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Brooke Dougherty| Central Bucks High School East

Simone Biles impact on mental health continues to reverberate

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles removed herself from competition in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. She had no idea the impact that decision would make in the conversation around mental health.

USA TODAY

"Don't try to lessen yourself for the world; let the world catch up to you," sensational music icon Beyonc (aka Queen B), an artist who has resonated with millions of people, has stated. Her fans embody her messages of self-love, confidence, and motivation as they intertwine it into their own lives.

The black hole of media and societal standards is hard to escape, yet influencers can be truly inspirational when channeled in a positive light.

My primary inspiration comes from artists, Stevie Nicks and Freddie Mercury, Ive taken their vibes and fashion and have worked to construe such into my own life while also adding some of my own pizzazz along the way.

Through such fashion ranging from platform shoes to vibrantly colored jackets, Ive been able to secure a stronger sense of self and willingness to live my life unapologetically.

When translated in a healthy way the influence of public figures is crucially impactful to a persons life and becoming their true, authentic self.

Before the concept of rectangular hand sized devices were even brought to fruition, public heads and movements were prevalent. During the height of WW2, Rosie the Riveter was a key contributor in women empowerment as they found themselves flourishing in jobs previously designated to men, which opened the narrative that they were capable of much more than just their limitations.

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Throughout the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. set on a voyage for racial justice and equality, hand in hand with the Civil Rights Movement. He set the stage for black voices to feel empowered, worthy, and loved.

Along similar timelines, Marsha P. Johnson, the acclaimed Black drag queen and activist, was a prevailing figure during the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Her bravery and fierceness as she triumphed for LGBTQ+ acknowledgment and rights echoed throughout the nation and pushed advocates to keep working towards liberation.

In the world of athletics, Simone Biles spoke out about her battle with mental health after the 2020 Summer Olympics, breaking down the stigmatization of it. Despite the risks of being deemed weak or making excuses, Biles anchored a new conversation of change to young athletes that there is such a realness in pressure and addressing, educating, and growing from it is essential.

Roman Craig, a junior at Souderton Area High School and member of Teen Takes, holds a major admiration towards the encapsulation of the '90s and alternative communities. Especially Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of the band Green Day, who they discovered in middle school as they were immediately attracted to their eccentric attitude. Craig finds that the band's energy on stage and its authenticity makes it hold a commendable influence.

Green Day opened the doors to the punk rock scene and cultivated a new audience of inspiration. Even in times of darkness and confusion, Green Day was an outlet for Craig to triumph against adversity and fight against toxic forces. Their influence has allowed for Craig and an abundance of others to stand up for themselves, take every opportunity that comes their way, and not let the negative outfielders push them down.

Another fellow Teen Takes writer, Jason Hampton, a senior at Lenape High School, resonates with Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist whose YouTube videos have allowed for Hampton to maintain a hearty outlook on life and further engineer his passion of becoming a psychologist. Petersons ability to associate his intelligence with his opinions and remain fluent in discussing the current state of society is a quality that Hampton believes is leaving a productive influence on the world.

Bouncing off the social suaveness of Peterson, Hampton hopes to in his own life become a more well-thought out and well-spoken public speaker.

From international popstars to groundbreaking entrepreneurs, the world is full of monumental figures. Influencers set sail by positively affecting individuals ability to embody who they are and the change they want to pioneer.

An influencer could be anyone who makes the world a better place: family, mail carriers, health care providers, teachers. Why, in fact, you may even just be one yourself.

Be the influence you want to see in the world.

Brooke Dougherty is a junior at Central Bucks East High School.Her motto in life is to keep smiling and stay positive, and she wants to share that message with Teen Takes readers.

More:
From Rosie the Riveter and Stevie Nicks to Green Day, who inspires our Teen Takes teens - Bucks County Courier Times

The Kansas coaches are continuing to look at the transfer portal or the junior college route to fill out spots left in the 2022 recruiting class.

One of their most recent offers went to Justice Ugo, a cornerback from Blinn College.

It was really exciting since I grew up watching Kansas basketball as a kid since I originally wanted to be a basketball player, Ugo said.

His dreams have now changed from the basketball court to the football field where he is receiving a lot of interest from several college recruiters.

Kansas cornerbacks coach Jordan Peterson started recruiting him and he has heard from multiple coaches on staff.

Ive talked to Coach Peterson the most, but Ive heard from their whole coaching staff almost equally, he said. The coaches told me its a program making a quick turn around by taking one step at a time. Ive learned about the great atmosphere of KU and Lawrence, Kansas.

At 6-foot-3, 190 pounds Ugo said Peterson likes his length and his versatility he shows on film. That was one reason the Jayhawks staff extended the scholarship offer.

Ugo will graduate early this summer allowing him to enroll at a college and play somewhere for the 2022 season.

I plan on taking my time and making the best decision for me and my family, he said. I will be leaving juco this May.

There are several schools showing interest and Ugo said most of the schools are from the Big 12, Big 10, and ACC. He recently picked up an offer from Iowa State and Illinois. Peterson is hoping to build a strong relationship with Ugo because that is one of the factors he will be looking for when it comes to decide.

The most important thing to me is the relationship I have with the coaching staff and how they will be able to develop me as a person and football player to help me reach my goals, he said.

In the past when the spring game is over the coaches go on the road right away to start spring recruiting. This year the Jayhawks started spring practice early. This was the earliest they have finished the spring season and it allows them more time to focus on details before rushing out on the road.

We're going to be in for a little bit here doing our evaluations with our players, Leipold said. We do a pretty thorough evaluation where they meet with their position coach, and we have a big group meeting with them.

And then as well as their weight training and doing some things there, making sure they're in the right position also academically to finish the semester strong.

Later in the month the staff will hit the ground running for the spring evaluation period. The first stops will be the local schools.

Near the end of April and throughout May we have about 165 total evaluations, between the 10 coaches, he said. Each coach will be out a little over 15 days, and again we're going to start right here in Kansas and across the border first, before they venture out to the other areas.

Continue reading here:
Justice Ugo on Kansas offer, coaches will go on road late April - Rivals.com - Kansas

The Minnesota Vikings enter the 2022 NFL Draft with eight picks, including the 12th pick overall. And new Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has work to do to get Minnesota back in the fray in the NFC. After finishing 8-9 and missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season, the Vikings cleaned house. The team fired head coach Mike Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman days after the Vikings season ended.

Adofo-Mensah made some decent splashes in his first free agency in charge. Signing OLB ZaDarius Smith gives Minnesota a fearsome two-headed pass-rushing combo in Smith and Danielle Hunter. They added LB Jordan Hicks from Arizona, DT Harrison Phillips from Buffalo, and re-signed CB Patrick Peterson to further bolster their defense.

Now Adofo-Mensah turns his focus to the draft. And while Minnesota has some clear needs on the offensive line, remember, this is a bold predictions story. So without further ado, lets get to it.

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3. Find an instant contributor at tight end

The Vikings have plenty of playmakers on the offensive side of the ball. But tight end is one position where questions remain. Irv Smith Jr. returns after missing all of last season with a torn meniscus. But in his two seasons prior, Smith topped out at 36 catches and 365 yards. And even after signing former Rams tight end Johnny Mundt, the Vikings could look to the draft for an instant contributor.

There are two spots that make sense for Minnesota to find a highly productive tight end. While the 12th pick of the second round is probably too early to take one of the drafts top tight ends, the Vikings could trade back in the second and select either UCLAs Greg Dulcich or Colorado States Trey McBride.

Dulcich and McBride are the consensus top-two tight ends in the draft. McBride, coming off 90 catches at Colorado State last year, is the more proven pass catcher. Dulcichs blocking is further along, but hes also no slouch in the passing game, averaging 17.3 yards per reception last season.

If Minnesota uses their second-round pick elsewhere, the third or fourth round is another chance to snatch a high-upside tight end. Cade Otton from Washington is a great blocker with a chance to develop into a solid pass catcher. While Minnesota doesnt have a fourth-round pick currently, a trade up to select Otton would make sense for the Vikings.

2. Draft a QB

Kirk Cousins got a one-year contract extension in March that keeps him in Minnesota through the 2023 season. But if Cousins doesnt improve and the Vikings miss the playoffs the next two seasons, theyll haveto move on from himright? Well lets get a little crazy. Minnesota has Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond as backups, but this new regime in Minnesota has no attachments to either of them. So with the Vikings second-round pick, how does Matt Corral sound?

The Ole Miss quarterback is a feisty competitor with plenty of confidence as evidenced by two games with 5 interceptions in 2020. But his risk-taking tendencies dropped last season, as he threw just five picks all season. Coming to Minnesota is the perfect situation for Corral. Hell need a couple years of development before hes NFL ready. Sitting behind a proven though at times uninspiring Kirk Cousins will let him mature into a starting quarterback in two years. Say hello to your future franchise QB Vikings fans.

1. Stingley drops to 12

While not necessarily a bold prediction for the Vikings themselves, seeing LSU cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. available at pick 12 would be a bit of a surprise. Hes been projected as high as the second pick by some experts, and a top-five selection would surely shock nobody.

But there are some concerns over his performance trends since his standout freshman season for the Tigers. Hes missed time with injuries, and his PFF grade has decreased each year since 2019. So a drop out of the top ten is a possibility. But that 2019 season was special. If Stingley falls to the Vikings, Adofo-Mensah should sprint the draft card to the stage himself. Pair him with Patrick Peterson, another former LSU superstar, and let him blossom into a top corner in football. Stingley has shown what hes capable of, and in the right situation, this guy will be a stud.

Continued here:
Minnesota Vikings: 3 bold predictions in the 2022 NFL Draft - ClutchPoints

Elon Musk is all set to buy Twitter for around $43 billion, as his best and final offer. He has already acquired 9.2 per cent of its shares. What he would like to do though is to buy up Twitter and change its functioning because it censors free speech, which Elon Musk believes, is essential for democracy and its future.

Here is what Twitter says about its policy of censorship on free speech on its site:

We will review and take enforcement action against accounts that target an individual, group of people, or a protected category with any of the following behavior in their profile information, i.e., usernames, display names, or profile bios:

Abusive slurs, epithets, racist, or sexist tropes

we will still take action against these accounts if we receive reports about Tweets or Direct Messages that are in violation of our other policies

If an accounts profile information includes any of the abusive behaviors listed above, we will permanently suspend the account on the first violation

The words sound like the issuance of a court, the preamble of a faceless but omnipresent judge; someone who might preside over the proceedings of a Kafkaesque trial before he sentences the suspect to death and damnation by hanging. Please note that Twitter reserves the right to interpret what exactly constitutes an offence.

But Twitter, like Facebook, is a company. Just a company. Its shares are up for buy and sell. Both forums favour progressive, and liberal speech. Indeed, Facebook these days is so censoriously sensitive that your posts take time to hit the screen because their AI machines are running filters on every word; this is especially so if your track record as a writer or consumer has a record of offences.

Elon Musk is in effect a Libertarian, one who values the idea of liberty over all else. He has stated that he is socially and culturally tolerant and open, and financially prudent.

He believes in governments that least govern, by which he means the government must not interfere in your private lives, but makes lives in general easier. He certainly does not believe in elected governments defining free speech or censoring your thought. Our increasing and eager reliance on emojis to convey the harmlessness of our intent in each exchange is fundamentally an indication of our growing and craven preference for large, rounded, general feelings rather than eccentric and edged expressions of our individuality.

In these fluid and volatile social media times, the government is not the only agency that controls speech. It is Multi-National Corporationswhich at one time were considered sources of social and political evil as well. This amounts to a tectonic shift in our idea and practice of communication. Because non-State players do not abide by penal codes or the Constitution.

Thats why even when Chris Rock says he forgives Will Smith and refuses to press charges, you have the Oscar Academy, under pressure to appear good and correct, imposing a 10-year ban on the star.

Effectively, a non-State player, terrorised by the equally non-State backlash, has passed a life sentence on the actor. There is no law involved in this, only the perception of a feeling, and what that feeling might entail in terms of the cancellation of the Oscar Academy itself by social media addicts, whose numbers are legion.

Indeed, the way it is going, the function of the Greek chorus as the conscience of the play has now been usurped by social media: the tragedy can continue as comedy.

While technology flatters you with the addictive delusion (there are millions of men and women working for Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or Bret Taylor from morning to evening without being paid a dime and still think they are doing themselves a favor; this is the international labor force that, unbeknownst to themselves, has destroyed the idea that labor has monetary value) that you have important things to say and you have a forum for saying these, the fear that their platform could be taken away from them at any given moment by a wage-less and silent robot itself controls thought.

That we have until recently in our civilizational evolution found in the State an enemy in whom we can easily trace the source of most of our free speech censorship, we are now confronted with the problem of experiencing the definition of free speech and its censorship to private companieswhose reason for existence is profit.

But none of it washes, really. A couple of years ago, when Jack Dorsey visited India, a bunch of well-known women posed with Dorsey as if he was the Messiah of the Media Freedom; it was as if they thought he was not a capitalist running a company, but an altruist running a liberal movement: A suited Christ propagating the new secular Gospel in 150 characters, or whatever was the limit then.

In Naipauls The Mimic Men, the disgraced colonial politician, Ralph Singh, says: Understand the language I use. I am describing a failure, a deficiency; The articulation of our deficiencies cannot be always without causing offence. But mass platforms like Twitter and FB encourage what amounts to a forced conformism of speech he or she may not believe in given his individual experience. That someone like Jordan Peterson, a free-thinking and controversial academic from Canada, had to fight the government of his country and the social media for his right Not to use prescribed gender-neutral pronouns is an indication of where we are heading: toward totally policed thought, the perfect Stalinist dream.

Elon Musk puts the money where his mouth is. Unlike most billionaire businessmen across the world, Musk still comes across as a human being and not a corporation. And as a human being, he is aware of the inalienable condition of existence: the articulation of ones deficiencies in a language that might often offend.

In short, Musk would like to buy Twitter so the platform is a place to communicate, not observe silence. He understands that human speech unless it is occurring in an Orwellian or a Stalinist society, cannot be worth anything without a measure of offence.

The real significance of Musks offer of $43 billion for Twitter is that it is the price of free speech. Finally, we have a number for our thoughts. But Twitter considers it as the price of its right to censorship. So in effect, $43 billion, the offer which Twitter will not accept, is the price of an enforced silence on humanity.

(CP Surendran is an author and senior journalist. Views are personal.)

Read more here:
Elon Musk and an offer Twitter will resist | Onmanorama - Onmanorama

Bitcoin 2022 is a gathering of freedom, a place for conversations of sovereignty; and who better to invite to speak than Jordan Peterson, a prominent Canadian psychologist whos attracted much attention for his books and podcast appearances. Peterson has been classified as the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now, and a right-wing internet celebrity, but his wide appeal certainly testifies to the fact that hes speaking to a growing audience of people seeking his ideals.

His fireside appearance was hosted by Tuur Demeester, an early bitcoin investor and analyst.Given Demeesters experience and knowledge, it was set to be an excellent discussion.

Much of the Bitcoin community already has an ideological intersection with Peterson. At the conference, his chat was delivered to a very crowded audience people were interested in what he had to say.

Demeester started by asking Peterson about what sparked his entrepreneurial ventures. Peterson responded, The most appropriate way to understand something is to try it. In a way, its a nod to proof of work as a concept.

Peterson then jumped into what became the main theme of his responses, which was his profuse belief in capitalism.

Dont be defensive about the ethics of your capitalistic enterprise, on the contrary you should be on the offensive, proudly proclaiming that people should ... make free choices about what they value.

He added, One of the fundamental axioms of a free market system is that the only way to properly compute the horizon of the future is by sampling and perhaps summing the free choice of a multitude of free agents.

Demeester asked Peterson about his curiosity in Bitcoin, to which Peterson replied, First of all, I thought I would be motivated to understand bitcoin if I actually invested some money in it because I do believe the proposition that you don't really make genuine decisions if your sampling a domain unless you have skin in the game.

But Peterson wasnt entirely bullish on Bitcoin he did have a demeanor of cautious optimism.

We have no idea what would happen if money per se was actually decentralized If we manage that and say Bitcoin maintains privacy, is it irreversible? Is that permanent? Well what if its a bad idea and its irreversible?

Peterson rounded back to capitalism to finish off, saying, Here's two justifications for free markets and capitalism. It gives warlike people something to do that isn't destructive.

He then added, If you can't make your idea attractive enough to other people so that they're willing to give you money, it's possible that its a stupid idea and youre doing it badly We shouldnt subsidize zombies. Do you want to be one?

Bitcoin 2022 is part of the Bitcoin Event Series hosted by BTC Inc, the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine.

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Jordan Peterson Champions Capitalism At Bitcoin 2022 - Bitcoin Magazine