All posts tagged: Karen

The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe by Karen Foxlee

Published by Jenni Sidey

Some books arrive smelling of the sea before you’ve cracked the spine, and The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe by Karen Foxlee is one of them. Within a few pages you can almost taste the cold rain on a Whitby wharf in 1719, hear the mooring ropes squeak against the stone steps, and feel a small hungry girl waiting there for a mother who has gone into a tavern called The Spotted Duck and not yet come back. This is middle-grade fantasy as Foxlee best loves to write it. Strange. Tender. Hand-stitched with old slang. Strong enough to carry serious feeling without ever talking down to a young reader. For readers new to Karen Foxlee, her other titles are useful touchstones: Lenny’s Book of Everything Dragon Skin A Most Magical Girl Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy Each one of those takes ordinary children and asks them to carry an enormous heart through difficult weather. This new voyage is no different. The Story, Without Giving the Treasure Away The setup is a sturdy fairy-tale hook. Lavender, …

Karen Bass Says Casey Wasserman Should ‘Step Dow’ From LA28

Karen Bass Says Casey Wasserman Should ‘Step Dow’ From LA28

Published by Daniella Wilson

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is calling on Casey Wasserman to step down as chairperson of LA28 after some emails of his surfaced in the Department of Justice’s Jeffrey Epstein document release. During an interview on CNN Monday, the mayor said, “I cannot fire him, but I have an opinion. And my opinion is that he should step down. That’s not the opinion of the board.” Last week, Wasserman was publicly backed by the Los Angeles Olympics Committee board after they hired an outside law firm to review his interactions with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker connected to Epstein. Their flirtatious correspondence took place in 2003, years before Epstein’s arrest in Palm Beach. “LA28 takes allegations of misconduct seriously, and our Board is committed to thoroughly reviewing any concerns related to the organization’s leadership,” the executive committee wrote. “Mr. Wasserman fully cooperated with the review. We found Mr. Wasserman’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented.” Bass made it clear in today’s interview that she disagreed …

Gen Z comes up with new ‘it’ name for people who complain – and it’s not Karen

Gen Z comes up with new ‘it’ name for people who complain – and it’s not Karen

Published by Daniella Wilson

Move over Karen — Generation Z has a new name for demanding women. Calling a woman a “Karen” has arguably been one of the biggest insults of the last decade. Since reaching peak popularity in 2020, the slang term has been used to describe a woman (typically belonging to Gen X, though occasionally applying to a young Baby Boomer or Millennial) who is considered entitled and privileged because of her behavior and the way she impacts those around her. In 2019, a viral meme coining the term was created, based on a 61-year-old voice coach, Karen Van Hook, from Boston, Massachusetts. The photograph showed a middle-aged white woman with straw-blonde hair cropped in an asymmetric bob, alongside the text: “I would like to speak to a manager.” A famous example of a “Karen” was Amy Cooper, a white woman who called the police on Christian Cooper, a black birder, when they got into a disagreement at Central Park over her dog being off its leash. After a video of the incident went viral, she was …