Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 160

Why media role models matter

(Credit: Getty/Chip Somodevilla/clu/Salon)

As parents, we have a natural instinct to choose who we want our kids to be friends with — and who we’d rather they not hang around. The same instinct kicks in for media role models. We like Doc McStuffins because she’s smart and kind. SpongeBob? Maybe not so much.

In today’s 24/7 media environment, in which kids may be spending more time with media than they are with their parents, choosing positive role models is more important than ever. By the time kids are in middle school, they start to look to their peers for a sense of what’s socially acceptable or desirable. Parents may remain the primary influence in their kids’ lives, but the competition starts to get fierce at this age. This separation is entirely age appropriate. But when the media comes into play, the values you want to pass down to your kids may be competing against, say, Homer Simpson’s. Or, folks like Logan Paul, who’s YouTube channel has millions of followers and is hugely influential (for all the wrong reasons).

In fact, the stars of social media are just as likely to be role models as traditional celebrities. These so-called influencers reach out to kids via TV, YouTube, video games, Twitter, and music — all of which are broadcast or easily accessible 24 hours a day. And as we all know, not all the characters or people who gain popularity through these channels have stellar role-model credentials.

The good news is that there are plenty of positive role models you can point to that may influence your kids to make healthy choices, learn to respect others, achieve goals, and avoid anti-social behavior. Negative role models — especially ones who don’t suffer consequences for their actions — can encourage anti-social behavior, stereotypes, and even cruelty. Help your kids choose positive media role models who embody the values you want to pass down.

Tips for parents of young kids

Limit screen time. Kids grow and thrive best through personal interaction. Spending time with them, playing, and reading are great ways to build a foundation to impart your values.
Find age-appropriate content. Kids ages 2-7 should be exposed to media featuring good role moles, racial and gender diversity, and no stereotypes. Check out some of the positive role models on YouTube.
Encourage positive socialization. Look for role models who impart positive social lessons, like sharing and being a good friend.
Respect differences. Encourage kids this age to accept and respect people who are different by exposing them to media that includes people of diverse backgrounds.

Tips for parents of elementary-aged kids

Avoid stereotypes. Point out strong female characters or male characters who share their feelings. Try not to reinforce stereotypes in media selection (i.e. princess movies for girls and truck videos for boys), since that can reinforce societal imbalances. Take a look at our lists of Positive Role Model TV for Girls and Movies with Incredible Role Models for Boys.
Reinforce your values. Point out words and behavior in popular TV shows, websites, and music that are both positive and negative examples of what you do and don’t want your kids to model. What you say to your child is up to you, but have the discussion.
Flag antisocial behavior. Children like to imitate and pretend to be their favorite characters. When characters say mean things or behave cruelly, discuss the consequences.
Go with the good stuff. Kids will be inspired by great historical figures, athletes, or TV stars. Take advantage of that adoration by pointing out their good traits, as in, “George Washington was honest. Honesty is an important quality.” Not: “Lying is bad. Children who lie get in trouble.”

Tips for parents of older kids

Embrace what they like. Rejecting your kids’ love of popular culture can close off avenues of communication. Embrace their world, but establish clear boundaries about what you find acceptable and appropriate. Talk about celebrities that cross the line.
Help teens balance their need for rebellion and self-expression with an appreciation of acceptable social action. Kids need to understand how to communicate and use media wisely and ethically. If they engage with media that includes antisocial behavior, make sure they understand the impact and potential consequences.
Let older kids see things you don’t agree with. But then discuss exactly what you don’t like with them. Since we won’t always be around, we need to make sure to instill critical-thinking skills in our kids.
Don’t shy away from pointing the finger. If your kids (or their schoolmates) are heavy media users and they demonstrate or are on the receiving end of any antisocial behavior or experience eating disorders, addictions, low school performance or depression, connect the dots — and disconnect the source.

How a thrill-seeking personality helps Olympic athletes

(Credit: Getty/Matthias Hangst)

One of the main draws of the Winter Olympics is the opportunity to witness some of the most exciting and nail-biting athletic feats.

The daring events include the bobsled and downhill skiing. Then there’s the terrifying skeleton: Imagine barreling down a narrow chute of twisted ice-coated concrete at 125 miles per hour. Now imagine doing that head first, like a human battering ram.

Athletes train for years for these events, but most of these elite athletes possess something that helps them succeed during these high-stakes events: their personality.

Some people have a personality trait that helps them focus in highly chaotic environments like the ones you’ll see during the Winter Olympics. It’s called a high sensation-seeking personality, and it’s a trait that, as a psychologist, I’ve long been fascinated with.

Calm in the face of danger

To some extent, we all crave complex and new experiences — that is, we all seek new sensations.

Whether it’s our attraction to the latest shiny gadget or the newest fashion trend, novelty tugs at us. But even though we all share an interest in new sensations, what sets high sensation-seeking personalities apart is that they crave these exotic and intense experiences to an extent that they’re willing to risk their health.

What’s amazing is that some high sensation-seeking individuals experience less stress and are fearless and calm in the face of danger. For example, 2014 Olympic slalom gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin tears down mountains at speeds of 80 mph. But she recently told Sky Magazine that the experience can feel like it unfolds in slow motion while she’s “finding a way to control the controllable.”

There’s neurological evidence to back up the sense of calm that athletes like Shiffrin feel in midst of chaos and danger.

You may have heard of cortisol — it’s the “fight or flight” hormone, and it can make us feel stressed and overwhelmed.

However, when people with high sensation-seeking personalities have intense experiences, they don’t produce that much cortisol. On top of that, they produce higher levels of “pleasure” chemicals like dopamine.

What’s more, researchers have found that people with high sensation-seeking personalities have increased sensitivity to things that could be rewarding (like landing a perfect switch backside 1620) and decreased sensitivity to potential dangers (like the fear of wiping out after doing a triple jump).

High sensation-seeking isn’t exclusive to Winter Olympians, of course. It can creep into every aspect of life, influencing the way you interact with other people, the things you do for fun, the music you like, the way you drive and even the jokes you tell.

Leaping before you look

In the 1950s, while studying sensory deprivation, psychologist Robert Zuckerman stumbled upon this sensation-seeking trait. Zuckerman was eventually able to show that sensation-seeking is made up of four distinct components.

Each contributes to an individual’s unique way of seeking (or avoiding) sensation. (And you can actually take a test to see where you fall for each of these four components on the sensation-seeking scale.)

The first two — thrill-seeking and experience-seeking — were mentioned earlier. But the sensation-seeking personality trait also involves disinhibition and boredom susceptibility.

Disinhibition has to do with our willingness to be spontaneous and our ability to let loose. People with low levels of disinhibition always look before they leap. Those high in disinhibition? They just leap.

Boredom susceptibility boils down to your ability to tolerate the absence of external stimuli. Those with high scores in boredom susceptibility dislike repetition: They tire easily of predictable or dull people, and they get restless when forced to perform mundane tasks.

This last component might be the toughest thing for Olympic athletes who are high-sensation seekers to deal with. In order to be a successful Olympian, you need to spend countless hours practicing dull, repetitive workouts and drills.

It’s easy to see how all of these aspects of sensation-seeking personalities might exist in Olympic athletes, whether it’s a snowboarder experimenting with a daring new trick or a hockey forward navigating a puck through a maze of defenders.

People with high sensation-seeking personalities don’t just crave these situations. In those moments, they’re in their element. Where a low sensation-seeking person might crumble, they thrive.

So when you’re watching the Winter Olympics and wondering how the athletes can handle the pressures and dangers of competition, just remember: For some of them, chaos and intensity are secret weapons of success.

Kenneth Carter, Charles Howard Professor of Psychology, Oxford College, Emory University

Honey, who shrunk the proton?

(Credit: Getty/MarySan)

Imagine waking up one morning to find that your meter stick had shrunk, overnight, by exactly four centimeters. That difference sounds small, yet it is still dramatic enough to thoroughly muck up basic calculations of motion and height. The shock of finding some basic property — one measured tens of thousands of times — suddenly shift dramatically would be upsetting to those who rely on the meter stick every day.

This hypothetical scenario is analogous to a physics whodunnit? currently playing out with the proton, the positively charged subatomic particle that, with neutrons and electrons, forms the basis of all the matter on the periodic table. 2020 will mark one hundred years since the proton was definitively discovered and named. In that span, the proton’s fundamental properties, like its mass and radius, have been confirmed experimentally thousands of times, perhaps more. Indeed, by 2010, the effective radius of the proton had been experimentally confirmed to be 0.8768 femtometers — a femtometer being one quadrillionth of one meter, or 10-15 meters.

So it was something of a shock when experimental physicists starting playing with protons in odd configurations and obtained a result for the proton’s radius that deviated quite a bit from the widely accepted value. These peculiar results were observed by binding the proton with an unusual particle known as the muon.

Muve over, electrons

As you likely recall from high school science class, atoms are comprised of electrons (which are negatively charged), neutrons (neutral), and protons (positively charged). Electrons are electromagnetically bound to the atom by the presence of the proton(s), to which they eagerly adhere like fridge magnets. But electrons are not the only type of negatively charged leptons, the name for the class of singular particles that hover outside of atomic nuclei (rather than being bound within, à la protons and neutrons). There is a rarely seen, unstable lepton called a muon, with a mass two hundred times that of the electron, that has a negative charge just the same as the electron. Electrons and muons are the same breed (both leptons), but with masses two orders of magnitude apart; think of them like a Chihuahua and a Great Dane — same species yet of variant sizes.

Being the same species, a muon can bind to a proton in a manner akin to an electron. The particles don’t mind; if the proton is the fridge, the muon’s just a bigger fridge magnet. Scientists call this substance “muonic hydrogen,” in that it’s a hydrogen atom, more or less, yet with a muon orbiting the nucleus instead of an electron.

The presence of the muon endows muonic hydrogen with some strange properties that make it a good candidate for studying fundaments of particle physics. “A muonic hydrogen atom is smaller by the ratio of the muon mass and the electron mass,” Dr. Michael Peskin, a professor of theoretical physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, told Salon by email. Peskin explained that this means that the wavefunction — the probability that the particle exists at any given point — is much smaller. The chihuahua-Great Dane analogy works here too: just as a tiny chihuahua (our metaphorical electron) is harder to spot as it excitedly rages about the room, the large Great Dane (our muon) is hard to miss. Making small things slightly more massive and therefore easier to track is a boon to studying this.

It was while experimenting with muonic hydrogen that physicists encountered a profoundly weird measurement for the proton’s radius. Specifically, their result came up short: 0.83 femtometers, about 4 percent off of the aforementioned value.

When this peculiarity was first reported on in 2010, scientists were befuddled. “The [e]xperiment presents a puzzle with no obvious candidate for an explanation,” Peter Mohr, a member of the international Committee on Data for Science and Technology, told a New Scientist reporter in 2010, after a team at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany published the results of their measurements of the proton’s radius in experiments with muonic hydrogen. Both scientists to whom I spoke in 2018 had no definitive answer, only suggestions as to what may be happening.

After the Max Planck Institute’s paper came out, theorists around the world began speculating as to what could be causing the discrepancy for a widely accepted value. The muon was immediately suspect. Could it be adding some new property to the muonic hydrogen system that researchers couldn’t account for? Indeed, beyond different masses, muons have other properties that differentiate them from their cousins the electrons. For one, muons are, unlike electrons, short-lived; “muons live only for 2 microseconds before they decay,” said Dr. Peskin. “This makes measuring their fundamental properties a bit harder, as they tend to die in a shower of electrons and neutrinos pretty quickly… In that short time, they have to be created, bind to a proton, and form a stable orbit,” he added.

Dr. Bruce Schumm, a physicist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and the author of a popular book on particle physics, also believed the oddity might have to do with the muon’s tricks. “This is a different system than has been used before,” Schumm told Salon by email. “That leads to the possibility of mistakes in experimental technique, but also the possibility of new physical effects, since the coupling under study here is between a muon and a proton rather than, as in other studies, an electron and a proton.” Schumm was excited by the possibility that the results could hint at violations in “lepton universality” — a “difference in the behavior of electrons, muons and tau leptons other than that due to their differing masses,” as Schumm described it. “This is something we test whenever and wherever we can,” he said.

If the discrepancy in the proton widths turns out to be real — rather than an experimental error (which some suspect) — there are “many possibilities for what could produce such an effect,” Schumm added. Besides revealing violations in lepton universality, other possibilities abound.

“One interesting question that’s raised in my mind is whether the effect in muonic atoms can be related to the effect in the magnetic strength of the muon,” Schumm said. Like anything with electric charge, the muon — like the electron — commands its own little magnetic field. Because it is so short-lived, the muon’s magnetic strength is not well-measured; a study at Fermilab, currently under construction, is designed to find it more precisely.

Schumm explained that that the physical model that involves the muon’s magnetic strength could involve supersymmetry, the idea that there are parallel (and undiscovered) fundamental particles that mirror the ones that we know already, and which may be involved in the muon’s decay or existence; or extra dimensions, a theory that string theory fans might be familiar with that suggests that there are small, non-spatial dimensions beyond the ones we can move through that very small things like particles can wiggle in and out of.

New measurements in 2017 only heightened the mystery. An international group of physicists published a study in Science in 2017 sizing up regular hydrogen atoms (no muons here) using spectroscopy — in other words, stimulating the hydrogen and observing the wavelength of the photons they emit, which hint at the physical situation of the atom itself. “[We] obtained the size of the proton using very accurate spectroscopic measurements of regular hydrogen,” the scientists wrote in the abstract. “Unexpectedly, this value was inconsistent with the average value of previous measurements of the same type. Also unexpectedly, it was consistent with the size extracted from the muonic hydrogen experiments.”

Similar values don’t imply causation, of course, meaning the muon may yet lead us to new physics. Yet there are few such basic mysteries in modern physics that only get stranger as the results continue to stream in.

5 activism suggestions that actually work

Police confront demonstrators. (Credit: Getty/Scott Olson)

Nearly every Friday since Trump took office, constituents of longtime Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) took time out of their busy lives to visit his Morristown, New Jersey office to encourage him to protect Obamacare, to vote no on a GOP tax plan, and most importantly, to hold a town hall meeting (which it seemed like he bent over backward to avoid). Members of this tireless group, NJ 11th for Change, a branch of the Indivisible movement, never did get that town hall, but their tenacity may have landed them something better: his retirement.

Frelinghuysen, who served as the chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, announced Monday morning that he would not seek reelection in New Jersey’s 11th congressional district. He is the eighth long-serving Republican to call it quits in the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections, and the second in the last week, after Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania. Unlike Meehan, and fellow retiree Blake Farenthold, sexual harassment allegations didn’t push Frelinghuysen out the door. It was activism.

“Frelinghuysen won his last election by 19 points, but by this November, his race had been called a tossup,” Elizabeth Juviler, a co-executive director of NJ 11th for Change, told AlterNet. “That was the power of people’s voices in a classically democratic process.  People spoke up, they were heard, and our institutions and government are changing as a result. It’s a shame that Frelinghuysen refused to hear our voices until it was too late for him.”

The group started in 2016, and in January 2017, Fridays Without Frelinghuysen, as their visits to his office became known, gained the group so much notoriety that one of Juviler’s fellow co-directors, Saily Avelenda, lost her job. Frelinghuysen himself sent an article about the group to the board of the bank where she was senior vice president and assistant general counsel. On the back, he wrote, “One of the ringleaders works at your bank!” Despite this setback, Avelenda told local paper the Morristown Green that Monday’s announcement was a win “for all those people who stood in the rain, the cold, the crazy heat, every Friday.”

Juviler spoke to AlterNet about her experiences as a new activist, and offered a few tips for sustainability and long-term success.

1. Have a clear mission and focus.

NJ 11th for Change’s goal was to force Frelinghuysen to hold a town hall.

Juviler says:

“I think the biggest tip is that we had a mission that was exciting and welcoming to a broad group of people, but laser-focused at the same time. We are nonpartisan. We are unaffiliated with any party, though eventually we were campaigning against Frelinghuysen.

“We have tried as hard as possible to maintain deeply supportive, friendly, forward-thinking culture within the group, particularly on our Facebook group, which is the main social hangout. There’s no question we benefited from a targeted focus on congressional representation rather than getting too far off into any one issue. We were confident that so many other groups were active on issues and watching senators and involved with legislative policy within the state… that we could keep our tent wide and our path narrow.”

2. Diversify your tactics.

While your mission should be crystal-clear, sometimes the methods you use to carry it out will have to change, and it’s important to be flexible.

Juviler explains:

 “In the beginning, Fridays [Without Frelinghuysen] provided a huge amount of energy and focus. People took time off work, issue groups gathered, civic groups gathered — but when it became clear that Rodney would never meet with us, and when his votes consistently betrayed his district’s interests, we moved on to other activities.”

3. Be hyper-local.

There’s a reason the Tea Party’s damage to our democracy has been so long-lasting. When Obama was in office, they didn’t just direct their ire at the president, but at all of their representatives. Tea Party groups went to town hall meetings (although Frelinghuysen didn’t give constituents that opportunity).

Juviler says:

“We started town teams in most of the towns within the district, and both teams carried out all kinds of activities like tabling at farmers markets and street fairs, having issue educational meetings at the library, etc. These hyper-local groups are able to speak to their neighbors about the things our neighbors most care about in a way that resonates, and we found this extremely effective…

“We were local, visible, persistent and effective opposition to his status quo of entitled representation.”

4. Do your research and learn your representative’s history.

It will help you better plan your strategy and fight back against attacks. Juviler says NJ 11th for Change did this, “and he didn’t know how to handle it.”

Juviler recalls the ethics complaints filed after Frelinghuysen got Saily Avelenda fired:

“[I]t was not only a terrible error in strategy, but pretty terrible period….He really expected we would fade away, and when we didn’t, he’d already dismissed us, refused to meet with us in such silly public ways. And meanwhile, his voting record [showed he was] beholden to Paul Ryan in obvious ways [that] went against most of his constituents’ desires.”

5. Don’t forget to celebrate the small victories.

Juviler recalls:

“One of the most amazing moments was at the end of March [2017], when the AHCA was due for a vote on a Friday, but before noon Frelinghuysen had announced that he could not support the bill. We turned our regular Friday meeting with his staff into a celebration. It was the first big sense that we regular people could together make a big difference on our government.”

As for next steps, Juviler says despite Frelinghuysen’s resignation, the group’s plans remain largely the same. Until he’s gone, they will continue to be “focused on educating constituents about Rodney’s record and how it affects them.”

“There is still a lot of bad policy coming out us from Washington,” she continued, “and we will see how Republican candidates lineup, if they have been silent about the despicable things that are happening to New Jersey and the country or if they have a backbone.”

The group is also looking toward the midterm elections. NJ 11th for Change is so far declining to endorse anyone in the primaries, but noted, “We already have an excellent field of candidates. We still are working to get an excellent representative into Congress from the 11th District, one who will advocate for us, be responsive, transparent, and accountable. One hurdle is behind us, but the goal still lies ahead.”

At “ground zero” for dog racing, Florida moves toward change

(Credit: Tyler Gillespie)

Nearly 25 years ago, Linda Lyman’s neighbor brought over the dog that changed her life. Back then, owners gave greyhounds away to people who hung around the track. Lyman’s own dog had just died, and she found out she liked the greyhound temperament: gentle, yet bigger than many other dogs – on average 60 to 80 pounds – with hardly any hair.

Lyman, a Tampa native who founded Bay Area Greyhound Adoptions in 2004, wanted to own a greyhound, but there were no adoption groups in the area at the time. She eventually found someone who owned a farm in Ocala and kept some retired greyhounds on it.

“The first dog I looked at, I brought home,” said Lyman. “I got into this because I adopted a greyhound and thought he was the best dog in the world.”

The earliest greyhounds arrived in the United States around the late 1800s. Their original job: catch jackrabbits in the Midwest. Soon, people figured out the sleek greyhounds’ speed and started to race them.

The dogs were eventually taught to chase mechanical lures attached to rails of an oval track. Because of these races, public opinion on the dogs shifted. People began to view the dogs as mean, aggressive and hyper. Lyman said greyhounds possess a completely different demeanor than most people think.

“Greyhounds are calm,” she said. “They [need] less exercise than many other dogs.”

As the tracks saw increased profits, reports surfaced that dogs stayed confined for 20 hours a day, trained past exhaustion and were fed tainted meat. “They’re essentially shortcuts that harm animal welfare,” said Carey Theil, executive director of the nonprofit greyhound protection organization GREY2K USA.   

Forty states have banned greyhound racing. It’s only legal in six. And of the country’s nineteen greyhound tracks still in business, twelve are in Florida, the first state to allow pari-mutuel wagering on greyhounds, back in 1931.

Established tracks include Palm Beach Kennel Club and St. Petersburg’s Derby Lane, the “oldest continuously operating greyhound track in the world.”

“Florida is ground zero,” said Theil. “There’s really been a significant debate in Florida for about a decade.”

In 1996, Florida passed a bill to allow anabolic steroid use in greyhounds, and it only began to mandate tracks to report greyhound deaths in 2013. Since then, there have been nearly 400 reported deaths.  

Recently, Sen. Dana Young and Rep. Carlos Guillermo-Smith introduced anti-steroid legislation. There have been increased regulations; in December a judge sided with two greyhound trainers whose dogs tested positive for cocaine.

The positive urine samples, the judge ruled, had been collected by an “unadopted rule” from the official 2010 manual.

“The people we work with,” said Lyman, whose organization gets dogs directly from kennels and owners, “we just don’t see that kind of really bad stuff.”

The animal welfare aspect is often cited by activists, but the main reason greyhound racing still exists in Florida is because the state’s pari-mutuel contracts “couple” greyhound races to other forms of gambling.

“Some of our attempts to help the dogs have been caught in the crossfire,” said Theil.

At its peak in the early ’90s, greyhound racing constituted a multi-billion-dollar industry. It’s now in decline, but the state still requires gambling outlets to hold dog racing permits if they want to offer other forms of gambling such as poker rooms. So, greyhound racing remains legally tied to the state’s interest.

According to a 2015-16 report, pari-mutuel wagers have “resulted in $4.38 billion in state revenue” since 1931. But the report shows these contracts may be outdated as “In most recent years, pari-mutuel handle has steadily declined.”

Lyman said the industry decline has led to better treatment of the dogs. The less profitable tracks shuttered, which led to fewer dogs bred to race.  

When Lyman first started greyhound rescue over two decades ago, she said, a kennel would close, and scores of dogs needed to be saved.

“You’d go get all your volunteers together and get as many as you can,” she said, “and the others – I don’t know what happened to them.”

Lyman’s organization established a chapter in the Cape Coral, Ft. Meyers area, but, Lyman said, most of their dogs come from Derby Lane.

“I’ve probably fostered about 1,100 dogs since I got my first one,” she said. “I have five at my home right now.”

Lyman works full-time as a branch manager for The Florida Bar, a governmental evaluation program for lawyers. Other members of BAGA are retired or have more flexible schedules, Lyman said, so they often go pick up dogs and do home visits.

On a rainy, weekend day in Tampa’s Ybor City, one of the BAGA volunteers, Jodi Chemes, stood with a greyhound named Mack, who was ready to get adopted. Mack is a former “stakes winner,” which means he was a “good, good racing dog.” He also has two white lines on his lower back; scars from when he got tangled in a cord from his previous race owner’s curtain. He’s great with kids, said Chemes, fine with all animals except small dogs that are yippy who make squeaky noises, because “he thinks it’s a toy.”

Dogs from the track aren’t used to inside-the-house life. They’re not used to walking on a leash. They don’t know how to walk on tile or up the stairs. They often walk into sliding glass doors or step right into backyard pools.

A greyhound costs about five to six thousand dollars to get to their first race, and a “good, good” dog – one in thirty or forty – could make up to $40,000. One BAGA dog, Lyman said, made over $100,000. But usually if they make money, it’s not a lot. And owners often lose money on the race dogs.

Jody Lazzara drove to Ybor from San Antonio, FL, to meet Mack.

“I have always wanted to have a greyhound because they are so beautiful,” said Lazzara. “I know that their personality is docile and intelligent, all the components I’d like in a dog.”

Lazzara leaned down to pet Mack, who never barked. He snuggled up to her body. On that dreary day, he just wanted some attention.   

Fan-favorite Olympian Adam Rippon joins NBC as correspondent

Adam Rippon (Credit: Getty/Matthew Stockman)

Seriously, is there anything that Adam Rippon can’t do?

Rippon, the first openly-gay male athlete from the U.S. to qualify for the Winter Olympic Games, is returning home with a bronze medal in figure skating. But that’s not all – he just added “network correspondent” to his resumé, too.

The champion skater will spend the rest of the 2018 Pyeongchang Games working as a correspondent for NBC. His body of work will span TV, digital and social media, according to USA Today Sports.

With a personality as bold and dazzling as his costumes, the 28-year-old has managed to capture the hearts of a nation. Before PyeongChang, the U.S. had never had an openly-gay male Olympian on its winter team, and it’s been 14 years since one competed in the Summer Games. Freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, who came out more than a year after he won a silver medal in Sochi, joins his friend Rippon on this year’s team.

Rippon has been a vocal activist in the fight for equal rights. Even before he arrived in Pyeongchang, the Olympic medalist discussed the importance of LGBTQ representation at the Winter Games. And he made headlines for calling out Vice President Mike Pence for his history of anti-gay positions and alleged funding of so-called “gay conversion therapy.”

When asked in December what it was like to be a gay athlete, Rippon answered, “It’s exactly like being a straight athlete. Lots of hard work – but usually done with better eyebrows.”

I was recently asked in an interview what its like to be a gay athlete in sports. I said that it’s exactly like being a straight athlete. Lots of hard work but usually done with better eye brows.

— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) December 28, 2017

Rippon’s Olympic debut has been a long time in the making. In 2016, the Pennsylvanian ‘s dream came true with a national title win. “I’m like a witch, and you can’t kill me. I keep coming back every year, and every year, I get better,” he joked at the time in an interview with NBC’s Andrea Joyce.

Before becoming U.S. champion, he served as an alternate for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and in 2014 he didn’t make the Sochi team. Instead of skating on Olympic ice, Rippon ate burgers from In-N-Out with his fellow 2018 teammate Mirai Nagasu.

In a recently unearthed 2003 interview with Pennsylvania TV station WNEP-TV, a 13-year-old Rippon shared his dreams of one day making it to the Olympics. Now he’s one of PyeongChang’s breakout stars — and he’s emerged as a fan favorite on and off the ice.

The figure skater has received an outpouring of support, including from celebrities like Sally Field, Britney Spears and Reese Witherspoon. In anticipation of his free skate, Spears tweeted her encouragement to the bronze medalist.

“I just wanted to let you know that I am a fan, I am not in denial, and that you are THE MOST FUN!! Keep making us smile at the #WinterOlympics and good luck today,” Spears wrote in a tweet.

https://twitter.com/britneyspears/status/964576755112710144

From his talent, to his eyebrows, to his hilarious tweets, Rippon has become a true  Olympic hero. The self-described “glamazon b*tch” is unabashedly unafraid to be his authentic self, and with luck, he will continue to bring it back to TV screens every four years.

To all those who tweet at me saying that they “hope I fail”, I have failed many times many times in my life. But more importantly, I’ve learned from every setback, proudly own up to my mistakes, grown from disappointments, and now I’m a glamazon bitch ready for the runway.

— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) February 13, 2018

If you’re blushing, you’re still human: Why you should lean in to your embarrassment

"Cringe Worthy: A Theory of Awkwardness" by Melissa Dahl (Credit: Celeste Sloman/Penguin Random House)

We squirm when we read our middle school diary entries. We laugh nervously at an overconfident contestant belly flopping on a talent competition. And one person’s romantic wedding proposal in the park is a passerby’s cause for wincing.

Melissa Dahl, a senior editor for New York Magazine’s The Cut and co-founding columnist for its Science of Us, wanted to know why. The result of her inquiry is “Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness,” a lively, funny and often deeply personal investigation into the things that make us shudder. Salon spoke recently via phone to the author, on the benefits of blushing.

Of all the things you write about, why this for a book?

It’s a feeling that’s driven me nuts my entire life. And also, it cracked me up. One thing that I was really happy about having this as a subject was, every time I write about it, just made me laugh. I just thought so much of this is so funny.

You talk about these ideas like “All the world is a stage” and what that truly means. Cringe-worthiness often comes from not being able to reconcile the identity that we think of ourselves as and an identity that we are playing, whether it is our past self, or whether it’s literally the reflection in the mirror.

I wrote a piece for Science of Us about why you cringe at the sound of your own voice. And it’s becoming a cliché, but we can all say that everybody kind of says that. It became really interesting to me to figure out what that means.

There’s a psychological explanation to the voice thing. Hearing my voice talk right now, I’m hearing it through the air, and I’m also hearing it through the bones in my own skull, which transmits the sound at lower frequency than other people are hearing it. So that’s one reason why, when you hear your voice played back, it’s really common for people to feel like, “Gosh, I sound like a chipmunk; I sound like a teenager; why does my voice sound so high?” It really is true that the way you’re perceiving yourself and the way someone else is perceiving you are different. But I think of that a little bit further. Okay, but why does that make us cringe? We all have these idealized versions of ourselves we carry around in our own heads, and then there’s that self that is actually running around out there in the world that other people are seeing. We’d like to think those two things are one and the same, and sometimes, they are. But I think a cringe-worthy moment is when those two selves collide, and you realize, “Oh, my gosh, I’m not coming off the way I thought I should be. I did not intend it this way.”

We may cringe at the sound of our voice or we may cringe seeing ourselves in a photograph, but that’s not necessarily cringe-worthy to anybody else.

That’s so great to keep in mind. Sometimes you can coach yourself through these embarrassing moments and just say, “OK, not everybody is taking this as seriously as I am or as I think it is.” But I also have come to think that sometimes that gap can be useful. I think cringe-worthy moments force you to think outside of your perspective and make you look at yourself through someone else’s point of view. These little moments became so fascinating to me.

You talk about when you feel embarrassed for someone else — the Michael Scott thing where the other person isn’t cringing, but you’re cringing because they’re not cringing.

It made me think about empathy in maybe a different way than a lot of us use it. There’s this study I’ve actually written on a couple of times, where people who are more likely to cringe at other people’s embarrassing moments are often likely to be empathetic.

The first time I heard that, I felt unbearably smug because I just leave the room when people are embarrassing themselves. I can’t stand it. But it made me think of it in a different way. Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, but it’s still you in there. Like maybe I’m feeling embarrassed for somebody else because their fly is down or something, but is that empathy if they don’t know they’re embarrassing themselves? I think it goes back to my cringe theory, when we sense this gap in someone else when they think they’re presenting themselves to the world in one way but they actually coming off a different way and they can’t see that.

There’s this psychologist Philippe Rochat, who argues that empathy is an automatic response. It’s something that typical brains do automatically. You can process that feeling in one of two ways. You can feel contempt for the person and push them away, or you can respond in compassion and recognize yourself in embarrassment — which is harder to do and sometimes less attractive than to just sit back and laugh. The compassionate response is, “I’m also an idiot; that’s why I feel this way for you.”

There’s another side of this, where you became embarrassed retroactively. You cringe reading an old diary, or write something you feel OK about, and then someone calls you out and then suddenly you are horrified. You can have cringe-worthy-ness imposed upon you.

I’ve been writing for ten years. I’ve got ten years worth of embarrassing stuff behind me. It helps to think of past Melissa as a separate person. Like, “Oh, look at her, she was just trying her best. Good for her.” That’s how I started to think that helped me reframe that horrible cringey feeling of, “Oh, what was I thinking?”

With social media, the risk of mortification feels like now it might never go away. There might be no expiration date.

There might not be, and it’s an argument for getting more comfortable with your past self. As kids grow up posting everything online, I wonder what’s going to happen. I think it’s worth probably all of us getting comfortable with people we used to be.

You talk about the value of awkwardness and how being able to feel awkward, being awkward for ourselves, for someone else, can be very positive.

When I first started looking at this, I thought, OK, awkwardness is beneficial because it alerts us to social norms that are inherent but maybe not spoken out loud. I think that’s true. But for me, after obsessing over this feeling for a couple of years, it became valuable in a different way that I was not really expecting. I started getting this awesome common humanity vibe. If you’re feeling awkward or uncomfortable, it’s because you are imagining what someone else is thinking of you. An example is when someone is walking down the hallway and you’re walking towards someone and then you both move one way and then one moves the other way and someone says, “Shall we dance?” Now it just makes me laugh. These little moments are cracks in our cool personas. They highlight the innate absurdity of being human and make me feel more connected to people when the feeling comes around. To me, it became a reminder to just lighten up. These moments aren’t so bad, and it can actually be funny and weirdly connecting.

I wonder about this culture now, that’s both about shaming and awkwardness and such profound narcissism, where kids are trying out there in social media to be an absolute, most perfect self.

I hope there is some value still in putting away your private self in a journal or somewhere. I don’t know. I wonder if teens still have journals. I hope they get a record of who they really were without filter. 

I think what’s interesting about creating an idealized version of yourself is that you’re creating an idealized version of yourself from a 13-year-old’s perspective. I think, looking back in a couple of years or a couple of months or even a couple of days, they might find that cringe-worthy. It’s still a feeling that’s going to come back. All I can think is, this past you is going to stick around more than she used to. It’s worth making friends with her, whoever she is, no matter how much she embarrasses you.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Five lessons Trump could learn from Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (Credit: Wikimedia)

How will Donald Trump observe Presidents Day?

Will he have the inclination or take the time to read about or reflect on the qualities of our greatest leaders?

Given how busy Trump is issuing executive orders, fighting with the judiciary, managing the scandal surrounding the dismissal of his national security advisor, becoming acquainted with world leaders and tweeting, the answer is probably no.

As a historian who has studied presidential leadership for decades, perhaps I can save him some time by suggesting a few things he might learn from the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

Lesson 1: Grow a thick skin

Lincoln was more reviled than any American president. The opposition press described him as a “fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism,” a “worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed from the days of Nero” and “a vulgar village politician without any experience worth mentioning.” Even Lincoln’s now-classic Gettysburg Address was derided as a display of “ignorant rudeness.”

These attacks stung, but Lincoln refused to take the bait. “No man resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for personal contention,” he wrote. “Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including . . . the loss of self-control.” Lincoln realized that getting into the gutter would diminish his stature, distract the public from important issues and burn crucial political bridges. “A man has no time to spend half his life in quarrels,” he advised a political ally. “If any man ceases to attack me I never remember the past against him.”

If Trump doesn’t dial back his attacks — which so far have included invectives against Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Madonna, John Lewis, Charles Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, a growing list of federal judges and the CIA — he will appear more petulant than presidential.

Lesson 2: Engage your critics strategically

Lincoln occasionally responded to critics — but always civilly, always strategically.

When, in 1862, Republican editor Horace Greeley charged that Lincoln’s unwillingness to end slavery sabotaged the Union war effort, Lincoln replied in a public letter. He had already decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, but gave the impression that he was agnostic on the matter. With respect to slavery, Lincoln told Greeley, his policies would be dictated by what best served the Union cause. By tying his position to preserving the Union, Lincoln laid groundwork for making his ultimate decision more palatable to the many Unionists — in the North and the border states — who supported slavery. He did so without insulting Greeley and other abolitionists and concluded his letter by emphasizing common ground: “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”

Trump has yet to absorb the lesson that in the world of presidential communications, less is more — especially when the less is carefully crafted, strategic and cultivates those whose support is needed. For Trump, that means the majority of Americans who didn’t vote for him and who have given him the lowest approval ratings of any incoming president in modern times.

Lesson 3: Be informed and ask questions

Aside from a brief stint as a militia volunteer in the 1830s, Lincoln had no military experience. Nevertheless, he was a war president and helped to develop the grand strategy that crushed the Confederacy.

How did he do it? By reading extensively on military strategy and tactics and meeting frequently with his secretary of war and generals, asking them questions and discussing military operations. He spent countless hours in the War Department telegraph room, reading and sometimes responding to telegrams from the front, and often visiting armies in the field. While he gave the generals wide latitude, he remained curious, focused, well-informed and critical to the Union’s military success.

To develop effective policies on the issues he cares about, Trump must become better-informed. He should demand briefings on key issues from a variety of experts (especially those who oppose him), read them thoroughly and ask questions. Rather than glibly promise that Republicans will quickly repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with a plan that expands coverage, lowers costs and increases choice, he should learn about the complexities of health care and the inevitable trade-offs involved in replacing the ACA. Raising hopes only to dash them in fairly short order is neither good leadership nor good politics.

Lesson 4: Adapt, change and grow

Consider Lincoln’s position on slavery, race and citizenship. Lincoln opposed slavery, but he established restoration of the Union — not emancipation — as the Union’s war aim.

When he became president, Lincoln knew few African-Americans, probably saw them as inferior to whites and occasionally told racist jokes. As president, he listened to and learned from abolitionists who were among his most outspoken critics. They included radical Republican Sen. Charles Sumner and African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, whom Lincoln collared after his Second Inaugural Address to ask his opinion of the speech. Critics of slavery helped Lincoln understand how emancipation and enlistment of black troops would undermine the rebellion, leading him to embrace emancipation and reframe the Union’s war aims to include liberty as well as Union. Abolitionists also helped him understand that African-American citizenship was essential to make the war’s promise of “a new birth of freedom” a reality. In a speech delivered three days before his death, Lincoln embraced the radical position that blacks who had served in the military or were literate should have the right to vote.

Trump comes to office with an understanding of issues that reflects his campaign rhetoric. He cannot hope to leave this country better than he found it unless he listens to critics as well as supporters on a wide range of issues. Let’s start with terrorism. He may have proposed a Muslim ban during the campaign, but now’s the time to develop a nuanced view of Islam at home and abroad and listen to national security experts who understand the perils of targeting Muslims.

Lesson 5: Use words carefully

Lincoln had less than a year of formal education, yet he was among our most literate presidents. A voracious and eclectic reader, he appreciated the beauty and power of language and used his understanding to become a formidable writer. In the age of the telegraph, presidents communicated with the nation through the written word — speeches, open letters and state papers published in the press.

Lincoln worked hard to become a writer. As president, his precision and eloquence enabled him to make the case for the Union and the unimaginable sacrifices its preservation required. Lincoln defined the war as a “people’s contest,” a struggle to vindicate the efficacy of America’s founding principle — the right of people to govern themselves. His formulation of the principle evolved from the 1830s through his presidential addresses and achieved its most powerful expression in the Gettysburg Address. Skillfully weaving together emancipation and self government, he explained to a war-weary public that their sacrifices would forge “a new birth of freedom” that assured that America’s founding principle — “government of the people, by the people, for the people” — would “not perish from the Earth.”

While Trump enjoyed vastly more formal education than Lincoln, he is neither a reader nor a writer. He connects with supporters who find his barroom-like riffs “authentic” and honest. But as a candidate who lost the popular vote decisively, he must reach beyond his base to succeed. To do so, he must use language more precisely and persuasively. Should he continue to issue poorly crafted policy statements — such as his executive orders banning entry to the U.S. by residents of seven predominantly Muslim nations — he will spend his time walking back his positions, defending ill-conceived actions in court and undermining confidence in his competence. If he continues to appeal to fear and narrow self-interest rather than forge a vision rooted in shared values and aspirations — as did Lincoln, FDR and Reagan — his presidency will fail and the country will suffer. Here again he should listen to Lincoln, who appealed to “the better angels of our nature” in the face of secession and imminent war.

If Trump wants a reset that will help him — and the country — succeed, there is no better guide than POTUS 16.

Donald Nieman, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Trump to hold “listening session” with students, teachers from Florida shooting

(Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump is expected to hold a “listening session” with several students and teachers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following the tragic shooting last week.

A White House schedule said Trump will meet with students and teachers on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. However, the White House has offered no indication of which students would attend.

On Valentine’s Day last week, Nikolas Cruz, opened fire and killed 17 people with an AR-15 rifle. He was only 19 years old, and had a well documented previous obsession with guns, violence and was feared to be capable of the very atrocity that he committed. On Friday, the FBI admitted the agency failed to act on a tip that could have prevented the school shooting.

In the aftermath of the incident, the students who emerged survivors have spoken loudly and clearly about taking proper action to prevent future tragedies. On Sunday morning, a group of students announced the “March For Our Lives,” which will be a demonstration held in Washington D.C., on March 24. The students indicated other cities could join them in solidarity and that together they could call for gun reform legislation. Students have directly called out the president, and Republican lawmakers by name and condemned their ties to the National Rifle Association.

“This is about the adults. We feel neglected, and at this point, you’re either with us or against us,” 11th-grader Cameron Kasky said. “This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.”

On the other hand, Trump and Republican lawmakers have been noticeably silent in regards to any gun control, instead focusing only on mental health. Trump has even gone so far as to blame the ongoing Russia investigation for distracting the FBI from acting on a tip about Cruz.

Trump spoke on gun control recently in the context of the Las Vegas massacre last October, and made similar arguments about mental health.

“Well, we do have gun control laws and this sick person – he was a sicko. I mean that’s the big problem – they’re sick people,” Trump told Piers Morgan.

It’s unlikely Trump’s stance will change, and even Republican Gov. John Kasich said he had no confidence in Congress to take any action on guns, but if Trump meets with students who have condemned him outright, how will he react? If nothing comes of this meeting, was there even a point, or was it all just for show?

Sign of the times? Majority of school districts now require “active shooter” drills

People are brought out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after a shooting at the school on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. (Credit: Getty/Joe Raedle)

Run, hide, fight.

Students, teachers and faculty have three basic options in the event of a school shooting, according a 2013 federal guide on reducing gun violence, produced by the Departments of Education, Homeland Security and Justice.

As a sign of the times, 67 percent of school districts now require “active shooter exercises,” according to a 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office. Fifteen districts and 19 states reported plans to address specific active shooter threats or hazards, according to the GAO report. Florida is one of them.

On Wednesday, a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, claimed 17 lives. Fourteen others were left wounded, five in critical condition.

The deadly rampage in Parkland is raising new questions about whether schools and government officials are doing enough to keep students safe.

At Douglas, the faculty, administration and students had “active shooter training,” Broward County school board member Donna Korn told USA Today.

“We have had active shooter training at our schools, and so the response was one that had been anticipated, although you can never fully anticipate one of these events actually occurring,” Korn said. “We’ve got the people prepared, we have prepared the campuses but sometimes people still find a way to let these horrific things happen.”

It’s unclear if any planning, preparation or mantra like “run, hide, fight” could have stopped Florida shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz. The 19-year-old was apparently familiar with Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ emergency plans, Korn said. He was a former student of the high school.

Since the beginning of 2018,  there have been 18 instances involving weapons on school property across the country, gun-control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety reports. While that total includes incidents that are not considered school shootings, such as suicides, fatal and nonfatal assaults and unintentional shootings, an FBI report on “active shooters” between 2000 and 2016 found that mass shootings in the U.S. are becoming deadlier. Four of the five deadliest shootings in American history – at a Las Vegas concert (58), an Orlando nightclub (49), Virginia Tech (32), Sandy Hook Elementary School (27) and the Texas First Baptist Church (26) – happened in the last five years. The slaughter in Las Vegas, which left 59 dead and more than 500 injured in 2017, was not included in the report.

Interestingly, data shows that schools are the second-highest risk location, after workplaces and other commercial buildings. As a result, schools are perhaps preparing for the worst.

Thirty-two states have passed laws that require schools to have emergency safety plans, including fire, lockdown and evacuation, according to the GAO report. Six states – Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee – went even further, introducing mandatory active shooter drills each year. There is no consensus on what these drills and trainings look like, but Missouri requires school staff to participate in shooting simulations with police officers.

Data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics reports similar findings. From 2003 to 2014, the percentage of public schools with a written plan for shooting procedures went up from 78.5 to 88.3 percent.

While the effectiveness of active shooting drills remain unclear, one thing is obvious: School leaders and lawmakers understand that mass shootings can occur in any community, in any school district, at any time and they need be ready.