1. This Black Male Doula Is Shattering Stereotypes While Advocating For Pregnant Women. “The 37-year-old said that he wants to provide a safe birthing experience for mothers because, according to the CDC, about 25,000 women develop severe pregnancy complications each year, and Black women are 2-3 times more likely to die during labor than other racial groups. The 37-year-old said that he wants to provide a safe birthing experience for mothers because, according to the CDC, about 25,000 women develop severe pregnancy complications each year, and Black women are 2-3 times more likely to die during labor than other racial groups.”

2. The Way it Was, a podcast. “Step back in time with stories from Fort Collins’ past, from the cute and quirky to the dark and mysterious.”

3. 6 in 10 teachers experienced physical violence or verbal aggression during COVID. “Educators are taking blows from all sides, and they sometimes feel like no one is hearing them. That is the key finding of a big, new COVID-19-era survey from an American Psychological Association task force.”

4. Oklahoma parents outraged after son’s hair is cut in school. In related news, House Passes Crown Act, Takes Step Closer To Banning Hair Discrimination.

5. Is media platform Nextdoor a friend in need or a vigilante nightmare? “The fast-growing media platform claims its mission is to foster community spirit – which it mainly does. But can it control the spread of misinformation?”

6. Hannah Gadsby on her autism diagnosis: ‘I’ve always been plagued by a sense that I was a little out of whack’. “Even as a child, the comedian knew her brain was atypical. But it was only in her late 20s that her anxiety, depression and meltdowns finally made sense.”

7. Standup comedy and the myth of cancel culture. “David Cross on political humor, how standup has changed, and why complaints about cancellation are ‘bullshit.'”

8. Maria Bamford’s Masterful Late-Night Eulogy. “Her Corden set about her mom [who died of lung cancer in late 2020] might be the best filmed stand-up of the past two years.”

9. People Are Loving Stacey Abrams’ Star Trek Cameo and Wish She Could Play the Character for Real. President Abrams is the best idea, ever.

10. 7 Body Concepts I No Longer Subscribe To from Ivy Felicia. “After coaching, speaking, teaching, and writing for over 10 years I have gathered more insight and gained different perspectives. This article is about the top 7 things that I no longer subscribe to about bodies. There are many more that have shifted, but these are some of the most impactful ones.”

11. Where do we go from here? on The Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH)’s blog, a follow up the their recent post, Holding Lindo Bacon Accountable for Repeated Harm in the Fat Liberation & HAES® Communities. “Our highest priority for the 2022-2023 board year will be revising the HAES® principles. This project will be led by fat liberationists and Black feminists with significant input from our membership and the greater fat community. When Health at Every Size® is not firmly grounded in liberatory frameworks, it can become a tool for harm and impede fat liberation. The current principles uphold healthism and ableism while failing to adequately acknowledge the social determinants of health like racism and fatphobia.” In related news, Health at Every Size®, Stories and Silence, and A Week Into The Lindo-pocalypse, and I have a Lindo Bacon story, too.

12. Family is composed of love. (video)

13. The Skin Deep on YouTube, “an Emmy award-winning creative studio exploring human emotion, intimacy, and connection in the digital age.”

14. The Story Behind The Unique Oval Community Gardens of Copenhagen.

15. Two Years of the Pandemic in New York, Step by Awful Step on The New York Times. “We know that there is no going back to ‘before.’ Too much has happened. That shore is too distant.”

16. Recipe I want to try: Chicken Wonton Soup.

17. Behind the Entenmann’s Cellophane, a Slice of Long Island Life on The New York Times. “The passing of a founding baker reminds our writer of what the brand meant, and still does, in its birthplace — banana crunch, polysorbate 60 and all.”

18. The 50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.

19. The Shape-Shifting Power of Menopause. “Menopause is revealed to be not a curse or a punishment but a chance to open and shed. Though there is suffering involved—hardship, and deep physical challenge—there can be a breaking through of fierce, bright lucidity.”

20. Make Time to Mourn on The New York Times. “Though the pandemic has posed obstacles to funerals, delaying memorial services has also opened up unexpected opportunities for reflection and creativity.”

21. Our most valuable lessons from 2 pandemic years. “It’s been a revolving door of fear and fatigue and anger and uncertainty and suffering and loss. But we’ve also experienced a surprising amount of joy, and kindness, and new discovery, and delight, even. All of this to say: it feels all but impossible to qualify two years of pandemic living in any one way, but one thing is certain: we’re still here – and we’re changed.”

22. The Story Behind a Defining War Photo on The New York Times. “Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist, took an image that captured the new reality of the fighting in Ukraine.”

23. StyleLikeU on YouTube. “Created by mother-daughter duo, Elisa Goodkind and Lily Mandelbaum, StyleLikeU is a radically honest storytelling platform powering a self-acceptance revolution. Through intimate docu-style video series, including The What’s Underneath Project, Getting Dressed: An Act of Self-Love, Dispelling Beauty Myths and more, we celebrate personal style (and beauty) as an expression of individuality, empowerment and self-acceptance.”

24. 7 Everyday Situations That Can Make an HSP Feel Overwhelmed.

25. Critical Race Theory Opens Up New Opportunities for Student Learning. “Amid the heated national controversy about CRT in schools, some Black educators are openly using the framework to help students better understand history and contextualize current events.”

26. ‘Lucas the Spider’ will begin streaming on HBO Max in March 2022. “An adorable little spider with a big, bubbly personality named Lucas is joining HBO Max’s line-up for kids. Lucas the Spider follows the cutest 4-year-old jumping spider you’ve ever seen as he goes on adventures throughout his human-sized home and learns about the world around him.”

27. What Does An Unbroken Spirit Look Like? from Andrea Gibson. “Working for peace inside and out.”

28. Fifty-word stories: an experiment. “In February, to kick start myself out of the spring doldrums, I decided that I would begin each day by writing a fifty-word story (after caffeine and Wordle, of course). Rules were established for this practice: less than ten minutes would be spent on each story; only one pass of editing was allowed; stories must be posted to my social media for accountability; and I would commit to this practice for one month.”

29. Best Books for Writers from Poets & Writers.

30. Anyone else failing to find their way back into the world? on Renegade Mothering. “And yet I wonder if we can all to some extent relate to the feeling of having been reset in an irrevocable way. Like it all blew the fuck up and you can take away the masks and social distancing and mandatory testing but you can’t bring back the way it was. Do we even want it back?”

31. now is not the time to chase calm. “The point of an embodiment practice is not to be present all of the time, and the point is not to be calm all the time. The point, at least as far as I can tell, is to find ways to be human, to root into our humanity, in a world where the speed and intensity of quite literally everything is pushing us away from ourselves and from each other.”

32. How to Practice Dedicating Merit on Lion’s Roar. “When we dedicate our meditation to others, says Lama Palden Drolma, we make our practice more open and beneficial.”

33. 3 Simple Ways to Reject Productivity Culture from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

34. Rare Thoughts on Writing From Cormac McCarthy in This Unlikely Interview.

35. Good stuff from Austin Kleon: The book that changed my life: Looking back at 10 years of Steal Like an Artist and Why Am I Talking?

36. How to Make Time for Reading, No Matter How Busy You Are.

37. Peculiar Characters by Sophie Woodrow Flaunt a Bizarre Array of Costumes and Hybrid Features.

38. Have We Been Thinking About Burnout All Wrong? “Reframing burnout as what’s getting in the way of your wellness and a symptom of inadequate support led Aviles to conclude that the problem isn’t the burnout. It’s an economic system that makes individual workers essentially dispensable, so that the workplace becomes a site of survival struggles. ‘I really think it’s a tool of oppression, to keep folks constantly busy, and we’re overworking and underpaying them,’ she explains. ‘You’re not allowing people to rest and relax and rejuvenate and refresh their minds and their bodies, [and] oftentimes, you can’t make clear decisions if you’re in that state.'”