Eileen Gu or the Chained Woman?

I've already blogged about Eileen Gu, but nothing like this. 

There are at least 600,000 million Chinese living in abject poverty, but Chairman Xi can't let the cat out of the bag. So, Ms. Gu is promoted to the top of Wiebo while human-trafficking victim Xiaohuamei (little flower plum) is censored and crushed under the boot-heel of totalitarianism.

Absolutely unreal story. I already loathe China. I'm to the point of no longer reporting on the regime because it makes me furious. The diabolical hypocrisy is stunning. Americans like Eileen Gu to the cretins of the International Olympic Committee --- with this whole Olympics propaganda regime --- have blood on their hands. And that's to say nothing of the Chinese Communist Party thugs who should be destroyed rather than coddled. This is all so sickening, even anti-American. 

At the New York Times. "Who Is the Real China? Eileen Gu or the Chained Woman?":

Two women have dominated Chinese social media during the Beijing Winter Olympics.

One is Eileen Gu, the 18-year-old skier born and raised in California who won a gold medal for China. The other is a mother of eight who was found chained around her neck to the wall of a doorless shack.

The Chinese internet is exploding with discussions about which of the two represents the real China. Many people are angry that the government-controlled algorithms glorify Ms. Gu, who fits into the narrative of the powerful and prosperous China, while censoring the chained woman, whose deplorable conditions defy that narrative.

The two women’s starkly different circumstances — celebrated vs. silenced — reflect the reality that to the Chinese state, everyone is a tool that serves a purpose until it does not.

Whether she wants it, Ms. Gu has become a powerful propaganda tool for Beijing to demonstrate its appeal to global talent and the benefits of being loyal to China. She represents the successful China that Beijing would like the world to admire.

The chained woman represents the poor and backward China that hundreds of millions still inhabit. They sometimes appear in the state media to demonstrate the country’s success in eradicating extreme poverty until their miseries become an inconvenient truth.

“Does Eileen Gu’s success have anything to do with ordinary Chinese?” goes the headline of one viral article that was censored later.

“Can we remember these women while cheering for Eileen Gu?” asks another headline.

“To judge whether a society is civilized or not, we should not look at how successful the privileged are but how miserable the disadvantaged are,” the article said. “Ten thousand sports champions can’t wash away the humiliation of one enslaved woman, not to mention tens of thousands of them.”

The Chinese government doesn’t like where the debate is heading. The juxtaposition of the two women highlights that underneath the glamorous surface of one of the world’s largest economies lie jarring poverty and widespread abuse of women’s rights.

It defeats the purpose of recruiting star athletes like Ms. Gu: to showcase a powerful China with global appeal.

“The reality is that the vast majority of Chinese won’t have the opportunity to become Eileen Gu,” Li Yinuo, founder of a prominent education company in Beijing, wrote in an article. But the tragedy of the chained woman, she wrote, could happen to anyone.

A few hours later, her article was deleted.

Embedded in the debate is a deep disappointment among middle-class Chinese who are usually willing to go along with the government’s narratives but are incensed by the repeated lies, lack of action and subsequent censorship in the case of the chained woman.

They feel that the government is pouring too many resources behind a privileged member of the society while neglecting another member in dire need of help. They’re worried that the latter’s misfortune could happen to them or their daughters.

Many social media users, including some self-claimed nationalistic little pinks, posted a quote from a famous Chinese novel: “I love the country. But does the country love me?”

The story of the chained woman — whose name, according to the government, is Xiaohuamei (little flower plum) — has captivated the Chinese internet since a short video went viral in late January. In it, a middle-age woman with a dazed expression stood in the dark shack with a chain on her neck. Subsequent videos revealed that she had lost most of her teeth and seemed to be mentally disturbed.

The local authorities issued four conflicting statements in the following two weeks. In the latest statement on Thursday, the authorities reported that Xiaohuamei could be a victim of human trafficking and that her husband was under investigation for false imprisonment. The government had denied both earlier.

The fates of the two women converged online last week after Ms. Gu won her gold medal.

At one point, Ms. Gu, who grew up in an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco and represents some of the biggest brands, like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Company, occupied 10 of the 20 hottest hashtags on Weibo. The hashtag about Xiaohuamei was nowhere to be seen, even though many people were still talking about her.

Some social media users were outraged by the lopsided treatment of the two women. They felt that even though they had tried their best to be the obedient and useful tools in the giant machinery of the Chinese state, Xiaohuamei’s tragedy showed that the state won’t necessarily offer them protection...

And watch here, "To give the full story, here is the original video that caused the social media storm, which is still ongoing today (tw distressing content, not sure why the lock is blurred, as if that is the most shocking thing about this video..)."

Hooters Girl Jade Amber (VIDEO)

Everything you wanted to know about working at Hooters.

Watch:

Lawrence Wright, The Plague Year

At Amazon, Lawrence Wright, The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid.

'Sunday Night Football' Sideline Reporter Michele Tafoya Reflects on Her Career (VIDEO

Michele Tafoya is retiring from sidelines reporting. Sunday's Super Bowl was her last night with NBC, and it was emotional. 

Here she is discussing all the overwhelming feelings in those final moments.

Also, what's up next for Ms. Tafoya.

Jessica Vaughn

On Twitter.

More here.

And the most beautiful blonde, Jessica Simpson. 

Three San Francisco School Board Members Recalled (VIDEO)

This is very big news. It's every time now: Every time there's an election this year, Democrats will get fucking shellacked. 

And the three members recalled last night weren't "liberals." They're radicals, way outside of the mainstream. While overall turnout was low at 25 percent, the percentage of Chinese-Americans voting was near 80 percent. That never happens. San Francisco's Chinese community is very hands-off toward politics, but not this time. When you fuck with the schools you're fucking with a bloc of voters who aren't going to take any shit. 

S.F.'s District Attorney, Chesa Boudin --- who was raised by Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn --- will be up for recall in June. No doubt this race will be fought ferociously, and it may be tight, but once this dude gets the boot local districts throughout the entire country will be given notice: We will take you out. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "From liberal San Francisco, school board recall is a three-alarm warning for Democrats":

San Francisco is quite familiar with earthquakes, and what happened Tuesday — the ouster of three extreme lefties from the Board of Education — was not one of those.

Earthquakes are sudden and unexpected. The result of Tuesday’s recall was neither.

The removal of board members Gabriela López, Faauuga Moliga and Alison Collins was destined the moment the city’s liberal establishment, led by Mayor London Breed, joined the effort along with several discontented millionaires, who threw in loads of cash.

What happened Tuesday was more a foreshock, a warning — as if Democrats needed any more of those — that November’s midterm elections could be very bad indeed, as parents unsettled by two years of pandemic-related upheaval vent their frustrations at the polls.

The circumstances of the recall were both unique and broadly reflective.

In a place that prides itself on social justice and forward thinking, members of the school board outdid themselves by moving to strip the names of, among others, Presidents Washington and, Lincoln and Sen. Dianne Feinstein from 44 public schools.

The intent was to remediate the country’s history of injustices: George Washington owned slaves, Abraham Lincoln oversaw the slaughter of Native Americans, and Feinstein, as mayor in 1984, replaced a Confederate flag that had been vandalized at City Hall with a new one. The result was outrage.

In another instance of misplaced priorities, board members spent hours debating whether a father who was white and gay brought sufficient diversity to a parental advisory committee. His appointment was ultimately nixed, but there was no recovering the time that was wasted.

Perhaps most antagonizing, the board moved to end merit-based admissions to Lowell High School, one of the city’s most sacred institutions, where Asian American students are the majority. (The move catalyzed the city’s Asian American community, long an important force in San Francisco politics.) Old comments surfaced from Collins, in which she stated Asian Americans used “white supremacist” thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students. She apologized, then sued the school district and five fellow board members, seeking $87 million in damages, for removing her title as vice president. A judge summarily rejected the case.

All of which was too much for this famously tolerant city, as students struggled with distance learning and public schools remained closed even as others in neighboring communities reopened.

Inclusion, sensitivity and righting history’s wrongs are all well and good. But there was a strong sense that “we are not getting the basics right,” as Siva Raj, a father of two who helped launch the recall effort, put it.

He and others would have removed all seven members of the board, but only the three who were targeted were eligible for recall.

It is foolish — and one of the bad habits of political prognosticators — to overinterpret the results of any one election. To be clear, San Francisco hasn’t changed. A city that gave Joe Biden 85% support won’t be voting Republican in the lifetime of any adult within sight of Coit Tower. But the results are noteworthy precisely because the recall took place in liberal San Francisco...

San Francisco is not "liberal." It's a communist enclave, Moscow by the Bay, and the voters have had enough with this takeover by critical theory. 

Leftists around the country (and Canada, in the worst way) are not learning the lessons of the 2021 elections. Democrats will pay for their snobbery and elitism. These are wealthy champagne socialists who wouldn't deign to rub shoulders with the poor and working class proletarians delivering their goods from Amazon Prime and their Door Dash dinners. Workers, truck drivers, literally front-line health care professionals, kept this country functioning through the damned pandemic/lockdown. Enough is enough. 

No, not only do these clowns know "what's best" for everybody else, they don't have to live with the horrific consequences of their experiments in creating the communist utopia.

I'd like to say "take them out" in a more literal sense, but mostly I mean take them out at the ballot box. 

Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men

At Amazon, Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

Sarah Palin's Libel Claim Against the New York Times Rejected by Jury (VIDEO)

I haven't really followed this. Mostly, I'm interested because Ms. Palin's been out of the spotlight for a while. 

At the Wall Street Journal, "Jury Rejects Sarah Palin’s Defamation Claims Against the New York Times":

A federal jury concluded the New York Times didn’t defame Sarah Palin in a 2017 editorial, a verdict that follows a judge’s surprise announcement that he planned to rule against the former Republican vice-presidential candidate after jurors finished their work.

The verdict, delivered on Tuesday by jurors in Manhattan, is the latest chapter in a closely watched libel trial that probed the inner workings of a national news outlet and tested the scope of legal protections for the media.

Jurors reached their judgment after a weeklong trial in which Ms. Palin and leading figures from the Times testified.

Ms. Palin filed her lawsuit in 2017 shortly after the Times published an editorial about gun violence and political rhetoric. The editorial referenced a 2011 shooting that killed six people and wounded then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat. It incorrectly suggested that an ad circulated by Ms. Palin’s political-action committee inspired the Arizona spree....

[U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff], a veteran jurist with a strong independent streak, concluded that Ms. Palin hadn’t presented sufficient evidence to prove the Times had acted with “actual malice,” meaning the outlet either knowingly published a false statement or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.

“This is an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of the Times,” he said, but added that the law sets a very high standard that Ms. Palin didn’t meet...

 

More Than 100 Million Watched Super Bowl LVI

I'm not surprised. 

It's the entertainment event of the year, blowing out all the competition, time and again. 

According to Forbes, "The live broadcast, featuring the LA Rams’ first #SuperBowl championship as an L.A. team, averaged 99.18 million viewers on NBC and an additional 1.03 million on Telemundo for an over-the-air tally of 100.21 million viewers."

Well, whoa doggie! Hold your horses!

Actually, according to the Athletic, "Super Bowl LVI watched by 112.3 million viewers, up 14% from last year."

Damn!

Cincinnati, Detroit and Pittsburgh (!) lead the local market ratings (average viewers) for #SBLVI:

1️⃣ Cincinnati — 46.1
2️⃣ Detroit — 45.9
3️⃣ Pittsburgh — 45.6
4️⃣ Columbus — 45.4
5️⃣ Kansas City — 44.6

H/T @Bill_Shea19

More: https://t.co/tjhpPaV3ln

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) February 15, 2022

Your Valentine's Day Special

I hope you got out there to buy your sweetie chocolate and flowers. 

We need more old-style romanticism in this country. Cucks suck. Show 'em how it's done before pounding 'em into the pavement.

On Twitter.

The World's Proletarian Working-Class Has Awoken! (And Progressive-Socialist Elites Won't Stand For It.)

Following up, "Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Invokes Canada's 'Emergencies Act' to Shut Down Truckers' Protest (VIDEO)."

The radical left in power is crushing dissent? Burying the working-class, the alleged dialectical-historic force now driving the world's workers toward the proletarian utopia? 

You don't say? 

Here's Batya:

The workers of the world are literally uniting. And yet these truckers have not been embraced by the left. Instead they have been tagged as fascists and racists by progressive pundits, activists, and politicians—those who tweeted “Stay Home! Slow the Spread!” while truckers delivered their Amazon Prime packages.

This spectacle—of workers fulfilling Marx’s fantasy, only to be smeared by the very people who claim to prioritize the working class—captures in stark relief the split emerging between the working class and the left that used to represent them...

Well, everything's upside down, so what the fuck? The populist-nationalists are gaining the upper hand, and idiot left-progressives are basically propelling the "far right" that they so much hate straight into power. 

Idiots. Bloody idiots, the lot of them.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Invokes Canada's 'Emergencies Act' to Shut Down Truckers' Protest (VIDEO)

This is tantamount to declaring martial law, over peaceful truckers protesting pandemic tyranny. Seriously. 

And Canada's supposed to be the West's model democracy, a nirvana of progressive tolerance and a social safety-net paradise.

Well, no. It's a dystopian nightmare with a disgusting black-face hypocrite tin-pot leader bringing back communist repression in real time. 

The New York Times nails it here, "Trudeau Declares Rare Public Emergency to Quell Protests":

The invocation of the Emergencies Act confers enormous, if temporary, power on the federal government.

It allows the authorities to move aggressively to restore public order, including banning public assembly and restricting travel to and from specific areas. But Mr. Trudeau and members of his cabinet offered repeated assurance that the act would not be used to suspend “fundamental rights.”

It has been half a century since emergency powers were last invoked in Canada. Mr. Trudeau’s father, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, imposed them during a terrorism crisis in Quebec. Monday was the first time that the 1988 Emergencies Act has been used.

The response by the police and all levels of government to the crisis, which included an almost weeklong blockade of an economically critical border crossing with the United States, has been widely criticized as inadequate. Mr. Trudeau, some critics contend, should have intervened earlier and perhaps even deployed troops to break up the protest.

On Monday, Mr. Trudeau said he would not use his authority under the declaration, which will last for 30 days, to bring in the military, reiterating his previous position against intervention by the armed forces...

Thirty days? Pfft. 

No one believes that. This is a state crackdown on popular dissent. The truckers' right to protest is substantiated by the majority in public opinion, though other surveys cast light on a different majority of Canadians, some hateful fire-breathing fascists looking to crush the truck convoy by military force. Trudeau claims he won't bring out the military, but who needs that when you've got your own gestapo arresting people in their own homes for not wearing a mask.

More, updates at the Ottawa Citizen, "Truck convoy: Trudeau invokes Emergencies Act; Judge approves city's injunction; 'Several' trucks moved off residential streets." 

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Canada’s Trudeau Invokes Emergency Powers to Address Trucker Protests":

OTTAWA—In a highly unusual move, the Canadian government on Monday invoked a series of emergency powers that include limits on public gatherings in a bid to end disruptive demonstrations in the capital city and along the Canada-U.S. border.

The measures, announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, represent one of the most striking responses by a Western government against protests by those opposing Covid-19 vaccine mandates and social restrictions in response to the pandemic, and immediately drew fire from some Canadian leaders and civil-liberties groups.

The government also said Monday the country was extending laws targeting money laundering to capture transactions, including cryptocurrencies, on crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe.

“It is now clear that there are serious challenges to law-enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce the law,” Mr. Trudeau said at a news conference. “We cannot and will not allow illegal and dangerous activities to continue.”

Mr. Trudeau’s move to invoke emergency powers comes after police on Sunday reopened access to the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit with the city of Windsor, Ontario. Up until late Sunday night, demonstrators had blocked incoming U.S. vehicles from entering Canada for roughly a week.

Officials said these extraordinary measures were necessary because of the damage done to the economy with the blocking of U.S.-Canada trade. Further, “we’ve seen intimidation, harassment and expressions of hate,” said Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Marco Mendicino, adding scenes in Ottawa have at times represented lawlessness. “That is one of the reasons why we’ve had to take [this] very careful and deliberate step.”

The prime minister’s decision to invoke the special powers faced sharp criticism Monday from both rights groups and some provincial leaders.

Quebec Premier François Legault said he can understand the sentiment that “enough is enough” in Ottawa but believes the planned measures aren’t needed in his province and could be damaging.

“We really need not to put oil on the fire,” Mr. Legault said.

An earlier and much more restrictive version of the legislation, called the War Measures Act, was invoked three times in Canadian history. Its most controversial use was in 1970, when Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, used the act when he was prime minister to squelch a militant separatist group in Quebec, known as the FLQ.

The government said its invocation of the act doesn’t undermine Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which came into force in 1982 and protects rights considered essential to preserving a free and democratic society. However, there is a debate about whether the government is overstepping in applying the act to those participating in protests and blockades.

Leah West, a national-security expert at Carleton University in Ottawa, said it is unclear that the current protests—in the capital, Ottawa, and at two border crossings in western Canada—meet the legal threshold of a national emergency. Invoking the Emergencies Act if that threshold isn’t met, she said, “sets a precedent that unpopular dissent against the government is enough for the government to take these extraordinary powers into its own hands.”

Prof. West said Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects civil liberties, but protection isn’t absolute. She said that means rights can be limited and still comply with the Charter.

The measures come into effect immediately but Mr. Trudeau must present his reasoning for using the act to parliament and hold a vote within seven days. The leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, said he would support the move, thereby giving the incumbent Liberals enough votes to ensure passage.

Mr. Trudeau said the military wasn’t being deployed against the protesters, and the government wasn’t suspending rights guaranteed under the country’s constitution. He added the measures, which local police forces would enforce, are meant to target specific regions in the country where protests are judged to pose a threat. Mr. Trudeau described the demonstration in Ottawa, now in its 18th day, as “an illegal occupation.”

City of Ottawa officials say the local police force doesn’t have the necessary resources to quell the demonstration, and have asked the federal government for an additional 1,800 officers.

Despite the government’s hard line, protesters believe their message is resonating.

“Any government that’s ever taken freedoms away from people never gives them back,” said Tyler Chiliak, a farmer from western Canada who has been in Ottawa since the Covid-19 protests began.

When he isn’t out commiserating with fellow protesters, he is keeping warm inside his cargo trailer, where he cooks food, keeps bottled water and sleeps.

“It may take a while before we accomplish our goals so to speak. But whether they like it or not things are happening because we are here,” Mr. Chiliak said.

Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland also said the country was extending laws targeting money laundering. All crowdfunding platforms and the payment-service provider they use must register with Canada’s financial-intelligence agency, and report what they deem as large, suspicious donations. The recent protests had success in raising money on GoFundMe...

At the video up top, check out this masked Canadian Karen, at 1:57 minutes, who's ashamed of the truckers' exercise of freedom and natural rights: "I just feel I'm living in another country, like I'm in the states ...," one of the most embarrassing things she's ever seen. 

She's embarrassed. At her fellow countrymen. For standing up against the despotism of the Canadian state.

Oh this world. I can't...

Thomas Chatterton Williams, Batya Ungar-Sargon Discussing Whoopi Goldberg on Briahna Joy Gray's (VIDEO)

Batya is a really fun lady to watch. I've never seen someone push a thesis (found in her book, Bad Faith) so consistently fierce.

She's great. Just fabulous.

SBLVI Most Valuable Player Aaron Donald

This is to take nothing --- absolutely nothing! --- off Cooper Kupp. Damn though, I'm not alone when I say this man was the MVP of the night, of the Rams franchise all year, and the entire NFL 2021-2022 season. 

Have you ever seen a grown man cry, like this?!! Pure heart. 

My goodness I was right there with him feelin' it. God bless that man. All he said all season long is we have to win the Super Bowl, and he worked harder than anyone else to get there. 

Volume on people!

WE DID THIS, @AARONDONALD97!!

📺: #SBLVI on NBC pic.twitter.com/wEtNE5R7DU

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) February 14, 2022

GIVE AARON DONALD HIS RING. #SBLVI #RAMSHOUSE pic.twitter.com/pCBiKkq1L7

— NFL (@NFL) February 14, 2022

"Aaron Donald's gonna make a play."

Sean McVay knew this was 99's moment. Epic. (via @NFLFilms, @insidetheNFL) pic.twitter.com/a0E6vSpsFH

— NFL (@NFL) February 14, 2022

Annie Agar at Super Bowl LVI

On Twitter.

She's a nationwide NFL/CFB reporter at Bally Sports, and a beauty. 

Los Angeles Rams Win Super Bowl LVI

What a moment. I'll have more, but for me, 2021-22 was the best football season ever.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Rams come up big when it counts, come back to beat Bengals in Super Bowl LVI."

Paige Spirinac: Bengals or Rams?

She's an openly enthusiastic Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Her dad played football with the University of Pittsburgh's Panther football program, winning a national championship in 1976. But she's not a Californian --- grew up in Colorado, in fact, and lives in Arizona.

So who knows? Maybe later today we'll see her announcing her loyalties, but not yet, not yet. 

What's Really at Stake in America's History Wars?

At WSJ, "In debates about monuments, curricula and renaming, the facts of the past matter less than how we are supposed to feel about our country":

In January, McMinn County, Tenn., made international news for perhaps the first time in its history when the school board voted to remove “Maus,” the acclaimed graphic novel about the Holocaust, from the 8th-grade curriculum. The board stated that it made the change on account of the book’s “use of profanity and nudity,” asking school administrators to “find other works that accomplish the same educational goals in a more age-appropriate fashion.”

This curricular change, affecting a few hundred of the approximately 5,500 K-12 students in McMinn’s public schools, was quickly amplified on social media into a case of book banning with shades of Holocaust denial. The author of “Maus,” Art Spiegelman, said that the decision had “a breath of autocracy and fascism.” “There’s only one kind of people who would vote to ban Maus, whatever they are calling themselves these days,” tweeted the popular fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, earning more than 170,000 likes. The controversy sent the book to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.

This outrage of the week will soon give way to another, but the war over history—how to remember it, represent it and teach it—is only getting fiercer. America’s political and cultural divisions increasingly take the form of arguments not about the future—what kind of country we want to be and what policies will get us there—but about events that are sometimes centuries in the past. The Holocaust, the Civil War, the Founding, the slave trade, the discovery of America—these subjects are constantly being litigated on social media and cable TV, in school boards and state legislatures.

None of those venues is well equipped to clarify what actually happened in the past, but then, the facts of history seldom enter into the war over history. Indeed, surveys regularly show how little Americans actually know about it. A 2019 poll of 41,000 people by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found that in 49 states, a majority couldn't earn a passing score on the U.S. citizenship test, which asks basic questions about history and government. (The honorable exception was Vermont, where 53% passed.)

Ironically, the year after the survey, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation announced that it would drop the historical reference in its own name, citing the 28th president’s “racist legacy.” It was part of a growing trend. Woodrow Wilson’s name was also dropped from Princeton University’s school of international affairs. Yale University renamed a residential college named for John C. Calhoun, the antebellum Southern politician who was an ardent defender of slavery. The San Francisco school board briefly floated a plan to drop the names of numerous historical figures from public schools for various reasons, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they were slaveholders.

It makes sense that educational institutions are leading the wave of renaming, because it is above all a teaching tool, one suited to the short attention span of today’s public debates. Actual historical understanding requires a much greater investment of effort and imagination than giving a thumbs up or down to this or that name. Often even a Wikipedia search seems to be too much to ask. One of the names that the San Francisco school board proposed to get rid of was Paul Revere’s, on the grounds that he was a leader of the Penobscot Expedition of 1779, which a board member believed was a campaign to conquer territory from the Penobscot Indians. In fact, it was a (failed) attempt to evict British naval forces from Penobscot Bay in Maine.

Clearly, the war over history has as much to do with the present as the past. To some extent, that’s true of every attempt to tell the story of the past, even the most professional and objective. In the 19th century, the German historian Leopold von Ranke saw it as his task to determine “how things really were,” but if that could be done, it wouldn’t be necessary for each generation of historians to write new books about the same subjects. We keep retelling the story of the Civil War or World War II not primarily because new evidence is discovered, but because the way we understand the evidence changes as the world changes.

That’s why so many of America’s historical battles have to do with race, slavery and colonialism—because no aspect of American society has changed more dramatically over time. It has never been a secret, for instance, that George Washington was a slaveholder. When he died in 1799, there were 317 enslaved people living at Mount Vernon.

But when Parson Weems wrote the first bestselling biography of Washington in 1800, he barely referred to the first president’s slaveholding, except for noting that in his will he provided for freeing his slaves, “like a pure republican.” When Weems does inveigh against “slavery” in the book, he is referring to British rule in America. For instance, he writes that the tax on tea, which led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, was meant to “insult and enslave” the colonies. Today it’s impossible to ignore this glaring contradiction. Weems didn’t notice it and clearly didn’t expect his readers to, either.

Another explanation for this blind spot can be found in the book’s full title: “The Life of George Washington: With curious anecdotes, equally honorable to himself and exemplary to his young countrymen.” Weems was a minister, and his goal was moral uplift. That’s why he avoided writing about Washington’s treatment of his slaves but included the dubious story about young George confessing to chopping down the cherry tree. The point was to show Washington in a light that would make readers want to be better themselves.

Today’s war over history involves the same didactic impulses. Fights over the past aren’t concerned with what happened so much as what we should feel about it. Most people who argue about whether Columbus Day should become Indigenous Peoples’ Day, regardless of what side they’re on, have only a vague sense of what Columbus actually did. The real subject of debate is whether the European discovery of America and everything that flowed from it, including the founding of the U.S., should be celebrated or regretted. Our most charged historical debates boil down to the same terms Weems used: Is America “exemplary” and “honorable,” or the reverse?

How we answer that question has important political ramifications, since the farther America is from the ideal, the more it presumably needs to change. But today’s history wars are increasingly detached from practical issues, operating purely in the realm of emotion and symbol. Take the “land acknowledgments” that many universities, arts institutions and local governments have begun to practice—the custom of stating the name of the Native American people that formerly occupied the local territory. For example, the Board of Supervisors of Pima County, Az., recently voted to begin its meetings with the statement, “We honor the tribal nations who have served as caretakers of this land from time immemorial and respectfully acknowledge the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O’odham Nation.”

To their supporters, land acknowledgments are a way of rectifying Americans’ ignorance or indifference about the people who inhabited the country before European settlement. The use of words like “caretakers” and “time immemorial,” however, raises historical questions that the Pima Board of Supervisors is presumably unqualified to answer. People have been living in what is now Arizona for 12,000 years: Were the Tohono O’odham Nation really in their territory “from time immemorial,” or might they have displaced an earlier population?

Of course, the Board has no intention of vacating Tucson and restoring the land to its former inhabitants, so the whole exercise can be seen as pointless. Still, by turning every public event into a memorial of dispossession, land acknowledgments have the effect of calling into question the legitimacy of the current inhabitants—that is, the people listening to the acknowledgment.

The fear that the very idea of America is being repudiated has led Republican legislators in many states to introduce laws regulating the teaching of American history. These are often referred to as “anti-critical race theory” laws, but in this context the term is just a placeholder for a deeper anxiety. The controversial law passed in Texas last year, for instance, doesn’t prevent teachers from discussing racism. On the contrary, House Bill 3979 mandates the study of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. , as well as Susan B. Anthony and Cesar Chavez. However, it does insist that students learn that “slavery and racism are…deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.” In other words, students should believe that the U.S. is “exemplary” and “honorable” in principle, if regrettably not in practice.

In the U.S., the war over history usually has to do with curricula and monuments because those are some of the only things the government can directly control. Removing “Maus” from the 8th-grade reading list can be loosely referred to as a “ban” only because actual book bans don’t exist here, thanks to the First Amendment. But other countries that are less free also have their history wars, and in recent years governments and ideologues have become bolder about imposing an official line.

In Russia last December, a court ordered the dissolution of Memorial, a highly respected nonprofit founded in 1989 to document the crimes of the Soviet era, after prosecutors charged that it “creates a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state.” In 2018, Poland made it illegal to attribute blame for the Holocaust to the “Polish nation.” In India in 2014, Penguin India agreed to stop publishing a book about the history of Hinduism by the respected American scholar Wendy Doniger, after a nationalist leader sued on the grounds that it focused on “the negative aspects” of the subject.

Such episodes are becoming more common with the rise of nationalist and populist movements around the world. When people invest their identity wholly in their nation, pointing out the evils in the nation’s past feels like a personal attack. Conversely, for people whose political beliefs hinge on distrusting nationalism, any refusal to focus on historic evils feels dangerous, like a tacit endorsement of them, as in the “Maus” episode. These extremes feed off one another, until we can only talk about the past in terms of praise or blame that would be too simple for understanding a single human being, much less a collection of millions over centuries.

It’s surprising to realize how quickly the American consensus on history has unraveled under the pressure of polarization...

Overdose Deaths in the U.S. Are Rising at Troubling Rate

One can't possibly imagine the loss of a loved one to opioids, among other things.

I mean, the loss of a loved one is tragic in any case, but death from overdose doubly so, as it creates so many "what ifs." It's not like losing a parent in the twilight years of life, for as sad as that is, it's an inevitability. (And both my parents are gone, so I'm speaking from experience.) But if I lost either one of my sons right now, to overdose especially, I think I'd probably fade away. My psychology hasn't been so great this last two years. I've had a lot of anxiety (especially in March 2020 and the overnight shift to emergency remote online instruction) and bouts of depression. The last thing I need is death in the family.

In any case, God bless those facing this crisis. It's unbearable, and worse, it's not one on the top of the radar of public policy. 

At the New York Times,  "A Rising Death Toll":

Drug overdoses now kill more than 100,000 Americans a year — more than vehicle crash and gun deaths combined.

Sean Blake was among those who died. He overdosed at age 27 in Vermont, from a mix of alcohol and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. He had struggled to find effective treatment for his addiction and other potential mental health problems, repeatedly relapsing.

“I do love being sober,” Blake wrote in 2014, three years before his death. “It’s life that gets in the way.”

Blake’s struggles reflect the combination of problems that have allowed the overdose crisis to fester. First, the supply of opioids surged. Second, Americans have insufficient access to treatment and other programs that can ease the worst damage of drugs.

Experts have a concise, if crude, way to summarize this: If it’s easier to get high than to get treatment, people who are addicted will get high. The U.S. has effectively made it easy to get high and hard to get help.

No other advanced nation is dealing with a comparable drug crisis. And over the past two years, it has worsened: Annual overdose deaths spiked 50 percent as fentanyl spread in illegal markets, more people turned to drugs during the pandemic, and treatment facilities and other services shut down.

The path to crisis

In the 1990s, drug companies promoted opioid painkillers as a solution to a problem that remains today: a need for better pain treatment. Purdue Pharma led the charge with OxyContin, claiming it was more effective and less addictive than it was.

Doctors bought into the hype, and they started to more loosely prescribe opioids. Some even operated “pill mills,” trading prescriptions for cash.

A growing number of people started to misuse the drugs, crushing or dissolving the pills to inhale or inject them. Many shared, stole and sold opioids more widely.

Policymakers and drug companies were slow to react. It wasn’t until 2010 that Purdue introduced a new formulation that made its pills harder to misuse. The C.D.C. didn’t publish guidelines calling for tighter prescribing practices until two decades after OxyContin hit the market.

In the meantime, the crisis deepened: Opioid users moved on to more potent drugs, namely heroin. Some were seeking a stronger high, while others were cut off from painkillers and looking for a replacement.

Traffickers met that demand by flooding the U.S. with heroin. Then, in the 2010s, they started to transition to fentanyl, mixing it into heroin and other drugs or selling it on its own.

Drug cartels can more discreetly produce fentanyl in a lab than heroin derived from large, open poppy fields. Fentanyl is also more potent than heroin, so traffickers can smuggle less to sell the same high.

Because of its potency, fentanyl is also more likely to cause an overdose. Since it began to proliferate in the U.S., yearly overdose deaths have more than doubled.

No one has a good answer for how to halt the spread of fentanyl. Synthetic drugs in general remain a major, unsolved question not just in the current opioid epidemic but in dealing with future drug crises as well, Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University drug policy expert, told me.

Other drug crises are looming. In recent years, cocaine and meth deaths have also increased. Humphreys said that historically, stimulant epidemics follow opioid crises.

Neglecting solutions

A robust treatment system could have mitigated the damage from increasing supplies of painkillers, heroin and fentanyl. But the U.S. has never had such a system.

Treatment remains inaccessible for many...

Still more.

 

Cal Newport, A World Without Email

At Amazon, Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload.

College Students Forgot How to Talk to Each Other

The Democrat Party pandemic lockdown policies have set back, if not destroyed, a generation of young people, and not just school children. 

I know this first hand from my oldest, 26, who moved to San Francisco to start at S.F. State in February 2020. He came back home after one semester in The City, depressed and disappointed at how isolated and inferior was his college experience compared his time at Santiago Canyon College in Orange Park Acres. 

I also know this from teaching college students online for two years. I'm on my fifth semester in a transition to "remote emergency instruction" that was expected to brief and temporary. Even this semester, where my college has gone back to full in-person on-campus classes, more than 50 percent of those enrolled are taking their courses online. Indeed, the enrollment was so low in some of the campus-based classes that over two dozen were cancelled in my department alone. 

You're not getting the full college experience --- and excellence in education --- with online classes. It's good for some very motivated students who thrive in the intense atmosphere of digital learning space, but in my experience, it's not for most. I'm expecting to hear soon about my class schedule for fall, where I've requested to teach all on campus. We'll see how that goes. It feels weird to even be possibly going back. I feel like I need to retrain myself, to get myself fit for teaching in person. Seriously. My lectures are quite stentorian, and I need to be in good cardio-vascular condition. I don't feel like that right now, as I haven't been physically training during the pandemic lockdown. 

This summer I'll be changing my daily routine if all works out and I'm set to resume going to work everyday,  like I used to for 20 years.

In any case, at the Wall Street Journal, "College Students Have to Learn How to Make Small Talk Again":

When students at San Jose State University returned to campus last fall after more than a year of remote learning, lecturer Damon Moon thought they would be chatty and excited to see one another. Instead, he noticed something concerning: They weren’t talking at all.

Before class, students were looking at their phones or laptops. Even in the campus cafeteria, Mr. Moon saw that most students were eating alone, sandwich in one hand, phone in the other.

“They lost the skill to have small talk,” said Mr. Moon, who teaches international business classes. To get a close-up look at this phenomenon, I spoke to Mr. Moon and his students at the university.

“When I was in elementary school or middle school, if I wanted to talk to someone new, I would go up to them and try to strike up a conversation,” said Kian Kashefi, a 19-year-old business accounting major. Now, he said, “it feels weird to talk to anybody new without first connecting on social media.”

In a prolonged pandemic that has shifted more interactions online, college students are finding it harder to strike up conversations and make friends. In the past, socializing wasn’t just a perk but also a big incentive for students choosing campus life.

College instructors worry that if they don’t do something to facilitate conversation in class, their students will be unprepared to enter the workforce. To overcome screen-reinforced social awkwardness, some even lean on smartphones and web browsers to encourage students to interact.

Researchers from three universities surveyed nearly 33,000 college students around the U.S. and found two-thirds were struggling with loneliness in the fall of 2020. More than a year later, many students, including those at San Jose State, had returned to remote instruction after winter break because of the Omicron Covid-19 surge.

Joel Figueroa, a 20-year-old business major, said that since the pandemic began he has become more nervous about talking to people. “I was much more confident in my abilities before,” he said.

While technology has enabled him to remain in touch with friends, it has undermined his in-person interactions, he said. “My connections with friends offline would definitely be deeper if we were not so attached to our devices,” he said.

Even older students I talked to, who didn’t grow up with as much technology or spend formative years in a pandemic, are finding it hard to make connections.

“I didn’t form relationships with any students when I went back to campus last fall,” said Megan Dela Rosa, a 43-year-old business major. “Everyone had their masks on and you didn’t know anyone’s comfort level.” She added, “I just went to class, got my work done and left.”

Anna Touneh transferred to San Jose State from a community college last fall. Since school began this year online, the 32-year-old said talking to students has only become more awkward.

In one class recently, small groups of students went to Zoom breakout rooms to work on an assignment. Ms. Touneh said in her group, no one had their cameras on and no one spoke. “It took me six minutes to say something,” she said. “I finally gathered the courage, but it was very meek. I said, ‘Hey, guys, so what are we supposed to be doing?’”

Runhua Yang, a 43-year-old business major, said she’s normally extroverted but the pandemic has made it more difficult to express herself. Masks have made it harder for teachers to hear her, she said, causing her to speak up less often. “If a professor doesn’t encourage participation, I stay quiet,” she said.

Parents and psychologists were already concerned that phone usage was negatively affecting social-skill development among young people, even before the pandemic, according to Danielle Ramo, chief clinical officer at BeMe Health, a mobile platform for teen mental health. In a previous job, she helped develop an app called Nod to help college students improve their social lives by challenging them to do things like smile at five new people or keep their dorm-room doors open in the evening...

 

Nina Jankowicz

This woman wrote a very compelling thread last night, here: "82 years ago this week, my grandfather, aged 10, was deported along with his family from present day Ukraine (then Poland) to a Soviet work camp ... In part because of his deportation, I’m sitting on Twitter tonight, writing about current Russian threats to the same land."

RTWT.

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday

Our greatest president was born today, February 12, 1809, in LaRue County, Kentucky, literally in a log cabin.

Historian Michael Beschloss reminds us. 

Children Are Facing Learning and Speech Delays Due to Being Masked for Two Years

At AoSHQ, "'Kids are resilient!' -- The only harms we have to worry about are those suffered by the adult teachers!"

Wow! Tulsi Gabard: Washington Neocons/Warmongers Leading the U.S. Relentlessly to War in Ukraine (VIDEO)

She's wild. 

The neocons/warmongers have spent years stoking the new cold war with Russia and have now brought us to the brink in Ukraine—this serves their own interests, and lines the pocket of the Military Industrial Complex with trillion$. Let’s not be sheep. pic.twitter.com/jgZEKgtyLT

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) February 12, 2022

David A. Cooper, Arms Control for the Third Nuclear Age

At Amazon, David A. Cooper, Arms Control for the Third Nuclear Age: Between Disarmament and Armageddon.

U.S. Says Russian Invasion of Ukraine Could Be Imminent: Biden Administration Warns U.S. Citizens to Leave Country as 'Soon as Possible' (VIDEO)

I almost can't contemplate a major European land-war in Europe in 2022. It seems unreal, though I don't doubt the intelligence. It's weird because Russia's a weak mid-level power whose leader is not unlike Kim Jong Un --- one who bluffs, blusters, and bullies until any and all opposition to Moscow's aims melt aside amid craven national self-interests in the West. 

No, we don't have to send U.S. troops to Ukraine. 

We do need to do something, and not the continuation of Biden's weaselly warnings that Moscow will pay a "terrible price!" should Russian troops waltz right on in. Pfft. 

At the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Says Russia Could Invade Ukraine at Any Time":

WASHINGTON—The White House said Friday it believes Russia could invade Ukraine at any time with a major military action and urged Americans to leave the country as soon as possible.

In the White House briefing room Friday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. wouldn’t conduct a military evacuation of citizens from a war zone. He said Americans should leave Ukraine on their own in the next 24 to 48 hours while land, rail and air routes out of the country remain open, in the most pointed directive yet from the White House.

“We are in the window when an invasion could begin at any time should [Russian President] Vladimir Putin decide to order it.”

He added: “If a Russian attack on Ukraine proceeds it is likely to begin with aerial bombing and missile attacks that could obviously kill civilians without regard to their nationality. A subsequent ground invasion would involve the onslaught of a massive force. With virtually no notice, communications to arrange a departure could be severed and commercial transit halted.”

Mr. Sullivan said an invasion could occur during the Winter Olympics. Until Friday, many U.S. officials and outside analysts believed that if Mr. Putin were to order an invasion, he might await the conclusion of the Games on Feb. 20 out of deference to Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he would be disinclined to upstage with a military incursion.

The U.S. wasn’t closing the door on diplomacy, however, and President Biden, who is at the presidential retreat Camp David in rural Maryland this weekend, was expected to speak with Mr. Putin in coming days, Mr. Sullivan said.

While U.S. officials declined to detail the new intelligence, some of it appears to consist of fresh signs that Moscow is preparing a pretext to invade its neighbor. The intelligence, officials said, has pushed forward the Biden administration’s understanding of Mr. Putin’s timeline.

“The level of concern is increasing on the imminence” of an invasion, one official said.

Oil prices jumped to fresh eight-year highs Friday on fears of an invasion, while U.S. stocks and bond yields sank, with investors fleeing to safer assets. The S&P 500 had tumbled 1.9% as of the 4 p.m. ET close of trading. The Nasdaq Composite erased 2.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 504 points, or 1%.

Mr. Sullivan said the disposition of Russian forces around Ukraine’s borders showed Russia was positioned to mount a major military action in Ukraine any day now, but said the U.S. didn’t know whether Mr. Putin had made a “final decision.”

“Russia could choose in very short order to commence a major military action against Ukraine,” he said. “We are ready either way.”

Mr. Sullivan said the U.S. envisioned a large-scale incursion by Mr. Putin. U.S. officials have said that an invasion could result in 25,000 to 50,000 civilians killed or wounded if Russia mounted an all-out attack and sought to occupy the entire country.

“I can’t obviously predict what the exact shape or scope of the military action will be…but there are very real possibilities that it will involve the seizure of a significant amount of territory in Ukraine and the seizure of major cities including the capital,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Ukrainian and U.S. officials say Russian action could also take the form of cyberattacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructure, sabotage, or efforts to undermine the Ukrainian state.

U.S. officials estimate as many as 35,000 Americans were in Ukraine at the start of the year, although as few as 7,000 are registered with the State Department.

Mr. Sullivan’s comments echo a statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier Friday.

“As we’ve said before, we’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time—and to be clear that includes during the Olympics,” Mr. Blinken said in Melbourne, Australia.

Also Friday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the Pentagon said. The two generals “discussed several security-related issues of concern.” And President Biden discussed the Ukraine crisis with the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and European Union allies.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said Friday that it would deploy an additional 3,000 troops to bolster the defenses of NATO allies that could house and support Americans evacuating from Ukraine. U.S. officials said earlier this week that hundreds of U.S. troops would be deployed inside Poland along its border with Ukraine to help facilitate the safe evacuation of Americans and others from inside Ukraine.

The U.S. troops aren’t authorized to enter Ukraine, nor will any evacuations involve U.S. aircraft, officials have said.

In warning of the Russian military buildup, Mr. Sullivan was referring to the deployment by Moscow of more than 100,000 troops to the border with Ukraine, the movement toward Ukraine of heavy weaponry from bases in the Russian Far East, and the movement of Russian troops and missile batteries into Belarus.

To bolster the military position of the Kyiv government against Russia’s overwhelming advantage in air, sea, artillery, missiles and manpower, the U.S. and NATO countries have been transporting defensive weaponry to Ukraine. Those include small-arms ammunition, mortar and artillery shells, antitank guided missiles, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, grenade launchers, explosive- ordnance disposal suits and Mossberg 500 pump-action shotguns, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. The shipments haven’t included advanced antiship missiles or sophisticated air-defense systems.

Russia has denied it intends to invade its neighbor. But Moscow says NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War poses a threat to its security and has demanded the alliance swear off ever adding Ukraine and pull back troops from its eastern flank.

While rejecting Moscow’s demands regarding the future of NATO’s security posture, the U.S. and NATO have offered Moscow a menu of reciprocal proposals that would provide for inspections of U.S. missile defense sites in Poland and Romania and curbs on military exercises. At the same time, the U.S. and Europe have threatened crippling sanctions aimed at Russian banks and industry and the nation’s economy in the event of an incursion.

 

Frontier Women

The provider, living the life.

And a lovely beauty here.

Plus Helga Lovekaty.

The Unbearable Pressure of Winning the Olympics (VIDEO)

It's not just the Olympics, of course. But as these games come only once every four years, the pressure to excel and take home medals is astronomical. Most of those competing are kids. I mean, Lindsey Jacobellis, now 36, probably would've retired years ago if she hadn't blown her near-victory run in 2006, 16 years ago, when she was just 19-years-old. (She finally won her gold medal. It's a good thing. Another wipe out in Beijing would have left a permanent scar on her psychiatric frame for the rest of her life.)

And now we have this poor woman Mikaela Shiffrin who, in Beijing, when the pressure was on, just couldn't cut it this one time --- and she'd been dominating her sport for years and has been called one of the world's greatest skiers of all time.

But she's utterly broken, emotionally drained and psychologically mauled, questioning her very life at this point. 

She can barely talk at the video here, her voice starts cracking with sobs, and all the idiot NBC interviewer can ask is, "What are you feeling?" What the fuck  d'you think she's feeling?!!. She said she's questioning the last 15 fucking of her life. My god, no wonder people were up in arms at NBC's merciless coverage of her wallowing in pain --- for a full 20 minutes --- at the side of the course, simply trying to comprehend it all. 

Oh, the agony of defeat. 

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Olympic athletes deal with expectations, which leads to crushing pressure":

The girl who failed… could also fly. pic.twitter.com/EZJVY03DPc

— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) February 11, 2022

BEIJING — The world’s most famous skier had kicked off her skis and dropped her poles. Sitting alone in the snow, she buried her head in her hands. Other racers zipped past as the women’s slalom event at the Beijing Olympics continued. But Mikaela Shiffrin, who had skidded out of control and missed a gate near the top of the course, did not move. She remained off to the side for 20 minutes.

“There’s a lot of disappointment over the last week,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotions.”

In what will be an enduring if wrenching moment from these Games, her anguish over failing to finish, much less medal, in the second consecutive event in a little over 48 hours highlighted the unrelenting pressure athletes face at a global competition that comes around once every four years.

For some, the Games have become a suffocating crucible that drains much of the joy from the sport they love.

Even before arriving in Beijing, the 26-year-old Shiffrin acknowledged the Olympics are often “very uncomfortable the entire time” because athletes “literally feel the expectations from the whole world around you.”

At the figure skating venue, an hour or so to the southeast, California-born Beverly Zhu — competing for China — endured similar heartbreak after falling twice during the women’s team competition. Jamie Anderson, the two-time slopestyle gold medalist, posted a raw message on Instagram after finishing an unexpected ninth.

“At the end of the day I just straight up couldn’t handle the pressure,” she wrote, “had an emotional breakdown the night before finals and my mental health and clarity just hasn’t been on par.”

Even Chloe Kim, who became the first woman to win consecutive halfpipe golds, acknowledged her mental health struggles, telling reporters: “It’s unfair to be expected to be perfect.”

Watching Olympians land a double cork 1620 jump, rocket down the side of a mountain at 90 mph or navigate 16 curves headfirst on a skeleton sled can obscure the reality that they can have ordinary struggles despite their extraordinary ability.

“Pressure can be an asset to people at times, bringing out their best,” said Edward Hirt, a professor of brain sciences and psychology at Indiana University. “Those moments are the ones that we think separate the greats from the rest of the pack. But we also know that those pressures can be debilitating and make you choke. I suspect the pressure mounts as people have been successful in the past.”

The Olympics are a unique stage in that athletes can feel the additional burden of representing their country while receiving more attention, if not scrutiny, than at any other time in their careers. They are hyped relentlessly in this made-for-television spectacle, and sometimes castigated when they do not perform as predicted.

These challenges are heightened in a time of pandemic, when athletes are kept in a bubble, separated from the support of family or friends. They must take daily coronavirus tests amid the lingering worry that a positive result — even a false positive — can knock them out of competition.

“Uncertainty creates a lot of pressure,” said Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist who is president of Barnard College and author of the book “Choke,” which explores performing under pressure. “We, as normal people do the ‘what ifs,’ Olympians do that, too.”

Lindsey Jacobellis made a late mistake that cost her a gold medal during the snowboardcross race at the 2006 Torino Games that haunted her for years. She won the event Wednesday at age 36 to become the oldest U.S. woman to medal at the Winter Olympics. “Some days, I really don’t like it,” Jacobellis said of the pressure...

 

Teen Girls' Sexy TikTok Videos Take a Mental-Health Toll

Our society’s completely FUBAR.

At WSJ, "Girls are often anxious and overwhelmed by the attention they get after posting suggestive videos; therapists say more are suffering emotionally":

When Jula Anderson joined TikTok at age 16, her first video featured her family’s home renovations. It got five likes. After seeing others post risqué videos and get more likes, she tried it, too.

“I wanted to get famous on TikTok, and I learned that if you post stuff showing your body, people will start liking it,” Jula, now an 18-year-old high-school senior near Sacramento, Calif., said.

Sudden TikTok fame is catching teens off guard, leaving many girls unprepared for the attention they thought they wanted, according to parents, therapists and teens. In some cases, predators target girls who make sexually suggestive videos; less-dangerous interactions can also harm girls’ self-esteem and leave them feeling exploited, they say.

Mental-health professionals around the country are growing increasingly concerned about the effects on teen girls of posting sexualized TikTok videos. Therapists say teens who lack a group of close friends, and teens with underlying mental health issues—especially girls who struggle with disordered eating and body-image issues—are at particular risk.

“For a young girl who’s developing her identity, to be swept up into a sexual world like that is hugely destructive,” said Paul Sunseri, a psychologist and director of the New Horizons Child and Family Institute in El Dorado Hills, Calif., where Jula began receiving treatment last year for anxiety and depression. “When teen girls are rewarded for their sexuality, they come to believe that their value is in how they look,” he said.

He said approximately a quarter of the female patients at his clinic have produced sexualized content on TikTok.

Carter Barnhart, co-founder of Charlie Health, a virtual mental-health care provider, said a growing number of teens she treats report their self-esteem is dependent on the quantity of likes they get on TikTok. “Many of them have figured out that the formula for that is producing more sexual content,” she said.

Videos just ‘for you’ 

Teens’ dependence on TikTok for social validation has risen as the app has become their favored platform. TikTok overtook Instagram in popularity among teens last year—and became the most visited site on the internet.

TikTok’s algorithm regularly propels virtual nobodies onto millions of viewers’ For You pages. TikTok weighs whether viewers show strong interest in a particular type of content, measured by whether they finish watching videos, the company says. Its recommendation engine then chooses videos to send to those viewers, regardless of the creator’s follower count or past video virality.

Platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Twitter work differently, serving content to users based on search terms and friend connections, so developing a sizable following—and going viral—on those sites can take longer.

“We think carefully about the well-being of teens as we design our safety and privacy settings and restrict features on TikTok by age,” a TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement. “We’ve also worked with youth safety experts to develop resources aimed at supporting digital safety and literacy conversations among parents and teens.”

A company fact sheet says “content that is overtly sexually suggestive may not be eligible for recommendation.” The spokeswoman said content from users who state they are under 16 isn’t eligible for promotion via the recommendation engine, nor would it appear in search results.

Teens are known to lie about their age when creating social-media accounts. Users must be 13 to create a TikTok account, and it is company policy to suspend the accounts of kids the safety team believes to be underage.

At Newport Academy’s outpatient treatment program in Atlanta, 60% of the girls treated since the program started last summer have posted sexually inappropriate videos on TikTok, said Crystal Burwell, the program’s director of outpatient services.

One 16-year-old girl Dr. Burwell is treating made progressively more suggestive videos. “The more likes she had, the more revealing her outfits became,” she said.

The girl ended up chatting with a man who urged her to take their conversation off TikTok and into a messaging app. The girl sent the man partially nude photos of herself and the two were making plans to meet in person when her parents discovered the texts, according to Dr. Burwell.

“When you combine human behavior and algorithms, things get messy,” Dr. Burwell said. “We’re trying to clean it up, one client at a time.”

TikTok famous

A few months after she joined the app in the summer of 2019, Jula Anderson’s wish for TikTok fame came true. A video of her wearing a tightfitting tank top and lip-syncing the pop song “Sunday Best” blew up. For reasons Jula and her mother, Shauna Anderson, still don’t understand, TikTok’s algorithm pushed the video to viewers’ For You pages. More than a million people viewed the video and nearly 500,000 people liked it, they both said.

Jula’s following went from a few hundred to more than 200,000. There was nothing overtly sexual about the video, she and her mother said, but her video’s comments were inundated with boys and men saying how hot she looked. Buoyed by the success, Jula made her videos more risqué, including by lip-syncing lyrics about sex and getting more revealing in her wardrobe choices. “I’d wear clothes that I wouldn’t wear to school but that I felt good in,” she said. “I didn’t view them as that sexual, but other people did.”

By then, she was constantly checking her likes. “It was my whole world,” she said.

Her parents weren’t aware of how suggestive the videos had gotten until Jula’s grandparents, tipped off by cousins, alerted them.

“To us, she’s this sweet girl, so it’s almost like this split personality between who she really is and how she portrayed herself on TikTok,” Ms. Anderson said. “When we confronted her about it, she was like, ‘Mom, that’s what everyone is doing.’”

Ms. Anderson said that her daughter didn’t have a close group of friends, and she thinks the isolation of the pandemic intensified her need to find connection. “She thought this was a way to be liked and have friends,” Ms. Anderson said. “I struggled with what to do, because the thing I love about TikTok is that kids can be really creative, and we encouraged that as a family.”

Worried about dangers that might arise from publicly viewable videos, Jula’s parents asked her to delete the suggestive ones. They also discussed the issue in family and individual therapy sessions.

Jula, who said she had a history of anxiety before joining TikTok, said the widespread attention and creepy comments from men had become difficult to handle. Comments critical of her appearance also stung.

Following the intervention, she chose to step away from TikTok for a few months. She said it was hard. In the middle of last year, she returned to the app but created a new account that she set to private. She has just a few followers—people she knows in real life. She said she rarely posts now.

Jula said she ultimately decided that the suggestive videos weren’t how she wanted to portray herself to the world, or to younger girls who might see them. She has four younger sisters and said she doesn’t want them to seek or receive attention the way she did.

“I think I tried growing up a lot faster than I should have,” Jula said...

Keep reading.

 

'Luxury Dream Model' Eileen Gu

I mentioned it the other day, "...she's a freakin' hotsie-totsie high-fashion cover model who's graced the front of Vogue Hong Kong." 

Apparently she's been on the cover of Vogue China's bimonthly edition.

At CNN, "Why Eileen Gu is luxury fashion's dream model":

For followers of freestyle skiing and fashion alike, the buzz surrounding Winter Olympian Eileen Gu at this year's Games has come as little surprise.

The 18-year-old's gold medal performance in the big air competition thrust her into the global spotlight Tuesday, sparking such a furor in China that social media platform Weibo crashed under the weight of interest. But Gu has spent years establishing herself as both a top athlete and a hugely bankable model who appeals to brands in both Asia and the West.

In 2021, as she won gold medals at the skiing World Championships and Winter X Games, Gu was also forging lucrative partnerships with fashion houses and luxury labels. Signing for IMG Models, the agency representing Bella Hadid, Kate Moss and Hailey Bieber, she has penned deals with Louis Vuitton, Victoria's Secret and Tiffany & Co., as well as the luxury Swiss watchmaker IWC and cosmetics brand Estée Lauder, among others.

In fact, the California-born athlete is among the most heavily sponsored athletes at these Olympics. She arrived in Beijing with more than 20 commercial partnerships, ranging from Beats by Dre headphones to Cadillac.

But it is Gu's mass appeal in China, where she is known by her Chinese name Gu Ailing and has been nicknamed the "Snow Princess," that makes her especially valuable to brands.

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Having switched her sporting allegiance to her mother's home country in 2019, Gu's fluency in Mandarin has helped secure her place on Chinese TV ads, billboards and even milk cartons (as the face of Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu Dairy). E-commerce giant JD.com, cafe chain Luckin Coffee and telecoms firm China Mobile are among the growing list of mainland brands that she's modeled for in recent months.

China is on track to become the world's largest luxury market by 2025, according to consulting firm Bain. The Asian edition of marketing and advertising industry magazine Campaign estimated that new endorsements there could be earning the athlete around 15 million yuan ($2.5 million) apiece -- and that was before her gold-medal success.

According to Bohan Qiu, whose Shanghai-based creative agency Boh Project works with major fashion brands, Gu's surging popularity in the country comes at a time when nationalist pride in China has seen "the relevance of Western celebrities" decrease.

"For this generation, a lot of the celebrities here are quite domestic-oriented -- so (Gu) being half-American half-Chinese, and speaking both languages fluently, has a very global appeal," he said over the phone, adding that the country's Gen Z demographic contains "third culture kids" who simultaneously understand Chinese and Western contexts. "She is definitely a once-in-a-decade type of talent."

Gu has coupled big-money deals with reputable magazine features and appearances at A-list fashion shows. Spotted at events like Paris Fashion Week as far back as 2019, she has since been seen on Louis Vuitton's front row and the notoriously exclusive Met Gala, where she arrived on the red carpet wearing a Carolina Herrera bubble dress.

"The fashion world has helped balance my training," she told Vogue Hong Kong, appearing on the cover of the magazine's July issue. "Just like skiing, modeling requires incredible expression and personality. It requires creativity, confidence, and the ability to learn and adapt... The transition between modeling and skiing became a break and a practice for each other that helped me eventually feel more motivated in each area."

Gu has also appeared on the cover of Chinese editions of GQ and Elle. And as guest editor of Vogue China's Gen-Z-focused bimonthly issue, Vogue+, the athlete recently explored the complexities of her identity under the theme "code switch."

"I wanted to explore and showcase the inherently malleable nature of adolescent identities, Gu wrote on Instagram, "a quality I've found myself tapping into time and time again as I display different facets of myself (athlete, model, student, Chinese, American, teenager, writer, public persona, etc) in different environments. Everyone code switches, and I think it's time we start celebrating that multifaceted nature."

Gu's social media is also littered with fashion. Whether posting to Instagram or writing to millions of followers on Xiaohongshu and Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Instagram and Twitter, respectively), her feeds flit between sport and style, with pictures from the slopes posted alongside modeling shots and her latest fashion editorials...

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The Unbearable Bleakness of American Schooling

A phenomenal essay, from Robert Pondiscio, at Commentary, "How contemporary education fetishizes the bad and the broken in American life":

On a mild October night in 1962, a frightened housewife, eight months pregnant, climbed into bed in Yonkers, New York, with her two-year-old daughter. Her husband was at work on the West Coast and not with his family on what she felt certain would be the last night of their lives. Laying down in the dark holding her child, she cried and prayed until sleep overtook her.

Morning came and they were both still alive, not incinerated in bed as she had feared after President Kennedy shocked the nation with his televised address on the Cuban missile crisis the night before.

I was born five weeks later. Days before my first birthday, Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas. By the time I started kindergarten on Long Island, nearly 30,000 American GIs had been killed in Vietnam. I learned to read in Mrs. Bobrowitz’s first-grade class the same year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; race riots tore apart Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and other cities the summer before I started second grade. My elementary-school years were marked by levels of domestic unrest and political violence that in retrospect stagger the imagination. There were more than 1,900 domestic bombings in 1972 alone. Airplane hijackings were common. My dad flew for American Airlines.

My parents made no attempt that I’m aware of to shield me from the turbulent events of my childhood years. I thumbed the New York Daily News every morning after checking the Mets box score; I plucked Newsday out of the mailbox when I came home from school. The television was rarely turned off in our home. I watched Eyewitness News at 6 p.m. and, once I was allowed to stay up late, again at 11. It became a forgone conclusion that I would someday work in the news business after I had stayed up all night mesmerized by Jim McKay’s coverage of the Black September terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics the summer I was nine. Vietnam stretched far enough into my middle-school years that I wondered whether it would be over before I was old enough to be drafted.

In short, I grew up understanding that the world could be a dangerous place of unpredictable menace.

But I was not tyrannized by this knowledge.

I went to school, played unsupervised in the street, and had blanket permission to range widely on my bike, far from my neighborhood, provided I was home when the streetlights came on. Adults were not omnipresent as they tend to be in children’s lives today, but they seemed in charge and mostly competent. I also knew one thing with certainty about my country, reinforced by my parents and teachers and in the media and culture at large: We were the good guys.

*****

The mental landscape of American childhood is very different today. By any reasonable measure, the world is safer and more stable than at any time in living memory. Adults could hardly be more active in children’s lives, but at the same time we seem less inclined to play a reassuring role. This is particularly true in schools, where curricula and school culture seem nearly to revel in the bad and the broken, suggesting to children that they have suffered the great misfortune to have been born into a country that is racist to its core, whose founding documents were lies when written, and where democracy is hanging by a thread. Not that it matters, since we are just a few short years away from irreversible climate catastrophe, all but certain to render the world a spent and burned-out husk by the time they are grown. Neither is it a given that American children will internalize the idea that their country is a force for good in the world or an engine of freedom and prosperity. In fact, quite the opposite.

Forget adult competence. Children are told, sometimes explicitly in school and in the broader culture, that the world is counting on them for deliverance from problems grown-ups heedlessly created and have proven incapable of solving. In 2019, Time magazine named 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg the youngest “person of the year” in its history. A group of Parkland, Florida, high-school gun-control activists topped the magazine’s list of the world’s most influential people. The article praising their efforts was written by Barack Obama.

Worst of all, this pedagogy of the depressed—America the Problematic—is thought to be a virtue among professional educators who view it as a mark of seriousness and sophistication...

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