I'm reading the front page of The Washington Post with the wild hope of keeping up to date.

 

I mean, what do they think they're doing? What did they say to each other as they chose to put this material on the front page — right under stories about Zelensky at the White House, the National Guard in Washington D.C., terrorism in Texas, and Hurricane Erin? Let's revisit the legacy of slavery and balance it with closeups of black asses? It's as if they had to meet a racial quota and brainstormed and juxtaposed the first 2 things they thought of. 

"What a bunch of moaning me minnies commenting on this article: had some great wild swimming days in Scotland and hope to be swimming in Loch Morluch tomorrow- forecast for Aviemore this weekend is 30C."

A comment, commenting on comments like "Hypothermia, optional. Midgies, inevitable" on the London Times article "Five of the best walks with a swim in Scotland/The author of Wild Swimming picks his favourite hikes to hidden pools and waterfalls" (London Times).

Minnie is, according to the OED, a way to say grandmother (or old woman) in Orkney and Shetland. For example, Robert Burns wrote, in "Tam Glen":

My minnie does constantly deave me, 

         And bids me beware o' young men; 

They flatter, she says, to deceive me; 

         But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?

Midgies are just midges, the "annoying insects" featured in last month's post "What are these annoying insects that were swarming like mad by Lake Mendota at sunrise today?"

30C is 86°.

"Transgender swimming champion Lia Thomas will be stripped of University of Pennsylvania swimming titles after the Ivy League school bowed to pressure from the Trump administration."

"The university will also issue formal apologies to every biological female competitor who lost out to a transgender competitor following an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The probe found UPenn violated Title IX by 'allowing a male to compete in female athletic programs and occupy female-only intimate facilities.' 'Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action...' Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement...."

From "Trans UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas will be stripped of her titles after university bends the knee to Trump admin" (NY Post).

Speaking of "breasts like genetically modified grapefruit and behemoth buttocks bursting from a leopard-print thong bikini"...

... see Tina Brown's description of Lauren Sánchez in the first post of the day... before I saw that, I came close to buying this crazy bathing suit...

Facebook thought I might be interested in that. What does Facebook know about my skin and my aversion to sunscreen and my life in the shade?

The solid color full-body swimsuits are paradoxically brazen — especially the white one — and I had easily decided on leopard skin, even before I went out running this morning and — at 5:18 — admired the subtle camouflaging of the toad:

Look how hard it is to see the outline of the little beast against the pebbles and dirt. And that's what I'd like you to think about me if I ever go to the beach in a bathing suit again.

 

Photo by Meade, August 14, 2023, Great Sand Bay.

***

Well I, see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box... bikini... full-body swimsuit....

"There were no gyms open... and so every day, I swam miles aimlessly in the lake. I'd put on a wet suit..."

"... and I'd jump in the boat dock and I'd swim down, by Johnny Cash's house, and I came back, and I did the same route every single day. Because... I knew that I had to if I wanted to continue this breakout season I was having my sophomore year into my junior year. Right? And the amount of snakes that I swam by and, like, dead catfish that are floating on top of the water that, like, hit you in your face while you're swimming is not pleasant...."

Said Riley Gaines, describing the difficulty of training during the Covid lockdown. That's part of a 2-and-a-half-hour discussion with Joe Rogan, which is mostly about her staunch opposition to allowing transgender women to compete against biologically female athletes. I've listened to the whole thing, and I think Joe is boldly risking his reputation with this material. He's very supportive of Gaines, and the two of them frequently declare that the world has gone crazy:

"The joy that Black people across the country are feeling over the Montgomery Riverfront Uprising, aka the Alabama Sweet Tea Party, is filling my soul."

Writes Touré, in "Why the Montgomery Riverfront Uprising is making Black people so damn happy" (the Grio).

In these videos, we see Black people having one another’s backs. We see brotherhood and sisterhood. We see the vibe of “No, y’all ain’t piling on my brother. We fight back.” Black people showed up in droves to defend our brother.... 

"Swimming is required to graduate with full honors from the elite Manhattan public school. Some Muslim girls worried..."

"... the shift to co-ed classes would pit their academic goals against their religion," the NYT reports. 

After the outcry, Education Department officials said this week that students who need accommodations would soon be able to receive full honors through classes on other life skills.... 

"When you run, you get out in nature, you see things, breathe great air, smile at other humans, bump into friends... in a pool..."

"... you’ve got those horrid goggles on, you’re inhaling smelly water, seeing nobody, discombobulated, repeating, repeating, repeating, like a sprat in an aquarium, or a prisoner in the exercise yard. That’s going to give you mental health issues, that is. Not solve them. And if you do go and try to have fun, especially with your children, they come over and tell you to stop having fun. No diving! No bombing! No running! What the hell are you allowed to do? Just grind up and down, or stand there in the shallow end, talking about your divorce, or the pizza you’re going to have later? I gave up trying to teach my children to swim.... Swimming beautifully is just another dreary middle-class accomplishment like skiing and bridge and playing the cello — an indicator of wealth and class and very little else."

Writes Giles Coren in "No one’s impressed by your hypothermia/Addicts think their icy dips sharpen the mind, but what addled lunatic wants to go swimming outdoors in December?" (London Times).

By the way, I love his podcast, "Giles Coren has no idea," where he brainstorms with his wife about what he should write about in his column. The 2 of them talk very fast, so if you like to hear smart married people banter, this is just great.

"Yeshiva University abruptly announced on Friday that it had placed all undergraduate club activities on hold... to keep from recognizing an L.G.B.T.Q. student group."

"The move came two days after the U.S. Supreme Court... [i]n a 5 to 4 vote... said the university would first have to make its arguments in New York State courts before returning to the Supreme Court.... A lawyer for the students, Katherine Rosenfeld, said in an email Friday that the move by the university... 'is a throwback to 50 years ago when the city of Jackson, Mississippi, closed all public swimming pools rather than comply with court orders to desegregate'.... [S]tudents seeking formal recognition for a club called Y.U. Pride Alliance.... [sued] under laws barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

The NYT reports.

Is it like closing the swimming pools? Students can have clubs whether the school has some club-recognition process or not, but you can't go swimming if there is no pool. 

Perhaps the loftiest position for a school to take is to disaggregate itself from student expression. But the question whether it must do this remains, and I'll be interested to see what happens when (if?) this case gets back to the Supreme Court. The argument is that the law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation contains various exceptions, so it's not the kind of "neutral, generally applicable" law that, under current doctrine, the federal Free Exercise Clause permits. I'm also seeing an argument that the current doctrine should be overruled, so that even "neutral, generally applicable" laws would be subjected to heightened scrutiny if they substantially burden religion. 

"Afterward, intrigued by the experience, I started asking around about other women who seek out cold water."

"I’d started winter surfing a few years ago and understood the ways the water could impact my body and mind, especially when it was cold.... But the process of cold plunging, I found, was its own distinct experience, with its own intention and power.... 'After I get out, I don’t try and rush into my towel or dryrobe....'... 'I don’t practice a formal faith tradition at this point in my life, but being in the water feels more sacred to me than any church service I’ve ever attended.... When I’m stressed... I try to find the nearest window with a view of any water.... I envision myself in the water, feeling the lapping of the waves against my chest, the pressure of my lungs contracting and expanding in protest to the deep cold....'"

From "Cold-Plunging With Maine’s ‘Ice Mermaids’/A photographer in Maine has been documenting groups of women who submerge themselves in near-freezing water. Here’s what she’s seen" (NYT).

I was interested in this concept of "women who seek out cold water."

This post gets my "religion substitutes" tag. You know, there are women who seek God and women who seek cold water. And you can be a seeker of cold water in a way that feels like religion.

When is your body image the government's business? The answer — in Spain — is, apparently, when you are female.

I'm reading "All bodies are beach bodies’: Spain’s equality ministry launches summer campaign/Inclusive promotion urges women to ‘toast a summer for all, without stereotypes’" (The Guardian):

Spain’s equality ministry has launched a creative summer campaign encouraging women of all shapes and sizes to hit the beach, with the slogan: “Summer is ours too.” 

The colourful campaign’s promotional image features five women of different body types, ages and ethnicities enjoying a day in the sun. “Summer is ours too,” it says. “Enjoy it how, where and with whomever you want.” The campaign also features a woman who has had a mastectomy topless. 

“All bodies are beach bodies,” Ione Belarra, the leader of Podemos who serves as social rights minister in Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government, said. “All bodies are valid and we have the right to enjoy life as we are, without guilt or shame. Summer is for everyone!”

Maybe it's the government's business to promote the tourism industry and they have evidence that many women are avoiding the exposure. That might explain encouraging women and not men. Maybe men — however they look — just go to the beach when they want to go to the beach... or when they want to get a look at women's bodies. And that may be why we're seeing this ad, so men can gawk at it: 

El @InstMujeres lanza #ElVeranoEsNuestro. Cuerpos diversos, libres de estereotipos de género, ocupando todos los espacios. El verano también nos pertenece. Libres, iguales y diversas. pic.twitter.com/BjS3YDaEYR

— Toni Morillas (@antoniamorillas) July 27, 2022

I think it's quite weird for the government to be instructing people about when to feel shame. And "All bodies are valid" is a strange concept. Valid? Are bodies making an argument? Are bodies seeking some legal goal?

"At the time of my history with the Germans, there was a whole generation of young girls that missed out on their medals, their trophies, their awards, their chances of careers because the IOC did nothing."

Said Sharron Davies, who won a silver medal swimming in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, when the East Germans used drugs that were the equivalent of “putting girls through male puberty."

Quoted in "Sharron Davies: ‘The trans debate is toxic. It’s made my life hell. But female athletes must speak up’/The former swimmer, still driven by the injustice of not winning 1980 Olympic gold, wants an uprising from athletes to ensure swimming’s transgender ban extends to all sports" (London Times).

"Because of the performance gap that emerges at puberty between biological males as a group and biological females as a group, separate sex competition is necessary..."

"... for the attainment of these objectives. Without eligibility standards based on biological sex or sex-linked traits, we are very unlikely to see biological females in finals... and in sports and events involving collisions and projectiles, biological female athletes would be at greater risk of injury."

Says the new policy adopted by Fina, "the global regulator for swimming, diving and water polo," quoted in "Swimming chiefs ban trans athletes from women’s elite events/‘Open’ category to be created for swimmers whose gender identity is different than their birth sex" (London Times).

Sharron Davies, the British swimmer who won silver at the 1980 Olympics, welcomed the ruling. The 59-year-old says she has “paid a price” for backing inclusion for all in sport while arguing against transgender participation in women’s elite swimming... “I am over the moon. I couldn’t stop crying. Here’s a decision that finally backs the rights of women to have their own category saved for female athletes. It’s been a long, hard road and anyone who spoke up for women, pointed to the obvious science and how it plays out in sports like swimming, has been bullied and harassed. I hope this gives other sports the courage to do the right thing and empower women to speak up without feeling they’re going to be shot down in flames.”

"[Lia] Thomas and her rise... forced the typically plodding N.C.A.A. to grapple more quickly with a subject that scientists are still examining and its consequences for sports competitions."

"Comprehensive research in athletes is still lacking, but early studies suggest that suppressing testosterone in transgender women decreases muscle mass and hemoglobin levels, reducing how much oxygen can be carried through the bloodstream. Most of the changes occur within the first year of hormone suppression, but transgender women may still have more muscle mass than their cisgender peers even after three years. As some insist that no amount of testosterone suppression can undo the physiological changes linked to male puberty, like taller height and larger hands and feet, others dispute that transgender women have a built-in advantage and have argued that inclusion should outweigh competition."

From "Lia Thomas Wins an N.C.A.A. Swimming Title/With her victory in Atlanta, Thomas, who competes for the University of Pennsylvania, became the first openly transgender woman to win an N.C.A.A. swimming championship" (NYT).

Here's the ESPN coverage: "Amid protests, Penn swimmer Lia Thomas becomes first known transgender athlete to win Division I national championship." 

"In trunks, the cold really bites hard and you glide through the water a lot less."

"It’s abominably tough. It’s mind-blowing. It’s not just because of the layer of ice over your head. It’s also the physiological reaction to a long apnea in icy water. The body reacts very strongly." 

Said Arthur Guérin-Boëri, 37, quoted in "Diver sets world record for under-ice swim on single breath" (London Times). He swam finless and without a wetsuit for 105 meters. 

We're told: "In a discipline with mixed genders, he beat the 103m record held by Johanna Nordblad of Finland." Some of the commenters over there are questioning the term "mixed genders." Considering the multiplicity of gender, wouldn't all sports include mixed genders? The distinctiveness here is that both sexes participate in the same event. In the effort to appear enlightened, you can trip over yourself.

"At the non-elite level... an athlete can elect to change their competition category in order for them to experience the sport of swimming in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity and expression."

"At the elite level, a policy has been created for transgender athlete participation in the U.S. that relies on science and medical evidence-based methods to provide a level-playing field for elite cisgender women, and to mitigate the advantages associated with male puberty and physiology.... Evidence that the prior physical development of the athlete as a male, as mitigated by any medical intervention, does not give the athlete a competitive advantage over the athlete’s cisgender female competitors...."

From the new USA Swimming policy, quoted in "Lia Thomas’ future murkier as USA Swimming releases new policy, Penn teammates express support" (NY Post).

Also quoted, Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC) and Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) condemned USA Swimming’s policies: "USA Swimming’s insistence that there is some way to eliminate the athletic advantage that post-pubescent males have over females denies science. But it also ignores the fact that... [a]llowing male-bodied athletes to compete on limited roster teams inevitably means that there are fewer opportunities for female athletes (to be recruited, to receive a scholarship, or to participate in competitions). Make no mistake, taking athletic opportunities away from female athletes violates Title IX."

"There’s duck poop everywhere, and it’s murky. It’s a solid brown-green on a good day. It’s just gross … We were getting [bitten by] duck mites. Apparently they like to eat ducks’ poop. We were covered in bites... it built character. I’m funnier because of it."

Erica Sullivan, discussing training by swimming in Lake Mead when the swimming pools were closed for coronavirus — quoted in "Get to know silver medalist Erica Sullivan. Everyone else wants to" (WaPo).

Before I ran into that quote, I was all set to make a post out of this other quote of hers:

“I’m multicultural. I’m queer. I’m a lot of minorities. That’s what America is. To me, America is not about being a majority. It’s about having your own start. The American Dream is coming to a country to establish what you want to do with your life.”

So she was doubly blog-worthy for me. What a delightful, amusing young lady! Tracing her character back to poop, to which we could, perhaps, all of us, trace our character. What would we do without ducks, lakes, and arachnids?

And I like hearing about her after she's won. All these people who are supposed to win.... Why not wait? Otherwise, the only interesting thing they can do is lose.

"For many years, there was one kind of swim cap. It was ultratight, made of latex or silicone..."

"... and it was 'one size fits all.' But those swim caps left out large groups of swimmers, adding to structural inequities that often keep people of color out of the pool. Many swimmers have celebrated recent advances in swim cap technology. Several brands... have introduced options with more flexible material that vary in size, accommodating swimmers with hair that is larger and more textured than their White competitors’...  [T]he International Swimming Federation...  said the design does not fit 'the natural form of the head.' To the best of their knowledge, they added, 'the athletes competing at the international events never used, neither require … caps of such size and configuration.'"

From "Swim caps for natural hair are banned from the Olympics. Black women hear a clear message: ‘You don’t belong.’ The International Swimming Federation said the design does not fit ‘the natural form of the head’" (WaPo). 

I expect this decision to be reversed. It's not as though the enlarged crown of these hats gives the swimmer an advantage. It must be a disadvantage, increasing drag. 

"One has to wonder how these rankings are established. I lived in Georgia for 30 years owing to professional reasons. Not a day went by that I did not want to leave."

"Even though I lived in one of Georgia's best places (Athens, I was in the geology faculty at UGA), I never found any redeeming qualities in the Southeast. And I tried, oh I tried. I found the climate and the vegetation oppressive, the landscape depressing, and the culture alien. I finally found two good things about Georgia: Atlanta's airport (the departure lounge only, never liked baggage claim) and Delta. I retired on January 1 of this year and moved to Santa Fe three days later. This place is, for me, as close to perfect as possible (at least among places that I can afford). Everything that I hated about Georgia I love about New Mexico. Yet according to this article New Mexico ranks near the bottom in terms of quality of living." 

A highly rated comment on the NYT article "The Best (and Worst) States for Remote Work/A recent study ranked all 50 states and Washington, D.C., to find where working from home was most attractive to workers and employers." 

The study in question ranked Georgia first for "living." Factors that counted: The size of houses and housing lots and the presence of swimming pools! 

Another comment: "I have lived in several states, and visited virtually all of them. Ranking 'living environment' in New Hampshire as only the 44th best, and Colorado's as 47th, is something of a joke, although I suppose if the most important attribute that the pollster can think of is a private swimming pool, as opposed to, say, a wondrous outdoor environment, that might account for this bizarre finding."

It's a good idea for an article, as many people these days are in a position to relocate and work remotely, but the specific advice is ludicrous. Even if your favorite thing is having a swimming pool taking up your backyard, it doesn't matter who else in the same state has a swimming pool, only that it's warm enough to justify having a swimming pool. You can install a swimming pool! And why would a young person — working remotely — want the largest house and yard? How about a well-designed, easy-to-maintain smaller house? 

FROM THE EMAIL: Georgia has its proponents. Joseph says:

"I had been in the Oval Office a hundred times as vice president or more... But I had never been up in the residence."

"And one of the things — I don't know about you all, but I was raised in a way that you didn't look for anybody to wait on you. And it's — we're — I find myself extremely self-conscious. There are wonderful people that work at the White House. But someone is standing there and making sure I — hands me my suit coat, or..."

From the transcript of Biden's CNN Town Hall last night.

Anderson Cooper expressed surprise that Biden had never been in the residence part of the White House? Obama never had him over?

Biden continues. I'll add a page break because this is very rambly: