacies you might try, and experiences you might have.

I follow several travel accounts on social media to drum up inspiration for myself. As you dream about future travel, don't worry about the logistics of getting time off or paying for this trip or actually planning itall of the details are for down the road. Today, the purpose is to dream about your future trips.

Have dreams of going on a trip with friends, or even attending an event together that will beget meaningful shared memories? Make an Airbnb Wishlistwhich is basically a mood board where you can pin dreamy properties where you would like to stayand share it with your friends. You could also use online scheduling and surveying tools such as Doodle and Survey Monkey to gauge where your friends might like to go.

If a trip isnt in the cards, you can still scratch that travel itch by finding a special event happening in your city that everyone is excited about, like a concert or a play, and go. Or, you could host a group dinner themed to a specific destinationfor example, if a trip to Jamaica isn't in the cards, perhaps you could make jerk chicken together and watch How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

Make space in your schedule for a new practice or skill that youre excited to learn. Maybe you've always wanted to speak French, or you've been meaning to find time to take a pottery class. Whatever it is, leave notes around the house affirming the new practice or habit and look into local or digital classes. Cultivating comfort around learning a new skill at any age is important and something that many people lose as they get older.

Think about reading as an exploratory practice. How can you add novelty into your reading routine? If you are already an avid reader, branch out into new-to-you genres and see what excites you. To do so, find and source books on topics that interest you but you have never picked up before. I typically read fiction, for example, but I recently picked up A Work in Progress: A Journal by Ren Redzepi and it has been such an insightful read about the creative workings and the highs and lows that come alongside entrepreneurial success.

If you aren't a regular reader and aren't sure where to start with your book list, ask friends for their favorite books or join a book club. Check out descriptions and see what might resonate with you (choosing a favorite of someone else allows you the bonus of being able to connect with them about it). However you interact with reading, the act allows us to learn more about ourselves by way of learning about different arenas of the world in general.

Have you been musing about creating something you want to see in the world? Put your ideas on paper and start breathing life into them! You can start as small as drafting a purpose statement, creating an Instagram account, or making a mood board. I started Ethels Club in 2019 with one Instagram post that spoke to the need and power of safe spaces centered around joy and community. That post evolved into conversations, then into press, then into a physical space, and now into a brand known around the world. Put your ideas out thereyou never know what they could add to your life and the world if you keep them to yourself.

You've reached the end of the first month of the year, so bring all of your New Year energy and pour it into a shared experience with friends and loved ones. Have a small gatheringIRL or virtualdesigned around intentionally supporting one anothers dreams. A lot of magic happens when you speak things into existence, and starting with a strong support system of people who believe in you will give you the energy you need to keep going.

After youve sent out invitations, ask all attendees to create a three-minute presentation outlining their goals and desired milestones for the year ahead. At the party, everyone can share and talk about ideas for supporting and uplifting one another. After the party, create a group chat where everyone can share successes and challenges to keep the supportive relationships continuing throughout the year.

Looking to hit refresh on your healthy habits this January? Check out our full2022 ReNew Yearprogram for expert-led plans for sustainable eating, exercise, and self-care routines.

Our editors independently select these products. Making a purchase through our links may earn Well+Good a commission.

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7 Micro Steps To Help You Build the Big, Bright Future of Your Dreams - Well+Good

Sapience, the title of Diana Burbanos play making its world premiere at Moxie Theatre on Feb. 3, is a commonly misunderstood word.

To be sapient is to possess wisdom, sound judgment and self-awareness, which are qualities that set humans or Homo sapiens, meaning wise man in Latin on a different intellectual plane from the Earths other animals. Many scientists believe dolphins, whales and large apes are sapient, but without a common language, we can never know for sure.

Burbanos play is about Elsa, a Latinx primatologist, and her subject, an orangutan named Wookie, attempting to bridge the species communication barrier. Its also about how difficult communication can be for nonverbal people on the autism spectrum and between Spanish and English speakers.

Co-produced by Moxie and TuYo theaters, the play will feature optional post-performance educational workshops created with the help of the Autism Society of San Diego. The workshops are designed to help audience members appreciate how community and culture are enriched when the voices of people on the spectrum and who are Latinx and Spanish speakers are amplified.

Nancy Ross, top, as Wookie, and Mariel Leon as Elsa in Moxie and TuYo theaters Sapience.

(Moxie Theatre)

With Sapience, Vanessa Duron makes her Moxie directorial debut. An actor, writer and producer, Duron said she first encountered the play as a member of the Amigos Del Rep play selection committee for San Diego Repertory Theatres 2020 Latinx New Play Festival. A single mother of three and advocate for mental health awareness and theater about people of color, Duron said she was immediately struck by the script.

It is such a sweet and eye-opening play, Duron said. Its about communication. Its also about our relationship to each other and how we fail to understand how everyone communicates differently. But its also a play where the characters are trying to understand that in the best way that they can.

In Burbanos play, Elsa is a highly intellectual but unemotional scientist who has been hiding from her fellow researchers that shes on the autism spectrum. Meanwhile, her 12-year-old nephew, A.J., is on the spectrum as well, but hes nonverbal, locked-in emotionally and unable to communicate with others. Then one day, A.J. and the orangutan Wookie discover a common language and their conversations force Elsa to expand her ideas about communicating with others. Wookie will be played by an actor and the audience will be able to hear A.J. speaking with Wookie, even if Elsa cannot.

As human beings, we tend to be judgmental and sometimes selfish in the way we want to communicate, or critical of people in how they communicate with us, Duron said. Whats special about the relationship between Wookie and A.J. is they accept each other for everything that they are their flaws, their brilliance, their love, their lack of being able to show emotion or the way they show emotion.

Nancy Ross, left, and Mariel Leon in Moxie and TuYo theaters Sapience.

(Moxie Theatre)

Burbano is a Colombian immigrant, actor and prolific playwright who works as a teaching artist at both Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble and South Coast Repertory, both in Orange County. Many of her more than 50 plays have Latinx characters and themes, including Ghosts of Bogota and Fabulous Monsters. She wrote Sapience during a 2018-19 residency at Center Theatre Groups L.A. Writers Workshop.

In order to present the characters authentically and expand Moxie and TuYos efforts to expand diversity and inclusion, some of the actors cast in Sapience are neurodiverse. Part of the shows creative team is inclusion specialist Samantha Ginn, a San Diego actor who works as an educator for people in the the neurodiverse community. Ginn has been on hand to provide additional support to the neurodiverse cast members, and she is working to create a sensory-friendly experience for them for the entire run of the show.

Duron said that when she cast Sapience several months ago, she wanted to be inclusive in seeking out actors on the spectrum, but she didnt want to invade their privacy.

We didnt ask people on the spot if they were on the spectrum, we just asked if they had any life experience in this area.

During rehearsals, Duron has been working with Ginn and with Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, Moxies founding artistic director, who has served as an artistic mentor on this production. Duron said its been a great learning experience for her and has made her a better director.

Its been one of the best experiences of my life, she said. It has allowed me to develop a different way of thinking and looking at things. It has allowed me to give thought to how I give directions and how I want situations to look for an audience. It also helped me acknowledge that everyone has a different way of processing. Im more conscious of that now.

While Duron said she believes many people who have family members on the autism spectrum will be attracted to Sapience, the play has universal themes that will appeal to a wide audience.

Its such an amazing story. Its not just about communication, its about connection and the human experience. If we learn from this that everyone has accessibility needs, then we can be more compassionate, she said. Its a lovely play. You will leave the theater thinking, and thats whats important.

Moxie and TuYo have postponed the shows opening date by one week due to COVID-related issues. It will now open Feb. 3 and a filmed streaming option will be available Feb. 12, 15, 16 and 19 for audience members who would feel more comfortable watching the show from home.

When: Opens Feb. 3 and runs through Feb. 20. Showtimes 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays

Streaming: A streaming option will be presented at scheduled times on Feb. 12, 15, 16 and 19 (check with theater for times, tickets)

Where: Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Blvd., Suite N, San Diego

Tickets: $35-$37; $15 rush tickets one hour before performance (limited quantities)

Phone: (858) 598-7620

Online: moxietheatre.com, tuyotheatre.org

Originally posted here:
Moxie and TuYo's world premiere 'Sapience' to examine barriers in communication - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Whether youre on the hunt for a new gig because youdon't feel your workplace is supporting your needs, you're looking to switch fields, or you're more simply looking for a related position at a different company, starting the job search can be daunting. It is, after all, important that the career shifts we make be made with intention and self-awareness because we spend so much of our life working. But, knowing how to find a job you love can feel at once impossible and like a luxury. (We need paychecks to live, regardless of how much we enjoy (or don't) how we're securing those funds.) Furthermore, being able to identify that a potential opportunity is one that aligns with your goals and interests isn't necessarily so simple, either, since you'd be hard-pressed to find a job for which you loveall components and responsibilities.

That said, plenty of people do seem to be making moves: According to a January report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in November 2021, a record 4.5 million people quit their job amid what's being called the Great Resignation. With people considering the factors of personal fulfillment, company values, and flexibility, among other components of a given job, many are considering what actually fits their needs.

To get specific regarding how to find a job you love, recruiting consultant Bert E. Miller shares three tips below to help you optimize your professional future as you're on the job hunt.

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Taking self-inventory means evaluating your commitment toward personal, professional, and financial goalsand the exercise can crucially help you identify what you want from a future role that you're not getting from a current one. Miller suggests writing an ideal job profile for yourself as part of your self-inventory to help you gain clarity about what youre looking for in job opportunities.

"Your job profile should showcase who you can become." Bert E. Miller, career expert

Be clear and transparent with what you want. Job profiles should detail the position while also highlighting the company mission and why you would be the best fit for the position and company, Miller says. There should be a balance between understanding the role and learning about the company. Your job profile should showcase who you can become.

In your inventory, include the job title, where the position is based, whether its full-time or part-time, what the salary range is, a summary of benefits, facts about the company (specifically its values and purpose), and the role as well as its responsibilities.

Make sure you get a professional headshotnot one sitting in a car, in the gym, or a selfie, says Miller. Next, when building your digital profile, ensure your mission is clear under the about section. The same goes with the description in your profile. Create a title and phrase that is concise, to the point, and searchable.

Miller adds that the focus here should be leaning into how a given role aligns with the job profile you created in step one. Its important to showcase how you've taken the skills you have acquired in previous jobs and leveraged them to move forward. Putting that into writing and having conversations about how those skills willmake recruiters see how you can help the companys objectives.

Being a lifelong learner is a great skill that translates directly into the workplace. When youre learning about a company that you want to work for, Miller says its key to know where the company is aiming to go. Its important to immerse yourself in their news," says Miller. "Company leaders like intrinsically motivated people who have a thirst for continuous learning in their craft.

To learn more about a company, check out their website, search for news about them online and in trade publications, and on LinkedIn. Using LinkedIn, seeking out connections there, and following what current employees are doing can also be helpful, says Miller. You can also stand out by posting on your own social media, sharing posts that are [informative], educational, and inspiring to others.

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3 Tips To Find a Job You Love and Actually Get It, According to a Career Recruiter - Well+Good