Most of us had nothing but a rousing round of applause and awe for the best women athletes in the world, who were breaking records and winning medals at the Winter Olympics. And yet, others -- far removed from any hint of athleticism -- felt compelled to offer disparaging comments targeting their fellow Americans.

It started with the backlash to Lindsey Vonn, one of the greatest alpine skiers of all time. She was the first American woman to win a gold medal in the downhill at the 2010 Olympics. She bagged two more Olympic bronzes in subsequent Games, along with the most World Cup wins of any female skier.

After a major knee surgery, she made an incredible comeback at age 41. She became the oldest skier ever to win a World Cup downhill race earlier in the season, which earned her a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. Despite a ruptured ACL just days before her event, Vonn chose to compete. The world watched in horror after she clipped a gate early in her run and crashed violently. She fractured her leg and was rushed via helicopter for emergency surgery.

The armchair warriors got busy online, criticizing her decision to compete. Experts and Vonn herself have said the torn ACL did not cause her to fall. Plenty of other athletes have competed in high-profile events despite being injured. Vonn competes at the highest level in the world in a sport rife with injuries. She was medically cleared, knew the risks, had a shot at making history and decided to go for it.

That is the kind of courage and grit that took her to the top of her sport. If she had won a medal, the same people tearing her down would have called her a hero.

Then there are the reactions to Eileen Gu, who entered the Olympics already one the greatest freeskiers in history. In a press interview after she won two silver medals, a reporter asked whether she viewed her wins as "two silvers gained or two golds lost."

Gu rightly laughed and rejected the implication that she had lost by winning. She noted that she's "the most decorated female freeskier in history" and that framing silver as a loss was a "ridiculous perspective."

Days later, she went out in the halfpipe and won a gold.

Rather than appreciating her phenomenal athleticism, her win attracted haters -- including the vice president, who criticized her for competing on behalf of China instead of the United States. These same critics didn't call out the other U.S. athletes competing for other countries -- up to 41 in the last Winter Games. In fact, St. Louis Blues goalie Jordan Binnington competed his heart out for Canada in hockey against the U.S. team.

Gu has said she wants to help make her sport more mainstream in China, and the U.S. has the representation. She pointed out that the political criticism comes from anti-China sentiment.

"And also, because I win," she said.

No one would be sniping at her if she had lost.

Vonn and Gu made their own choices and stood by them.

The most embarrassing reaction to American women winning came from the very top. On a congratulatory call to the men's hockey team after their gold-medal victory over Canada, President Donald Trump said that because he was inviting the men to his State of the Union address, he'd also need to invite the gold medal-winning women's team.

"I must tell you," he said, "we're going to have to bring the women's team, you do know that," adding that he "would be impeached" if he didn't.

He managed to diminish the women who had just accomplished exactly what these men did.

This kind of locker room talk is par for the course for Trump, given his lengthy history of insulting remarks targeting women. Although most of the men on the team laughed in response to the disparaging comment, one said "absolutely" when Trump said he had to invite the women, while another shouted "two-for-two," highlighting both victories.

It would have been great to hear more of the men stick up for the women's team.

But these Games made it clear that while the Olympics showcases exceptional talent, it also showcases everyday misogyny.

Ten years ago, a friend shared her desire to give up alcohol for Lent.

It sounds like you're having a very Muslimy Lent, I said to her. Drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islam.

This was back when "wine mom" culture was still going strong. We were part of a tight-knit trio of working moms who followed politics closely. (This habit can go hand-in-hand with the urge to drink excessively.)

The country was nearing the end of Barack Obama's presidency. We were all weary of the years of racist backlash to a Black family living in the White House.

Oh, to be that young and naive again. Little could we have imagined the absolute degradation the next decade would bring to the political culture in our country.

At any rate, my friend successfully detoxed her liver and kidneys for the 46 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. That same summer, I slogged through as many of the daily fasts of Ramadan as I could bear. It's always a challenging month for me, but I try my best.

This year, Feb. 18 was both the first day of Lent and the first day of fasting for Ramadan. For the first time, our respective fasts coincided.

"I've decided to resume my very Muslim Lent tradition, so we'll be in it together!" my friend messaged. Our third pal, the only Catholic in our group, said she would also try a dry Lent. She planned to stock up on limes and club soda.

"It's going to be extra hard this year to give up booze," she said. "But I really need to." She didn't need to explain why it was going to be extra hard. Like I said, we all follow the news a little too closely.

Speaking of the headlines, in the days leading up to this holy month for Muslims, one Republican lawmaker made news by offering Muslim Americans this greeting from his X account: "If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one."

Rep. Randy Fine of Florida claims to have shared this in response to a Palestinian New Yorker griping about dog poop left in the snow piles of winter and calling dogs unclean. As a dog lover and owner myself, I will defend my pup, Frankie, as cleaner than most because I pay his exorbitant grooming bills. Of course, I also believe dog owners should pick up after their pets on public sidewalks.

But I think we all know Fine's post had nothing to do with canine etiquette.

Take a look at his past rhetoric -- saying Gazans should "starve away" and referring to a Muslim congresswoman as a "terrorist." This was just another opportunity to broadcast his bigotry and dehumanize 2 billion Muslims.

We've always had boldly ignorant and hateful lawmakers, but in the recent past, such behavior was less tolerated by either political party. Back in January of 2019, House Republicans stripped Rep. Steve King, from Iowa, of his committee assignments after the New York Times published an interview in which King questioned why the terms "white nationalist" and "white supremacist" had become offensive.

This week, the silence from GOP lawmakers in response to Fine's latest hateful remark is discouraging. Sadly, it's not surprising.

A lot has changed within the Republican Party in the past seven years.

I was heartened, however, to see many American leaders and pundits condemning Fine, who calls himself "The Hebrew Hammer."

Brian Krassenstein, a social media commentator with nearly 1 million followers, wrote: "I am Jewish like Republican Randy Fine. If someone posted this and replaced 'Muslim' with 'Jew,' they would be impeached in 2 seconds. Just saying. Don't pick and choose what bigotry is OK. For instance, imagine if Ilhan Omar said this but replaced 'Muslim' with 'Jew.'"

Back in the heyday of wine moms, my friends used to lament the double standard faced by the Obamas, especially in conservative media.

Now, everyone has more sober expectations. My Catholic friend mused about combining the best of our faith traditions.

"Too bad we can't just give up booze during the day and have a cocktail at sundown," she said.

In the years after Spencer Toder graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, he noticed a familiar, depressing pattern.

One by one, his college classmates ditched Missouri. They built careers and started businesses and families in other states.

As a fifth-generation St. Louisan, Toder, now 40, chose to stay. He started a real estate business and other business endeavors. He married a woman he'd met at WashU, and they now have two children. Their oldest child goes to the same public elementary school that Toder attended as a kid.

Four years ago, Toder felt compelled to do something to improve the declining situation in Missouri, where young adults and college-educated residents leave at higher rates than other states. His hope was that his children would also want to stay and build their futures here.

So, as a first-timer, and without the big-money support of the party's top two candidates, he ran in the 2022 Democratic primary for one of Missouri's U.S. Senate seats. He came in third, but was still determined to make a difference for his state.

He started looking deeper into the root causes of why the state lags in job creation, wage and population growth. He discovered startling and disturbing stats: Missouri ranks 49th in the percentage of its school funding that comes from the state. We rely heavily on local property taxes to fund education, so wealthier districts tend to have higher test scores.

Missouri also ranked 49th in teacher pay, according to salary data from the National Education Association. This obviously makes it harder to recruit and retain qualified teachers, to the point that a third of Missouri districts -- mostly rural ones -- now operate on a four-day schedule. This is among the highest concentrations in the country of districts with shortened weeks.

It makes sense that having qualified teachers is linked to better student outcomes, and the data corroborates this. Business leaders want to invest in states that offer a large, well-educated workforce. Missouri's trapped in a persistent, downward cycle of not investing in public education and losing its brightest and most talented young adults because better opportunities lure them elsewhere.

Toder knew that Missouri's political landscape had changed dramatically over the past 30 years. It went from a purple bellwether state to a reliably dark-red state in which no Democrat holds statewide office. But while Missouri's political identification has changed, majorities of voters in the state will still support progressive policies presented to them individually on the ballot. (That may be why the Republican supermajority is desperately trying to dismantle the ballot initiative process, but that's another story.)

He wondered if he could use this same approach to try to improve and protect public education. Republican lawmakers have already diverted millions of public dollars to private schools, undermining funding for public schools, and they want to siphon even more.

Toder researched other states that do a better job in educating their workforce and noticed that several had included a right to education in their state constitutions, using words like "adequate," "uniform," "thorough" or "efficient." If states failed to meet these standards, they could be held accountable by the courts to do better. In states like New York, Kentucky, Connecticut and Colorado, which have this kind of language in their constitutions, it led to more equitable funding and better student outcomes, Toder said.

"When education is a constitutional right, schools get the resources they need, and students get results," Toder said.

He launched a ballot initiative that would make education a "fundamental right" and make it the duty of lawmakers to maintain "adequate, thorough and uniform high-quality, free public schools."

This would be an ingenious way to bolster public education across the state.

Toder, who needs to get a total of 175,000 signatures to get his proposed amendment on the ballot in November, needs about 1,000 volunteers across the state to collect the remaining 150,000 signatures he needs.

It would make sense for teachers unions to get their members behind this effort, as well as parents who want their children to have great opportunities in the state.

Otherwise, Missouri can expect to keep its shameful rankings at the bottom of the barrel.