The Reading Room (PAW Review of How We Forgot the Cold War)

Reading is absolutely my favorite activity. I like it more than shopping in fact (though obviously shopping FOR books or book-related items [including clothes] is the ideal blend...)! So it's always wonderful when I get to write about reading. I really enjoyed working on this piece for PAW (Princeton Alumni Weekly-- I always love seeing things in print and not just online, so here it is on Page 60) and interviewing the author, Jon Wiener, who is an academic who crosses the boundaries to spread the message about history to the general public. He hosts a weekly radio talk show in the LA area and he is also a contributing editor at The Nation. While I'm not quite as prolific a writer as he is (yet, hopefully), I have been proving to myself that I am a prolific reader; according to my list I've read nine books in the first five weeks of the year so far...

In 1997 Jon Wiener ’66 visited the Nevada Test Site, where the U. S. government tested nuclear weapons from 1951 to 1992. The site recently had opened as a tourist destination; the government hoped to highlight its significance in the Cold War. But Wiener saw that some tourists were more interested in the site’s role in UFO lore than they were in learning about nuclear deterrence.

Over the next decade, Wiener, a professor of 20th-century history at the University of California, Irvine, visited nearly two dozen Cold War memorial sites, including the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Ariz.; the Greenbrier bunker in West Virginia, where political leaders would decamp during a nuclear attack; and the Whittaker Chambers Farm National Historic Landmark near Baltimore, where in 1947 Chambers pulled some 35mm film from a hollowed-out pumpkin, saying it proved that the State Department’s Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. The result of Wiener’s travels is How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America (University of California Press).

The Cold War is part of “a past that ­people seem to have trouble remembering — or don’t want to remember,” writes Wiener, who perhaps is best known for his battle to obtain FBI files on Beatle John Lennon. In 1991, shortly after the USSR collapsed, Congress allocated $10 million to preserve artifacts of the Cold War for public display, portraying the era as a ­victory of good over evil. But little of that money was spent, and existing Cold War sites have few visitors.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READ MY PIECE ON PAW'S WEBSITE!

Pint-Sized Phenoms: The Bonus Edition of Extraordinary 9-Year-Olds

Last week it was the teens, but this week it's a group of nine-year-olds who are so special they had to get their own post. Their varied interests show how kids can find a passion and love in many different areas. 1) Quvenzhané Wallis- Wallis is the youngest nominee for Best Actress at the Academy Awards ever. She beats the previous nominee by about four years.

What's even more amazing is that she was only 5 when she auditioned for the role in "Beasts of the Southern Wild!"

2) Sophia Lucia- Lucia has been wowing at dance competitions for years, but she's going national now that she's been appearing on Lifetime's Dance Moms. Lucia actually holds the world record for most pirouettes: 54! Don't believe me? Watch this video:

It doesn't seem like she'll remain a regular with the Abby Lee Dance Company-- and frankly, the way things seem to be going there that is for the best. I do hope she manages to squeeze in some studying so that she knows 6*9=54 once she can't turn that many times (Lucia is homeschooling she can focus on dance).

3) MMA fighters- Tim Keown's ESPN The Magazine article on the youth MMA competitive circuit for kids 5 to 15-- known as Pankration-- was a fascinating look at the development of formal competition for kids. I found this to be the most fascinating inside into this world in which, as describe,  a 9-year-old boy can sit upon a 9-year-old girl in competition:

Every Little Leaguer -- and his parents -- wonders if he can make the big leagues. But in youth MMA, the vibe is different. A professional career doesn't seem as distant. The path seems                      

                                                     more direct, the pool of participants far smaller.

4) The Long brothers- All of these championships and records pale in comparison to the achievements-- both athletic and human-- of nine-year-old Conner Long. Conner's younger brother, Cayden, is seven, and he has cerebral palsy. Cayden can't walk or talk, but he does get to compete in triathlons thanks to his brother pushing and pulling him in the water and on land. Both completed the Iron Kids Triathlon this year, and even though they finished last (Conner after all was competing WITH his brother) they won big, being honored as the 2012 SportsKids of the Year by SI Kids. I dare you to watch this video and not be moved:

I can only hope that my Carston grows up to be like Conner and Cayden. They are true phenoms and brothers and I applaud their parents for raising two such phenomenal young men.

Pint-Sized Teen Athlete Phenoms

When I was 16 I was thinking about college, driving, and my AP exams. The 16- and 17-year-olds I describe below seem similar-- but they are also thinking about medals, championships, and endorsement deals. Tennis is used to having young phenoms, though there has been a bit of a decline in recent years.  But an exciting crop of American girls is surging, embodied in Sloane Stephens-- the 19-year-old American who just beat Serena Willliams in the Australian Open.  Joining her is Taylor Townsend, who at 16 is the first American to hold the No. 1 year-end world ranking for junior girls since 1982. She's already been the subject of controversy after the USTA accused her of being out of shape for the US Open (she says she's in shape and it's just baby fat-- and this brought up a lot of issues about criticizing the appearance of female athletes, especially young ones) and she went pro this month. It will be interesting to see how her career develops, particularly alongside that of 17-year-0ld Madison Keys, who already has gone pro.  It appears Keys and Townsend are Florida classmates, though at the moment Keys is most-often compared to Stephens. With Twitter, agents, and the press in the mix for all three already we can surely expect a show in the next few years among these teen tennis phenoms.

Winter sports has its fair share of female teen stars as well. I wrote about Mikaela Shiffrin almost a year ago and predicted we'd be hearing her name a lot more in the lead-up to the 2014 Olympic Games.  Well I was right: Shiffrin was just featured in ESPN The Magazine's Next issue.  (In many ways her story is similar to golf pint-sized phenom Lexi Thompson, also profiled along with her in the Next issue.) A few days later a long, thoughtful profile of her also appeared in The New York Times. But my favorite quote from her so far is in the ESPN piece when she explained why she wasn't there to get her World Cup Rookie of the Year Award: "I didn't know it was an award, so I was completely unaware. The party where it was awarded was at a bar and I wasn't allowed in. Also, I was exhausted."

Someone who could probably relate to Shiffrin's exhaustion is 16-year-old Emery Lehman. Lehman (somewhat unusually he's the only adolescent boy featured in this post about athletes) is a speed skater and at the end of last month he won his first national title in the 5000 meters.

I predict we'll be hearing his name more as the Sochi games approach.

The biggest teen athlete phenom from the last Olympics-- Missy Franklin-- is still in the news. This time it's not for beating the best in the world, it's just for beating those who live nearby her. Franklin, who decided to forego millions in endorsements to keep her eligibility to swim in both college (which she'll be doing soon at Berkeley) and in high school. But many of the high schoolers, and their parents, who have to compete against her in Colorado don't like that the phenom races against them, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

What can I say about these terrible poor sports? Well, honestly, Madeleine Davies over at Jezebel said it best:

"It's really frustrating when Missy kind of shines above everything," said Bonnie Brandon, who before graduating last spring was Colorado's greatest-ever female high-school swimmer next to Franklin. "She's No. 1 in the world, and No. 1 in the state, and then I'm No. 2 in the state.…It's just hard being in close proximity," said Brandon, now a University of Arizona swimming star.

Why do you keep eating those sour grapes, girl?

I'm guessing a lot of teen athlete phenoms deal with sour grapes, but people should know better than to criticize a thoughtful 17-year-old for trying to help her friends and teammates in the national press.

The High Holy Week of Pageantry: Miss America 2013, No There She Is

If you follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook you know that I was scratching my head when Mallory Hagan was announced the winner of the 2013 Miss America Pageant. I felt that I knew so little about her that after she was crowned I actually had to look up her platform in the program book (turns out it is about preventing childhood abuse).

[By the way, doesn't Alli Rogers look like Kristen Haguland here?!]

Hagan was not on my list of frontrunners, nor on that of most pageant aficionados (and Vegas odds makers didn't predict that she would do well either). Overall though I did pretty well in predicting who would go deep-- including SC (who I didn't think would win, but who I thought would go far-- suspicions confirmed by her performance on stage Saturday night), OK, MD, and TX.

I'm guessing this was a case of the Pageant being won in the interview room, as NY placed high after swimsuit and evening gown, as revealed by one of the co-hosts; while she wasn't a standout to me, she obviously was to the judges. Based on the 20/20 Pageant Confidential special that aired before the live show, it appears that the MAO and producers had favorites as well... And Miss NY was one of them.  All of the Top 3 (NY, SC, and WY) were featured in the news special. It's worth mentioning that the most media-hyped contestants-- Miss DC Allyn Rose (breast cancer story) and Miss MT Alexis Wineman (autism) didn't do well. Wineman was voted in as America's Choice, but the judges quickly dismissed her, and Rose didn't even make the Top 16. Previously backstory-hyped contestants like Kayla Martell (alopecia), Bree Boyce (weight loss), and Heather Whitestone (deaf) went much further or even won in previous years.

While I really enjoyed the Pageant overall and thought it was a strong group of interesting contestants (and others, even non-pageant fans, obviously agree), I was confused by the winner. The talent competition basically summed up my feelings on this year's event- some were outstanding (like OK) and others were cringeworthy (I'm looking at you IN). The extremes were there, along with some enjoyment (the bad was so bad it was good).

I'm not surprised that among the 13,000 girls the Miss America Program attracted in the past year that many of them were smart, talented, and interesting. I think the pendulum is swinging back in support of Miss America due to the synergy between glitz and entertainment and scholarship money. I don't think this is a Honey Boo Boo effect, but I do feel that there is a greater acceptance of women being smart, educated, fit, talented, and beautiful and Miss America is framing itself for that market.

I wrote about some of those women earlier this year for Slate and The Hill in three pieces on former Miss America contestants running for political office. The first of these pieces appeared in June and the other two in October and November. I was happy for the program and the women featured that Marie Claire printed a story on the same topic in this month's issue-- but very disappointed for myself that this recent piece is essentially a mash-up of my three previous articles on the subject. It's not available online, but you can see that this national magazine article is getting mentioned more than my earlier articles. Now I know how Miss World feels, ha!

In any case, given all the publicity it makes sense that this year's television show earned its highest ratings in nearly a decade. Of course we've gotten some controversy already as well: 1) Miss America 2004 Ericka Dunlap is accusing Pageant organizers of racism after she was asked to move seats at the live show in Las Vegas, 2) A smart NYT op-ed reminds us that Miss America does indeed have a complicated racial past, 3) Some have mixed feelings about Alabama native Hagan winning as Miss NY, 4) Miss Iowa Mariah Cary (yes, really) invited a bit of media ribbing after awkwardly/awesomely responding to her OSQ ("on-stage question" in pageant lingo) that she only supports recreational and medical use of marijuana; Cary was another contestant with an interesting backstory (Tourette's), so I do wonder if that played into this at all, and 5) Many, including former queens, found it in poor taste that the hosts said several times that the contestants had not been eating and they then gave the ousted contestants doughnuts on stage so they could binge. Not exactly the message they want to be sending out. But at least the in SUPER POOR TASTE contestants' choice of the 16th member of the Top 16 disappeared, and the judges' choice was nice in a way (still hate the hurry-up-and-get-ready-in-front-of-everyone way they handle talent, but I guess it's here to stay now).

But any year you get multiple mentions in The New York Times, appear on TMZ, and get high TV ratings means it was a pretty good year for Miss America. And, who knows, perhaps we'll see a reigning Miss America competing on Dancing with the Stars soon?

So, here she is. Again. (Even if they didn't play a good version of "There She Is" during Hagan's coronation walk!)

The High Holy Week of Pageantry: Miss America 2013, Press and Predictions

The time comes round every year: Miss America week! Tomorrow is the live broadcast and as usual I'm excited (but this year should be especially interesting with a 20/20 feature on the pageant starting at 8 pm). The 2013 Pageant will be a little different for me than last year's-- a time when I thought I might never sleep again-- but now my one-year-old (!) let's me sleep so I'm good to go (I was also reminded of this when I spoke on NECN yesterday about how hard it is for individuals to project themselves into the future).

Now I know Miss Universe was only a few weeks ago (both pageants have made date shifts in the past few years, which means we get more concentrated pageantry and less spread-out glitz) so it might be useful to explain the difference between Miss USA/Universe and Miss America. As you might be able to tell from the previous sentence Miss America is an end in itself; you don't win and go on to compete for Miss Milky Way. Also, the three "Ts" separate the two pageant systems (this is my trademark here, so please quote me!): tuition, talent, and Trump. Miss America requires a talent, awards scholarship money, and isn't owned by Donald Trump.

Miss Alabama USA 2012 has been in the press lately thanks to her boyfriend and a zealous sportscaster.  Katherine Webb, the girlfriend of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, has been getting a lot of attention since she was shown during the national championship game earlier this week (proving pageants and football still mix a lot, especially in the South). It's been a bit of a distraction to Miss Alabama America 2012, Anna Laura Bryan, who just won a big prize at Miss America (the Quality of Life Award goes to the contestant who has the "best" platform issue-- hers is related to autism). If you need an even easier way to remember the difference between the America and USA systems, Miss Alabama 2010, Ashley Davis, put it succinctly on Twitter: "Kate Middleton would be Miss Alabama, while Kim Kardashian would make a great Miss Alabama USA."

Other Miss America contestants have garnered their own fair share of press attention in the weeks leading up to the pageant. For instance, if you Google Miss DC Allyn Rose you get over 3 million hits.  Rose has appeared on all the morning talk shows, People, and many more in light of her decision to undergo a double mastectomy after the Pageant. Her mother passed away from breast cancer and while Rose herself has never had cancer she has a genetic predisposition (note that Miss New Hampshire, Megan Lyman, has survived cancer; Miss Alaska has shaved her head for cancer). It's unclear if the hype will help Rose, but I think we can all agree that we'd love to see her talent-- artistic roller skating-- live tomorrow night. Here she is competing in prelims earlier this week:

Other health-related issues have some contestants in the press. Miss Montana, Alexis Wineman, is the first state winner to compete with autism (STILL love the name of her platform). But Miss Puerto Rico, Kiaraliz Medina, takes the cake. During the opening number of the first night of preliminaries (though some reports say it was from her flamenco talent routine) she fell down the stairs. Later in the week she actually competed in swimsuit using crutches, which I'm pretty sure is a Miss America Atlantic City/Vegas stage first.

She later competed in evening gown without her crutches. I wonder if that impressed Miss America judge McKayla Maroney (yes, gymnastics and pageantry: worlds collide)?!

(That's beloved former Miss America Katie Stam Irk who is also judging this year; another fun fact is that Mary Hart, host of ET, competed the year my mother crowned Phyllis George-- Hart made Top 10 [and sang poorly] but obviously did alright for herself in the end!)

Now that we know the preliminary winners it's a bit easier to make some predictions for tomorrow night. I think SS winner Miss South Carolina will go far, along with talent winner Miss Oklahoma. Not sure about the others, but I like talent winner Miss Maryland. I also personally like Texas and New Hampshire (who I met when I judged the Miss University/Strafford County Pageant) and am interested to see how my home state gal Taylor Kinzler does (she has a bit of the Miss America look; I saw her compete live at the 2011 state pageant where she was a runner-up).  I'll also throw Arizona in the mix since I know a very smart friend and Harvard beauty queen helped her prepare!

On a final note I always love pageant names, which I learned this year by studying the pageant book. Who else wants to see (no joke) Mariah Cary from Iowa do well (just so the announcers have to keep saying her name-- too bad she doesn't sing though, talent is tap dance)?! And she's not the only Mariah (so is Miss Nebraska). And, there are two "Sloanes" competing as well, Miss Arkansas and Miss Kansas, which I find particularly fun.

Check back next week for my final pageant thoughts, and follow my running commentary on Twitter Saturday night (where I'll be careful not too tweet too much and get put in Twitter jail)!