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Maurice White, founder of Earth, Wind and Fire, shaped the essential playlist of black lives - The Washington Post

My kids can always tell when I’m listening to a song by the “Elements of the Universe, ladies and gentlemen,” as the jocks on old black radio would sometimes introduce Earth, Wind and Fire. I’d close my eyes and twist up my face. I’d tighten my fists as the horns would rise. By the time the lyrics settled about my head, I was already gone. Singing along. Feeling a sacred pull in all my secular places.

It was: You need devotion. Bless the children.

It was: If you look way down in your heart and soul

, don't hesitate 'cause the world seems cold . . .

It was: Now, I'm craving your body, is this real? Temperatures rising, I don't want to feel. I'm in the wrong place to be real.

[Maurice White, founder of Earth, Wind &amp; Fire, dies at 74]

When my husband called to say that Maurice White, 74, who founded Earth, Wind and Fire in the late 1960s had died of Parkinson’s disease Thursday, I was already grieving. White wrote many of the hits for the group, which won six Grammy Awards, sold 90 million records worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But they meant so much more than that. It’s impossible to pick your favorite Earth, Wind and Fire song, because it’s always the one that’s playing right now. We grew up listening, putting our needles on their records with our brothers and sisters. “They took it to the cosmic,” my husband, Tom, said, and he’s right about that.

When I was a child and the world was black, God emceed and Earth, Wind and Fire was the house band. They lifted us and told us exactly who we were.

You’re a shining star, no matter who you are,

Shining bright to see, what you can truly be.

I suppose I could translate. I could tell you that they didn’t get any bigger than EWF in the 1970s and ‘80s. They were to R&B what Led Zeppelin was to classic rock; funk and soul at its zenith in the culture, the foundation of any playlist built around the genre.

Donnie Simpson, who has had one of the most storied careers in radio and hosts a weekday program on WMMJ-FM, had just done an EWF triple play on Thursday afternoon. “We were all talking on the air and I said Earth, Wind and Fire was the greatest band ever, without a doubt,” Simpson says. “I was talking about the fact that they were firing on all cylinders. Obviously great musicians, with Philip Bailey and Maurice White up front singing. And they had the whole spiritualism thing going. We were singing all the praises of Earth, Wind and Fire, then an hour later, I get this text telling me Maurice White had died.”

The last song he'd played, “All About Love,” was “the one that defined Earth, Wind and Fire for me,” Simpson says.

All kinds of sciences . . . astrology an’ mysticism an’ world religion

And like, ah, coming from a hip place

Because they give you an insight to your inner self.

Now there’s a outer self we gotta deal with; ya know

The one that likes to go to parties,

Be cool, look pretty, on ego trips and all this.

I’m trying to tell you, you gotta love you.

Gotta love all the beautiful things around you, trees and birds.

You got to make some beauty, have mercy!

“Man, please,” says Simpson. “That just makes me so full, hearing that. I played that song for a million people over the years, because that’s me right there.” The music wasn’t just hit song after hit song, Simpson says. It was character building. “It was about life, about bettering you. . . . And appreciating life and love. It’s the most basic thing, but that song is all about love.”

Simpson talks about White’s signature kalimba, the African thumb piano he played in his songs. “I can only say it was great, and he was brilliant. I adored the man to no end. To have all this God-given talent, what a blessing. On top of that, he worked at it. He was a perfectionist.”

Simpson is dedicating his Friday show to White.

I don’t have a show. I’m just going to listen as my husband sings “Reasons” in my ear. I’m just going to commune with the Elements of the Universe, play Earth, Wind and Fire on continuous loop and think about what my life can truly be.

Lonnae O'Neal

The Washington Post

Lifestyle

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A Post columnist says goodbye to the paper, and half her life - The Washington Post

The words for this column have been slow to come. But then that’s not surprising. I’ve always struggled with goodbyes.

This is my final column for The Washington Post. I’m leaving the paper (the “paper,”  #kindofsweet, no?) after 24 years. Half my life. More than half my growing up. My relationship with The Post outlasted my first marriage, and it’s older than my children. I’m tribal, and The Post has been home to most of my people. A friend recently told me that every 10 years or so, we need to repot ourselves, and I believe change can be good. But saying goodbye? That’s something different altogether. It’s an ache that eventually comes to us all.

In the last few weeks, I’ve found myself noticing things I’m going to miss about this place — though some of that feels ginned up. We just moved to this building a couple of months ago and, yes, I love the clean, new look. The huge bank of real-time monitors displaying reader numbers and news of the world is impressive. And those legendary print headlines (“Nixon Resigns!”) on those glass walls, nice! Or whatever.

But the physical space is just a vessel for the ideas, the connections, the memories. It’s home to all the personal history and all the versions of yourself that have existed in all the years you’ve been at a place. And that’s the leave-taking that makes you take a knee. It’s especially hard when you’ve still got time before walking out of the door. Saying goodbye to hundreds of people, one at a time, sometimes wordlessly as they pass, carries its own weight.

For everyone who has one foot planted and one out the door, it can feel like peeling off your old self before your new one has grown in. It can leave you feeling like a puddle of mush.

By Thursday, I was full-fledged maudlin. When an experience is too big for words, it turns into art, so there I was, in my car, singing the theme song to "Cooley High" for all New York Avenue to feel. It's so haard, to say goodbye, to yesterday. I've been ignoring phone calls. Not returning emails. Staying off social media.

My coping mechanisms were obviously inadequate, so I looked on the Internet for advice on how to let go. Here’s what I found:

“It’s not the goodbye that hurts but the flashbacks.”

“8 ways a breakup can change you for the better.” That wasn’t it either.

I clicked on “40 ways to let go and feel less pain” from a site called Tiny Buddha. Some of that advice looked promising.

Focus all your energy on something you can actually control instead of dwelling on things you can't. Yes, this is why I cut my hair, and I've been getting in early. Doesn't accomplish a thing on my "off-boarding" check list but feels productive.

Express your feelings through a creative outlet, like blogging or painting. Yes, this is why I emailed Post owner Jeff Bezos to say hey, holla, bye, deuces (two-finger "peace" sign) at 3 in the morning.

Remember both the good and the bad. Even if it appears this way now, the past was not perfect. Acknowledging this may minimize your sense of loss. This catches me by the throat. Even my bad days at The Post were a privilege. It's the place I wanted to work since the first day I heard the word "journalism."

I read the list again, then played solitaire to quiet my mind. I went to bed and the next morning, I called Claudia Cauterucci, a psychotherapist and founder of Dynamic Meditation. She had this to say:

Goodbyes are full-on moments. “They are drenched” in emotion. The healthiest way to   do it “is to truly live in the moment, but most people avoid it because it hurts. To say goodbye is to wonder if you’re going to be different, and is this the right choice,” she says. “Say yes to the release, say yes to the pain, say yes to the fear, yes to the loss of identity.”

She calls a good goodbye essential to our well-being. Because life is seasonal, and every time in our life is finite and distinct, no matter how long it lasts. The child we raise is the same one we send on their way.

A longtime colleague stopped by my desk the other day. She talked about how her girlfriends had gotten to a place where they couldn’t abide change, not in schedule, not even in their route to work.

“There is no evolution without stepping into the unknown. Period,” Cauterucci says. Goodbye is uncertain, “but it is full of possibility and that’s what you are trusting,” she says.

I run through the memories, all the years, all the late nights, all the deadlines, all the friends. The people I've met, and all the readers who've kept me company and made me feel like I have the best job in the world. I embrace it all, even as I'm letting go. I say thank you, thank you, thank you, and this is the part where I cry as I type.

After 24 years as a sales aide, news aide, reporter and columnist, Lonnae O’Neal is to become a senior writer at ESPN’s “The Undefeated,” a website devoted to sports, race and culture.

For more by O'Neal, visit <a href="http://wapo.st/lonnae">wapo.st/lonnae</a>.

Style

New Barbie body types and colors released

How princesses and dolls teach us to play small — even when we’re big girls - The Washington Post

For some women, newly announced changes in the Barbie doll body type come way late. Ditto for the recent finding that the male characters have three times as many lines as the female stars in a spate of animated Disney princess movies.

In fact, by the time a girl is 4, there’s a good chance she has already internalized messages about how big she’s supposed to get, how expansively she’s supposed to reach — literally, in the case of Minnie Mouse figurines — and how little space physically and psychically she’s encouraged to take up in the world.

Findings released from a project by linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, revealed a "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/?hpid=hp_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" title="www.washingtonpost.com">surprising irony.</a>" In animated princess films released more than 50 years ago, women, who played very stereotypical roles, spoke equally as much, and in some cases with greater frequency than male characters.

[Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies]

But from 1989 through 1999, in movies such as “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas” and, my personal favorite, “Mulan,” male characters counted for as much as 60 percent of the dialogue. In more recent movies, female characters have had more to say, though frequently still far less than their animated male co-stars.

Liz DePriest, a feminist writer and University of Maryland PhD candidate, was particularly surprised when she heard about results for recent movies such as “Frozen,” one of her 4-year-old daughter’s favorites, in which male characters talk more. Especially because the main characters are two sisters.

What has been most obvious to her in the princess-power oeuvre is the lack of substantive interaction between female characters. She cites the widely used Bechdel test, which was created in the mid-1980s and measures female characters’ dialogue about something other than a man.

“It feels like Disney is trying to make more contemporary female characters and trying to focus on their desires — outside of their desire for the prince,” DePriest says. “But it doesn’t feel like they’ve caught up yet with the public interest in women interacting with each other.” Interacting especially in friendship as opposed to heroine-villain ­dichotomies.

In a <a href="http://feministmomstudies.com/category/toys/" title="feministmomstudies.com">2014 blog post</a>, DePriest wrote about a set of Disney figurines that a family member gave her young daughter. The female characters — Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck — are compact, feet together with their arms pressed to their bodies in coy, demure postures. The bros — Mickey and Donald — have wide stances with arms flung to the world.

Seeing the images on-screen, I feel a visceral reminder of how habitually I’ve played myself small. Because even now, being powerful is a concept I’ve barely grown into. And I’m a big girl.

[The Latina engineer who engineers her feminism one mansplainer at a time]

DePriest called the news that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/01/28/barbie-gets-the-makeover-the-world-has-been-waiting-for-more-diverse-body-types/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">the Barbie lineup had been diversified</a> a more-promising development. Last week, Mattel announced that it was adding petite, tall and curvy dolls to the iconic, anatomically freakish doll most of us grew up with. It added different skin, eye colors and hairstyles as well.

DePriest always has had strong feelings against buying Barbies for her daughter, who loves getting them as gifts from others. But “I would probably buy her one that is more representative of an actual body type, just so she kind of has that in her collection.” Whether the toymaker’s motivation is pure profit or something higher-minded, ­DePriest is glad her daughter can have a Barbie “that actually looks like the people she sees out in the world.”

What has been the most unsettling part about raising daughters in our princess-industrial complex, DePriest says, has been coming to terms with her lack of control over the ways subtle and not-so-subtle messages about women seep in. “Egotistically, finding out I was pregnant with a daughter while working on a feminist dissertation, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to be able to teach her that genders are equal. I’m going to be able to interest her in superheroes and not just princesses, because in our house we’ll have equal numbers of girl toys, and boy toys and gender-neutral toys.’ ” But the reality has been far more complicated.

As mothers, we are not the only ones, or even the primary ones, messaging to our children. In the short term, that might mean we have to keep pressing hard to at least have more of the princesses’ voices heard.

stock

We made our sons shovel snow for free, with priceless results - The Washington Post

After long hours of binge television, snowball fights and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/why-a-looming-storm-makes-us-think-we-can-eat-all-the-junk-food-we-want/2016/01/22/89a0a188-c063-11e5-83d4-42e3bceea902_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">too many doughnuts</a>, it was time to dig out. Less than a day after the Blizzard of 2016 dumped more than two feet of snow in our Northern Virginia neighborhood, my husband and two teenage sons headed out the door to start shoveling. And, as a side benefit, meet some neighbors for the first time.

As much as any other event, an epic snowstorm turns us all into comrades along an unplowed road. The more shoveling we do, the more neighborly we get, as we stand at the ends of our driveways and swap stories about outages and remedies — or just rage against nature, as a dog we’ve never met starts licking our hands. For some enterprising souls, it’s a chance to earn money, but in many ways, the non-monetary rewards are more valuable.

My husband had one shovel, so here’s the first community lesson: If you’re going to borrow shovels from neighbors, you need to help them before you help yourself.

Tom borrowed a shovel from a woman we only see in the few moments it takes either of us to dart from front door to car.

Lesson No. 2: Sometimes a snowstorm is the only timeout modern life allows. The flakes help everybody slow down.

My husband and sons dug the neighbor out while next door to her, an elderly  gentleman began his painstakingly slow shovel work. My husband returned to our driveway  but told the boys to help our neighbor’s neighbor because they were young and able and the gentleman was old. Because subdivision karma comes back around. And because if allowed to just finish our house, teen lethargy, crumb-cake cravings  and attitude would doubtless sink in, immobilizing them in front of the PlayStation.

Social-media snowstorm memories include a similar generational divide when it comes to digging out.

“We had no choice [but to help neighbors]. Didn’t know we were doing community service, LOL,” wrote one Washington-area resident.

“The first time I made my son shovel the snow of our elderly neighbors’ houses, he was 13 . . . He squabbled a little but after I explained why we were doing it he didn’t seem to mind too much. The next snowfall he asked me if we were going out to shovel. When I said he was but I wasn’t going to help, he was not happy . . . I thought I was going to have to beat him down he had so much mouth and attitude . . . I again explained the lessons, gender and age considerations, and out he went. The last few years he has done it without prompting, and refusing to ask or accept money. However, he did ask could he go to another neighborhood so he could ask for and make some money!”

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and other leaders have broadcast appeals for acts of snow kindness — and simply for people not to shank each other over cleared-out parking spots. <a href="http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/07/19/baltimore-mayor-announces-snow-shoveling-program-for-youth/" title="baltimore.cbslocal.com">Baltimore started </a>a snow-shoveling program to bridge "the gap between elderly residents and young people while providing students the opportunity to give back."

Steve Schuh, the Anne Arundel county executive, called residents and reminded them to shovel out neighbors who needed help.

Justin Ross, a lifelong resident of Prince George’s County and a former state delegate, says the snowstorm provided “an example, in action, of what community looks like.” He and three of his four children helped clear driveways and dig out stuck cars.

“When there’s a big weather event, there’s sort of a common enemy,” Ross says. “Mother Nature comes and dumps two feet of snow on us, and all of a sudden, regardless of politics, regardless of background, culture or core convictions, we’re all in it together to dig out . . . It gives you an excuse to have community with people and not talk about politics or world events. You jump past anything that can be divisive — and right into our common circumstance.”

It was getting late when a neighbor asked whether our boys could help a disabled veteran up the block. The veteran wanted to pay them. My husband said no. The boys looked crestfallen. Our disabled neighbor insisted, and my husband finally relented. At some point, the lesson of the day had to include respect for our neighbor’s dignity and wishes as well.

As I rubbed the warmth back into one of my son’s hands, I reflected on the dig-out. Part of life involves hard, manual labor. It can feel overwhelming if you’re not used to it, but if you settle into the work, eventually you get it done. You’ve metsome new friends, you’ve felt the satisfaction of your accomplishment. And then, you’ve truly earned your Netflix-and-doughnut break.

For more by O'Neal, visit <a class="showlink" href="http://wapo.st/lonnae">wapo.st/lonnae</a>.

other

FILE: Chris Rock To Host 2016 Academy Awards

Is it better for Chris Rock to host the Oscar ceremony or boycott it? - The Washington Post

The announcement of this year's whites-only Academy Awards acting nominees produced a flurry of #OscarsSoWhite articles — about the older, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/16/who-picked-those-oscarssowhite-nominees-other-white-people/" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">white, male voters</a> who picked them, about the performances by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/01/14/oscarssowhite-but-here-are-7-great-2015-performances-by-black-actors/" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">black actors</a> that some thought were snubbed. The hashtag, first created last year by April Reign, managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com, has been trending since mid-January.

Nearly two weeks later, the growing backlash against the second consecutive year without any actors or actresses of color is yielding a drub, drub, drub of Hollywood reaction stories. What are A-listers saying? And, especially, who’s planning to boycott next month’s ceremony?

Actress Jada Pinkett-Smith won't be there, and filmmakers Spike Lee and Michael Moore are also no-go's. Will Smith, who had nominee buzz for his role in "Concussion," <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/smith-joins-wife-attending-oscars/story?id=36416722" target="_blank" title="abcnews.go.com">told "Good Morning America"</a> that he's skipping the ceremony with his wife. "We're uncomfortable to stand there and say that this is okay," Smith said.

Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon, writing on her Facebook page, called for <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/01/22/reese-witherspoon-criticizes-oscars-diversity/79161308/" target="_blank" title="www.usatoday.com">more Academy diversity</a>, while Charlotte Rampling, a British best-actress nominee this year, told a European radio station that the diversity debate is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/celebrities/charlotte-rampling-oscars-diversity-debate-racist-to-whites/2016/01/22/6949919e-c11f-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_story.html" target="_blank" title="www.washingtonpost.com">"racist to whites." </a>
Michael Caine, a two-time Oscar-winning British actor, said black performers should <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/michael-caine-black-actors-patient-oscars-article-1.2506757" title="www.nydailynews.com">be patient </a>about Oscar recognition.

In response to the uproar, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/22/academy-announces-major-changes-to-membership-amid-oscarssowhite-backlash/?hpid=hp_no-name_hp-in-the-news%3Apage%2Fin-the-news" title="www.washingtonpost.com">announced sweeping changes</a> to its structure, governance and voting processes in an attempt to increase its diversity and calm the criticism.

America’s race conversation has reached Hollywood in cinematic fashion.

And just as in politics, housing, the criminal-justice system — every American institution — it is characterized by those seeking a realignment of power dynamics and those who are angry about what that means for them, with a substantial middle trying to act as if nothing is happening.

Comedian Chris Rock, a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-five-filmmaker-chris-rock-753223?cnn=yes" target="_blank" title="www.hollywoodreporter.com">longtime entertainment-industry critic</a>, is scheduled to host the Oscars for the second time this year (the first time was in 2005). And the looming, open question leading up to the ceremony is: What is Rock going to do? It's a bigger, more historic question than which film will win this year's best picture award.

Rock has not issued a public statement about the Oscar controversy — he did send <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chris-rock-calls-oscars-white-856317" target="_blank" title="www.hollywoodreporter.com">a tweet</a> calling the Oscars "the white BET awards." But others are filling in the gap.

Rapper 50 Cent and "Fast and Furious" star Tyrese Gibson have urged Rock to boycott. Arsenio Hall and <a href="http://www.people.com/article/marlon-wayans-speaks-out-about-oscar-controversy" target="_blank" title="www.people.com">actor Marlon Wayans</a> have said the cause is better served if he steps up to the mic. "There's no greater person to talk about this than Chris Rock," Wayans told People magazine.

That seems to be the prevailing opinion on social media.

One Facebook friend wrote: “The beauty of Rock hosting is that The Oscars already know where he stands on race in Hollywood . . . They knew what they were getting and they booked him anyway. He is the perfect person to host, unless he says nothing.”

Another said, “I think he will slice them up, and it will be painful and funny and won’t make a difference.”

I don’t know exactly what I think, so I made a list arguing for and against:

Rock should host the Oscars: As soon as he steps up to the microphone, he casts the lack of black actors and actresses onstage with him in stark relief without saying a word. Then he’ll say word after biting word.

Rock should boycott the Oscars: Because the protest tradition is rich in America, and because we Americans vote with our feet. Rock's high-profile absence shatters the illusion that race and privilege in Hollywood are separate from the issues roiling the rest of the country. It shatters the illusion that there's always next year to get it right.

Rock should host: It will be uncomfortable to watch, just as it was uncomfortable for some of us to watch as the nominees were announced.

Rock should boycott: America always wants some of that black creativity — #squadgoals and “on fleek” — without the inequality, alienation and anger that give rise to it. “We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?” says white hip-hop artist Macklemore in his newly released “White Privilege II.” This year, the Oscars script calls for all or nothing.

I'm not a Hollywood insider, and I don't pretend to know what Rock ought to do. But it is remarkable that we're asking this question — and waiting for him and other members of the powerful Hollywood elite to answer. To go on the record and be held accountable for where they stand. My prediction: This year's Oscar controversy will trickle down.

For the rest of us, I say: Look around. That #OscarsSoWhite hashtag (substitute your award, your company, your profession for “Oscars”) may be coming soon to a theater near you.

For more by O'Neal, visit <a href="http://wapo.st/lonnae" target="_blank">wapo.st/lonnae</a>.

Major Winter Storm Pounds Chicago Area

What namby-pamby Washington can learn from tough Chicago about winter - The Washington Post

It's a month into winter and, gasp, winter weather has arrived — with more on the way. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/20/blizzard-watch-severe-snowstorm-likely-friday-through-sunday/?hpid=hp_rhp-breaking-news-bar_cwg-stormmmm-1030am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" title="www.washingtonpost.com">blizzard watch</a> has been issued. A serious storm is likely. Grab bread, milk, duct tape. (Why duct tape? Who knows, but for God's sake, do it.) Brace for flakes.

Along with the rest of the region, I’m preparing to shop and am making contingency plans. Forecasters have predicted that the snow and winds, which will begin Friday and may last through Sunday morning, could be epic, historic, crippling.

And although, as a native Chicagoan married to a native Chicagoan, I believe them, other words come to mind as well: seasonal, appropriate, recurring.

Snow and winter go together, yes? So “normal” is also a good word.

I’ve been in Washington for decades, and sadly I’ve lost all my hardiness. But here’s what I used to know from my days in the Windy City: If man vs. nature is an annual theme, then keep calm and pass the shovel.

Chicagoans have a superiority complex when it comes to dealing with snow. Last month, the website Chicagoist featured an article: “Proof That Chicagoans Are Better At Winter Than Everyone Else.” It cited a study showing that Midwesterners don’t call for snowplow services until getting 8.8 inches of snow. Only Buffalo did better, calling for help at 9.7 inches. Folks in D.C. call the snow man at a paltry 6.8 inches (surrounding counties spook at the mere prediction).

In 2009, after his daughters' D.C. schools closed because of icy roads, a newly inaugurated President Obama <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jan/28/barack-obama/obama-says-chicago-schools-never-close-snow/" target="_blank" title="www.politifact.com">got grief</a> for saying, "In Chicago, school is never canceled." For noting that Chicago schools rarely even canceled outdoor recess. For suggesting others could use "some flinty Chicago toughness." At the time, Chicago schools hadn't had a snow day in 10 years.

I don't remember having a snow day in the Chicago winters of my youth. Even just typing the words gives me psychic dissonance. I once talked to classmates in more than 20-below-zero wind chill and almost felt the words crystallize as they left my mouth. <a href="http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/03/06/the-four-worst-winters-ever-in-chicago/" target="_blank" title="chicago.cbslocal.com">The 1978-1979 winter season</a>, with 14 days at or below zero and a record snow total of nearly 90 inches, is the one old-school Chicagoans remember. It cost Mayor Michael Bilandic, who botched the snow removal, his reelection.

My husband reminds me that “the Hawk,” our nickname for Chicago’s bitter, biting winter wind, seemed like it was always coming for us. So you had better be ready.

Native Washingtonian Kayce Ataiyero, communications director for Rep. Robin L. Kelly (D-Ill.), had heard of the Hawk before moving to Chicago in 2005 but says that “you just don’t understand the supernaturalness of it” unless you’ve felt it. “No matter what you wear, how many layers you have, it just cuts you to the quick.” It’s a cold that produces icy determination, that gives city residents an extra gear.

In D.C., "Snowpocalypse" and "Snowmageddon" of the 2009-2010 season were truly historic, but other recent snows were memorable for the ways they <a href="http://wtop.com/winter/2015/01/history-disastrous-snow-storms-d-c-area/" title="wtop.com">utterly snarled traffic</a> and shut down the city.

“In Washington, there’s a different mind-set. Everyone holds their breath in anticipation of a regionwide shutdown,” says Ataiyero, whose job often takes her back to the Windy City. “In D.C., people mentally prepare to hunker down, and in Chicago, people mentally prepare to square up against the elements. In D.C. the conversation is more, ‘What’s going to be open.’ In Chicago, the assumption is everything is going to be open. You still have to go to work, you still have to take the kids to school, so the conversation is, ‘What’s the best way to get there?’ ”

Some schoolchildren might have to brave the cold and snow without proper winter clothes, she points out, so that has to be taken into account when decisions are made about what to shut down. But for able-bodied adults, she says, grab a hat and keep it moving.

It’s good advice and something to think about as I consider the movies I’m about to rent and do my end-of-days grocery shopping in advance of the coming storm.

It’s January, and we’re all Scrooges now - The Washington Post

I had never heard the term “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/24/living/poverty-porn-danger-feat/" target="_blank" title="www.cnn.com">poverty porn</a>” — the idea of using stories and images to tug at our heartstrings so we open our wallets — until this week. But I certainly knew it when I saw it. It’s rampant around the holidays.

Read <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/people-give-for-the-holidays-until-it-hurts--but-then-comes-january/2016/01/13/d9e10c8a-ba07-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html">more</a>

Inspired Life

HONS

Vivien Leigh, Hattie McDaniel

Maybe Hollywood’s not racist — it just has a processing disorder - The Washington Post

I didn’t watch the record-setting Powerball drawing last week, but I did watch as the Oscar nominations were announced. I paused my morning routine, poised to cheer, to imagine nominees’ reactions and fantasize about all the shine heading toward some deserving black folks whose stories had thrilled me.

Then name after name was read, not one of them black, and I was stunned. And stung. There's always a moment of how can this happen in 2016? This is the second year in a row in which the acting nominees are all white — and it reflects a long, troubled history. With the Powerball, I at least hit two numbers. I wonder what the odds are that Hollywood ever really sees itself? Or ever truly sees other people?

When the nominations were read, Tim Gordon’s phone started buzzing, and it didn’t stop all day. “You don’t have to tell me about this whole disappointment that people feel,” says Gordon, a Washington writer. “I was a kid who loved watching award shows. It would always bother me as I grew older that I would see these really cool performances and they would always get totally ignored. . . . I said, ‘Man, instead of complaining about it, I’ll just create a show of my own.’ ” He started the Black Reel Awards in 1999 to recognize African American achievements in television and film.

The awards, voted on by film critics and others who work in the industry, have been awarded mostly online. (In 2005 there was a live show, and Jamie Foxx sent a video acceptance. Gordon is hoping to go live again soon.)

"Every 12 months, you see people getting all in their feelings" about who gets nominated and wins, "and rightfully so," Gordon says. But he points to the Academy's history and makeup. From 1927 to 1999, a total of 14 black people won Oscars in all categories, he says. In acting categories, only 24 people of color have won <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fewer-than-7-percent-of-acting-oscars-have-been-awarded-to-people-of-color/2015/01/15/694c5dda-9d02-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_graphic.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">since 1927,</a>
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fewer-than-7-percent-of-acting-oscars-have-been-awarded-to-people-of-color/2015/01/15/694c5dda-9d02-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_graphic.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com"></a> according to a Post report. More than <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/oscars/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-20120219-story.html#page=1" title="www.latimes.com">90 percent</a> of Oscar voters are white and nearly 80 percent are male, according to the Los Angeles Times, and those numbers directly affect the range of stories and portrayals.

The Academy’s voting body seems “most comfortable seeing African Americans played in certain ways,” Gordon says.

In 2002, Halle Berry won the best-actress award, playing a grieving, desperately poor Southern woman in "Monster's Ball," which featured a graphic sex scene. That year, Denzel Washington won for playing a corrupt cop in "Training Day." In 2010, comedienne Mo'Nique won playing a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110600044.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">grotesquely cruel mother</a> In "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." In 2012, Octavia Spencer won for best supporting actress, playing a maid in "The Help." As a matter of fact, the very first black woman to win an Oscar was playing a maid: In 1940, Hattie McDaniel won for "Mammy" in "Gone With the Wind." Oscar likes blacks playing historical roles, too: Foxx and Forest Whitaker both won for biopics.

It’s not that these weren’t all deserving performances — they were — just that Hollywood consistently seems more comfortable with black actors in historical, pathological, subservient (or saintly) roles. “White actors also get those kinds of roles,” Gordon says, but they also get more balance and a broader range. There’s less recognition for, say, a Will Smith as the quietly intense doctor in “Concussion,” which earned him a Golden Globe nomination last month.

“When movies with black casts do in fact receive wide acclaim, it’s generally because said films are race and content-specific,” Morgan Jerkins wrote on the website Quartz last year. “We cannot be whimsical concierges like in ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ or washed-up actors like in ‘Birdman.’ Put simply, films with primarily white casts are afforded complexity — even superficiality — in the eyes of their audience. But for black-centered films, the same is not true.”

Sometimes it strikes me not so much as racism but as a processing disorder. And it doesn’t afflict just Hollywood. A decade ago, when I wrote a book about being a middle-class, working professional and mother, I noted that white women often seemed not to have language for talking to me about complex cultural issues as an equal. I joked that if I’d written “Up from Crack,” a lot of those women might have had an easier time embracing me.

Sitting on the edge of my bed last week, I cheered when Sylvester Stallone was nominated for best supporting actor in “Creed,” but I was disappointed that director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan were not. New black heroes are telling new black stories for a new generation, a colleague remarked, and it’s painful that’s not recognized.

People give for the holidays until it hurts — but then comes January - The Washington Post

I had never heard the term "<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/24/living/poverty-porn-danger-feat/" target="_blank" title="www.cnn.com">poverty porn</a>" — the idea of using stories and images to tug at our heartstrings so we open our wallets — until this week. But I certainly knew it when I saw it. It's rampant around the holidays. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/24/living/poverty-porn-danger-feat/" title="www.cnn.com"></a>

It’s the story of the inner-city family shivering in a one-room apartment with no heat. Or the photo of a tattered rural teen who cares for a half-dozen younger siblings while her mother works overnight.

It’s the idea that “we have to trot out the stories of needy people,” in detail, for people to make donations, says Shay Stewart-Bouley, executive director of Boston’s Community Change, which combats racism. And the way we do it “doesn’t feel respectful to their humanity. . . . We should probably ask ourselves, ‘Why do we need to see that in order to give?’ ”

For two decades, Stewart-Bouley has worked for nonprofit entities that help underserved communities. She wonders why people do not think of giving year-round, something the nonprofits  do as a matter of being part of a community. Then they would not need manipulative videos that invade privacy — that zoom close in on pain, distress and privation — in the name of helping out.

Charitable donations and volunteering drop off dramatically in January, and “by June or July, everybody is on vacation,” says Stewart-Bouley. But people need to eat every day.

Small organizations that fall outside urban areas are often especially underfunded, and Stewart-Bouley calls January a good time for the civic-minded to think not just about money but also about time and skills that might help a small organization — volunteering one’s social media prowess, delivering food, answering phones.

Michele Booth Cole is executive director of <a href="http://www.safeshores.org/" target="_blank" title="www.safeshores.org">Safe Shores</a> — the DC Children's Advocacy Center, which serves families affected by violence. Each year, the center makes a holiday plea to donors, who are matched with a wish list that gives children's ages, gender and what they want for Christmas. The center does not provide names or any identifying features of the recipient families out of respect for their privacy and to honor their dignity. Donors fill the lists and drop off presents.

“There were literally thousands of gifts — doll­houses, bicycles. Somebody gave an iPad to one family. People were just incredibly generous,” Cole says. “Then it’s January.”

And the donor numbers drop off to just a fraction of what they were in December. Maybe  25 people a month seek to donate instead of 250. The number does not rise again until the following December, Cole says. “One of the things we talk about all the time is that child abuse doesn’t just happen in December or during back-to-school month.”

Studies <a href="http://elitedaily.com/life/science-generosity-feels-good-give/890500/" title="elitedaily.com"></a>show that donors feel an <a href="http://elitedaily.com/life/science-generosity-feels-good-give/890500/" target="_blank" title="elitedaily.com">emotional lift </a>when they give. And when giving or volunteering is done outside the holiday rush, people have a chance to be thoughtful about how they want to sustain and interact with their communities. "You can find out what moves you," Cole says. "We have [coffees and tours] where you can come in and learn what we do."

We want people “who care about our cause to invest, then tell friends and family and co-workers,” she says. “That’s how you build a movement.”

While we’re hopeful about all the other things we want to change for the new year — like our waistlines and savings — we might also think about our responsibilities to one another.

Cole says we need to shift “the cadence of the conversation” so that giving is a part of the culture. And it at least needs to outlast our other resolutions.

Digital or paper planner? Either way, there still isn’t enough time. - The Washington Post

I feel like I’m fighting all the time — that is to say, all the time I do not have.

Time to exercise, time to cook. Time to take down the Christmas tree still sitting in my living room.

I don’t have time to call friends or answer mail. Time to think. Or, especially, just be still.

This is why buying my yearly planner in January is crucial. Because this year, I swear I’m going to get my arms around my time, my schedule, my life. Of course, I’m already off to a late start.

Desiree Tucker has been a professional organizer in Prince George’s County for 20 years.

Every year, people make resolutions around time management, she says. “It starts with, ‘I want to get organized.’ They may not know how to do that or where it starts.” But they say: “I just don’t have enough time in the day. Where can I get more? What can I cut out? How can you help me manage my time and my life?”

I tell her about my planner ritual. I go to Staples and grab a bunch of planners from the shelves, then sit and commune with them on the floor. They have to be purse-size, and no red or loud colors that might be a vexation to my spirit. The pages have to be light blue or olive, soft on the eyes, and have to have little sayings that sound kind of deep. The more in tune I am with my planner, the more harmony I will have in my life . . . or so the thinking goes.

Tucker is not feeling any of that. “Most people are going the way of Google Calendar, smartphones and iPhones to keep track of everything,” she says helpfully.

She can't see me, but as she is talking, I give her the <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/439663982349720902/" target="_blank" title="www.pinterest.com">Aretha Franklin blinking-eyes-GIF face</a>. Well, right, no doubt digital devices have built-in efficiencies, but I don't know how to use those systems and I don't have time to learn.

No matter. Tucker knows people who make paper work. They “go out and make it a yearly shopping trip to go and find a new planner. What’s coming out new? How can I make it better?” And even the devotedly analog can “incorporate some electronic devices into your life. It can start as simply as using timers and setting alarms for yourself” to keep you boundaried and get you where you need to be on time.

I am surprised to note that many of her suggestions are things I already do.

Allison Hodson, senior product manager at FC Organizational Products, which sells Franklin planners and calendars, says planners “offer that dream of getting your life in control.” They help people “feel organized, feel in balance. They create harmony and inner peace in their lives.” A planner routine helps you “set sights on your goals and helps you begin with the end in mind. You know what goals you need to achieve so you can kind of work backward, break those down into smaller goals, and even further into short-term goals that translate into daily tasks.”

As she talks, I find myself awash in new possibilities.  Lulled into a “Best Life,” “Strongest Self,” “7 Habits” reverie. She doesn’t just talk about the process of it, but the feel. Pen and paper are tactile, Hodson says. There is something satisfying about making a list, then crossing something off. “For me, if I can write something down, it kind of instantly frees my mind to get to work and find out the ways I can achieve the goals, rather than try to remember what it was I needed to do.”

I tell her that sometimes I send notes to my future self in my planner. I’ll get a “Hello, are you feeling better?” from August. Or an “Are you married yet?” smiley face from April.

“It kind of turns into an accidental journal,” Hodson agrees. “An archival record of your life that you keep for years.” Her favorite entry was her first obstetrician appointment when she found out she was having twins.

I leave the conversation lifted but also confused. If I’m committed to a system, and I’m using my time-management tools the way I’m supposed to, then why, so often, am I gasping for air?

I return to something Tucker said, and I let it sink in. “Maybe you think you need help with time management, but there are only so many hours in the day and maybe you’re just overcommitted,” she says. She recalls something a mentor said: “You can’t manage time. You have to learn to manage yourself.”

I think about my schedule. Every day, I do some combination of writing, taking care of children, driving around the Beltway for my commuter marriage. All things that mean the world to me. And I realize part of making peace with time is also about making peace with the decisions I’ve made about the things that fill my life. Instantly, I feel some of the fight leave me.