"Biles need only watch the documentary The Last Dance, which features [Michael] Jordan alone in a mansion drinking enormous glasses of alcohol and hating everybody..."

"... to understand that there is a cost to valorizing competition to the exclusion of everything else. [Tiger] Woods’s career self-imploded in a way that seemed like a direct response to the punishing mentality required to dominate every tournament — which didn’t stop the emergence of the narrative that he had to start winning again in order to redeem himself. There are surely superathletes who avoid becoming alienated head cases (Roger Federer seems like a pretty well-balanced individual). But clearly, there is a severe mental toll, oddly underexamined in our sports-obsessed culture, that comes from a life of perpetually breaking the very limits of what it means to be human, with a human’s emotions and vulnerabilities."

From "The One Limit Simone Biles Wouldn’t Break" by Ryu Spaeth (NY Magazine). 

"North Korea said on Tuesday that its leader, Kim Jong-un, had opened a new mountain resort this week, calling it 'an epitome of modern civilization'..."

"...  as the isolated country tries to attract more foreign tourists to blunt the pain of international sanctions.... Tourism is excluded from the sanctions that the United Nations has imposed on the North, which prevent it from earning hard currency by exporting its coal, iron ore, fisheries and textiles. ​Transforming Samjiyon​ from a decrepit holiday town into a modern resort complex complete with ski slopes, spas and hotels has been one of ​Mr. Kim’s pet projects....  As his diplomatic efforts with Mr. Trump have faltered, Mr. Kim has increasingly emphasized a 'self-reliant' economy.... He has been particularly ​focused on building resort towns, a taste some analysts suspect he had acquired when he studied in Switzerland in his teens...."

The NYT reports. The tourists come from China.

According to Wikipedia, Kim Jong-un lived in Switzerland from about 1992 until 1998 — something like ages 9 to 15. (He's only 35 or 36 now (did you realize he was so young?).)

He was described as shy, a good student who got along well with his classmates... a well-integrated and ambitious student who liked to play basketball.... According to some reports, Kim was described by classmates as a shy child who was awkward with girls and indifferent to political issues, but who distinguished himself in sports and had a fascination with the American National Basketball Association and Michael Jordan....

The Washington Post reported in 2009 that Kim Jong-un's school friends recalled he "spent hours doing meticulous pencil drawings of Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan". He was obsessed with basketball and computer games, and was a fan of Jackie Chan action movies....

On the topic of tourism and a country's economy, let me give you this passage I read last night in "The Thing Itself: On the Search for Authenticity" (a book I put in my Kindle a while back, perhaps because one of my readers recommended it):

"Jurors on Friday night awarded Michael Jordan $8.9 million..."

"... in his lawsuit against Dominick’s over the unauthorized use of his name in a congratulatory advertisement."

“This... shows that I will protect my name to the fullest, in the United States and all over the world, you know? It is my name. I worked hard for it for 30-something years, and I’m not just going to let someone take it. I will fight till the end,” said Jordan.

He attempted some court/court word play but got a little wordy:

“This is not one of the courts or type of court that I like to win at, you know? Obviously, I’m so used to playing on a different court, but unfortunately it ended up in this court and I’m very happy with the results.”

The money is going to charity, by the way.

"Foes of shorts — you may know the type of man who, despite the risk of developing heat rash and a reputation as a crank, opposes the things on principle..."

"... argue that the childishness denoted by their brevity cannot be overcome. The detractors contend that shorts are categorically unattractive on grown men, that even when they look good they seem callow. I need to guess that on some level, a significant subset of shorts-­wearers agree, given the persistence of cargo shorts. The pockets of cargo shorts, though ideally practical for a roofer or a gaffer on the job, make rather less sense as the omnipresent ornaments of weekend-­wear that they are, unless you regard them as a kind of ballast to balance puerility. Those pockets aren’t empty; they’re full of the idea of rugged work. To butch up the look in full, a fellow does not settle for the basic khaki coloring of old colonial campaigns but instead pursues a camouflage print. This is a standard streetwise look — camo cargos, T-shirt, a pair of Nikes bearing the soaring silhouette of Michael Jordan. Not for nothing, ­Jordan’s early ’90s taste in long basketball shorts is credited with steering us away from skimpiness and toward hems that swagger below the kneecaps, swishing like zoot suits."

One paragraph from a NYT Magazine essay by Troy Patterson about men in shorts titled "He’s Got Legs."

"Somewhere, someone needs to create a 'Ridiculous Legal Document Hall of Fame.'"

"It would proudly house the contract visitors have to sign to enter Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. And it would feature the $416 million lawsuit filed against Michael Jordan in 2006 by an old man who complained that he suffered harassment because he looked too much like the basketball star (despite being six inches shorter). Last week, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley produced a legal document so preposterous it would warrant its own wing. Bradley's recusal from a state Judicial Commission case against fellow Justice David Prosser is a nakedly partisan hit job."

Opines Christian Schneider in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (Read the whole thing.)

The tallest teenage girl.

Originally from Jamaica, now going to school (and playing basketball) in New Jersey, Marvadene Anderson is 5" taller than Michael Jordan.

"People are friendly with me because of my height and my personality. If I was tall and mean, I think I'd have a problem," she said.

"The rudest thing anybody ever said about my height is that I'm not going to be able to find a husband."

I identify. I was told when I was a kid that I'd never be able to find a husband. Not that I was tall. I wasn't.

Obama's speech to kids is nearly 10x as long as the Gettysburg Address (which was given to adults).

The kids will need to sit still for 2540 televised words.

Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Can any speech be good for such wide range of ages? 2540 words should take at least 15 minutes to deliver. Who gives a 15 minute speech to kindergartners?

I’m glad you all could join us today.

Students tuning in? Glad you could join us? It's not voluntary.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

"This is no picnic for me either, buster" is a long-time laugh line for Obama, but it's not exactly comprehensible to kids. Do kindergartners and first graders understand what a foreign country is? Do elementary school students recognize the word "Indonesia"? Will students understand why going to school with people other than Americans is so bad? (Isn't it prejudiced to think that? a bright child might wonder.)

And what sort of mother wakes a kid up before dawn to teach him lessons? (Some parents say "I'll teach you a lesson" as a prelude to punishment.) Frankly, I don't even understand why the mother picked pre-dawn for lesson time. It seems a bit abusive. And I don't see what so funny when the abusers says "This hurts me too." Is a mother calling her child "buster" funny to little kids, or does it seem sad or scary?

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you...

It's not a discussion. He's on television.

Okay, I've got to stop. I'm not going to reprint the whole thing. It's way too long. I'll summarize. As it goes on, he develops the theme of students taking responsibility for their own education, including and especially when they don't have responsible adults in their life watching over them.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America....

Now, that's very nice free market capitalism — not that Obama's policies reflect this spirit.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

So can you "write your own destiny" and "make your own future" or not? It's confusing.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

But I thought we weren't supposed to think we could make it at basketball! That's downright perplexing. And why is rapping an inappropriate goal but being a fiction writer is admirable? Isn't rap a more easily reachable occupation?

... [Y]ou’ve got to do your part... So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

"I expect"... I have no idea if expressions of expectation motivate children. Personally, I don't react well to a political leader telling me he expects something from me, but I'm not a kid.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

He ends with a double "God." I guess it's okay when Obama invokes the deity in school, but some kids might wonder why God's blessing comes at the end. After all, they were just told to take personal responsibility for themselves. And as for "God bless America," why is it even relevant? This wasn't a patriotic speech. The message to kids in other countries — including Indonesia — would be the same. Maybe some older kids will get it that it's just the conventional ending for a presidential speech, but if you're not familiar with the convention, and you're just trying to understand this speech, it's comes from nowhere.