Latest news with #Whitman
Int'l Business Times
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Int'l Business Times
Shaping Tomorrow's Global Leaders Through Music, Mentorship and Faith: The Mission of the Soul Children of Chicago
Who's the next generation of leaders? What skills do they need to enjoy their future role and sustain it? The Soul Children of Chicago (SCC) offers an answer to these questions. As the world wrestles with cultural divides, economic inequities, and a crisis of youth identity, SCC empowers young minds to lead with courage, creativity, and conviction through education, career guidance, cultural exposure, and the power of song. Founded in 1981 by Dr. Walt Whitman, Jr., SCC has been a nurturing environment for young people to discover their voices and potential. It began as a small school choir in Chicago's South Side and has grown into a Grammy Award-winning, internationally recognized powerhouse. With its roots in gospel and its reach now spanning continents, the organization is more than a local treasure. It's a global youth movement. "SCC is a global choir for all youth who want to dream bigger and do better," Dr. Whitman stresses. For over four decades, SCC's mission has always been to reach the soul of every child and uplift their lives spiritually, academically, and professionally. Through after-school programs, academic tutoring, premier vocal training, and mentoring from alumni and industry professionals, the organization equips its members to excel in every aspect of life. For instance, through its "Think Big" initiative, SCC hosts conferences that connect young people to leaders in technology, business, entertainment, and innovation, to name a few. These events enable youth to meet mentors, learn practical skills, and envision futures they hadn't dared to dream. From content creation to entrepreneurship, the Think Big Conference gives kids insights on how to turn their vision into reality. "Many of our former members have gone on to become entrepreneurs, artists, educators, civic leaders, and professionals in fields ranging from finance to fashion. One alum is now a hairstylist working with A-list celebrities. Others lead companies, plan events, teach, preach, and innovate. All of them excel in what they do and are fueled by the foundational experience of being part of this community," shares Dr. Whitman. SCC is proud of its generational legacy. The choir now includes members whose parents once sang under Dr. Whitman's direction. These multigenerational ties create lasting community bonds that extend beyond the choir into the fabric of Chicago itself. Dr. Whitman says, "This is what happens when a community invests deeply in its youth and stays the course over decades." It's worth noting that SCC is a spiritual sanctuary as much as it is a choir. Faith and gospel are the heart of the group's identity. The spiritual component offers a grounding force for children navigating life's storms. Dr. Whitman, a man of deep conviction and purpose, understands that today's youth are battling stress, anxiety, and disconnection. "That soul element, that grounding, is what gives these kids strength," Dr. Whitman says. Daily prayer lines, gospel-rooted mentorship, and a commitment to emotional and mental well-being give SCC members a depth that prepares them to thrive under pressure. "When a young person has that internal strength, they don't just survive. They lead," he adds. The discipline and structure instilled in every rehearsal translate to life skills that members carry far beyond the stage. Dr. Whitman draws from his background in the military and the church to maintain a high standard of excellence. This consistency has enabled SCC to transition from church-based performances to commanding stages globally, from Carnegie Hall to the White House . Meanwhile, SCC's versatility has allowed it to collaborate with musical legends such as Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and Stevie Wonder. The visibility the choir has earned is another form of empowerment. Performances at major events such as the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the 2025 NASCAR Chicago Street Race have broadened the choir's audience and have changed how these young people see themselves. "We see such appearances not just as accolades but as access points. They place SCC members in rooms with CEOs, producers, and innovators, reshaping what these youth believe is possible for themselves," Dr. Whitman states. Now, as the Soul Children of Chicago further expands its global footprint, Dr. Whitman calls on new partners, corporate allies, and cultural collaborators to join the mission. "We're building something bigger than a choir," he says. "We're shaping a generation. And if you're someone who believes in the power of youth, in the potential of the next global leaders, then this is your invitation. Walk with us. Build with us. Help us show the world what happens when we believe in the youth's potential."
Washington Post
27-06-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
2025 Spring All-Met: Boys' rowing first team, best boats, honorable mention
The following student-athletes were selected to The Washington Post's 2025 All-Met team for boys' rowing: Justin Blagrove, Sr., Wakefield Blagrove, a La Salle signee and 2024 All-Met first-team selection, was a key piece in the Warriors' top varsity eight boat for three seasons. Anton Butler, Sr., St. Albans Another second-time first-teamer, Butler set several program records in a storied career at St. Albans. He is committed to Princeton. Charlie Conroy, Sr., Whitman The lone senior in Whitman's top varsity eight boat, Conroy led the Vikings to top-three finishes at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta and the Scholastic Rowing Association of America national championships in the petite final. Ben Cruley, Sr., Gonzaga Cruley was the guiding voice for the Eagles' top varsity eight boat, which won at states for the third consecutive year and placed fifth at the scholastic national championships. Matthew Gaull, Jr., Yorktown The energetic coxswain, in his second season leading the top varsity eight boat, helped the Patriots win their first Virginia state title in 16 years. Andres Krizan-Luque, Sr., Gonzaga Krizan-Luque's solid contributions from the sixth seat propelled Gonzaga to another season atop the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Rowing Association. Charlie Murphy, Sr., McLean The Highlanders' top coxswain was named the McLean Crew Club MVP and went undefeated in regular season Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association regattas. Liam O'Connor, Sr., DeMatha The two-year captain sat in the stroke seat of the Stags' top varsity four boat, which won gold at WMIRA and earned a semifinal appearance at the Stotesbury Cup. Thomas Totten, Jr., Yorktown Totten was a key cog in the Yorktown boat that won VASRA. Gunnar Westland, Sr., McLean From the fifth seat, the Boston University commit helped McLean finish as runner-up at states and in the top 10 at the Stotesbury Cup. Mason Wetzel, Sr., Jackson-Reed Wetzel, a Navy commit, captained the WMIRA runner-up, which was just two seconds shy of spoiling Gonzaga's three-peat. Brian O'Rourke, Yorktown Tasked with guiding a young but talented group, O'Rourke brought Yorktown its first VASRA title since 2009 in his third season at the helm. The Patriots' quick ascension was lauded by many opposing coaches in the area, with one saying he has built the group into a 'well-oiled machine.' First four: DeMatha Second eight: Jackson-Reed First eight: Gonzaga Dayton Booher, Jr., Robinson Brendan Callaghan, Sr., Briar Woods Mateo Castro-Luna, Sr., Bethesda-Chevy Chase Charles Cooper, Jr., Washington-Liberty Will Decker, Sr., Gonzaga Drew Eichberg, Jr., Whitman Joshua Gill, Sr., Yorktown Logan Gullberg, Sr., Mount Vernon Avery Hinton, Sr., Lake Braddock David Hughes, Jr., Whitman Jae Rin Jung, Sr., South County Oliver Kiker, Jr., Thomas Jefferson Van Lurton, Sr., St. Albans Miles Narva, Jr., Jackson-Reed Dillan Pakes, Sr., Madison Ben Peasley, Sr., West Springfield Henry Scherer, Sr., Gonzaga Harry Sheng, Jr., C.G. Woodson Tucker Trissell, Sr., Justice Charles Wagner, Sr., Gonzaga
Gizmodo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Let's Talk About the Ending of ‘The Life of Chuck'
'I am large, I contain multitudes.' That quote by poet Walt Whitman looms large over The Life of Chuck, the latest Stephen King adaptation by writer-director Mike Flanagan. It fascinates the title character while he's in school and, eventually, speaks to the film as a whole, which may leave one or two people scratching their heads at the end. So, below, we'll talk about The Life of Chuck with full spoilers to both help put everything into context, but also marvel at how beautiful the whole film is when it all comes together. As I wrote in my review of The Life of Chuck last week, the first time I saw the movie, I was a little confused. The movie is told backwards, with the first third showing some seemingly random, end-of-the-world scenario, a second showing the titular character dancing in public, and the third all about Chuck's childhood. Watching it, I wasn't thinking of the film beyond what happens on the surface, and so the fact that characters from the first part of the movie appear in the third part of the movie, but as the same age, didn't quite click for me. Why did they look the same when Chuck was 39, but also when he was 15? The answer goes back to the Whitman quote. When young Chuck asks his teacher about what 'I am large, I contain multitudes' means, she explains how each person has a universe inside their brain. Every person, thing, and place they've ever encountered lives in their minds. It's a world that gets bigger and bigger as we get older and experience more things, all of which are added to our own world. And that's the key. The first third of The Life of Chuck isn't real. It's happening in Chuck's head, and all the apocalyptic things that are happening—the sink holes, the blackouts, the planets disappearing—show Chuck dying. We're watching Chuck's world. A world populated by people and things he's crossed paths with. A world filled with ideas he's encountered, in locations he's been to. We see most of this through Marty, the central figure in that story. The movie portrays Marty as a normal guy who has no idea who Chuck is but, as we see in the last part of the story, he was a teacher in school when Chuck went there all those years ago. He's also living in Chuck's grandparents' house. A house that, we learn later, was knocked down. Those are just two of the many, many connections in that opening third of the film. The girl Marty talks to on the roller skates appears after Chuck was dancing. Rahul Kohli's doctor character was sitting in that area too. The funeral director talking to Marty was the funeral director who helped Chuck with his grandfather's funeral in real life. Marty talks about the Carl Sagan special Chuck watched as a child. The list goes on and on. But, where the list ends is at anyone who actually had a profound impact on Chuck's life. Chuck's wife and son aren't in his fantasy world. The drummer and dancer aren't there. The teacher who taught him about Whitman isn't there. If any of them showed up, it would break the reality that, as Chuck is dying, he's kind of watching his life flash before his eyes. He would know it wasn't real if he saw someone important. We would know too. So, to keep the illusion of comfort, Chuck's world is populated with people, places, and things that live on the tangents of his mind. And, of course, the whole first section is about how the world started ending slowly about a year ago. How things are moving faster now. And, eventually, the lights go out. That's his illness. 'Thanks, Chuck. 39 great years.' A sign and slogan appear everywhere, and also coincide with what his wife and son are saying to him in the real world. Once you start looking at The Life of Chuck as it's meant to be seen, you see it differently. Not only does the whole apocalyptic scenario make more sense and get infinitely sadder, but every moment in Chuck's life becomes more magical. All the dancing, of course, both in the street and when he was a child. But learning with his grandma, talking to his grandfather about life, the flirtations, the awkwardness, everything is a piece of a new world. One that takes a turn when, at the actual ending, Chuck sees himself dying. Because he lives in this house with a haunted cupola, Chuck's family shelters a blessing and a curse. That's the ability to see death coming and, like his grandfather before him, Chuck sees the future and his own death. He knows it'll be in a hospital bed. He doesn't know how long he has or what will happen between then. But he knows, as we all do, that the end is coming. And Chuck takes comfort in knowing, no matter what kind of life you lead, you're creating a big, beautiful world for yourself. A world where a simple dance or glance can bring joy to everything and everyone. Watching The Life of Chuck not only makes you appreciate the smaller things in life, it makes each and every one of us feel grand. It makes you feel like something bigger. Maybe it makes you believe in something bigger. Because there's a comfort in knowing we all have our own world with us at all times. One final point to bring up is that The Life of Chuck is dedicated to a person named Scott Wampler. Scott was a friend of mine and, yes, that certainly adds a different level of emotional attachment for me. He passed away in 2024 in his mid-40s, way before he should have gone. Like Chuck, Scott lived a too-brief, but beautiful life. And, in that life, Scott had a Stephen King podcast called The Kingcast where he became friendly with Mike Flanagan. That podcast meant Scott and his podcast partner Eric Vespe got to visit the set of the film and appear in it both as background extras during Tom Hiddleston's dance, and also as the radio DJs Karen Gillian is listening to at the beginning of the movie. Scott loved King, he loved Flanagan, and he loved this story. One that will now carry his world forever. So while it's horrible that he's gone, it's beautiful that this film ifeatures and is dedicated to him. Just another small thing in this glorious world called The Life of Chuck. The Life of Chuck is now in theaters.
Boston Globe
08-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Marina von Neumann Whitman dies at 90; carved path for women in economics
'As a woman, she will be outnumbered on the council 2 to 1, but not in terms of brains,' the president said in the Oval Office with Dr. Whitman and her family by his side. (The council's other members at the time were Herbert Stein and Ezra Solomon.) Advertisement Dr. Whitman was an academic economist by training -- she taught at the University of Pittsburgh and later at the University of Michigan -- but she alternated her work in the classroom with extensive stints in the public and corporate sectors. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Before joining the Council of Economic Advisers, she had worked for it as a staff economist and then served on the president's board overseeing price controls. In 1979, she joined General Motors as a vice president and chief economist. She later rose to become group vice president for public relations, making her one of the highest-ranking women in corporate America at the time. 'One of the things about being an economist is that you seldom get the chance to practice your profession as well as teach,' she said in her own Oval Office comments, following Nixon's. Advertisement She was the daughter of mathematician John von Neumann, a polymath who developed game theory, made critical early advances in computer science, and played a central role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. He was one of several Hungarian Jewish emigres who worked on the Manhattan Project -- others included Leo Szilard and Edward Teller -- who came to be known, jokingly, as the Martians, for their intellectual brilliance and supposedly exotic personalities. In her 2012 memoir, 'The Martian's Daughter,' Dr. Whitman wrote that her father's immense intellectual accomplishments drove her to excel, especially as a woman in a male-dominated field like economics. Were it not for him, she wrote, 'I might not have pushed myself to such a level of academic achievement or set my sights on a lifelong professional commitment at a time when society made it difficult for a woman to combine a career with family obligations.' Marina von Neumann was born March 6, 1935, in New York City. Her parents, members of what she called 'the Jewish but highly assimilated haute bourgeoisie' of Budapest, had emigrated from Hungary in 1933, after her father received a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. They divorced when Marina was 2. Her mother, Mariette (Kovesi) von Neumann, studied economics in college and later worked as the office administrator for a science consortium. After her divorce, she married James Kuper, a physicist who became a department chair at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. Marina spent long stretches living with her father, whose Princeton home became a salon and way station for some of the country's leading intellectuals. Advertisement 'I was 15 before I realized this was not the normal American way of life,' she told The New York Times in 1972. The home, she added, was always filled with 'terribly interesting people and terribly interesting conversations.' She studied government at Radcliffe College, graduating at the top of her class in 1956. That same year, she married Robert F. Whitman, who was studying for his doctorate in English at Harvard. He died in 2024. Along with their son, Malcolm, a professor of developmental biology at Harvard, she leaves her half brother, George H. Kuper, and two grandchildren. Her daughter, Laura M. Whitman, an assistant professor of medicine at Yale University, died in 2023 at 59. Marina Whitman initially thought of becoming a journalist. But her first job after college, with the Educational Testing Service, ignited an interest in economics. She wanted to attend Princeton, but at the time, its acclaimed economics department did not accept female graduate students. Instead, she studied at Columbia University. After receiving her doctorate in 1966, she became a professor at Pittsburgh, where her husband taught English. They took leaves of absence in 1972, when she joined the Council of Economic Advisers, and moved to Washington with some intention of remaining there long term. But she resigned after just a year, disillusioned by the Watergate scandal that was beginning to unfold around Nixon. Dr. Whitman spent 13 years at General Motors. After she left in 1992, she taught at the University of Michigan's business and public policy schools. A lifelong Republican, she did not put herself forward as a feminist. But she did her part to prop open the doors she had gone through, for other women to follow. Advertisement 'There is a very small group of highly visible women who have now been offered a lot of boards,' Dr. Whitman told the Times in 1984. 'What has not developed as much as I hoped is going beyond that to a second wave. When I turn down offers, I sometimes have tried to suggest other women, but people do not react well to names they haven't heard before.' This article originally appeared in
New Statesman
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Sharing a bed with Edmund White
Photo by Peter Kevin Solness / Fairfax Media via Getty Images For a time, Edmund White and I slept in a bed reputed to have belonged to Walt Whitman. We were both living in New York and teaching at Princeton. When we had to stay the night, we were hosted by a friend who lived on the edge of the campus. In his guest room was a dark wood bed purchased in the 1950s from an antique dealer who produced the story of its connection to the 19th-century American poet. Whatever the truth, on our separate nights, Edmund and I both slept in 'Whitman's bed', smoothing the unchanged sheets in the mornings to maintain the fiction that it had not been slept in by anyone else. Eventually, Edmund wrote a poem about it, describing himself, an aged gay novelist, chastely reading Chekhov's stories, and a British PhD student who was the object of his erotic fantasy, both sharing the great gay poet's bed. 'My first poem since 1985', he told me untruthfully in an email. Edmund, who died this week at the age of 85, was perhaps America's greatest living gay writer. The author of more than 30 books, including novels, memoirs, and biographies of Proust, Genet, and Rimbaud, he occupied a unique position in American literature. I first met Edmund in Princeton, where he was a professor of creative writing until 2018, at a weekly dinner that he hosted with the owner of 'Whitman's bed' – the philosopher George Pitcher. The evening before Edmund taught his class, he and his husband, the writer Michael Carroll, would travel down to Princeton, stay with George, and take a group of PhD students out to dinner at a local restaurant. The dinners were a finely honed ritual: George, then in his early nineties, would use a flashlight on his key ring to inspect the menu. Someone would order a bottle of white wine. And the PhD students would attempt to keep up with Edmund and Michael's wit. Edmund was a conversationalist of the kind I associate with 18th-century philosophers: intellectually curious but also a master of levity, ranging from minor French literature to celebrity gossip. He once recalled a dinner with Michel Foucault to which he had also invited Susan Sontag. When she went to the bathroom, Foucault hissed at Edmund: 'Why did you invite her? She only ever talks about work!' Edmund's life informed his literature in a special way. In The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir (2025), his last published work, he writes: 'I'm at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them – for me it would be thousands of sex partners.' This is another connection with his 19th-century predecessor, as his Princeton colleague Jeff Nunokawa points out: 'Ed believes with a Whitmanesque unabashedness that sex is an instrument of knowledge.' His promiscuity gives his work an epic quality. His oeuvreis, in one sense, a story of America in the second half of the 20th century: its husbands and hustlers observed in their most intimate moments. In The Loves of My Life, he writes: 'I remember a big Southerner who fucked me as I wiggled my butt to show passion, though he kept saying in his baritone drawl, 'Just lay still, little honey.' More wiggling and he'd say, 'C'mon, baby, just lay still for me.' I thought his bad grammar proved he was a lifelong top. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe There is also an unignorable darkness in Edmund's account of desire. As a child, he was sent to a Freudian therapist who pronounced his sexuality pathological. His most well-known book A Boy's Own Story (1982) features a boy who seduces his teacher, only to betray him. To readers who complained that this was unbelievable, Edmund wrote: 'how could the product of an oppressive culture not be deformed?' In time, he outgrew the belief that his desires were curable. He witnessed the Stonewall riots, in the summer of 1969, after a police raid on a popular gay bar. Recalling the laughter, Edmund called it 'the first funny revolution', but emphasised its importance: 'Stonewall inaugurated an epoch when partners of the same sex could claim, maybe for the first time in history, their common humanity.' Like Whitman and the American Civil War, this revolution required its writers, and Edmund would be one of them. After becoming HIV positive in 1984, Edmund was found to be a 'long-term non-progressor', a condition affecting 1 in 500 people infected with HIV. It meant that he would not die from AIDS. Instead, he watched his friends and acquaintances die, and his own writing became a record of the disease and the political intolerance that met it. In Artforum in 1987, he wrote: 'I feel repatriated to my lonely adolescence, the time when I was alone with my writing and I felt weird about being a queer.' Unlike so many gay writers of his generation, Edmund lived long enough to see himself be celebrated as a legend. He spent his summers in Europe and winters in Florida. He was made the director of creative writing at Princeton, until, according to his friend and colleague Joyce Carol Oates, he realised that he would not be able to spend the first week of every January in Key West. At this point, he 'graciously resigned'. Success, inevitably, brought criticism. A review of The Loves of My Life by James Cahill in The Spectator called it 'lurid.' Edmund had cleverly anticipated this, noting in the book's introduction that 'sex writing can seem foolish, especially to the English.' It is his openness to and about sex that will grant Edmund's work its enduring significance, and which makes it feel vital for an era threatened both by a new puritanism and an even more repressive 'anti-wokeness'. His funny, detailed, historiographical writing makes sex appear motivated more by curiosity than appetite. 'I always feel as if I don't really know people unless I've gone to bed with him,' he claimed. I loved visiting Edmund and Michael's apartment in the West Village, the walls stacked to the roof with books. The dinner conversations were full of warmth and wit and smut. I simply expected to see him again. His long life and many books are something to be grateful for and amazed by. My friend Amelia Worsley, who visited him at home a few days before his sudden death, writes: 'I was amazed when Stan, one of Edmund's first loves, stopped by the apartment. We talked about the glamour of New York in the 1960s and the AIDS crisis that followed. 'It's a wonder that I am still alive,' Stan said to Edmund, 'And a wonder you are too.'' [See also: Alan Hollinghurst's English underground] Related
