Malia Ann — AKA Malia Obama — hopes her film makes you feel "a bit less lonely."

It's "an odd little story," we're told, and, judging from the photographs and the voiceover, it seems to be about man who needs to follow instructions left in his mother's will to do something with her heart — her actual physical heart, which we see him holding in a jar.

"Ever since the 1990s, when staying hydrated first became a popular health goal for the general population..."

"... certain reusable water bottles have become trends in their own right. The wide-mouthed, screw-top Nalgene — first popularized among campers and hikers in the 1970s — were everywhere in the late 2000s. ... In the following years, tall and heavy stainless-steel water carriers rose to prominence.... In 2018, Vanity Fair declared the Goop-approved water bottle with a whole natural crystal affixed to the inside it... the status symbol of the year.... In 2021, a $28 'motivational' gallon jug of water with encouragements for the drinker printed on it at each level ('12 p.m.: Keep drinking,' '2 p.m.: Halfway there!') briefly became a social-media sensation.... Around the same time... Sasha and Malia Obama... were noted as Hydro Flask users...."

From "The thirst for Stanley tumblers has reached a tipping point/Stylishly active fans have gone to great lengths to get ahold of the exclusive drinkware, one of many reusable water bottle obsessions in recent memory" (WaPo).

On this issue, I always go back to George Carlin:

"I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression. Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife..."

"... and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.... I have to say, that waking up to the news, waking up to how this administration has or has not responded, waking up to, yet another, story of a Black man or a Black person somehow being dehumanised, or hurt or killed, or, falsely accused of something, it is exhausting. And, and it, it has led to a weight, that I haven’t felt in my life, in, in a while.... Barack’s in his office, making calls, working on his book. I’m in my room, the girls are on their computers. But right around five o’clock, everybody comes out of their nooks, and, we like, do an activity, like, puzzles have become big, just just sitting and doing these thousand piece puzzles.... So Barack has taught the girls [the card game] spades, so now there’s this vicious competition.... It’s almost like they needed the world to stop a little bit. You know they didn’t realise that they were, that the world they were on, and the way they were living it, was so treadmill-like. So fast and furious. Um, because it was all they ever knew.... [The pandemic is an opportunity to] decide how you want to show up in the new world. Because it will be a new world."

Said Michelle Obama, in her podcast, quoted at The Guardian.

I wonder if Michelle Obama suffers from the medical condition, depression. I hear "some form of low-grade depression" to mean that she feels low or sad based on the current conditions, not that she has clinical depression. But perhaps she does, and I would hope that people who suffer from depression feel supported by her words.

As for the Obamas, under lockdown, doing puzzles at the end of the day — I imagine that millions of people, reading about that, feel uplift just to picture the beloved family around a table in the evening  laughing and talking over a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I am not kidding when I say that typing out that sentence brought tears to my eyes. What is more wholesome than a married couple with their adult children working on a complicated puzzle together? Such a beautiful life, and yet they still think of the troubles of the world and carry that weight along with them.

What puzzles do you imagine them doing? Maybe Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or Edward Gorey's "Cat Fancy" or this William Morris tapestry. That's what the Obamas in my evening fantasy are doing, and if someone made a puzzle out of an intricately detailed painting of the Obamas doing a puzzle, I would do that puzzle and so would millions of Americans. It might cure low-grade depression.

And here are the rules for the card game spades. Key rule: "The spade suit is always trump."

ADDED: "There's a tramp sittin' on my doorstep/Tryin' to waste his time/With his methylated sandwich/He's a walking clothesline/And here comes the bishop's daughter/On the other side/She looks a trifle jealous/She's been an outcast all her life/Me, I'm waiting so patiently/Lying on the floor/I'm just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle/Before it rains anymore...."

Time for everyone to feel nice and warm!

Happy Valentine’s Day, my loves. You make even the coldest days feel warm. 💕 pic.twitter.com/COOIOCgVdh

— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) February 14, 2020

"I think it's cool that even though her family went to Ivy League schools, she decided that UM was the caliber high enough to match that of an Ivy League school. We hope she finds her fit here just like we all have. We all love it here. We hope she does, too."

Said a sophomore at the University of Michigan, quoted in "Sasha Obama set to begin college career at University of Michigan" (Detroit News).

I don't know why Sasha Obama isn't going to a fancier school, but as a graduate of the University of Michigan and the daughter of a graduate of the University of Michigan and granddaughter of graduate of the University of Michigan, I'm happy to hear this news.

"Malia Obama's Harvard boyfriend revealed to be British student Rory Farquharson who was head boy at Rugby School."

That's very nice. Good luck to the lovely couple.

ADDED: Jeez, how do you pronounce that name? It's pronounced just how it's spelled, Farquharson.

If Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment problem was an open secret, why did Malia Obama intern for him?

The internship took place this year, I'm reading at "How Will Democrats Respond to the Harvey Weinstein Allegations?/The film mogul has been a major donor and fundraiser for Democratic causes and candidates, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and several possible 2020 candidates" (The Atlantic).

So I don't think her alliance with him and failure to speak out about him had anything to do with protecting Democrats in the 2016 election, but I can't understand why her people wouldn't say: Don't connect yourself to that man, because there's a big scandal about him that's going to blow up one day, and you want to protect your credibility on women's issues.

Perhaps one could intern with him and somehow remain sublimely out of the loop, but the position would have had to have been extremely well vetted, and her advisers would have known that even if she had no direct experience with Weinstein's corrupt modus operandi that it could hurt her.

People (like me, right now) will say you knew but you said nothing; you took personal advantage to further your career and you did not use your position of great cultural influence to help the women who were victimized in a system you were part of. 

Weinstein also raised money for President Barack Obama. In August 2011, Obama spoke at a $35,800 per guest dinner at Weinstein’s West Village home. In February 2012, Weinstein was one of several co-hosts for a $10,000 per plate fundraiser in New York City. Several months later, in August 2012, he hosted a $35,800 per head fundraiser at his home in Connecticut. In 2013, Obama was back at Weinstein’s house for another fundraiser, during which he praised Weinstein’s films. Malia Obama, Obama’s eldest daughter, interned for Weinstein this year. A spokesman for Obama declined to comment on the allegations.

Forget spokesmen. I want to hear from Barack Obama and from Malia Obama.

Here's some more info (in Bustle) about Malia's internship:

Malia's job at The Weinstein Co. was reportedly fairly common entry level work that consisted of the teen reading through unsolicited scripts sent into the office. Sorting through the "slush pile," as the voluminous mass is called, is draining, often unrewarding work, but that didn’t stop Weinstein from promoting meeting the First Daughter as a potential perk when auctioning off another internship for over $15,000 in February 2017. As The Hollywood Reporter reports, a memo advertising the internship said it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to “learn all the ins and outs of the movie biz, and maybe even run into Malia Obama while you're at it."

He sold her. 

"Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 in hotel bills."

A WaPo headline.

What the government paid for was Secret Service protection.

Were there equivalent headlines for what taxpayers paid when members of Obama's family traveled to do things that were not the work of government — vacations, career-boosting internships, political fundraisers and rallies?

WaPo wafts the notion that traveling for business is different because one makes money doing business. The wafting is done through a quote from a law professor:

“This is an example of the blurring of the line between the personal interest in the family business and the government,” said Kathleen Clark, an expert on government ethics and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis....

“There is a public benefit to providing Secret Service protection,” Clark said. “But what was the public benefit from State Department personnel* participating in this private business trip to the coastal town? It raises the specter of the use of public resources for private gain.”

As an erstwhile law professor, I'm fascinated by the use of law professors to give heft to wafting theories. There's no way to know how many law professors WaPo queried before getting this quote from Clark. A cynically educated guess would be 17.** And I'm fascinated by the ability of law professors to seem to say something useful to the theory being wafted without really saying much of anything at all. Note the phrases "blurring of the line" — no line is crossed or even located — and "raises the specter" — which doesn't even acknowledge that there's an issue. A "specter" is a ghost.

In other Secret Service news, "Malia Obama parties into the early morning in NYC":

The former first daughter attended a starry HBO “Girls” premiere, then went dancing into the early hours of the morning....

We were told that “Secret Service agents were all over the place” at the party, but they managed to blend into the crowd of more than 600 guests.

_______________________

* The Secret Service is not located in the State Department — it's in the Department of Homeland Security — but the money for the Secret Service's hotel rooms was paid through the State Department. The State Department and the Secret Service refused to talk to WaPo about why the money came from the State Department. Is it the usual source of funding when the trip is outside of the homeland? WaPo doesn't explain. It just leaves us with the lawprof's wafting, which blends the spectral problem of the State Department source of funding with the question how it benefits the public to protect members of the President's family. Is that really something we wonder about?

** [ADDED at 8:33] I'm less cynical now, because I just happened to be researching a completely different government ethics question — whether Bill and Hillary Clinton stole furniture from the White House — and the government ethics expert quoted in the fact-checking article I found was Kathleen Clark:

[O]ne Steve Mittman from New York gave [Bill Clinton] two sofas, an easy chair and ottoman worth $19,900... [Mittman said he thought he was] donating to the White House itself as part a major remodeling project in 1993....

[T]he White House had retained an interior decorator who, according to the report, coordinated 43 of the 45 furniture gifts received over the Clintons’ eight years. 

Kathleen Clark focuses on government ethics law at Washington University in St. Louis. For her, that interior decorator raised a flag. "I don’t know how you coordinate gifts without soliciting them," Clark said....

There's a ban on soliciting gifts, so the solicitation would be evidence that the furniture was not a personal gift to the Clintons.

"Calling the Clintons’ actions ‘stealing’ or ‘theft’ is hyperbolic," Clark said. "It’s hard to take that language seriously in this context."  

I didn't find it hard! Clark is the one who made me see that the furniture must have been a gift to the White House and not personally to the Clintons. She said it must have been solicited. The only way it's "hyperbolic" to call it stealing is if you expect us to modify language to coddle and insulate politicians. It's not hyperbole to defeat that expectation. It's clear speech — my #1 cause on this blog.

"President Obama ridiculed on Snapchat by daughter Sasha."

But that's only something we know because Obama talked about it. That is, he ribbed her.

"Been waiting to drop this: summer playlist, the encore. What's everybody listening to?"

Been waiting to drop this: summer playlist, the encore. What's everybody listening to? pic.twitter.com/mqh1YVrycj

— President Obama (@POTUS) August 11, 2016

ADDED: Are these songs more enjoyable if we smoke marijuana? Malia looked like she was smoking marijuana when she went to a Lollapalooza concert.

Meanwhile:

The Obama administration has denied a bid by two Democratic governors to reconsider how it treats marijuana under federal drug control laws, keeping the drug for now, at least, in the most restrictive category for U.S. law enforcement purposes.

Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg says the decision is rooted in science. Rosenberg gave "enormous weight" to conclusions by the Food and Drug Administration that marijuana has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," and by some measures, it remains highly vulnerable to abuse as the most commonly used illicit drug across the nation.

"So I’d like to think that I’ve been pretty aware of the unique challenges women face—it’s what has shaped my own feminism."

Writes President Barack Obama in Glamour Magazine.

But I also have to admit that when you’re the father of two daughters, you become even more aware of how gender stereotypes pervade our society. You see the subtle and not-so-subtle social cues transmitted through culture. You feel the enormous pressure girls are under to look and behave and even think a certain way.

And those same stereotypes affected my own consciousness as a young man. Growing up without a dad, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was, how the world perceived me, and what kind of man I wanted to be. It’s easy to absorb all kinds of messages from society about masculinity and come to believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be a man. But as I got older, I realized that my ideas about being a tough guy or cool guy just weren’t me. They were a manifestation of my youth and insecurity. Life became a lot easier when I simply started being myself.

So we need to break through these limitations. We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear. We need to keep changing the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men for theirs....

ADDED:  "Sasha Obama is working for the summer... at a restaurant on Martha's Vineyard."

Sasha is checking out customers at the register and bussing tables at Nancy's ... a seafood restaurant. Of course, the 15-year-old employee comes with her own entourage....

"When President Obama talks up the family-friendly vibe at the White House — the nightly family dinners, the flexibility to attend school presentations and join impromptu plunges in the pool with his girls..."

"... his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, sets him straight. 'Family friendly to your family,' Mr. Emanuel counters."

So begins a July 2009 NYT article titled "Family Friendly’ White House Is Less So for Aides," which I'm reading this morning because it's quoted and linked in the article blogged in the previous post.

Obama goes to the bookstore with his daughters.

He checks out and comments on how sad he looks in the photograph on the cover of Chuck Todd's book ("The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House"):

Sasha and Malia are bored...

... with Obama's turkey-pardoning jokes.

Malia Obama goes to Lollapalooza...

... "in a summery daisy-print skirt and top and some grungy boots suited for the muddy field."

"Malia Obama has been working as a production assistant on the Los Angeles set of Halle Berry‘s TV series 'Extant'..."

"... the upcoming CBS sci-fi produced by top Obama bundler Steven Spielberg."

Is this wrong somehow? She's not skipping school. It's summer vacation, and she's working, working with the stars. Maybe someone else's teenager would like the slot that went to the President's daughter, but she's reportedly "an aspiring filmmaker."

Is this a campaign finance issue? Daughters of politicians getting glamorous summer jobs from campaign contributors? Any potential for corruption there?

ADDED: Bad timing for this story, so soon after "Chelsea Clinton paid $600K by NBC." Last paragraph at that link:

Yet Clinton’s appointment did not mark the first time NBC Universal had hired children of high-ranking politicians. In 2009, it hired George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush Hager to serve as a correspondent on the “Today” show. In 2011, it hired Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain as a contributor on MSNBC.

Why are all these stories about daughters? Is it because we keep choosing — for our high-ranking politicians — men with daughters? Is it because big media more easily accommodates females? Or do females find it easier to hop onto a career path built with political favors?

AND: Whatever they're giving Malia, it seems they're getting their money's worth in PR. I'd never heard of the TV show "Extant." And Halle Berry shifting into television is an indication of her waning star power. But... suddenly, Malia!! "Extant" and Halle Berry's career are... extant.

In case you hadn't noticed, Halle Berry's career is so well known to be in bad shape that people talk about "The Halle Berry Effect." What could be more helpful than juxtaposing her radiant face with the radiant daughter of the most radiant face in all of history?

Michelle, Malia, and Sasha "have made a lot of sacrifices on behalf of my cockamamie ideas, the running for office and things."

Said Barack Obama (talking about staying in Washington after his term in office, especially given Sasha's interest in completing high school at Sidwell Friends).

"Is it fair for me to dump on a fourteen-year-old kid like this? In this context, it is."

"We’re not talking about people taking a hands-off approach to Chelsea Clinton or the Obama girls when they just happen to be the President’s daughters."

Will Smith is using his clout to make a $130 million movie for his son to star in, and he’s throwing him to the wolves.

In this sense, “After Earth” is no better than Rebecca Black’s “Friday” video. It’s a bought-and-paid-for vanity piece for a spoiled teenager who probably doesn’t know any better. The only difference is that Rebecca Black’s family did theirs for a limited audience before it went viral. Will Smith is actually trying to make Jaden Smith a bona fide movie star.

If Smith is "throwing [Jaden] to the wolves," why then it's fair to be a wolf, no?

"Let's face it, who does not love this music?" asked Obama, referring to Memphis soul...

... which apparently includes Justin Timberlake. Oh, I am cynical enough to think that Obama really wanted to bring Timberlake over to the house to sing for his young daughters, and the Memphis soul business was constructed around that project to give it the needed air of dignity, worthiness, and tribute.

Obama said the unique blend of musical styles created in segregated Tennessee in the 1960s was special because it "played an important part in our history." He also noted the music sought to bridge racial divides and "create a little harmony with harmony."

I was impressed by how smoothly the webstream flowed. It looked crisp and utterly unhinky on my desktop monitor. I know that costs money, presumably taxpayer money, and that's inconsistent with the suffering-under-the-sequester political meme pursuant to which White House tours have been cancelled. But if they're going to have these concerts at all, in these days of the internet, they owe a quality stream to us, the people.

How much could that cost, anyway? I loved the live unedited feed, like when Queen Latifah had to realign herself after some technician pointed out the tape marks on the floor, and how Malia and Sasha looked stone-faced on either side of their parents (who were incessantly bopping their heads), and how some aide came in to lean over and consult with the frowning, deep-in-thought Obama (in political theater that made me say out loud "A plane has struck the second tower").

I want the feed. Feed us!

"Make us your slaves, but feed us."

"A source tipped Breitbart News off to the First Daughters’ spring vacation, which was not publicly announced or reported."

Here's a picture of Matthew Boyle, the Breitbart writer who's essentially inviting his readers to say mean things about the 2 girls who deserve their privacy.