"... and made sure Keri tried 'all the possible childhood activities,' including piano, soccer, horseback riding, gymnastics, Girl Scouts — 'a smorgasbord of suburbia.' Blakinger was an A student, won writing awards and became a competitive figure skater.... [B]y fifth grade, she 'discovered self-destruction'... Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy.... 'They say that eating disorders are about control, but it is not that straightforward,' she writes. 'They are also about self-destruction that feels like success. I wanted to waste away, slowly and tragically.'... At 17, Blakinger began engaging in sex for the money she needed to support her addiction. She writes, 'I would always count the stars through every trick. If I could not see the stars, I would count ceiling tiles or specks on the floor. If I could not do that, I would close my eyes and count twinkling points of light in my mind.'... Blakinger was convicted of criminal possession of a controlled substance (six ounces of heroin in a Tupperware container) and spent almost two years in jails and prisons...."
From "A Harrowing Journey From Cornell to Addiction to Prison In her memoir, 'Corrections in Ink,' Keri Blakinger writes about her determination to improve the criminal justice system" by David Sheff (NYT).
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So all the innocent people should suffer so that the mentally ill and self indulgent can work through their issues in the streets? All criminals should be locked up. Either in prison or mental institutions. We have tried her way for sixty years. It has made everything worse.
That's all well and good, but at what point in this saga did she meet Hunter Biden. He's been with thousands, maybe tens-of-thousands of hookers, so the chances are high. Maybe that's her second book...gotta keep us 'hooked' ya know.
'[B]y fifth grade, she 'discovered self-destruction'... Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy....'
Seems like she would be fun at parties...
'Heroin sent me to prison. White privilege got me back to the Ivy League'
This is the headline from an article she wrote in the 'Chicago Times.'
I got news for you honey, it has nothing to do with being white.
It has to do with your parents being wealthy liberals with connections.
Does she think Will Smith's kids wouldn't get the same breaks?
Obamas girls?
The U.S. is about class and money, not race.
My neighbors are multi-cultural with one common denominator; they can afford the expensive houses where I live.
Fine by me...
She going to "improve" the criminal justice system? By not committing crimes ?
It's the figure skating. Could have been gymnastics. Both sports seem to attract adults who physically psychologically and sometime sexually abuse the girls who must maintain their development within the penumbra of puberty to be competitive.
Yeah, whatever. Blame the system.
Hitting hard drugs at age 11, but still she got into Cornell -- while she was so addicted that she was hooking to support her habit? I guess anything's possible, but I'm a bit skeptical of her history.
Assuming it's true, was there some trauma or abuse that triggered the addiction issues? Or just a mental switch getting flipped somewhere along the line?
Does she blame her parents? Probably so.
I'm watching "Ozark" on Netflix and I think of this, "“I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
I'd bet big money that this Ivy had no religious education. A Jesuit or Sacred Heart high school could have saved her life.
You can be educated at Harvard, or at Cornell, and not be worth 2 cents as far as being a good human goes.
The NYT -- and its readers! -- obviously value such markers. Chase the cachet and you'll find it means nothing.
Sounds like WaPo reporter material to me. Then she can talk about how re-tweets cause “harm”, but Ann will rely on her “straight news” reporting.
'A Jesuit or Sacred Heart high school could have saved her life.'
Well, maybe not the Jesuits. Let's not get too crazy here...
Behind a paywall. But from the brief write up sounds like her parents were teaching her everything except morality, something GSAused to do.
All kinds of activities listed. But not Sunday School, catechism, yeshiva, or anything similar. She was living life full of activities, while empty of spirituality.
Her story is not even close to being unusual. And her background doesn’t give her any special insights into anything, including how to reform the criminal justice system.
Her parents and Joe and Dr. Jill should get together and write a book on parenting so everyone else will learn how not to do it.
The criminal justice system can be "improved" in all sorts of ways, for example, by eliminating the rights of those involved in it. Force confessions, for example. Speeds things right up, and saves a lot of trial time. But perhaps that results in other problems for society.
I always look askance at those who seek to "improve" some process that they only know about as a participant. Inmates running the asylum, and all that. Too often what is sought is elimination of the entire process in favor of unicorn farts and rainbow skittles. I should and will run quality controls on the sausage coming out of a sausage factory, but I don't ask cows and pigs for suggestions on how to improve the process.
But I may be missing something here. Perhaps, to paraphrase John Cleese in the Architect Sketch, "I hadn't correctly divined your attitude toward your tenants." Keri perhaps could help the justice system if she knows successful ways to free addicts of their addictions and stop their criminal behavior at low cost and without judicial intervention. That would be really useful, if it worked.
Michael K at 10:14 AM said it for me
Only thing I could add: the way to "improve the criminal justice system" in her case would have been to arrest her at the beginning of her criminal descent, not when she's made it to the "drug addicted whore" stage
Keri Blakinger ?
I was preparing to write: "She sounds like a Catch! Anyone got her contract info?"
But, Then; I googled her..this pic, was what i was expected-- Looker!
But THIS pic, is what she looks like NOW.. YUCKO!!
It's sad, i bet she was a real looker back when she was a working girl
So many parent-guided activities. Did she ever get to just run around the neighborhood with friends?
It is her mother! Anyone who attends Cornell to become an elementary school teacher is suspect in their motivations
NYT paywall allowed me only a glimpse.
Everybody will have a favorite theory, but mine is that some people are given lots of advantages and throw them away because they are selfish assholes. It has happened in my family and many others.
She looks the part, and may yet wind up back on her back.
With all that attention - horses, ice skating, school awards - at age 10 she started huffing glue, ate Tylenol, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy - and no one noticed? At 17 she's turning tricks to support a drug addiction? Sounds like, in fact, she had too much time to herself. Guess I ought to read the book. With luck, this new round of attention will end positively for her - the criminal justice system aside.
I am fed right up to >here< with all these Fallen Angel Redemption stories. I guess she’ll start a foundation and give heartfelt speeches at $25K a pop?
How about some respect and attention given to people who DON’T abuse their privileges?
"A Harrowing Journey From Cornell to Addiction to Prison In her memoir"
Do you get the sense that these days self-destructive attention w****s have to go to greater self-destructive lengths to score a memoir book contract?
"Keri Blakinger writes about her determination to improve the criminal justice system"
Couldn't STFU be part of probation? Any chance Keri apologizes to tax payers for the burden she and her destructive pals impose on us?
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all mental illness, including depression. It is a devastating disease and can rip families apart. It can't be "cured" but hopefully managed throughout one's life. I hope she ends up in a good place.
This brought up a 40 yr old memory of college when I had to sojourn up the hill from, what would be called the STEM building today, to take a GE course in sociology in a musty classroom. The basis of the course was Studs Terkel's 'Working'. I remember the teenage prostitute in the book, who would do her times tables or some other math while her body was making money. No real discussion of drugs as I remember her story.
And there is the scene in 'Traffic' (2000), where drug czar (Micheal Douglas)'s daughter moves rapidly from "hope itself" private school girl to gritty inner city tenement where she stares at the ceiling, with blank drugged eyes, while being used on a dirty mattress.
This story is such a trope, I now wonder. Smart, private school girl gone drug wh...
“It's the figure skating.”
I was going to say that the woman who had had the inside track for being the managing owner of the Denver Broncos, Brittany Bowlin, was a pretty good figure skater. She was apparently a nationally ranked figure skater when she was an undergrad at Notre Dame. Classmate of my kid all the way through school from grades 3-12. We always thought that her skating lessons were a dodge to get out of mandatory athletics. Apparently not. Also figured that she got into Notre Dame because of her family owning the Broncos. But she graduated with a finance degree and a relatively high GPA. But then I found that they announced yesterday that the team is going to be sold to the Walton family of Walmart fame for $4.6B or so, which in consolation, should ultimately net her (and her 4 full and 2 half siblings) $400M or so, before taxes. Good work, if you can get it.
"I would always count the stars through every trick. If I could not see the stars, I would count ceiling tiles or specks on the floor. If I could not do that, I would close my eyes and count twinkling points of light in my mind."
An effen lie for sure. Readers had to be enticed to feel sorry for her life choices - or else Keri Blakinger knows that no one will buy her memoir without pathos.
As Barack Obama failed in his effort to pass "Dreams From My Father" as his memoir after his Hyde Park bomber buddy, Bill Ayers, claimed honors in 2009:
"Yes, I wrote 'Dreams from My Father.' I ghostwrote the whole thing. I met with the president three or four times, and then I wrote the entire book And now I would like the royalties.”
Barack Obama never composed original documents about complex subjects before signing up to do a book to assist his political ambitions. When writer's block put him behind the eight ball, Michelle suggested a trip down the block to talk to Ayers.
Keri Blakinger wrote for The Marshall Project after her incarceration ended and she has had work appearing in The Washington Post Magazine, The Houston Chronicle, and The New York Times. So she knows what sells and what does not. Schmaltz works and in memoirs, truth is what you say it is.
So she hasn't learned a thing. I guess I'm not surprised, although one hopes.
I grow weary of seeing "...was teased and bullied". Everyone was and everyone will be. Teasing and bullying is much less prevalent now than it was decades ago, but everyone who goes off the rails brings it up.
"Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy."
With parents that involved in her life, how did she find the time and money to abuse these substances?
"Honey, Keri asked me to pick up more airplane glue. I'm not buying her another model until she finishes one."
Sounds like intersectional dysfunction.
"At 17, Blakinger began engaging in sex for the money she needed to support her addiction."
Which one?
"Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy...." plus "six ounces of heroin."
Dylan did this first, in Rolling Stone. But I am happy for all the redemption that these people can achieve.
six ounces of heroin in a Tupperware container
for Personal Use, one can ONLY Assume?
[B]y fifth grade (...) Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy
Where were the parents? How do you not notice your ten-year-old daughter is doing these things...?
I did not realize that Tupperware was illegal.
A legacy with a sport and family money won't have much trouble with college admissions even if she is stoned much of the time. The standardized tests taken for "fun" probably didn't hurt either.
Sad story anyway.
At 17, Blakinger began engaging in sex for the money she needed to support her addiction
I'm guessing she was sexualized long before that. By the time she was 11 years old (fifth grade) would not be surprising.
People really need to take a breath and think again before posting their reflexive snark.
There are many red flags here that suggest child sex abuse.
marybeth said...
So many parent-guided activities. Did she ever get to just run around the neighborhood with friends?
yes! All the time! [B]y fifth grade (...) Blakinger drank alcohol, huffed glue, ate Tylenol 3s, smoked pot and took Adderall and Ecstasy
By her 17, she was running around meeting New Friends.. EVERY NIGHT
Where were the parents? How do you not notice your ten-year-old daughter is doing these things...?
From what I have read, this is not an unusual story for children of the upper class. Apparently the environment is quite degenerative, and the best you can hope for from your parents is benign neglect and an inheritance.
Socially liberated rebel with a cause and without a clue.
Bruce knows rich people post #143,674
She threw away a lot of dough that could have bought some righteous heroin. Tattoos. Her salvation was jail which the writer failed to highlight.
"From what I have read, this is not an unusual story for children of the upper class. Apparently the environment is quite degenerative, and the best you can hope for from your parents is benign neglect and an inheritance."
This is the difference between the true rich and the Ivy professional class. For the true rich, children can indulge all the immoralities they choose as long as they sign on to learning to maintain the fortune for later generations. Their formal educations occur from 5 to 13 years old. Then they act according to Grandpa's teachings.
The Ivy professional rich are too sucked up into their ego careers to care about founding a permanent fortune for generational power. Their children try for glamor careers and end up depleting their parents' money.
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