I spend probably too much time thinking about faces, but lately there have been so many weird ones out there, and so many have an indelible connection with you-know-who. A few weeks ago, Mrs. T No. 1 was on her book tour, and ay-yi-yi:
Over the weekend, as you probably know, some fans of Mrs. T No. 1’s first husband held a fundraiser/tribute for him at his Florida club. OF course someone snapped a picture:
I almost shrieked when I saw that. I believe many of these women are the Trumpettes, Mar-a-Lago ladies of a certain age. I have sympathy for women who grow up trading on their looks, although I was never able to do so myself. Sooner or later the thief of time comes for all of us, and the more you’re invested in your own beauty, the harder it is to let go. The biggest tragedy of “Bombshell,” the Hedy Lamarr documentary I saw a couple weeks ago, was how even this flawless beauty, as smart as she was, found herself bound to the ideal of her looks, and augured into the plastic-surgery merry-go-round. By the last years of her life she lived as a recluse, unable to face the world with her weirdly distorted face.
Do we wind up with the faces we deserve? You may have heard that Mean Girl Megyn Kelly had a little celebrity tiff with Jane Fonda a few days ago. Kelly pressed Fonda to talk about plastic surgery she’d had, under the guise of explaining why she “looks so great.” Fonda was pretty graceful about it at first, crediting a “good attitude, good posture and taking care of myself” before trying to pivot back to the movie she had been sent to promote, but Kelly wasn’t having it. All the while, Robert Redford, Fonda’s co-star, sat next to her. Have you seen Robert Redford in the last few years? He’s no stranger to the plastic-surgery clinic, let me tell you, but Kelly didn’t want to talk about his face work. And you could argue that Redford was, in his youth, more well-known as much for his rugged handsomeness than Fonda ever was. (Of course, women in Hollywood are just expected to be beautiful.)
If I reach Fonda’s current age (80), I of course will never look as good as this:
But I hope I’ll have her sense of humor:
So, what a few days, eh? In Michigan, we’ve been gripped by the filibuster of misery unfolding in Ingham County, where disgraced Dr. Larry Nassar is awaiting sentencing for counts related to years of systematic sexual abuse of young women connected to the Michigan State and U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics program. More than 120 women have stood to give victim-impact statements, and it’s simply devastating.
What’s even more dismaying is the reaction of the MSU administration, which appears to have learned nothing from the Penn State disaster a few years ago. Today — TODAY — one trustee went on a radio show and dismissed “this Nassar thing” as though it was a nuisance lawsuit brought by a crackpot and not an occasion of shame upon all who came close to it over the years it went on.
This is going to be very, very bad.
Oh, I am tiring quickly and must watch a little TV before making my way to my warm bed. Happy Wednesday, all.
BigHank53 said on January 23, 2018 at 9:31 pm
Is there anyone in the pool of potential jurors that will be listening to the cases against MSU that didn’t just add another zero (or two) to any award after hearing that dolt wave off a couple decades of sexual predation? A walking example of rape culture…like we needed another one.
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beb said on January 23, 2018 at 10:21 pm
I have no idea if Sophia Loren has had work done on her but she looks as glamorous today as she ever did.
I think we should just shun the Olympics. Between all the cheating, glorification of nationalism and the abuse of the women athletes there’s no good reason to participate.
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brian stouder said on January 23, 2018 at 10:58 pm
Betcha Ms Fonda is making a self-deprecating joke (since clearly she had to have the second photo snapped by another person), and that the second photo was really the first.
The predator/doctor should get real prison time, and not one of those mimimum security deals…..and as a tax payer (even if not a Michigan tax payer), I think the school should catch a break or two (maybe knock a few zeros off of whatever the settlement ends up being), even as all their programs get the fine-tooth comb treatment (and enablers get fired)
The year 2018 feels like a pivot-point – maybe similar to how the country pivoted away from (openly-condoned) institutional racism in the mid-1960’s.
Openly-condoned (or thoughtlessly accepted) objectification of women – by Hollywood and by corporate America (if not by the guys at the bar on football night, or whatever) has maybe crossed into obsolescence and socially unacceptable territory.
I suppose geezers would say women DID have respect in the old-old days, when women wore bras; and before there was “the pill”…
wherein “respect” means ‘women knew their place’
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Jerrie said on January 23, 2018 at 11:13 pm
Today’s Classic Doonesbury in the Washington Post comics section fits nicely here:
http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/
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alex said on January 23, 2018 at 11:49 pm
I just finished watching Frontline’s latest documentary on the refugee crisis in Europe and it’s left me an absolute emotional wreck. I’d still urge people to see it nonetheless. In normal times we would be welcoming and resettling these people. In that kind of anarchy I would surely perish, and so would many of us. There but for the grace of God go I.
Glad the ladies of the View are biting back at MeGyn Kelly, the empty Fox cocktease whose journalistic accolades rank right up there with Donald Trump’s vaunted business acumen.
For having had work done, Jane looks damn good at 80 compared to Ivana at 68. I don’t think I have the stomach to look at Ivana sans makeup. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, I’d say she’s getting sweet revenge on her narcissistic ex and the rage runs a whole lot deeper than the nips, tucks, botox and whatnot.
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Jolene said on January 24, 2018 at 12:31 am
Something seems to be amiss with the formatting—at least as this entry appears on my iPad. The whole entry—text, images, and comments—is sprawling way beyond the edges of the screen. The previous entry looks fine, so it seems like it must be a setting of some sort rather than something about my system.
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susan said on January 24, 2018 at 12:40 am
Formatting funk shows on Mac laptop, too.
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Dexter said on January 24, 2018 at 1:00 am
The judge extended the time so every single one of the ladies Nasser molested could face him sitting shackled like he has been for days…the count has surpassed 150 women, and counting. Many women have been shown on TV telling how they hate Nasser, to his unshaven face, and many are detailing the mental terrors this man perpetuated upon them. Penn State tried to contain their situation to Jerry Sandusky, but after a while, Joe Pa’s statue was Saddam’d right down. This Nasser is going to get the max, I assume, and I think the minimum he’s facing is 120 years. Nothing to feel joy over, as the damage Nasser performed can’t be fixed, ever. If you believe in hell, be assured Nasser is headed there, if not…be content he’s molested his last victim. The hideousness lives on, in nightmares, sleep disorders, altered trust issues, awkward social feelings and actions…on and on forever, ’til death it parts. So, you read this and feel like shit? You wonder what you can do? When a child tells you she’s being molested, pursue the issue, track it down, speak up, stop it anyway you can. If you know this horrible shit is going on and you keep your mouth zipped, you are then complicit. You simply must act.
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ROGirl said on January 24, 2018 at 4:49 am
Nasser pleaded guilty, there wasn’t a jury trial.
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Suzanne said on January 24, 2018 at 6:45 am
The gymnastic Doctor saga makes me sick and I hope MSU gets slammed. I read that one of the trustees (or some other MSU authority) said they stood by the MSU president and anyway, they had a lot of other business to attend to. What’s a little sex abuse when you have a university to run?
Another report I heard yesterday said the first complaints about him came in the first couple of years after he was hired. So it was known. And people wonder why women don’t come forward about this.
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Andrea said on January 24, 2018 at 8:36 am
I read the Financial Times piece today about the journalist who went under cover at an exclusive men-only fundraiser staffed by 130 female hostesses who were required to wear sexy black heels, black underwear, and were given short tight black dresses with belts resembling corsets to wear. Spoiler alert: it was a grope fest in which the women were plied with alcohol to help them cooperate. Even their visits to the toilet were monitored so they didn’t hide out in the bathroom. Reminds me of Gloria Steinem going undercover as a Playboy bunny. Anyway, all of the various high honchos are shocked, shocked! to find such behavior being alleged in 2018.
https://www.ft.com/content/075d679e-0033-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
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Deggjr said on January 24, 2018 at 8:39 am
Apparently Nassar was investigated more than once and the investigations never found anything. How is that possible with 150 victims?
(“Hey Larry, did you molest those young girls?”. “No”. “Thanks for clearing that up, sorry to trouble you.”)
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Peter said on January 24, 2018 at 9:07 am
Photo #1 – you sure that’s not Terry Bradshaw in drag? Although I shouldn’t have said that – I think Ivanka’s suffered enough.
OTOH – Melania, take a good look honey – that’s you in ten years. Boze Moja!!!
Photo #2 – Don’t they look like the cast of some senior center dinner theatre review? I mean you got Crazy Joan Rivers in front, a slightly heftier version to Flo from Progressive far left in the photo, the older horny lady from Who’s The Boss wearing the red pants, and look at that – It’s Tony Danza with the sunglasses and Judith Light on the right!
And as for Jane Fonda – the lovely bride and I can’t get enough of Grace and Frankie. Between Jane, Lily, and the vibrators we can’t stop laughing.
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Suzanne said on January 24, 2018 at 9:22 am
I just noticed that the woman on the far left, the “slightly heftier version to Flo from Progressive” in that Mar-a-lago pic has a photo of Trump on her dress. Let them eat cake!
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Deborah said on January 24, 2018 at 9:26 am
As Sharon Stone said, you can fuck your way to the middle but you can’t fuck your way to the top.
Tomorrow we leave for LA, I wonder if I’ll see any past their prime celebs while there?
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Julie Robinson said on January 24, 2018 at 10:03 am
Suzanne, I was just coming here to point out that ugly mug on her dress, and trying to decide if that or the women’s faces were worse. Not sure!
The right column was floating over the middle of the page when I came here, but I closed/reopened and now it’s fine.
There’s a special place in hell for Nassar and his enablers. I’m only glad my sister died before she could learn about Michigan State’s part. She earned both her degrees there, and was so proud of their work exposing the Flint lead crisis. (I’m also glad I talked my mother out of directing memorials there.) Now it takes its place with Penn State as pariah.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 24, 2018 at 10:23 am
Nassar whined about that mean judge making him listen to all those victims. God what a wretched excuse for a human being.
I agree with everyone else who hopes that MSU will get thumped good and hard over this.
It seems to me that plastic surgery, like almost everything else, is best done in moderation. After a time you just have to accept that you’re aging.
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LAMary said on January 24, 2018 at 11:09 am
Jane Fonda definitely has a better plastic surgeon than Ivana has.
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Jolene said on January 24, 2018 at 11:49 am
Jane Fonda definitely has a better plastic surgeon than Ivana has.
A better hairdresser too.
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Heather said on January 24, 2018 at 12:00 pm
I hate the filler (Juvederm, etc) these women get injected with. I notice a lot of actresses younger than me using it–once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It makes their cheeks look sort of shiny and waxy, and when it’s overdone they can go full chipmunk (as Ivana’s have).
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Julie Robinson said on January 24, 2018 at 12:29 pm
They remind me of the Muppet rock chick: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Janice. It’s hard to understand the self-delusion that it’s attractive.
But then, I color my hair and wear makeup, so who am I to point fingers?
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Jakash said on January 24, 2018 at 12:33 pm
“After a time you just have to accept that you’re aging.” One would think that’s the case, but when it comes to appearances, I’d say Ms. Fonda kinda indicates that it’s not necessarily true. We saw Lee Grant talking about movies on TCM not that long ago. She’s ninety-freaking-two and, while she didn’t look *quite* as amazing as Jane, she sure didn’t look or sound like somebody who was born in 1925. Personally, I’m all in favor of folks staying in shape and postponing the inevitable, but some of this “work” they’re having done seems downright unnatural! The MILF designation is one thing, but when it gets to be GMILFs and GGMILFs it starts to get rather creepy, I gotta say. ; )
I also gotta say that being greeted by that photo of Ivana every time I click on the ole nn.c makes it feel like I’m in a horror movie. I wonder what the original Mr. T would think about her being called Mrs. T No. 1. I suppose he’d pity the fool…
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Jolene said on January 24, 2018 at 12:35 pm
You thought the guests at Mar-a-Lago were over the top? Check out the band.
https://twitter.com/EarlOfEdgecombe/status/956029498167906304
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Deborah said on January 24, 2018 at 12:37 pm
It’s the lips that get me. Why anyone would want fakey duck lips is beyond me. I wish my lips were more full, but I’ve seen such bad work done on women, I’d think twice before going through with a procedure, if I had the money that is. LB landed face down on the playground in about the fifth grade and ever since she has had a nice full bottom lip. I used to joke that I wanted someone to punch me in the mouth so I could have the same result. It’s my neck that I feel bad about now, like Nora Ephron said.
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adrianne said on January 24, 2018 at 12:45 pm
Megyn, honey, I think in a matchup between you and Jane Fonda, I’d put my money on Jane. Every. Single. Time. Megyn is a horror.
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Dexter said on January 24, 2018 at 12:53 pm
I just watched Nassar get sentenced…next, Madam President of MSU. And that ain’t all…stay tuned, as the survivors fight for the answers,as a survivor just said .
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Scout said on January 24, 2018 at 1:02 pm
Jane looks fabulous. You know she had work done but she didn’t go overboard. I always love her hair, too. Poor Ivana looks like a caricature. What a hot mess that face is.
And I am in agreement that MSU had better get their PR issues sorted. This is beyond terrible and they do not smell any better by trying to wave off the horror as some sort of inconvenient annoyance.
Deborah, we’re in LA all the time, being taken to happening restaurants and places by our son, and if we’re seeing famous people, we don’t even know it! The flashiest people are the wannabes.
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Deborah said on January 24, 2018 at 1:33 pm
My husband lets the students pick the restaurants in LA, they usually go for authentic ethnic instead of fancy or trendy, which is fine by me. Most of the students got amazing airfare on Spirit airlines. They are limited to one carry on and no checked luggage to get the super low amount. I definitely travel light, one carry on is my goal most of the time. We already had our reservations on Southwest, so we didn’t get the savings, although my husband’s ticket is paid for by the school. It’s supposed to be in the 80s there on Sunday and Monday. I’m looking forward to a bit of warmer weather, but it hasn’t been that bad in Chicago lately.
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Peter said on January 24, 2018 at 1:36 pm
Jolene at #23 – WHOA. Those guys look like they kept the outfits they wore for the AMC booth at the 1970 Detroit Auto Show: “Hey ladies and gents we’ll be right back but stick around and listen to the features on the new Gremlin!!!”
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nancy said on January 24, 2018 at 1:47 pm
I think a lot of the success of a particular plastic-surgery procedure depends on a lot of factors, not all of them controllable. You have to have a good doctor, and you have control over that. But how your skin stretches when it’s pulled? That’s a matter of luck, as is bone structure. These freaks you see may be victims of their own reflections, insisting on procedures they don’t need or can’t handle well. The very best procedures I’ve done have been the ones where you can’t see the work — the person just looks better somehow. Pretty rare.
For those of you interested in the MSU case, this blog from a Capitol news service may be helpful. Not sure if it’s in front of the paywall, so here’s a relevant passage:
Amid widespread calls for Ms. Simon’s resignation and fury at the MSU Board of Trustees for standing steadfastly behind her, Ms. Simon sent (a) lengthy email describing actions MSU has taken in response to the Nassar revelations…
…(Nine) paragraphs into the 16-paragraph email, Ms. Simon shed some light on why the university has taken the approach of issuing carefully worded denials that no university official “believed” Nassar committed crimes until he was arrested and why it is mounting an all-out defense in federal court against the more than 100 lawsuits Nassar’s victims have filed against the school.
“MSU is entitled to, and its insurers require, that we will mount an appropriate defense of these cases,” Ms. Simon wrote.
Ms. Simon then goes on to explain that motions by its attorneys for the judge to dismiss the case are “based on a number of arguments.” She doesn’t list them off, but they are claims the victims lack standing, the university has absolute immunity and that the victims failed to file their cases before the statute of limitations expired.
But let’s go back to those three words – “its insurers require.”
The fear among MSU brass appears to be that if MSU were to immediately settle in those cases instead of mounting a defense, which always includes a motion to dismiss the case, that the university’s insurers would walk away and MSU would have to rely on its own resources – its endowment, general fund, other internal sources – to pay the victims instead of its insurers.
This approach also appears to govern Ms. Simon’s refusal to resign, and the Board of Trustees’ decision not to fire her, that such a move would somehow signal an admission of guilt and provide an opening for the university’s insurers to avoid covering what could be many hundreds of millions in liability.
The Nassar victim count is up to 200 – and rising. It doesn’t take advanced math to see the liability potentially surging past $1 billion.
Man, imagine being in this bind. How awful.
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Bitter Scribe said on January 24, 2018 at 2:04 pm
I read this account of Nassar at sentencing, and my jaw just dropped when I got to the description the pre-sentencing letter he’d written the judge.
The motherfucker actually had the nerve to write that “I was a good doctor, because my treatments worked” and “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” (A woman? How about a 13-year-old? Or a 9-year-old?)
And those were just the parts of his letter the judge was willing to read aloud. She refused to read the whole thing because “I don’t want [his victims] to be re-victimized by the words in the letter.”
As for MSU, if I had my way, getting dropped by their insurance carrier would be the least of their problems. That college president and the others who left Nassar free to abuse all those girls should have to worry about paying their criminal defense attorneys. Ditto for USA Gymnastics.
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Charlotte said on January 24, 2018 at 2:10 pm
Terrific piece about the Judge in the Nassar case from a style (and general badassery) perspective: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/jan/24/why-judge-rosemarie-aquilina-is-my-style-and-everything-icon
The plastic surgery thing is a mystery to me — but I was raised by leathery horsewomen who wore their faces like the badge of honor they were. I think Ms. Fonda was also blessed with some pretty good bone structure, but she and La Mirren both look great, while not looking silly. (And one of the great joys of Livingston has been getting to know Becky Fonda a little bit — she’s much beloved, and a total firecracker).
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A. Riley said on January 24, 2018 at 2:35 pm
One of my online friends says “Patriarchy. You’re soaking in it.”
Both these stories — old women with too much plastic surgery and a doctor (a doctor!!) molesting girls and young women for years and years while no one listened to their complaints — are illustrations of that dictum.
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john (not mccain) said on January 24, 2018 at 2:40 pm
“Jane Fonda definitely has a better plastic surgeon than Ivana has.”
I think Ivana mistook a puppet maker for a plastic surgeon. Getting a strong “Land of Confusion” vibe from that photo.
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nancy said on January 24, 2018 at 3:54 pm
Becky Fonda is an in-law, though, right, Charlotte? Married to Peter, used to be married to Mr. McGuane? As I recall, she goes back to Davy Crockett.
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nancy said on January 24, 2018 at 3:56 pm
Also: If vaginal and/or anal penetration alleviated back pain, I think someone would have figured that out before Dr. Nassar.
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Deborah said on January 24, 2018 at 3:59 pm
Every time I click on NN.C and see that photo of Ivana I’m floored. Well, she married Donald so we know she doesn’t have much taste, but she knowingly did this to herself, the surgeries, the hairstyle (those bangs!). When people do this (like Trump and his hair), I think they’re not able to see themselves as others see them, like young women with anorexia, they think they look great but they don’t, they really don’t. I realize anorexia is more complex than that.
It made me go on Facebook and look up some women I went to high school with to see how many of them got caught up in this sickness. I found one who is a real estate agent to the stars in Miami Beach, she looks pretty good in some of the staged photos but in others you can see she’s had lots of “work”. She wears a lot of skin tight leopard prints and stiletto heels in her online photos, she’s 67 now so it’s weird. She has over 2,000 FB friends so I guess she’s doing OK. In her youth she became a groupie for Steven Stills when he had a house in Miami Beach, so I suppose this is not surprising.
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Charlotte said on January 24, 2018 at 4:17 pm
That’s her Nancy — she’s revered among the “kids” my age in large part because she was the only grownup in that group who remembered to do things like make lunch for that pack. A Michigander too — she and Linda Harrison were high school friends. Sadly I’ve mostly seen here at funerals the past couple of years …
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LAMary said on January 24, 2018 at 4:37 pm
I seem to remember the dedication at the beginning of a McGuane book, not sure which one, was, “for Beck, for Beck, for Beck.”
It finally hit me. Ivana looks like Patsy on Absolutely Fabulous if she was made into a troll doll.
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LAMary said on January 24, 2018 at 4:39 pm
It finally hit me. Ivana looks like Patsy on Absolutely Fabulous if she was made into a troll doll.
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Peter said on January 24, 2018 at 5:04 pm
Nancy at #36 – You KNOW there has to be a porn movie with that as the plot.
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Mark P. said on January 24, 2018 at 5:44 pm
I went with my wife to the grocery store today. She got some cosmetics.We both noticed the price of something like lipstick. It was around $45 per ounce. The notion of an ideal standard of feminine beauty is all just a commercial scam. We insist that women should always look perfect, and young — especially young. And then we see airbrushed versions of actual women, who look pretty darned good without makeup, smoother and more doll-like with makeup, and perfect after the Photoshopping. So women are supposed to try to look like the Photoshopped version, and it’s impossible to look like that in real life. Better buy something else!
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David C. said on January 24, 2018 at 5:49 pm
I’ve read that most large universities are hedge funds with an educational unit. If MSU has to dip into their endowments to pay off the victims of their perv doctor, well, tough shit.
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Heather said on January 24, 2018 at 6:15 pm
I thought I read somewhere that Casanova once convinced one of his young conquests that she needed medicine and the only way it could be delivered was via the tip of his wang into her vagine. Google searches have only led to pages describing some penis surgery named after the guy, so I guess this shall remain a mystery.
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ROGirl said on January 24, 2018 at 7:03 pm
I read this book when it came out, another true story about a doctor who sexually abused his female patients.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/905254.Doc
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Jolene said on January 24, 2018 at 9:05 pm
Big news: The Michigan State president has resigned.
http://wapo.st/2E4uvOV
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jcburns said on January 24, 2018 at 9:44 pm
As it should be, the story was broken by Michigan State’s student paper, The State-News. Well-reported.
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Jolene said on January 24, 2018 at 11:28 pm
Her resignation letter is here. Not terribly impressive, I’d say.
https://cabs.msu.edu/news/key-issues/issue-docs/simon-resigns.html
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Suzanne said on January 25, 2018 at 9:10 am
Have you all been following this nuttiness from several GOP Congressmen (it’s always men, right?) that there is a “secret society” in the FBI? We truly have the inmates running the asylum. It’s all so unreal.
http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-mueller-collusion-strzok-page-emails-789023
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Deborah said on January 25, 2018 at 9:22 am
The GOP is trying everything to get out of their slump. They will stop at nothing. It’s getting to the point where I have lost respect for anyone who still calls themselves a Republican. Because if you still do then you are complicit in all of this craven nonsense.
I’m at the airport again, so crabby. We took a limo to Midway, the first time we’ve ever done that, but we didn’t want to take our big puffy coats and to get a cab we usually have to walk a block or two. The limo was on time picked us up at the door, had water and soda available. It was clean and quiet. It maybe cost $10 more than a cab. Their prices have come down since Uber and Lyft. I think I could get used to this, especially since once you get to the airport, it’s agony.
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susang said on January 25, 2018 at 9:56 am
When I look at that picture of Mrs. Trump 1, I think “Miss Haversham.”
The classic mistake with plastic surgery, etc., is people try to look like they did when they were x-years old, including makeup, hair, etc.
Instead of looking young, they look out-of-touch, out-of-style, with weird surgical procedures on their faces. Ivana’s stuck in the 80’s.
I love looking at the plastic surgery ads in the back of Indianapolis Monthly.
Cringeworthy.
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ROGirl said on January 25, 2018 at 10:24 am
There used to be a website called Awful Plastic Surgery. It was pretty brutal, I imagine threats of lawsuits were involved in its demise.
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 11:13 am
Who can you trust? Even Grandma is an abuser.
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 11:32 am
Meanwhile, a profile of my niece from the local paper. Hope for the future.
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susan said on January 25, 2018 at 11:56 am
jolene, I bet you are so proud. What a smart, level-headed person!
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 11:58 am
We are, indeed. I tell my brother and sister-in-law that it was very generous of them to have raised kids for me to brag about.
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Scout said on January 25, 2018 at 12:02 pm
Wow, Jolene, your niece is a lovely young woman. The family must be quite proud.
The whole FBI ‘secret society’ nonsense would be funny except that we have elected lawmakers spouting this tin-foil-hat nonsense. And deep down, I am hoping that there actually is a spook ‘secret society’ who is on the case helping to protect us from the Russian mobster who stole the presidency and the assorted craven evangelical and GOP criminals who are covering for him.
Edited to add: Larry Nassar is a piece of shit and all the men who are taking to social media to whine about how mean the judge was to him can fo&d too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/01/24/here-are-the-larrry-nassar-comments-that-drew-gasps-in-the-courtroom/?undefined=&utm_term=.936f2c041ada&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
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Icarus said on January 25, 2018 at 12:10 pm
Great Story Jolene. I see she goes to a school that has “forgiveness” i.e. retaking a class and letting the higher grade erase the lower. I don’t know if things have changed, but when I transferred schools, I learned that both classes follow you forever.
Fortunately, UIC started me off with a fresh GPA for their courses (I somehow benefited somehow from that) and ultimately, no one cares about GPA after your first job (and an A- is just as good as an A or A+).
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 12:21 pm
Wow, Jolene, your niece is a lovely young woman. The family must be quite proud.
Indeed, we are. What’s impressive to me about her is, first, that she has managed to maintain a high GPA in a challenging major while playing a sport that requires hours of practice and frequent travel. Not many college athletes are able to do that. And second, that she stuck with her team even though she is not the star that she was in high school. It’s not easy to go from being a big frog in a small pond to being a backup player.*
And she has taken a very sensible approach to choosing a career—shadowing the family dentist during the summer and working as a volunteer at a free clinic. So she has, at least, a reasonable idea of what lies ahead of her. Her choice was surprising to me. I guess I never met anyone who wanted to be a dentist, but we need them, so I guess it’s good somebody wants to do it.
*Another relative who knows more about basketball than I do told me that the challenge Shannon has faced stems from the fact that she is an inside player who, at 5’10”, is not really tall enough to be one. My question: Where did all the 6’+ women come from? When I was in high school and college, I don’t think I knew anyone my age who was taller than 5’9”.
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 12:29 pm
I meant to say, of course, no girls or women taller than 5’9″.
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Sherri said on January 25, 2018 at 1:00 pm
Impressive young woman, Jolene! My nephew is in his final year of dental school and will be starting in a small practice with an older dentist afterwards.
And yes, 5’10” is on the short side for an interior player in women’s basketball, even in Division II. I don’t know where they all come from, but I watch women’s basketball, and there are a lot of women over 6 feet tall. Same in women’s volleyball. I was hugely disappointed when I stopped growing at 12 and only 5’5”.
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 1:09 pm
Because I have an October birthday and skipped a year of elementary school, I was, by far, the youngest member of my class. But I grew to my full height at 11 or 12 and was, for some time, the tallest girl in my class of older kids. It was sort of a surprise when I eventually realized that, at 5’5″, I was not really a tall person at all.
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Julie Robinson said on January 25, 2018 at 1:16 pm
Jolene, what an outstanding young woman. And the rare athlete not majoring in communications!
Energy off the bench, defense, and rebounding were also my specialties during my brief basketball career. My junior year of high school was the first for girl’s sports in Illinois, and since none of us had played much before, we were at the level I see in late grade school players now.
We had two at 5’10” and I was 5’8″ with gorilla arms, but we were probably the three tallest girls in the school. My scoring was very low, and years later I was diagnosed with double vision issues that contributed to my inability to hit the net. At least that’s what I choose to believe, and I’m sticking to it.
Did I mention we had to fight for the gym and pay for our own uniforms? In many way, things have changed for the better.
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 1:27 pm
When I was in high school, there were no organized sports for girls at all—none. So yes, things have changed a lot.
I am not really a sports person—either as a player or a fan—but I do see the value of sports for teaching life lessons, especially resilience. Nobody wins on every outing, so learning to get back up and keep going is a big plus. Sports isn’t the only domain for learning that lesson, of course, but it is a venue in which that lesson is particularly clear and in which there are multiple opportunities to repeat it.
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LAMary said on January 25, 2018 at 2:25 pm
https://deadspin.com/this-shitty-tennis-player-would-one-day-be-president-1796344200
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ROGirl said on January 25, 2018 at 3:13 pm
Which is worse, Ivana’s face or Trump’s ass?
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Jolene said on January 25, 2018 at 3:25 pm
The Post published this piece re another way—in addition to having organized sports for girls—that high schools have and are changing. Hallway lockers have, in many places, gone the way of the dinosaurs.
I liked it very much as an analysis of behavioral change in the school setting, but was also impressed that the reporter, Joe Heim, took the story beyond that setting to consider how architects are responding to these new patterns in the design of schools, the role of technology in education, and how the manufacturers of lockers are affected.
Although the article briefly mentions schlepping coats from room to room, that seemed odious to me, and I wrote to Heim to ask whether this change was as prevalent in places like Minnesota, where people really have to bundle up.
He wrote back to say that it was a colleague’s complaint about her kid not wearing a coat because he didn’t want to drag it around all day that prompted the article. Hearing the complaint, he said, “Why doesn’t he just put it in his locker?” Thus, the article is also an example of a smart reporter noticing something he hadn’t noticed before and following his news to a interesting, detailed, well-constructed piece.
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Deborah said on January 25, 2018 at 3:33 pm
Jolene, good story, I’m always happy to read about decent young people. One of my good friends in high school was 5’11” and another was 6’, another was 5’10” (girls). None played any sports, honestly I don’t remember if they had sports for girls? guess I hung around with the tall girls?
We’re at LAX, trying to get together with some of the students here before people disperse to wherever they’re staying. Lots of the students are staying in an Airbnb, my husband and I are staying in a hotel downtown.
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Sherri said on January 25, 2018 at 3:40 pm
My mother wouldn’t let me play sports, told me I’d just sit on the bench anyway. This despite the 8th grade coach asking me to try out for the team after seeing me play in gym class. Yes, I’m still annoyed about it.
And the snakes in my head really can’t believe that a candidate for Senate thought it was okay to say this out loud in 2018: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/gop-senate-candidate-flips-womens-rights-want-come-home-cooked-dinner-every-night/
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Mark P said on January 25, 2018 at 4:16 pm
Icarus, when I was in grad school a prof gave me a B++ in a course. I said wouldn’t an A- – be the same? He didn’t buy it. Of course neither the ++ nor the – – show up in the records.
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LAMary said on January 25, 2018 at 6:57 pm
rogirl, Ivana’s face and Trump’s ass have a lot in common. Both are evidence of being delusional.
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