A Woman Who Transitioned (F-T-M) Realized She Made A Terrible Mistake
She writes at Substack about her deep regret -- and pain and grief -- after "top surgery": a mastectomy to remove both breasts:
It was what I thought I wanted. As the date got closer, ragged jolts of fear started to come through me. But I persisted, and bolstered my belief by reading happy stories of post-op trans people.During our brief pre-op consultation, my surgeon said that this was an easy surgery. Quick recovery, back to normal in no time, really. She glanced over my body and told me that I would look great. I was imagining a transformative and spiritual experience when I went in for surgery. I'd hyped myself up to believe that this was going to be a beautiful turning point to becoming the real me. Of course I knew in an intellectual way, it was going to be tough to have surgery. Nonetheless, I expected powerful relief from my dysphoria.
I had no idea how bad it was going to be. But once I got the surgery, I found out for myself.
After my mastectomy, I felt sewn up, aching, ghastly. My sutures oozed blood, my abdomen was swollen and grotesque. My chest didn't feel at all natural. A disturbing, never-abating sensation of numbness and occasional pain had replaced what I now realized was the natural feeling of my intact body. And almost immediately after the surgery, the dread of regret started to sink in. Whatever I thought I was getting into, I had failed to contend with the fleshy reality.
Lesson learned, younger me. Don't let the pushy, glitzy Instagram "before and after" photos fool you- a mastectomy is ALWAYS a big deal.
I felt like I might be crazy having this kind of reaction to the surgery. I had binged on smiling, triumphant pictures of post-op trans men. The gore and the pain and sadness were not what I had expected. I posted on the ftm reddit about feeling a strange sense of grief at the surgery, and asked if anyone felt the same. Many other members of the forum came out of the woodwork to agree. Even if they were happy with the end results, they still felt loss and pain.
Not only that, but my feelings of gender dysphoria increased. My obsession migrated to my hips, my voice, and my very mannerisms. The top half of my body looked okay, but what was I going to do about my hips? The way I moved? I was more obsessed than ever before with monitoring myself. I told myself I was being liberated, but really it felt like I was stacking the bricks to my own prison walls.
I had this nagging feeling - that nothing would ever be enough, that I could just keep cutting and cutting my body but I'd still be the same increasingly-wounded me underneath it all. That feeling grew and grew. When it got loud enough, I began to realize I would have to detransition. I stopped T, and then my hormone-dampened sadness came flooding back.
...I was taken aback by the deep, serious loss I felt. I tried to connect to other people who were struggling with the same feelings, and searched for more information about mastectomies. In The Cancer Journals, Audre Lorde said that losing a breast (from a mastectomy for cancer) was as viscerally painful as losing her own mother. Another friend described the post-op feeling as being like she had been placed on a strange planet and she could never go home. I think if you haven't experienced it, it's hard to convey the feeling.
There was also the psychological fallout of having body parts missing. I felt a harrowing feeling that something was wrong with my body, something was missing. Alarm-signals went off in my brain constantly. In a bleak way, it was fascinating - I had discovered a whole new range of bad feelings I had never felt before. I fantasized feverishly about turning back the clock. Life as I knew it seemed to be over.
It was also really upsetting to cope with the difference between what I hoped the surgery would do for me, and what it actually was. It's easy to think top surgery will fix your life in some magical way. It's supposed to help you pass as a man or be androgynous. It's a huge step on your transition journey. To have those expectations fall through for whatever reason and end up regretting is really hard.
When I realized my mastectomy had been a mistake, I felt betrayed, disoriented, and confused. My fantasies of what transition would do for me, the road map I had structured my future on, dissolved into meaninglessness. How did I get in this situation? Why did I think this awful, awful surgery would help me? Why didn't I run screaming away from the surgeon's table?
And on top of all of that, if you end up reverting to a female gender identity, there's the entire collapse of your understanding of yourself to deal with. While detransitioning is different from transitioning, they share the feature of reckoning with the nature of your life and identity. What's your new name? Who are you after all this? What does it mean to be yourself, now? To a large extent, you have to find your own way out of the wilderness.
So: this was hard. Especially the first year, especially the first six months. It got worse after I realized I needed to detransition and make peace with my body, because that also involved accepting that my natural body would never be restored.
Linktuation
As a few people pointed out, she doesn't seem interested in rejecting a meaningful indicator of "hierarchy," the title "dr." -- which she uses now in lowercase.
Taliban Image Management: Lie To The Gullible Western World
Via Yogita Limaye of the BBC, the Taliban "have sought to portray a more moderate image than when they last seized power in 1996." It's, of course, total bullshit:
They have repeatedly said they will grant amnesty to all, including those who worked for western militaries or the Afghan government or police. In a dramatic press conference after the group swept into Kabul, chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid made a declaration of forgiveness.But there is growing evidence that the reality on ground is different to the rhetoric coming from Taliban leaders and spokesmen. It was not lost on some watching the press conference in Kabul that Mr Mujahid made his declaration from the seat of the former government spokesman Dawa Khan Menapal, who had been killed by the group just weeks earlier, as "punishment for his deeds".
Now sources inside Afghanistan, as well as some who recently fled, have told the BBC that Taliban fighters are searching for, and allegedly killing, people they pledged they would leave in peace.
...Those who managed to flee say they fear for their colleagues back home. Zala Zazai, a former Afghan policewoman, one of thousands trained since the Taliban was deposed in 2001, said she was still in touch with other former policewomen.
"The Taliban call them from their office phones and ask them to come to work, and ask for their home address," she said.
Ms Zazai said that even in Tajikistan she was not totally out of the reach of the Taliban. Her mother, who is with her, received messages urging both women to return to Afghanistan and "live in the Islamic way", she said.
...A high-ranking Afghan police official, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, told the BBC from hiding that he'd heard the Taliban were searching for him.
"They caught my assistant and interrogated him for five hours," the official said. "They treated him very badly. They asked him, 'Where is your chief?' If they are forgiving everyone then why are they hunting for me?"
He said he was changing location every day with his wife and children. "I have no money to cross the border," he said, breaking down as he spoke. "The problem is the Taliban have no justice system. They have no courts, no jail. They are just killing."
It is not just people who worked in the security forces who say they are being targeted. Members of the civil administration, and those who worked in jobs disapproved by the Taliban told similar stories.
"The Taliban took my car, beat up my guards and took their weapons," said Zarifa Ghafari, who was Afghanistan's first female mayor, governing Maidan Shar, the capital of Wardak province.
"They were searching for me. They called all the people who used to be in contact with me asking where I was. They even went to my husband's parents' house to look for me," she said.
Ms Ghafari was speaking via a video call from Germany, where she fled after the Taliban took power.
"They made me do something I never wanted to do," she said. "They made me leave a country that I love."
Link Blot
Invisible Link.
"White" Used As A Pejorative
So much of this neo-racism (Rav Arora's term for "anti-racism") is so ugly and insulting to the people it proports to be protecting.
Great piece by Angel Eduardo at Newsweek about his experience. Here's his picture, which has some relevance -- as it suggests he is probably not, say, an Ashkenazi Jew or from a long line of Welsh families:
Eduardo, who is, in fact, Dominican, was often told he didn't "act Dominican":
Today, I still find myself called "white" as a pejorative, often to silence or shame me for speaking heresies. A recent example is instructive: While filling a sign-up form for a workshop, I noticed that the question of my race featured a blank field rather than the usual multiple choice. I took the opportunity to proudly write in "human," and shared this anecdote on Twitter. The response was telling."Funny how we still know exactly what race this person is," wrote one woman in response.
"One of my favorite facts from answering psychology surveys," another woman replied, "is the knowledge that in this instance, 'Human' is always coded by researchers as 'white,' since only white people ever write that."
Of course, they didn't feel the need to find out whether I was actually "white" or not. After all, the necessary evidence was in what I had written. It was inconceivable to those women that anyone voicing that sentiment could possibly be "black" or "brown."
The idea that race--specifically, blackness--should entail a certain ideology or viewpoint and that veering from that viewpoint is a sign of unfortunate whiteness is, sadly, a common one. In a since-deleted tweet, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones insisted that "there is a difference between being politically black and being racially black"--a sentiment later echoed by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, who said in an interview with the popular radio show The Breakfast Club, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black." Most recently, a Los Angeles Times story called Larry Elder, a conservative black radio host and gubernatorial candidate, "the black face of white supremacy."
This penchant for taking away people's blackness if they don't agree with your politics is pernicious, a cynical gatekeeping that's as rampant as it is deplorable.
I call it the One Thought Rule: Disagree with the orthodoxy and your "of color" card gets revoked. Toe the line or your very being will be called into question by the ideological powers that be.
...I, for one, opt out. I'm not "white," but I'm not "black" or "brown," either. I am human, and I will proudly say so when prompted. I will not toe that ideological line. I refuse it, and I refuse its imposition upon me.
As for my "of color" card, you can have it. It's meaningless to me anyway.
No doubt I will be pilloried for what I've written here. I'll be told as I have been countless times before that I may reject race but I'll be racialized anyway by a white supremacist America. To that I say that yes, racism exists, even though race doesn't; but I don't need to believe in race to fight racism any more than I need to believe in God to fight religious dogmatism. Union is my project; division is not, and I refuse to divide myself from you--or for you.
I'm free from that nonsense.
And the best part about not being in any club or tribe? Now, everyone is in mine.
He basically says what I say in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck": that we are all what I call "co-humans."
Neo-racism, on the other hand, isn't about progress but regression and shaming and unearned power over others through the divisiveness of the new secular religion of so-called "anti-racism."
Linkeolas
I believe this is a boobsflower.
— Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. (@sbkaufman) August 31, 2021August 31, 2021
Advice Goddess Free Swim
It's Monday night, and my brain is in about the state of an old piece of liver. You pick the topics.
P.S. One link per comment or my spam filter will eat your post.
August 30, 2021Could Have One Person And One Dead Person Driving The Train
And do just fine. But...
@walterolson tweeted:
Labor unions have been lobbying federal regulators to mandate that all freight trains operate with two-person crews in the cab, despite automation. But piling unneeded costs on rail shifts usage to trucks, at potential costs both environmental and financial.
From a Reason piece by Eric Boehm, who explains that "positive train control (PTC), essentially a computer-based override system that monitors speed and track signals to avert collisions":
With PTC systems handling many of the in-cab duties that were formerly the rail conductor's responsibility, railroads are seeking to reassign some of those workers. Because rail conductors typically do equipment inspections and perform other duties before trains depart from rail yards and after they return, some will continue to work in that capacity. But any changes to the employment structure have to be approved as part of collective bargaining.The unions' lobbying efforts can best be understood as a way to gain the upper hand in those negotiations. If the federal government mandates two-person rail crews, railroads won't be able to negotiate other arrangements.
During the waning days of the Obama administration, the unions nearly got what they wanted. In 2016, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) proposed a rule mandating two-person crews. But after investigating the issue for several years, the FRA concluded in 2019 that the mandate was not "necessary or appropriate for railroad operations to be conducted safely."
Case closed--unless Congress gets involved, which is exactly what could happen this year as part of Biden's infrastructure plan.
The president, as you may have heard, is a big fan of trains. And the White House has set ambitious goals for reducing America's carbon emissions during the next few decades. Trains could be a major part of that, because moving one ton of cargo one mile by truck emits several times as much carbon dioxide as moving it by rail.
But mandating that the railroad industry employ twice as many people to drive each train means higher costs. A 2015 study by Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm, and the AAR found that switching from two-person to one-person crews could save railroad companies as much as $2.5 billion over a decade. Those savings could reduce the cost of rail freight, making train transportation more economical. That in turn could mean fewer exhaust-spewing trucks on America's highways.
Despite the potential environmental benefits, siding with the railroads could alienate Biden's labor union allies. Still, without clear and convincing evidence that two-person crews are necessary for trains to operate safety--and with PTC doing a better job of preventing accidents than humans used to--there's no compelling reason for the government to get involved in this dispute. Private railroads and unions can make their own arrangements.
If Biden needs more convincing, he should check in with his beloved Amtrak. The government-run passenger rail system dropped its own two-people-in-the-cab mandate back in the 1980s.
Linkswine
August 29, 2021America: Still great. pic.twitter.com/GovQdgH5TI
— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) August 28, 2021
"Neo-Racism" Is The Perfect Term To Describe The Reality Of So-Called "Anti-Racism"
Rav Arora writes in Canada's Globe & Mail about race grifter Robin DiAngelo's new book, which veers into the self-help genre. (He used the term "neo-racist" in a tweet about his piece, though, unfortunately, not in the piece itself.):
Diversity training expert Robin DiAngelo has targeted a growing demographic of socially conscious readers with her new anti-racist self-help book Nice Racism - an expanded iteration of her international bestselling White Fragility....DiAngelo's core ideas of rejecting individualism (which "upholds the myth of meritocracy" and thereby the "superiority of those at the top") and viewing each other primarily through the lens of race has permeated borders and entered Canadian life. Earlier this year, released documents from Global Affairs Canada revealed diplomats and other federal employees are taught that "individualism," "colour-blindness," and "objectivity" are "pillars" of white supremacy - arguments DiAngelo lays out in her first book.
In the current, polarized political zeitgeist, white progressives have committed to fighting systemic racism and acknowledging their racial blind spots. However, rather than addressing real racial and economic inequities, DiAngelo promotes solutions that are far more regressive than progressive.
DiAngelo opens Nice Racism with an anecdote from her college days when she was having dinner with a Black couple. She confesses to having spent very little time with Black people at that point in her life, and in that encounter felt compelled to signal her racial openness, leading her to spend the whole dinner exposing her family's history of racism: "I shared every racist joke, story, and comment I could remember my family ever making..." "The couple seemed uncomfortable" she notes, later acknowledging the "racial harm" she "inflicted."
At a time when our culture is increasingly intolerant of past mistakes, DiAngelo's confession of her view of Black people as fundamentally racialized beings operating in a different social matrix is commendable. However, DiAngelo - committed to promoting racial harmony - takes all the steps in the wrong direction from this starting point, promoting racial essentialism, self-segregation and an ultimately dehumanizing form of condescension towards racial minorities, which she seems to regard as a homogeneous group that would, without exception, benefit from her gestures of help.
Her stated mission in the book is to help white people to stop individualizing themselves and instead identify as a collective mass of unearned privilege and historical guilt. "Suspending individuality for white people is a necessary interruption to our denial of collective advantage," she writes. She urges her readers to form "white affinity" groups - self-segregated spaces for white people to discuss and reflect on how they commit daily racial harm. Concerningly, DiAngelo does not understand the dangers of encouraging such racial tribalism and universally placing whites at the top of our social hierarchy. Though with entirely different intentions, it is this same group division that real white supremacists such as David Duke thrive on. They too reduce everyone to a racial essence and believe in white superiority - and thankfully they are pushed to the margins of society.
...Instead of acknowledging the cascading complexity of race relations today - where Indigenous communities and Black communities in the inner-city continue to suffer from unequal opportunity but many within South Asian and Middle Eastern communities, for example, exceedingly prosper - DiAngelo paints broad brush strokes, dividing the diverse human race into an inflexibly oppressive "white" caste and powerless, victimized "people of color." In DiAngelo's paradigm, prejudice and injustice - as systemic as the legacy of residential schools or as individual as a racist comment made by a white classmate (as I have experienced) - are obscured by these broad colour-coded stereotypes where minorities are invariably oppressed and "all white people are racist."
Transcendence of one's identity is a core theme in a number of recent self-help books - from Jay Shetty's Think Like a Monk to Russell Brand's Revelation - but DiAngelo's goal in Nice Racism is the exact opposite: to reify, stereotype and fixate on one's identity. Her explicitly stated project is that of "racial enlightenment," for race is the centre of human experience, according to DiAngelo - her most fatal misconception.
Linkslidey
August 28, 2021There's baseball and there's baseballet. https://t.co/vGF9b8O89k
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) August 28, 2021
The Anti-Progress Of Anti-Racism
Michael Powell writes in The New York Times of how it's been going in pricey New York City private schools tackling "white privilege":
Several years back Grace Church School, an elite private school in Manhattan, embraced an antiracist mission and sought to have students and teachers wrestle with whiteness, racial privilege and bias.Teachers and students were periodically separated into groups by race, gender and ethnicity. In February 2021, Paul Rossi, a math teacher, and what the school called his "white-identifying" group, met with a white consultant, who displayed a slide that named supposed characteristics of white supremacy. These included individualism, worship of the written word and objectivity.
Mr. Rossi said he felt a twist in his stomach. "Objectivity?" he told the consultant, according to a transcript. "Human attributes are being reduced to racial traits."
As you look at this list, the consultant asked, are you having "white feelings"?
"What," Mr. Rossi asked, "makes a feeling 'white'?"
Some of the high school students then echoed his objections. "I'm so exhausted with being reduced to my race," a girl said. "The first step of antiracism is to racialize every single dimension of my identity." Another girl added: "Fighting indoctrination with indoctrination can be dangerous."
This modest revolt proved fateful. A school official reprimanded Mr. Rossi, accusing him of "creating a neurological imbalance" in students, according to a recording of the conversation. A few days later the head of school wrote a statement and directed teachers to read it aloud in classes.
"When someone breaches our professional norms," the statement read in part, "the response includes a warning in their permanent file that a further incident of unprofessional conduct could result in dismissal."
This is another dispatch from America's cultural conflicts over schools, this time from a rarefied bubble. Elite private schools from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., from Boston to Columbus, Ohio, have embraced a mission to end racism by challenging white privilege. A sizable group of parents and teachers say the schools have taken it too far -- and enforced suffocating and destructive groupthink on students.
...Kindergarten students at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx are taught to identify their skin color by mixing paint colors. The lower school chief in an email last year instructed parents to avoid talk of colorblindness and "acknowledge racial differences."
...Critics, a mixed lot of parents and teachers, argue that aspects of the new curriculums edge toward recreating the racially segregated spaces of an earlier age. They say the insistent emphasis on skin color and race is reductive and some teenagers learn to adopt the language of antiracism and wield it against peers.
There's a surprise.
Paul Rossi from Grace Church School -- who has since left -- gets how racist this "anti-racism" is:
Mr. Davison said he was worried students were made to feel shame because of race. "We're demonizing white people for being born," he said, adding later, "We're using language that makes them feel less than, for nothing that they are personally responsible."
Again, a set of quotes from above says it all:
"Some of the high school students then echoed his objections. "I'm so exhausted with being reduced to my race," a girl said. "The first step of antiracism is to racialize every single dimension of my identity." Another girl added: "Fighting indoctrination with indoctrination can be dangerous."
A comment at the NYT:
ManhattanMom, New York, NY
To avoid all this enforced virtue signaling and palaver about racial identity, which is aimed at covering up the truth about private schools -- that they only exist to provide assured pathways to wealth and status, and currently more white folks can afford them than people of color -- send your kids to public school. You'll enjoy the true diversity there. And so will your kids.
Linkhov
Photo I couldn't help but take.
August 27, 2021The Three Sisters. (Not exactly by Chekhov.)
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) August 28, 2021
Venice, California. pic.twitter.com/XJYR50Z4p5
Early Communist Utopia: Like An HOA For Vegans Who Hate Fun
Author Louisa May Alcott got dragged off to one of these, writes Lawrence W. Reed at FEE:
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was published more than a century and a half ago--in 1868--and all these decades later, it remains a popular novel. What the author's many fans may not know is that as a young girl, Alcott learned firsthand just how ridiculous a utopian socialist commune is.Alcott was just 11 when her father moved the family to the experimental village of Fruitlands in Massachusetts. It was not a promising place. Elizabeth Dunn at History.com writes,
Fruitlands was founded in Harvard, Massachusetts, as a self-sufficient farming community by Charles Lane and Bronson Alcott, two men with no practical experience in either farming or self-sufficiency...Settlers were forbidden to eat meat, consume stimulants, use any form of animal labor, create artificial light, enjoy hot baths or drink anything but water. Lane's ideas later evolved to include celibacy within marriage, which caused no small amount of friction between him and his most loyal disciple, Bronson Alcott, who had relocated his wife and four daughters [Louisa being one of them] to Fruitlands in a characteristic fit of enthusiasm.
At least 119 utopian, communal or socialist settlements were founded in the early 1800s in America. As most of the country reveled in newly won freedoms and a market economy that allowed the enterprising to create wealth, a few malcontents sought a different life. They spurned private property in favor of sharing material things in common. They preferred a "planned" community over the supposed "chaos" of the market's spontaneous order. They thought if they just worked out on paper what their preferred society would look like, everything and everybody would just fall into place.
Um...nuh-uh. Some of the practices:
From its inception in 1843, Fruitlands and its visionaries Lane and Alcott marinated in the half-baked, socialist abstractions that doomed it to failure:Lofty pledges of equality that fell far short of reality. Women, for instance, were promised they would have to work no harder or longer than men, but the Alcott girls were among the Fruitlands women who were stuck with most of the labor.
Goofy, fringe notions about life. At Fruitlands, these notions included a general abstinence not only from sex but from most of what its architects regarded as "worldly activities"--like most commerce and trade, the raising of livestock, and the planting of vegetables that grow down (like turnips and carrots) instead of up (like lettuce and tomatoes).
A weird disdain for private property. The mere desire to acquire property for oneself (even by serving others as customers) was regarded as repugnant. Lane and Alcott once visited a nearby settlement of Shakers and while admiring the Shakers' practice of property held "in common," they condemned them for engaging in commerce by selling their homemade furniture.
These communities all disappeared -- none lasting as much as a decade. Fruitland? Seven months -- and kaput.
Reed is right:
Perhaps that lousy track record is the reason socialists don't practice "voluntary" socialism today, preferring to dragoon people into their plans by coercion. That's a rather sad commentary, isn't it? Ideas so bad that because they flop when tried freely, they must be imposed at the point of a gun. What could go wrong?
Linklords
August 26, 2021Ruling that government can't unilaterally let people squat on private property is pretty sensible, really. https://t.co/vmZ5TpkZD7
— J.D. Tuccille (@JD_Tuccille) August 27, 2021
Prepare To Welcome Our Chinese Overlords
Mathematicians Percy Deift, Svetlana Jitomirskaya, and Sergiu Klainerman write at Quillette about the results of US schools putting "diversity" before merit:
All three of us are mathematicians who came to the United States as young immigrants, having been attracted by the unmatched quality and openness of American universities. We came, as many others before and after, with nothing more than a good education and a strong desire to succeed. As David Hilbert famously said, "Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country." Having built our careers in US academia, we are proud to call ourselves American mathematicians. The United States has been dominant in the mathematical sciences since the mass exodus of European scientists in the 1930s. Because mathematics is the basis of science--as well as virtually all major technological advances, including scientific computing, climate modelling, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and robotics--US leadership in math has supplied our country with an enormous strategic advantage. But for various reasons, three of which we set out below, the United States is now at risk of losing that dominant position.First, and most obvious, is the deplorable state of our K-12 math education system. Far too few American public-school children are prepared for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This leaves us increasingly dependent on a constant inflow of foreign talent, especially from mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and India. In a 2015 survey conducted by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Graduate Record Examinations Board, about 55 percent of all participating graduate students in mathematics, computer sciences, and engineering at US schools were found to be foreign nationals. In 2017, the National Foundation for American Policy estimated that international students accounted for 81 percent of full-time graduate students in electrical engineering at U.S. universities; and 79 percent of full-time graduate students in computer science.
That report also concluded that many programs in these fields couldn't even be maintained without international students. In our field, mathematics, we find that at most top departments in the United States, at least two-thirds of the faculty are foreign born. (And even among those faculty born in the United States, a large portion are first-generation Americans.) Similar patterns may be observed in other STEM disciplines.
The second reason for concern is that the nationwide effort to reduce racial disparities, however well-intentioned, has had the unfortunate effect of weakening the connection between merit and scholastic admission. It also has served (sometimes indirectly) to discriminate against certain groups--mainly Asian Americans. The social-justice rhetoric used to justify these diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs is often completely at odds with the reality one observes on campuses. The concept of fighting "white supremacy," in particular, doesn't apply to the math field, since American-born scholars of all races now collectively represent a small (and diminishing) minority of the country's academic STEM specialists.
Third, other countries are now competing aggressively with the United States to recruit top talent, using the same policies that worked well for us in the past. Most notably, China, America's main economic and strategic competitor, is in the midst of an extraordinary, mostly successful, effort to improve its universities and research institutions. As a result, it is now able to retain some of the best Chinese scientists and engineers, as well as attract elite recruits from the United States, Europe, and beyond.
Here's California:
The framework proposed for California's 10,588 public schools and their six-million-plus students promotes "data science" as a preferred pathway, touting it as the mathematics of the 21st century. While this might sound like a promising idea, the actual "data-science" pathway described in the framework minimizes algebraic training to such an extent that it leaves students completely unprepared for most STEM undergraduate degrees. Algebra is essential to modern mathematics; and there is hardly any application of mathematics (including real data science) that is not based to a large extent on either algebra or calculus (with the latter being impossible to explain or implement without the former).The authors write that "a fundamental aim of this framework is to respond to issues of inequity in mathematics learning"; that "we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents [and the] cult of the genius"; and that "active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities." And yet the research they cite to justify these claims has been demonstrated to be shallow, misleadingly applied, vigorously disputed, or just plainly wrong. Even the specific model lessons offered in the proposed framework fail to withstand basic mathematical scrutiny, as they muddle basic logic, present problems that can't be solved by techniques described as being available to students, or list solutions without discussing the need for a proof (thus developing a false understanding of what it means to "solve" a problem--a misconception that university educators such as ourselves must struggle to undo).
...Needless to say, China pursues none of the equity programs that are sweeping the United States. Quite the contrary: It is building on the kind of accelerated, explicitly merit-based programs, centered on gifted students, that are being repudiated by American educators. Having learned its lesson from the Cultural Revolution, when science and merit-based education were all but obliterated in favor of ideological indoctrination, China is pursuing a far-sighted, long-term strategy to create a world-leading corps of elite STEM experts. In some strategically important fields, such as quantum computing, the country is arguably already ahead of the United States.
And how the problem might be solved?
American educators must return to a process of recruitment and promotion based on merit, at all levels of education and research--a step that will require a policy U-turn at the federal, state, and local levels (not to mention at universities, and at tech corporations that have sought to reinvent themselves as social-justice organizations). Instead of implementing divisive policies based on the premise of rooting out invisible forms of racism, or seeking to deconstruct the idea of merit in spurious ways, organizations should redirect their (by now substantial) DEI budgets toward more constructive goals, such as funding outreach programs, and even starting innovative new charter schools for underprivileged K-12 students. Elite private universities, in particular, are well positioned to direct portions of their huge endowments and vast professional expertise in this regard. By doing so, they could demonstrate that it's possible to help minority students succeed without sacrificing excellence.The proposals we are describing here may sound highly ambitious--not to mention being at cross-currents with today's ideological climate. But we also believe there will soon be an opportunity for change, as the rapid rise of China in strategically important STEM fields may help shock the American policymaking community into action--much like the so-called Sputnik crisis of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when it was Russia's soaring level of technical expertise that became a subject of public concern. Then, as now, the only path to global technological leadership was one based on a rigorous, merit-based approach to excellence in mathematics, science, and engineering.
Link & Order
August 25, 2021Deluded Portland Mayor on the planned substitute for policing violent attacks: "'We are asking you to choose love,' Wheeler said during the Aug. 20 press conference." https://t.co/U5YoBMnESH
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) August 25, 2021
The Opportunity And Rights So Many Americans Take For Granted
I'm always reminded of what it means to be an American and how completely lucky I am that my great grandparents emigrated here when I see what people go through in repressive regimes.
In the WSJ, a tragic story by Joe Parkinson, Ava Sasani and Drew Hinshaw of a 17-year-old Afghan soccer star who fled the Taliban by clinging to a departing American jet -- and plunged to his death:
Hundreds of Afghans swarmed the runway of Hamid Karzai International Airport attempting to climb onto a taxiing 140-ton U.S. Air Force transport plane. Two Apache helicopters buzzed low to disperse them.Powering through the scrum in a green tunic, 17-year-old Zaki Anwari made his way to the front and clambered onto the plane's landing gear. As it accelerated past 120 miles an hour, he held tight.
Hours earlier, as the Taliban began its first morning in charge of Kabul, Mr. Anwari, a high-school senior and attacking midfielder for the national youth soccer team, phoned his brother to tell him that if he didn't flee Afghanistan he would never play again.
"Do not go, go back, you are smart, don't go," his elder brother Zakir said.
"I have to try," Mr. Anwari replied.
Millions of people saw footage of what happened next: a defining image from America's chaotic exit from a 20-year war that had an unsettling resonance with the 9/11 attacks that ignited it. As the C-17 Globemaster III arched skyward over Kabul, Mr. Anwari fell.
Inside the cockpit, the crew had made a snap decision to take off to escape the surrounding crowd. Mr. Anwari, nicknamed "Shield" for his ability to keep the ball, couldn't hold on.
"They are falling over there," a bystander said in one video shot from the runway, as a crowd ran toward the silhouettes falling to the ground. "Oh, my God," he said.
At least two other young men died that day, according to aid agencies. Another fell from the plane around the same time as Mr. Anwari and a third was crushed by the retracting landing gear. Several other young men gripping onto the C-17 would have shared their fate if they hadn't leapt seconds before the wheels left the runway.
All were members of a generation of Afghans who haven't known rule by the Taliban and were terrified enough to grab hold of an accelerating military jet if it meant a ticket out.
"It was not just the fall of Kabul. It was the fall of a whole new generation who believed and worked for progressive Afghanistan," Shafiqa Khpalwak, a Kabul-based poet, wrote on Twitter. "Trusted the world. And hoped for a brighter future."
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Neither here nor there on this movie -- which was good -- but I just love that play on the typical preachy version of the sign you see (well, I see, here in Venice).
August 24, 2021I stole this photo from Instagram and can't take credit but where do I purchase this pic.twitter.com/2Qm84zgoDW
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) August 24, 2021
NIMBY Zoning
In my experience, it's precisely the people who are "progressives" -- all for "affordable housing" -- who will be first to lose their shit if you so much as hint at building an apartment building within a mile of their single-family house.
Money, meet mouth.
Unfortunately, that has yet to happen.
The LA Times Editorial Board writes:
For decades now, California leaders have been stuck in a low-density, single-family, not-in-my-backyard 20th century mindset. The result is a deep housing shortage that is driving more Californians into poverty, worsening inequality and hurting economic opportunity.The staggering cost of buying or renting a home in California takes a terrible toll. Rents have risen faster than incomes, and 1 in 3 households statewide now spend more than half their income on rent, leaving many families one rent increase or one missed paycheck away from losing their homes. When residents cannot afford to live near jobs, they often move to far-flung suburbs and commute hours each day, worsening traffic congestion and air pollution. Employers say high housing costs hurt the state's economy by making it hard to attract and retain skilled workers -- a situation that has led some companies to relocate to states where their middle-class workers can afford to buy homes.
The heart of the problem is this: California has failed to build enough housing to keep up with population growth and demand. California needs to add between 1.8 million and 2.5 million new homes by 2025 to ease the housing shortage that is driving up rents and home prices. But when more than two-thirds of residential land in California is zoned for single-family homes, it becomes difficult and expensive to add housing.
...Today, restrictive or exclusionary zoning perpetuates racial and economic segregation by prohibiting lower-cost apartments and townhomes in high-opportunity single-family neighborhoods with good schools, parks and other amenities. President Biden and his economic advisors have warned that restrictive zoning widens the racial wealth gap and hurts upward mobility.
In California, lawmakers have an opportunity this year to take small but vital steps toward easing the housing crisis. Senate Bills 9 and 10 would allow small multifamily buildings on single-family lots. These are the two most controversial housing bills this year. That should tell you just how politicized housing legislation has become because, despite all the angst, these bills probably won't make a big impact on home construction any time soon.
And yet, lawmakers should still pass SB 9 and SB 10, and Gov. Gavin Newsom should still sign them. California needs to dismantle exclusionary zoning. This will have to be a bill-by-bill and city-by-city process until, finally, California communities remove the restrictions that stifle home creation and perpetuate segregation and inequality.
They have to make everything about race, but this affects all people who have modest incomes.
The more far-reaching of the two bills is Senate Bill 9 by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). SB 9 would allow up to four units of housing on a single-family lot. A property owner could create a duplex. Or the owner could subdivide the property into two lots and build up to two units on each lot for a maximum of four units. The properties would generally need to comply with existing design standards.While SB 9 may sound like a radical change, it isn't. California has already passed laws in recent years that override single-family zoning to allow homeowners to build three units on their property. A single-family home can have a detached or attached granny flat on the lot, and a smaller junior unit attached to the main house.
SB 9 allows one more unit than existing law. It would also give property owners more options in what types of units they build and it allows them to split the lot and sell -- not just rent -- the new units. Those new options could entice more property owners to build additional homes on their property. But given the restrictions built into SB 9 and the market conditions, only about 1.5% of single-family homes statewide are likely to take advantage of SB9, according to a recent analysis. Again, it's a modest but worthwhile reform.
Linkeaucrats
August 23, 2021The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. - H. L. Mencken
— Bankable Insight (@BankableInsight) August 24, 2021
Why Meritocracy Is Worth Defending
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley writes:
Once upon a time there was a college in New York City that people referred to as the "Harvard of the proletariat." Many of its graduates were poor or the children of working-class immigrants, yet they went on to become physicians and lawyers and distinguished scholars. Nine alumni were later awarded Nobel Prizes.In 1970 the school watered down its admissions standards and began admitting anyone who had graduated from high school. "The result was a simultaneous boom in student numbers and a collapse in academic standards," Adrian Wooldridge writes in his new book, "The Aristocracy of Talent." Within a decade, "two out of three students admitted to the college required remedial teaching in the three 'R's. Dropout rates surged. Talented scholars left. Protests and occupations became commonplace." In 1994 a task force concluded that the college was "in a spiral of decline." Five years later, the open-admissions policy was declared a failure and finally reversed.
Mr. Wooldridge's book is a broad defense of meritocracy--judging people based on their abilities--and its origins. He presents New York's City College as a cautionary tale for the U.S., where the war on standards has intensified in recent years. Last month, Oregon ended its requirement that students show proficiency in reading and math to earn a high school diploma. Two of the nation's most prestigious schools, Boston Latin Academy and Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia, have scrapped their admissions tests to achieve more racial balance. New York's mayor has engaged in a multiyear battle to end testing at the Big Apple's elite schools.
It's true that many critics of meritocracy come from the left. "The use of standardized tests to measure aptitude and intelligence is one of the most effective racist policies ever designed to degrade Black minds and legally exclude Black bodies," writes Ibram X. Kendi. But Mr. Wooldridge also quotes conservative populists equally troubled by meritocratic systems. "The S.A.T. 50 years ago pulled a lot of smart people out of every little town in America and funneled them into a small number of elite institutions, where they married each other, had kids, and moved to an even smaller number of elite neighborhoods," Tucker Carlson argues. "But the problem with the meritocracy [is that it] leaches all the empathy out of your society."
Meritocracies weren't designed to degrade and exclude. Rather, the goals were to replace a system based heavily on patronage and nepotism, to treat people as individuals rather than as members of groups, and to distribute opportunities according to ability and talent. "For millennia, most societies have been organized according to the very opposite principles to meritocracy," Mr. Wooldridge writes. "People inherited their positions in fixed social orders. The world was ruled by royal dynasties. Plum jobs were bought and sold like furniture. Nepotism was a way of life. Upward mobility was discouraged and sometimes outlawed."
As Mr. Carlson notes, meritocratic systems aren't without flaws. The Ivy League recruits more students from households in the top 1% than from the entire bottom half of the income distribution, which can make meritocracy look like little more than a cover for perpetuating class privilege. On balance, however, meritocracy has done a better job than its alternatives in moving societies forward. It has provided upward social mobility for the poor, for women and for racial and ethnic minorities. Whatever meritocracy's shortcomings, the cure is clearly more meritocracy, not moving back in the direction of what it replaced.
Linkzitty
Oh, the places my mind goes: Dr. Karl Pimple Popper.
This Woman Should Have Seen A Therapist, Not A Student Loan Officer
WSJ story by Rachel Louise Ensign and Shane Shifflett, "College Was Supposed to Close the Wealth Gap for Black Americans. The Opposite Happened." This is an example tucked in at the end -- and P.S. She happens to be black but people of all colors are getting these huge loans they might never be able to pay back:
Ristina Gooden graduated from the Ohio State University in 2012 with a hospitality degree and about $18,500 in student debt. Her parents, both college graduates, helped but couldn't cover everything.After college, she made about $50,000 a year in event planning, worked part time at local bakeries and started paying off her loans.
In 2019, Ms. Gooden started graduate school at Vanderbilt University to become a minister. She was wary about emptying her savings but wanted to give back to her community. She also felt a deep need to be recognized as an intellectual.
"That's so deeply ingrained in us: 'How much work can I do to be seen as a whole person?'" said Ms. Gooden, 31. "You'll see me as a whole person when you address me as 'doctor' and see me as the smartest person in the room."
Ms. Gooden expects to graduate with $100,000 in student loans. She estimates she will have to wait until her mid-40s to buy a home on her own but might be able to buy earlier with help from her parents or a future partner. Thinking about the debt is stressful. "It feels like a burden I will carry for the rest of my life," she said.
A friend wanted to go to grad school, so she studied her ass off in remedial algebra so she'd do well enough on the GRE that she'd be eligible for scholarships.
The notion that you just spend big bucks, and never mind how you'll pay them back -- that's not an adult notion.
P.S. Cheapest Master of Divinity is under $6K.
You can get your Doctor of Ministry degree online for less than $5K.
You might prefer to be in a Cadillac of programs, but if you can only afford a Pinto, or you'll be paying off that Cadillac maybe until you die...well, perhaps if not a Pinto (didn't they explode?)...maybe you go for the budget option.
Linker Mayer
August 21, 2021I'm now a one-woman bacon monarchy! https://t.co/XFsUPUy4ms
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) August 21, 2021
The Left Goes KKK
LA Times headline about radio host Larry Elder -- who could end up being California's next governor.
"Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You've been warned."
"White supremacy" used to mean something, back when we used it to refer to bigots who burn crosses in lawns.
Now it's the "Eew, he/she has cooties!" of supposed adults incapable of putting together a reasoned argument for or against something.
In the LAT, Erika D. Smith writes:
With polls showing that nearly half of likely voters support recalling Newsom and that Elder is in the lead to replace him, ignoring the self-proclaimed Sage from South-Central is no longer a viable strategy. Particularly for Black people."He is a danger, a clear and present danger," said Melina Abdullah, cofounder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles.
It's not just that Elder would be a Trump fanboy Republican trying to run a state dominated by Democrats. Or that he has zero experience in elected office and clearly doesn't have the temperament for governance. (He can't even take questions from journalists without losing his cool.)
It's that -- perhaps out of spite or perhaps out of an insatiable need for attention -- Elder opposes every single public policy idea that's supported by Black people to help Black people.
Are black people really this monolith? Every black person supports all the same policies, etc? She concedes no -- long after that para, but then makes what I guess she thinks passes for an argument:
Black people, particularly Black Angelenos, overwhelmingly vote Democratic.
Then there's this silliness:
Indeed, his candidacy feels personal. Like an insult to Blackness.
From earlier in the piece:
"Do we still have the phenomenon where a young Black man is eight times more likely to be killed by another young Black man than a young white man?" he told the Republicans in Orange County. 'If the answer to those series of questions is yes, I submit to you that systemic racism is not the problem."Elder mocks critical race theory, though I'm not sure he understands what it actually is. That doesn't bode well for ethnic studies in California.
"Ethnic studies." Psychological abuse perpetrated on students and employees telling them whites are irredeemable racists and blacks are helpless without whites stepping aside for them.
In other words, ugly racism.
Count me out.
Also, how amazing that this was published vis a vis how -- in my experience as an op-ed writer -- editors make you shore up your arguments...uh, and actually make solid arguments.
Here, it's just a bunch of people with dark brown skin calling the guy names like "clown."
Disgusting. I suspect this will do more to win Elder votes than the other way around.
Linkhill To Die On
This am: The 2 Plagues.
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) August 20, 2021
1 Plague of ants on couch. Adorbs dog does dog thing, drags kibble off to new location. All good when she eats it. All bad when she leaves for vermin to make trails to.
2 Exploded Pyrex, microwave. Did I pluck bacon out of glass shards & eat? Bien sur!
August 20, 2021Brought out THE ant Angel of Death, Terro traps. Luckily, had two left. Die, fuckers, die!https://t.co/z0o0YgL2xj
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) August 20, 2021
*Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases #ad
The Deluded Idiot Women Of The West
Give women the same rights and freedoms men have -- and a life of ease (vastly less hardship than at any time in human history -- and you'll find a bunch of lipsticked gibbering idiots who take it for granted...and then some.
At Spiked, Brendan O'Neill writes, "Woke Westerners need to understand that the burqa is an oppressive garment, not an exotic fashion item":
You couldn't ask for better proof of the madness of wokeness. This week, as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, model, influencer and climate-change nagger Lily Cole posted photos of herself in a burqa on Instagram. Yes, as women across Afghanistan trembled at the swift victory of these 12th-century regressives, worrying what their lives will be like following the return to power of a movement that views women as an inferior species, a posh woke Westerner was donning the burqa for likes. 'Let's embrace diversity on every level', Ms Cole said in her post, as if this chilling blue cloak forced on Afghan women by Islamist brutes is little more than a quirky, exotic fashion item.
Diversity for Afghan women will likely turn out to be: You could be a sex slave, or you could be a sex slave, or some dude in a nightgown-as-daywear could murder you in some horrible way.
The fashion world, especially the model-turned-activist wing of it, is notoriously shallow and daft. But Cole's Taliban chic takes the biscuit. Here was a woman who enjoys all the freedoms and comforts of life in the West celebrating the shroud that is forced upon Afghan women to deprive them of any meaningful public presence or personality. Here was a woman who once made a living from having photos taken of her pretty face and her flowing red locks talking up the 'diversity' of a garment designed to erase women's faces and hide their sinful hair. You couldn't make it up - as images of female models on billboards in Kabul were being daubed over with white paint to avoid the wrath of Taliban militants, a former model in the woke West was lovingly embracing the Taliban's patriarchal dress code for women.Ms Cole has now apologised for her post. She said she hasn't been reading the news and did not realise what was happening in Afghanistan (which is pretty extraordinary, especially for someone who's now a socially aware author or something).
Does she get her news from cartoons? Instagram influencer posts?
Of course, there's a bigger problem here than one former model's post on Instagram. This incident of woke madness really confirms what 'diversity' means these days - it means moral relativism. It means celebrating all cultures as equally valid and never being judgemental about any of them. In fact, the great thoughtcrime of our time is to make any kind of moral judgement, to suggest that one culture or idea might be superior to another. Witness the way the insult of 'Islamophobia' is wielded against anyone who criticises any aspect of Islam, or even Islamism, or the speed with which you will be cancelled if you say that being an actual women is a more real experience than being a trans woman. Such distinctions, such critical and moral analysis of identities and ideas, is not allowed these days. We must respect every culture - except the culture of critical, sometimes judgement-making public debate....Who will state the obvious - that the Taliban's view of how society should be organised and how women should be treated is morally inferior to our own?
Dribblinking Morons
August 19, 2021People want tech companies to determine was is truth and to censor anything they consider false content.
— John Robb (@johnrobb) August 19, 2021
Moreover, they want the government to give them a mandate to do it.
How could that go wrong? https://t.co/zuRpob0DKb
Welcome To The American Dream
The pissy detractors of everything that is America would probably strike a different tone if they were immigrants. I see that so often: people truly grateful for what this country has to offer -- and yes, despite its problems -- tend to have been born into poverty and authoritarianism in other countries.
There's a piece on FEE by Jon Miltmore about Rihanna, who is one amazing success story:
Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988, in a tiny parish in Barbados--St. Michaels. The daughter of an accountant and warehouse manager, Rihanna was raised in a three-bedroom bungalow along with her two half-brothers and two half-sisters.Life was hard in Barbados, a relatively poor country (GDP per capita is less than a third of that of the US). Rihanna suffered from persistent migraines and sold clothes on the street with her father, an abusive man who struggled with addictions to alcohol and crack cocaine.
"I always said to myself, 'I'm never going to date somebody like my dad, never,'" Rihanna told Dianne Sawyer in a 2009 interview. (Rihanna, it should be noted, made this statement while discussing her abusive relationship with singer Chris Brown.)
By the time Rihanna was 14 her parents were divorced. But by then she had developed a passion for reggae, and she'd soon create a small musical group with a pair of classmates. That would lead to her big break.
In the summer of 2003, Rihanna and her group were invited to audition in front of Evan Rogers, an American songwriter and producer who was on vacation in Barbados with his wife. Rogers's wife, it turns out, was friends with the mother of one of Rihanna's friends, so a performance was arranged at Rogers's hotel suite.
Rogers said he remembers the moment he first encountered Rihanna's charisma.
"The minute Rihanna walked into the room, it was like the other two girls didn't exist," Rogers would say. "I said to myself, 'If that girl can sing,' then -- holy sh*t!"
Rogers was so impressed with Rihanna, who was just 15 at the time, that he spoke to her mother and arranged to have her come to Connecticut and cut a four-song demo. Rihanna would end up staying with the Rogers family.
"When I left Barbados, I didn't look back," Rihanna would later say. "I wanted to do what I had to do, even if it meant moving to America."
She isn't just a singer; she made herself into a business star with Fenty:
Fenty Beauty, a cosmetics brand Rihanna launched in 2017, as well as Savage x Fenty, a lingerie company in which Rihanna reportedly holds a $270 million stake.When news broke of Rihanna's vast wealth, people naturally reacted in different ways. Some reacted with disdain and disgust.
"Stop glorifying billionaires please," wrote one user who shared a viral tweet decrying wealth hoarding.
"If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes."
...This is the way not to respond. Such views are rooted in ignorance and envy, the source of many modern ills.
The idea of billionaires hoarding mountains of wealth is a popular notion, but a deeply flawed one. Moreover, humans' ability to create wealth, trade, store value, and establish property rights is precisely what sets us apart from the animal kingdom.
Fortunately, many more people offered congratulations and praise for Rihanna. Some even noted the beauty in the idea that this poor immigrant from Barbados was creating jobs and wealth for others.
More on America and what capitalism offers:
Rihanna's rise from a no-name singer to global star to billionaire entrepreneur is extraordinary, but it's just one of the countless rags to riches tales in American history. These stories, it should be noted, involve people of every race, color, creed, and gender.Sarah Breedlove, AKA Madam C.J. Walker, was an African-American born in Louisiana two years after the end of slavery. Widowed at the age of 16, she lost most of her hair. So she decided to launch a hair care business. It turned into an empire, and she became a millionaire.
Samuel B. Fuller was so poor he dropped out of school in the sixth grade. His mother died when he was still a teen, leaving Fuller responsible for his six siblings. Using a $25 loan, he started a soap business--which eventually transformed into a corporate empire and made Fuller one of the richest men in the world.
Inventor Jan Ernst Matzeliger, whose mother was a slave, became the "Henry Ford of Shoes" after revolutionizing the production process. Don King, perhaps the most successful boxing promoter in history, rose to riches after spending four years in prison for stomping one of his former bookmaking employees to death. The aforementioned Oprah story is just as powerful (if less gruesome).
The common thread in these stories is that each involves a remarkable entrepreneur who possessed an extraordinary talent for creating value for others. In doing so, they enriched the lives of others and made themselves rich in the process.
And there's this:
We hear a lot today that America is an oppressive place, a land twisted by systemic racism and sexism. Because of this, we're told, the nation must be corrected, and power must be given to those who will correct it.But ask yourself this: where else in the world could a poor girl from Barbados who sold clothes in the streets rise to such heights? Where else could the daughter of an abusive crack addict immigrate and become the second richest entertainer in the world before her 34th birthday?






