Latest news with #Kents
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Forum: Movie teaches us how to be super parents
O ver the years, I've watched many iterations of Superman on screen. With every retelling, the core of the story seems to shimmer through all the computer-generated imagery, battles and cape-swirling: Superman is not just a story about power. It's a story about parenting. Strip away the superhuman gloss, and you'll see that Clark Kent didn't become Superman because he was born on Krypton. He became Superman because he was raised by the Kents. Jonathan and Martha Kent didn't raise a god. They raised a man. A kind, thoughtful man who uses his strength not to impose, but to protect. They taught him humility, empathy and restraint – values that aren't taught through power, but through love and example. In a world obsessed with meritocracy, where achievement is often mistaken for virtue, this message resonates more than ever. Modern parenting sometimes veers into raising children to believe they are exceptional simply because they scored well, got into the right school, or won a medal. That can breed a quiet kind of arrogance: the belief that being talented or successful entitles one to praise, privilege or power. But the Kents raised Clark differently, teaching him that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. That the strong must protect the weak. That having power means choosing not to use it carelessly – a lesson rarely heard in today's high-performance culture. Imagine if Superman had been raised without this moral foundation. The same powers that saved the world could have destroyed it. And isn't that the quiet warning buried in the Superman myth? That the most dangerous person is not the one with great power, but the one without the right guidance. Perhaps the real heroes of the Superman story aren't just those who fly or fight. Perhaps the real heroes are the ones who raise children not to think they are gods, but to remember they are human. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Sewage shaft failure linked to sinkhole; PUB calling safety time-out on similar works islandwide Singapore Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole did not happen overnight: Experts Singapore Workers used nylon rope to rescue driver of car that fell into Tanjong Katong Road sinkhole Asia Singapore-only car washes will get business licences revoked, says Johor govt World Food airdropped into Gaza as Israel opens aid routes Sport Arsenal beat Newcastle in five-goal thriller to bring Singapore Festival of Football to a close Singapore Benchmark barrier: Six of her homeschooled kids had to retake the PSLE Asia S'porean trainee doctor in Melbourne arrested for allegedly filming colleagues in toilets since 2021 Derek Low
Sky News AU
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Meghan's best friend Serena Williams dragged into ‘shocking' royal racism saga after Princess Michael of Kent revelations
Meghan Markle's close ally Serena Williams has been dragged into a racism saga engulfing the royal family after reports a senior royal named an animal after the tennis icon. Princess Michael of Kent, the wife of the late Queen's cousin, has been embroiled in a series of controversies since marrying Prince Michael of Kent in 1978. Although the Kents are not technically working royals, the couple enjoy the full trappings of royal life and live in a lavish apartment inside Kensington Palace. The couple's children Lord Frederick Windsor and Lady Gabriella Kingston remain 54th and 57th in line to the throne, respectively. Writer Aatish Taseer, who dated Lady Gabriella for three years in the early 2000s, sparked a media storm in 2018 after revealing Princess Michael kept a pair of pet black sheep she named after tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. Mr Taseer originally made the claims in a piece for Vanity Fair in 2018, around the time Markle married into the royal family. On Monday, Mr Taseer elaborated on the infamous sheep story and theorised why Princess Michael would find the gesture acceptable. 'I think the (story about) Venus and Serena was part of that weird air of abstraction that exists around these people and how they're not even aware of how shocking or offensive that might be,' he said on the 'Tell Me About Your Father' podcast. Serena, widely regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time, first struck up a friendship with Markle while the future Duchess of Sussex was an actress on Suits. The pair have remained close pals since the Sussexes left royal duties and Williams publicly supported Harry and Meghan at the ESPY Awards last year. The revelation about the royal's black sheep was not the first time Princess Michael of Kent has been accused of racially insensitive behaviour. In 2004, she was accused of racially insulting black diners at a restaurant in New York City. A spokesperson later accepted that the Princess had been angry at the group, who were seated at a table near her, but denied that she had told them to "go back to the colonies". In 2017, the royal sparked outrage again after wearing a 'blackamoor' brooch with a stylised figure of an African man to a Christmas banquet attended by Markle. A spokesperson for Princess Michael said the royal was 'very sorry' that the brooch caused offence.
New York Times
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
My First America
These were my father's books; they were not meant for me. But their paperback covers, with images of strapping men waging war and gorgeous couples waging you-know-what, held great allure for a shy boy versed in neither of those life skills. So, one day — I must have been around 13 — I pulled the first novel in the series off the shelf. It was 'The Bastard,' by John Jakes. Almost immediately, I was captivated. In part for the naughty bits, sure. But that first book and the ones that followed — 'The Rebels,' 'The Seekers,' 'The Furies,' 'The Titans,' 'The Warriors,' 'The Lawless' and, finally, 'The Americans' — also offered me a romanticized and tantalizing history of the United States, one that appealed to my sense of adventure, of right and wrong, of longing for a country that was not yet mine. I had no idea then, as I read the books in the mid-1980s, that Jakes's eight-volume, multigenerational saga about the Kents, an American family whose lives span the Revolutionary era to the late-19th century, had been a sensation in the United States just a few years earlier. Published between 1974 and 1979 to mark the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jakes's American Bicentennial Series was wildly popular, even spawning tacky television versions (imagine William Shatner and Kim Cattrall in Colonial garb). Together, the books would sell 55 million copies. My family emigrated from Peru to the United States in the mid-1970s, just in time for my father to join the Jakes craze. It's easy to see why Americans embraced this story. The Kents are dashing and brave and principled and passionate, pausing their honorable fighting and copious copulating to ponder big ideas about duty and nation, and to wrestle with the choices brought on by the wealth and influence the family amasses. Their motto — 'take a stand and make a mark' — has a whiff of noblesse oblige to it, but why not? For a country emerging from the self-doubt of Vietnam and the shame of Watergate, some celebratory historical fiction must have been a comforting way to blow out 200 candles. A year from now, the United States will reach another big anniversary of independence. Intense debates have already begun over how we should mark America's 250th — what history will be told, which heroes will be honored, whether celebration or introspection should have pride of place, how to commemorate the founding at a moment when our foundations are under stress. In search of answers, I decided to try Jakes and the Kents once more. I wanted to see if the books that inspired so many Americans 50 years ago could offer some help for another apprehensive age. And selfishly, I wanted to relive the Kent story, some 5,000 pages worth, to see whether my old fascination endured. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
