Daily Archives: May 26, 2017

Courtesy of lululemon

Kerri Walsh Jennings is featured in lululemon's new ad campaign.

This month, lululemon launched its first global ad campaign, "This Is Yoga," featuring seven inspirational stories of people from around the world. One of those stories is that of three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings, who is also a lululemon ambassador. She is featured for her practice of self-discipline.

We caught up with her to talk about the ad as well as her own experience with yoga and the next steps in her career.

espnW: What does it mean to you to be involved in this campaign?

Kerri Walsh Jennings: In a nutshell, it means the world to me. Being part of "This Is Yoga" means being part of the lululemon team and what they stand for as a brand. I've come to learn that the concept and principles of yoga apply to my life even if I'm not doing yoga. I love it and respect how beautiful a practice it is and how yoga comes to life off the mat, whether you're painting in the studio, pounding on drums or on the court like I am. This is the power of yoga, of lululemon and the power of this campaign.

espnW: Do you practice yoga? If so, how did you get started?

KWJ: I do practice yoga and am newly inspired to practice more often. Before every volleyball practice I do a flow-style yoga on the shoreline to get prepped in my body, mind and spirit. It connects me to my breath and brings my feet back under me, which is important when my mind is racing. It was my husband who actually introduced me to yoga. He has this DVD that he loves and always goes back to practice. Knowing the stress we put on our body, the philosophy and decompression that comes from yoga is powerful. I'm a strong person and through practicing yoga, I've felt discomfort and vulnerability. By opening myself up to it, I've been able to grow and learn, which is a really powerful thing.

espnW: Can you talk about your practice of self-discipline?

KWJ: I really love what I do and I don't take anything off the table to get the job done, but to me, self-discipline is actually liberating. It allows me to prioritize my "ABC" fundamentals and create a strong foundation, which is empowering. As a person, those fundamentals are my mind, body and spirit. On the court, it's my attitude, ball control and footwork, and as a mommy, it's being present, patient and loving. As long as I have the freedom to focus on the fundamentals, no matter what I do or the setting I'm in, I'm empowered and prepared both on the court and in life.

espnW: What do you see as the next thing in your career?

KWJ: My mission throughout life has been very singular and my focus has been to make the most of everything I have been blessed with mentally, physically and spiritually. I want to keep growing and evolving as human. My platform is beach volleyball. I'm chasing my Olympic dreams for Tokyo and have a parallel mission to grow our sport. There are a number of tenets I really want to hit with wellness, community, personal empowerment, accountability and growth both on the court for myself and in the community taking my sport to the next level. Being part of campaigns like "This Is Yoga" and co-creating with powerful people supports my passion by showing people the beautiful principles of my sport.

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Olympic beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings talks yoga ... - ESPN

When Ahmed Badr was 8 years old, his family fled Baghdad in the midst of the Iraq War. Writing helped him process his experience, so he started the website Narratio to give other young people the same opportunity. Ariel Edelman hide caption

When Ahmed Badr was 8 years old, his family fled Baghdad in the midst of the Iraq War. Writing helped him process his experience, so he started the website Narratio to give other young people the same opportunity.

When Ahmed Badr was 8 years old, his family's home in Baghdad was bombed in the midst of the Iraq War. The family was uninjured. They moved to Syria, which was peaceful then, and in 2008, they came to the U.S. as refugees.

Writing helps Badr deal with what he's been through, and he wants to give other young people the same outlet. Now a student at Wesleyan University, Badr founded the website Narratio to empower others to tell their stories.

Badr used writing to figure out what it meant to be an Iraqi-American kid. His life had dramatically changed since coming to the U.S. in Baghdad, his parents were civil engineers; in the U.S., they worked minimum wage jobs at Home Depot and Wal-Mart.

Overtime, Badr realized that writing on his personal blog helped other people understand who he was and where he came from.

Ahmed Badr was 8 years old when a bomb hit his family's home in Baghdad. They came to the U.S. as refugees in 2008, and Badr used writing to understand his experience. Courtesy of the Badr family hide caption

Ahmed Badr was 8 years old when a bomb hit his family's home in Baghdad. They came to the U.S. as refugees in 2008, and Badr used writing to understand his experience.

"There was this feeling of empowerment that was just overnight, all of sudden people were interested in my story," Badr says. "... And so with that in mind, two years passed, and I thought, 'OK, well this was great, but this is only helping me. This is only helping my own expression. So how about I take that feeling and that space that I created for myself and turn it into something that allows youth, refugee or otherwise, all over the world to do the same exact thing.' "

So Badr created Narratio, where young people from around the world submit poems, essays and stories. Badr curates them, and he's expanded the program into workshops to help young people learn how to express themselves.

Badr tells NPR's Ari Shapiro they are looking for pieces with a theme of empowerment.

"You're telling your story. You're expressing yourself through your own experience, and it's very very hard to dispute that," he says. "It's very hard to denounce someone's own personal experience. I think that's something that's incredibly beautiful about storytelling is that storytelling doesn't have to be divisive. Storytelling is meant to bring people together."

When Badr returned to Iraq for the first time two years ago, he says he felt guilty around his cousins who still live in Iraq. He says he feels personally responsible to give Iraqi youth 18 million of whom are younger than 19 an outlet to express themselves.

"I want to be able to turn that guilty feeling that I had when my cousins asked me, 'What are you up to?' into a responsibility ... and make it possible for them to be able to answer that question as freely as they would like to," he says. "And so, if I can do that by giving them a website that they can share their stories on, that's a step in the right direction."

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Iraqi Refugee Empowers Youth To Share Their Stories With 'Narratio ... - NPR

InsideHalton.com

Oakville author writes about hope and resilience InsideHalton.com Her newest book is called MEMOIR OF HOPE AND RESILIENCE: Passionate Late-Bloomer Talks Life, Literature, and Personal Empowerment. Her books are available at the Oakville Public Library and on Amazon. Her work-in-progress is a novel called The ...

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Oakville author writes about hope and resilience - InsideHalton.com

Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 9:10 a.m.

You might think karaoke is limited to cheap bars with crackling sound systems and slow Tuesday nights, but things are changing. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is starting to feel out of touch 25 years after its revival in Wayne's World.N'Sync and Britney covers stopped being cute and ironic long before they became just sad. And, hey, except for board games, karaoke is the whitest way to pass time at a bar.

So it's no surprise that Trap Karaoke is making its way to more cities.

The concept is simple: Create a user-generated experience in a concert setting with music that's playing on the radio right now. Throw in alcohol and the chance of celebrity appearances, and you have every hip-hop fan's karaoke hope, concert wet dream, and driver-seat Snapchat rehearsal rolled into the no-holds-barred expectations of a nightclub. As seen on the Trap Karaoke website: "The result?A platform on top of music; a backdrop for life; a nexus into cultural participation, personal empowerment, cherished moments, human connection, and community!"

In an interview with New Times sister paper Houston Press,Trap Karaoke founder Jason Mowatt likens the experience to going to church,while proclaiming at every opportunity that "we'renot party promoters; we're community organizers." An apt example of this sentiment can be found on the company's Instagram page. A post from February 2016 shows a concerned individual thinking there's more money in marketing to white kids in fraternities and sororities. The caption simply reads, "Nah we good lol."

In a world where black consumers are often erased (see Shea Moisture) and artists like Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus adopt and discard black culture at will, that simple refusal is radical.

Then there's the music itself, which exists in an industry that isolates its listeners by pricing concert tickets out of their range: Tickets for Kendrick Lamar's show in September started at $75, and Rolling Loud tickets reached nearly $400. By comparison, Trap Karaoke costs $20 to $40.

But whatever Zeitgeist the company follows, the community is ultimately created not through marketing or social media, but by the people who show up to perform whatever songs they choose in their city. The crowd at the Hangar should be able to rap "Red Bottoms" backward and forward because this Friday's Trap Karaoke event will be in Trina's city. Beyond getting the chance to stunt on a Rick Ross, Zoey Dollaz, Drake, or Future track in front of 500 chanting partiers, people will be there to celebrate what they love.

This is why a deceptively simple party is catching on. In a time when "community" is so often about what is sold to us based on what we're told is important, Trap Karaoke simply asks us to show up and do it ourselves.

Trap Karaoke 8 p.m. Friday, May 26, at the Hangar, 60 NE 11th St., Miami. Tickets are sold out, but, hey, show up anyway: Who's gonna stop you from singing on the street?

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Trap Karaoke at the Hangar: Just Show Up, Please - Miami New Times

U.S. first lady Melania Trump (2nd R), Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R), Ivanka Trump (L) and her husband, White House senior advisor, Jared Kushner (2nd L) take their seats before U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his remarks to the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 21, 2017.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The whole world was watching as Melania and Ivanka Trump joined the most important man in their lives and ours in Saudi Arabia this week. The U.S. president thinks a womans place is either on the beauty-pageant catwalk or behind a stroller containing his heir. Saudi Arabia forbids women from attending public events where men will be present or getting medical care without a male relatives permission. How would the women of Americas first family conduct themselves?

Christina Cauterucci is a Slate staff writer.

As very attractive role models, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker tells us. Preternaturally beautiful, they seemed to glide as apparitions above the sea of dark suits and white robes and must have struck fear in the hearts of men whose culture demands that women be publicly invisible, Parker writes in a piece published Tuesday night. With their very expensive attire and their symmetrical bone structure, Melania and Ivanka made a lasting impression on Saudi women with their feminine power.

Id like to personally thank Parker for sharing this recipe for feminine power, which Ive been trying to work out for decades with middling results. I think Id assumed it was some proprietary blend of money, menstrual regularity, and a wide-legged stance, perfected only by Sheryl Sandberg and ladies in deodorant commercials. It is a relief to know that all it takes is cheekbones, a well-fitted maxi dress, and a male family member in a position to insist that you be allowed to sit quietly in a corner while the men talk oil. Parker notes that other foreign women have, like Ivanka and Melania, met with Saudi officials without wearing headscarves. Michelle Obama and Laura Bush both did it, she writes. Id add to that list Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, and Theresa May. Reader, you may be wondering what the difference is between these women and the Trump ones, the latter of whom can make men in dark suits and white robes quiver with their very presence. The answer is simple: the Trumps are pretty, and whoa, get a load of their dresses! Watch out, Saudi fundamentalists. Pursed, exfoliated lips are in the house.

Even in their silence, Parker tells us, Ivanka and Melania spoke loudly through the existence of their human bodies and the fabrics with which they were covered. Wordlessly, they projected strength, intelligence, graceand a timeless wisdom that all women share, she writes. Women everywhere should be reevaluating their major life choices right now. They dont need to develop and defend informed opinions to be strong. They dont need to be able to read and synthesize information to be intelligent. They dont need to say a single word to have grace. By subtly refusing to hold her husbands hand on an Israeli tarmac, Parker writes, Melania became every American woman who donned a pink-kitten hat to protest the then-new president.

We knew the personal was political, but I certainly did not know that what might have been an involuntary hand spasm or a case of sweaty palms was political on the scale of the largest protest day in world history. And its news to me that sitting noiselessly in a room while being gorgeous could constitute a statement of liberation. This is a revolutionary realization! Women can literally just exhibit basic vital signs in the presence of men who consider women fragile, lesser beings, and as long as they dont fall asleep or melt into an oozing subhuman puddle la Alex Mack, they are feminist heroes! It is so easy. Every woman can do it! Provided she has nice skin, a former career in modeling, and the capacity to zip her lips around misogynist dignitaries.

I wish Parker had elaborated on the timeless wisdom that all women share, which I am not sure I share but would surely like to know about. Is it be pretty and fade into the background? Be pretty and look alert? Be pretty and dont make a peep? Parker writes that the Trump women stood as beacons of light in a part of the world that remains cloaked in the darkness of religious fundamentalism and oppression. This, despite their apparent ornamentalism. Those Saudi women must feel super grateful for these examples of how women can be at once beautiful, silent, and ornamental, a vision of womanhood they never see at home and only America can provide.

When Ivanka did speak in Saudi Arabia, it was to thank the nation that doesnt let women drive for donating $100 million to her burgeoning womens empowerment fund. Such strength, such intelligence! Parker doesnt opine on how this verbal statement figured into Ivankas wordless feminist advocacy in Saudi Arabia. But it does seem to align with the behavioral mores expected of a modest, decorative woman in the country. No matter that the women of Saudi Arabia, who can't open a bank account without the consent of a male guardian, will benefit little from a fund meant to support female entrepreneurship. Ivankas speech was appropriate and fine, because her father and husband, who do the real work around here, lent her permission to give it.

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Ivanka and Melania Were Beautiful and Silent in Saudi ArabiaShining Examples of Empowerment! - Slate Magazine (blog)

Largest organization for women in NH celebrates 10th anniversary

BRISTOL, NH What started out as a creative spark by Women Inspiring Women Founder Leslie Sturgeon, grew into the largest organization in New Hampshire for women's empowerment, personal development, business resources, networking and fun!

Since starting her first business at the age of 22 in 1989 in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, Sturgeon surrounded herself with other professionals to discuss business, career success, life/work balance, dreaming big, challenges, opportunities and personal growth. Because of her appreciation for the difference women can make in one another's lives, she had a desire to create an organization where other people could experience on a regular basis what had been so influential in her life. After the launch of WIW in Meredith in May 2007, the organization grew rapidly and expanded throughout New Hampshire and also added in the NH Conference for Women and Inspiring Women in Business day-long events. Women Inspiring Women will commemorate its 10th anniversary with an event back in Meredith at the Chase House Inn on Thursday, May 25, 2017. Exhibitors and socializing will be from 5:30 to 6:30 followed by dinner and a special presentation. Featured speakers will be Emily Clement of Emily Clement Coaching and Leslie Sturgeon. "Bloom Where You Are Planted" will include insights into how to grow from right where you are to the best version of yourself and tips for uprooting if that leads to better ground.

Leslie Sturgeon

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052517WomenInspiring10thAnniv (235) w/pic - The Laconia Daily Sun