Spectator Life

Mental health therapists are supposed to be deliberate in making sure that their personal politics don’t get in the way of treating their patients. I was taught during graduate school that separating my “stuff” from my patients’ therapy was essential. After all, their therapy was all about them.   But that has changed in this country — everywhere from college-level classes and professional organizations, to therapy practices both public and private.   Earlier this summer, in a private group of mental health professionals that I administrate, I witnessed how the critical theory ideologues are destroying mental healthcare.

Juul, the once dominant e-cigarette company, is back with a new proposed product that it hopes will rescue it from the brink of bankruptcy: age-restricted vapes.   In their attempts to make smoking less accessible for minors, the company is prepared to make the simple pleasure a pain for everyone. Users first must buy a new e-cigarette that pairs with a phone app. They will then upload their government ID or a real-time selfie to the app and have a third-party database verify their identity. A unique Pod ID chip within the Juul device will detect counterfeit cartridges made by other companies, who have flooded the market with illegal fruity flavors that appeal to minors. To further combat the problem, the new device only comes with just one flavor—Virginia Tobacco.

Thanks to a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, firing faculty members for “lack of collegiality” is suddenly a bright prospect for college administrators eager to rid themselves of gadflies, diversiphobes, conservatives and other riffraff. The case involved Stephen Porter, a tenured professor in the school of education at North Carolina State University, who had had the bad grace to object to various forms of mandatory diversity saluting. Some details to follow, but let’s first roll around in the hay of “collegiality.”  The two members (out of three) on the Fourth Circuit who invoked the term were not entirely breaking new ground. The woker sort of faculty and college administrators have been fondling the idea for a while.

There’s a disturbing trend Cockburn has noticed lately that involves men d'un certain âge being inappropriately ripped. We’re not talking about the darling geriatric mall-walkers taking laps for their heart health; Cockburn is referring to the Jeff Bezoses (Bezii?) and the RFK Jrs. and the Sylvester Stallones of the world who are buffer than their aged bones might naturally allow. For starters, when you see Jeff Bezos’s fifty-nine-year-old “muscular physique” as he climbs aboard his “$500 million superyacht,” admit it: you’re disturbed. Before his billions, Bezos was a skinny nerd with the brawn of a wet spaghetti noodle.

The Biden family seems to care more about its dogs than the men and women who work to keep them safe every day. After numerous biting incidents, often but not exclusively of Secret Service agents, their dog Major was expelled. Now it may be Commander’s turn to hit the road — the question is how many agents need to get bitten first. The New York Post reports that over the course of four months, September 2022 to January 2023, the German Shepherd bit seven people, and there are likely more incidents outside that block of time. Cockburn finds it a bit strange that neither Joe nor Jill are willing to take the proactive step of muzzling their dogs — after all, hasn't this White House been all too eager to muzzle Americans?

The president of Stanford University, neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, has resigned in the shadow of an investigation that revealed that some scientific papers he had overseen contained “manipulated data” or evidence of other kinds of scientific malpractice.    His resignation may well be warranted — but before he disappears into ignominy, it would be wise to consider the situation.  In the now dimly remembered past, a scientist devised experiments and, working alone or with the help of a loyal assistant or two, carried them out. Or he sat in a room, as Einstein did, and thought through deep problems, eventually penning an article in which he said forth a bold new hypothesis.

The Biden administration announced on Friday that they would erase $39 billion for 800,000 borrowers due to inaccurate payment counts made under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans.  The plan will automatically and retroactively credit qualifying borrowers for mistakes made by federal loan services. It will also credit borrowers for late and partial payments and forbearances before the pandemic. The Department of Education said the plan will fix “historical failures in the administration of the federal student loan program in which qualifying payments made under IDR plans that should have moved borrowers closer to forgiveness were not accounted for.

This has been a busy offseason for the Chicago Bears, between the blockbuster trade that brought them D.J. Moore and also — more under the radar — their contract negotiations with cities in and around Chicago as the team considers leaving Soldier Field, the smallest NFL stadium. For months, those tracking the Bears’ decision-making felt that a racetrack in Chicago’s northwestern suburb of Arlington Heights had the inside track to host the storied football team. However, a confluence of bad timing and a progressive county assessor has allowed other cities to argue that the Bears should relocate to them instead.

I just caught the news that four pages in a notebook dated 2014 and stuffed into a couch cushion have been accepted as a valid will for the late singer Aretha Franklin. The jury that decided this enriched two of her sons and disappointed a third son, who was favored in an earlier will. This is what I call a legacy. But America is all worked up about another kind of legacy. I refer, of course, to the endearing habit of colleges and universities to give a leg up to the kinder of their alumni. Why do they do this? And why are so many people worked up over it?  These aren’t hard questions. Colleges have two reasons for their legacy programs.

First, it was rumored, and denied, that the Kardashians were on it. Then its usage spread all the way to Elon Musk. But now, are we seeing the real, tragic consequences of Hollywood's favorite slimming drug, Ozempic? Cockburn is devastated to hear of speculation that Christina Hendricks, also known as Joan from Mad Men, has succumbed to the latest celebrity trend. Hendricks, arguably the epitome of Rubenesque beauty in Tinseltown, caused alarm among fans online after posting a photo to Instagram following a dinner earlier this month. https://www.instagram.com/p/CuQszp2u_-M/?

Never trust a scholar of Sesame Street to know her legal terminology. Tamara Kay, a sociology professor at Notre Dame who studies the TV show's cultural transfusion around the world, is suing conservative student publication the Rover for its coverage of her abortion activism. Kay claims that two of its articles contained “defamatory and false statements.” The only trouble is that the Rover seems to be able to prove that what it published about Kay is true — and the paper has the receipts. Alas, another case of the decline of the American intellectual? The feud between the two began in 2022 when the Rover published an article on Kay’s comments at an abortion panel.

Johnston’s Gate isn’t the only entrance to Harvard Yard. For years, money, status and secret lists have opened back doors into Harvard University for a select group of privileged students. And the easiest way to open these doors? The right parents. According to the Harvard Crimson, over a third of the class of 2022 had a parent or other relative who attended Harvard. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action, the admission policy that has created America's aristocrats is starting to take some heat. Could legacy admission be the next to go? Three Boston-based advocacy groups say yes.

Quizzed on how best to assimilate a new culture, travel writer and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain once uttered the famous line: “Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.” I never met the man, but still I miss him and his deft writing. The Opening a Bottle series is about getting pickled with people far cooler than I am, in whatever city I’ve washed up in.  “What is it, love?” A British lady, tanned deep walnut, is curious, as are most passersby. I’m standing outside the imposing red façade of Red Chalet in the sleepy town of Armação de Pêra, in Portugal’s Algarve. She’s the third septuagenarian to greet me since I touched down. I smile to myself — some stereotypes exist because they’re true.

Being overweight, unless you’re a sixteenth-century Rubens model, ain’t the thing. But looking at America, where more than two-thirds of people are obese or overweight, you’d think thin is definitely not in. It’s well known extra pounds increase a person’s chance of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, along with the general discomfort of carrying around extra heft for which your frame wasn’t designed. Being overweight is also linked to increased cancer risk, and the New York Post reports: “In all, thirteen types of [cancer] were previously known to be associated with overweight body types — but now, that number has climbed to eighteen different cancers. And the risk of developing cancer begins when people are young — between the ages eighteen and forty.

Sunrise in Johannesburg, blazing a brighter red than I can recall seeing before. The orb seems unnaturally huge; burning my retina as it flashes through the thick canopy of leaves covering the largest manmade park in the world.  I’m looking out over the Koppies (“small hill” in Afrikaans) at one of Joburg’s most spectacular views, from Melville suburb’s highest point. Albeit, from behind a laptop. I’ve got a second coffee on the go at Pablo Guest House while attempting to carve out an itinerary for this last-minute jaunt. I’d jumped on a plane from Cape Town with Ashlee, a friend who grew up here. Her father lives in a looming school house stuffed with antiques, which she has the grand job of sorting through and selling on.

I have been pondering ways to rescue young Americans from the trouble and often the waste of the four-year undergraduate college education. Many young people as I recently pointed out are looking for alternatives. But there aren’t very many good ones. In what follows, I propose we put some of these discontented souls in a ship and sail them around the world. It is not entirely a new idea, and before I turn my rudder in that direction, I’d like to survey the horizon. Once, long ago, I was asked by the senior administration of my university to look after the playboy son of a wealthy European family who had decided to enroll in an undergraduate degree program. He was handsome, smooth, reckless and not very bright.

I’ve been pregnant for the better part of the last decade; fifty-four months to be precise. I recently started investing in refreshing my non-maternity or postpartum wardrobe. Everything I have from that stage of life is from when I was twenty-seven; and I’m definitely no longer able to pull off the same look from when I was in my twenties and childless. Now I’m a mom of six and inching uncomfortably close to forty.   In my research, I found the aesthetic I was shooting for, from a company called Son de Flor. Every time another conservative homeschool mom appeared in a dress I loved, it was one of theirs.   https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsJDbisgeC6/?igshid=Y2I2MzMwZWM3ZA== I was ready to pull the trigger on their summer sale...

NPR thinks Asian Americans should stand against the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action whether they like it or not. In an article published Sunday, NPR’s race and identity correspondent Sandhya Dirks argued that white conservative activists have used affirmative action to divide Asians from other communities of color for far too long. In fact, Asian students have nothing to lose by embracing the practice.  Per the article, Asian Americans became proxies for white privilege when affirmative action lawsuits brought by white students failed in 2013. To beat the legal system, Edward Blum, the head of Students for Fair Admissions, approached Asian students who he claimed had been hurt by biased college admissions.