Making Change on the Court: Naomi Osaka Serves Mental Health Concerns

By Gloria Feldt | June 6, 2021 |

Issue 169-June 6, 2021

As a girl, I loved tennis. I was never destined to be a Naomi Osaka, but I played regularly until I was 13 years old. Then my family moved to a small town where the only public tennis court was at the local high school. Soon after arriving in town, I went there with a girlfriend.

The court bordered on the street. A few minutes into our game, a carload of teenage boys parked in front of the court and shouted remarks about our physical appearance. We ignored the boys till they left, then packed up our racquets and went home. I never played tennis again.

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Bristol, Honey, This Is Just the Beginning

By Gloria Feldt | March 12, 2009 |

Sex and relationship conflict always give the morning news a little sizzle to go with the caffeine jolt.

Jill Miller Zimon over at writeslikeshetalks already said most of what I was thinking this morning as I watched media reports of the breakup of Bristol Palin and her boyfriend-fiancé-baby daddy, Levi Johnston:

Frankly, I think the only one who should be asked questions and be allowed to say, “no comment” is Bristol herself. She is 18, she is a single mother and it’s her life. Questions to Palin should go only to her existence as Bristol’s mother and either she is going to comment on that or not. I’m not even happy that she’s being asked about the subject at all – leave them all alone as far as I’m concerned. True, she kicked the door wide open during the campaign, but the Bristol-Greta interview demonstrated that Bristol is at least making some decisions, it seems.

Sigh.

I’d love to have an epistemological conversation with Sarah Palin about the word, “choice,” even knowing her whole thing about God opening doors, or not.

On the plus side, both Bristol and Sarah have now acknowledged that perhaps abstinence isn’t the 100% foolproof birth control method it’s cracked up to be. Because like all methods, it only works when it’s actually used.

However, I doubt that media attention will disappear from Bristol and baby Tripp for quite some time, at least as long as Sarah Palin is in the political limelight where she seems determined to stay to the chagrin of many in the party that used and abused her during McCain-Palin’s failed presidential campaign.

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