I want to express what a joy it has been to touch base with blog visitors from 85 different countries and to take a moment to review topics covered in past entries.
In my introductory post on July 17, 2012, I said I hoped to help kids feel comfortable with the globalization that would be part of their lives. Today I add my hope that human rights violations decrease in their lifetime, toleration for all religions grows, and AI, 3D printing, 6G networks, VR, the IofT, and other technological advances enhance rather than threaten their futures.
I was surprised to see that my first post about China was not until Feb.2015. Since then, Beijing launched its One Belt One Road and Maritime Silk Road global expansion, increased its military hard power, and added soft power films and International Flower Festivals to its cuddly pandas.
During the past seven years, the African continent also gained importance. One of the blog's single most popular posts, with 140 views, was "Games Children Play," which provided instructions for filling bags for students with samples of Africa's coffee, tea, chocolate, cotton, and other products. Both research in and distribution of remedies for malaria, AIDS, and other diseases now tackle their devastating impact on Africa's progress. Mobile phones already facilitate banking, information about markets, catching animal poachers, and street repairs. Exploitation and corruption are at least recognized, if not yet cured.
Finally, I want to thank all the sources, from trendwatching.com to globalsistersreport.org, that have provided the information I was able to convey to you
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Thursday, March 21, 2019
On the Mexican Side of the Border
The days of confining children in tent cities on the dusty Texas side of the Rio Grande are over. Guards need no longer bar the concerned visitors who set red balloons afloat over the camps to show those inside someone cared about them.
But migrants still cross into Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador. In the five-year span from 2010 to 2015, the UN estimates over 300,000 left Central America. The Economist magazine (March 16, 2019) mentioned 8,000 left in January and February this year.
Mexico understands the plight of Central Americans who seek asylum from government repression of the poor, gang violence, and soldiers, like those who murdered San Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and four nuns in 1980 and the environmental activist, Berta Caceres, in Honduras in 2016. Besides fleeing violence, migrants also risk the long, hot and dangerous journey north when they are displaced by mining activities and when coffee and other crop prices drop or when a lack of rainfall, heat, and a plague of insects reduce crop yields. (Also see the earlier post, "How Can Bananas Be 29 Cents A Pound?")
Since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became Mexico's President in December, 2018, his humanitarian welcome has cut into the estimated $2.5 billion organized crime was used to pocketing for trafficking migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border. As requested by Washington, D.C. migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. now remain in Mexico until close to their court dates.
But migrants still cross into Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador. In the five-year span from 2010 to 2015, the UN estimates over 300,000 left Central America. The Economist magazine (March 16, 2019) mentioned 8,000 left in January and February this year.
Mexico understands the plight of Central Americans who seek asylum from government repression of the poor, gang violence, and soldiers, like those who murdered San Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and four nuns in 1980 and the environmental activist, Berta Caceres, in Honduras in 2016. Besides fleeing violence, migrants also risk the long, hot and dangerous journey north when they are displaced by mining activities and when coffee and other crop prices drop or when a lack of rainfall, heat, and a plague of insects reduce crop yields. (Also see the earlier post, "How Can Bananas Be 29 Cents A Pound?")
Since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became Mexico's President in December, 2018, his humanitarian welcome has cut into the estimated $2.5 billion organized crime was used to pocketing for trafficking migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border. As requested by Washington, D.C. migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. now remain in Mexico until close to their court dates.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Why Kids Need Positive Relationships with Adults
Adult-child bonding achieves results. "Skin," the live action short film that won an Academy Award last month, featured a father proudly training his son to master a gun and hate black people. Through a plot twist and a bit of Hollywood magic, the father's skin turns black. His son shoots and kills him.
Research by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child also found a lack of adult-child bonding in abusive environments and those with uncaring adults leads to kids with no motivation to learn, to explore, or to try new things. In a negative situation, kids can become fixated on fear, avoiding punishment, and the immediate danger of failure.
When children lack positive experiences with adults, they are apt to resist pressure to do things in a particular way, such as form cursive letters according to a prescribed method. Even guiding some children through mindfulness by requiring them to close eyes, sit up straight, and conform to other unnecessary procedures can undermine the positive benefits of mindfulness.
Teachers need to realize not all kids come into a room with a background of adult-child relationships that make them ready to answer an adult's question, volunteer an opinion, or ask for more information. A teacher needs to find ways to help students succeed, to feel a task is not impossible. It helps to lead into discussions with phrases like "I notice" and "I wonder." In other words, teachers need to give the impression all ideas are welcome and all subjects are worth exploring.
My mother was a math teacher who always tried to figure out what students were doing when they arrived at the wrong answer. She learned there were lots of things you could do with a column of numbers. "That's interesting," she would say, "I never thought of that." No matter how "crazy" a student's manipulation of numbers was, she'd caution other students not to laugh before they listened to and understood a classmate's reasoning.
Not every student is going to be good or poor at the same subject. Unless all kids begin to develop positive face-to-face interactions with adults, they may shut down and stop learning before they hit their strides. This goes for gifted and talented kids also. When an eight-year-old British boy, with Egyptian parents, perfect pitch, a knack for coding, and a sense of humor, told an international education conference, "(G)etting a few spelling words or facts wrong is not the end of the world," teachers needed to avoid taking offense. He also felt free to suggest learning to type on a keyboard saved trees and was more important in the digital age than learning cursive.
Research by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child also found a lack of adult-child bonding in abusive environments and those with uncaring adults leads to kids with no motivation to learn, to explore, or to try new things. In a negative situation, kids can become fixated on fear, avoiding punishment, and the immediate danger of failure.
When children lack positive experiences with adults, they are apt to resist pressure to do things in a particular way, such as form cursive letters according to a prescribed method. Even guiding some children through mindfulness by requiring them to close eyes, sit up straight, and conform to other unnecessary procedures can undermine the positive benefits of mindfulness.
Teachers need to realize not all kids come into a room with a background of adult-child relationships that make them ready to answer an adult's question, volunteer an opinion, or ask for more information. A teacher needs to find ways to help students succeed, to feel a task is not impossible. It helps to lead into discussions with phrases like "I notice" and "I wonder." In other words, teachers need to give the impression all ideas are welcome and all subjects are worth exploring.
My mother was a math teacher who always tried to figure out what students were doing when they arrived at the wrong answer. She learned there were lots of things you could do with a column of numbers. "That's interesting," she would say, "I never thought of that." No matter how "crazy" a student's manipulation of numbers was, she'd caution other students not to laugh before they listened to and understood a classmate's reasoning.
Not every student is going to be good or poor at the same subject. Unless all kids begin to develop positive face-to-face interactions with adults, they may shut down and stop learning before they hit their strides. This goes for gifted and talented kids also. When an eight-year-old British boy, with Egyptian parents, perfect pitch, a knack for coding, and a sense of humor, told an international education conference, "(G)etting a few spelling words or facts wrong is not the end of the world," teachers needed to avoid taking offense. He also felt free to suggest learning to type on a keyboard saved trees and was more important in the digital age than learning cursive.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Playgrounds Welcome March Basketball Madness
Now that he's an ex-President, Barack Obama welcomes his extra time to fill out March Madness brackets for the annual basketball tournament pitting 68 top U.S. college teams against each other. Former University of Pennsylvania stars welcome the chance to reminisce about years back when they were on an Ivy League basketball team that reached the Final Four. They remind each other how they were the tough recruits from the New York public leagues who recognized the teammate potential of a lanky lad from a Connecticut prep school.
March Madness also brings players to welcoming neighborhood basketball courts. The short Shark Tank entrepreneur, Daymon John, reports how he, by being the one who brought the ball, always was welcome to play in pick-up games. Surprisingly, North Korea's short President, Kim Jong-un, is a basketball fan who probably would welcome an invitation to a March Madness game.
There's even a semi-professional basketball team in Tibet, China. Willard "Bill" Johnson, a former MIT basketball coach and professional player in Iceland, Australia, and Cape Verde, coaches a team made up of nomad sheep and yak herders and Buddhist monks who were prepared to play in the Norlha Basketball Invitational in Gannan, part of China's Gansu province. Unfortunately, Beijing canceled the tournament, because local police voiced security concerns about controlling a large gathering of people during the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
One of Johnson's players, 6-foot, one-inch Dugya Bum was a school drop out who didn't quit smoking until basketball changed his life. His home now displays a framed photo of LeBron James. Basketball also transformed the difficult lives of Norlha's nomad women who became interested in trying new things, like yoga and meeting together to chat, once they too had a team.
The Olympic Creed claims "The most important thing about the Olympics is to take part." Around the world, in playgrounds and gyms everywhere, the most important thing may be getting to know each other by taking part in sports.
March Madness also brings players to welcoming neighborhood basketball courts. The short Shark Tank entrepreneur, Daymon John, reports how he, by being the one who brought the ball, always was welcome to play in pick-up games. Surprisingly, North Korea's short President, Kim Jong-un, is a basketball fan who probably would welcome an invitation to a March Madness game.
There's even a semi-professional basketball team in Tibet, China. Willard "Bill" Johnson, a former MIT basketball coach and professional player in Iceland, Australia, and Cape Verde, coaches a team made up of nomad sheep and yak herders and Buddhist monks who were prepared to play in the Norlha Basketball Invitational in Gannan, part of China's Gansu province. Unfortunately, Beijing canceled the tournament, because local police voiced security concerns about controlling a large gathering of people during the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
One of Johnson's players, 6-foot, one-inch Dugya Bum was a school drop out who didn't quit smoking until basketball changed his life. His home now displays a framed photo of LeBron James. Basketball also transformed the difficult lives of Norlha's nomad women who became interested in trying new things, like yoga and meeting together to chat, once they too had a team.
The Olympic Creed claims "The most important thing about the Olympics is to take part." Around the world, in playgrounds and gyms everywhere, the most important thing may be getting to know each other by taking part in sports.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Add Fashion to Protest Passions
When protests blocked roads and polluted life with gas-filled burning tires in 2012 Lebanon, the Bokja (pronounced "bubjeh") textile house countered by rolling out a photographic display of tires covered with its elaborately embroidered fabrics.
President Trump's red cap was followed by women donning knitted pink "Pussyhats" when they marched to protest his claim about where he could grab any woman.
Black gowns worn at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards announced women were finished playing amateur sex object roles for Hollywood's powerful moguls.
To demonstrate their increasing numbers and rightful place in Congress, women lawmakers joined males at the 2019 State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. wearing white outfits like those suffragettes used to call attention to their cause.
What fashions might help call attention to the need to address climate change and other problems?
To concoct the bugs intense heat could spawn and other dramatic protest examples, look to the Mummers who parade in Philadelphia on New Year's Day, "Miss Universe" costumes, and the beaded creations strutting in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades.
President Trump's red cap was followed by women donning knitted pink "Pussyhats" when they marched to protest his claim about where he could grab any woman.
Black gowns worn at the 2018 Golden Globe Awards announced women were finished playing amateur sex object roles for Hollywood's powerful moguls.
To demonstrate their increasing numbers and rightful place in Congress, women lawmakers joined males at the 2019 State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. wearing white outfits like those suffragettes used to call attention to their cause.
What fashions might help call attention to the need to address climate change and other problems?
To concoct the bugs intense heat could spawn and other dramatic protest examples, look to the Mummers who parade in Philadelphia on New Year's Day, "Miss Universe" costumes, and the beaded creations strutting in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parades.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
The Sport of Gaming
Can gaming's growth now offer opportunity for content specialization? In February, 2019, tech and sports entrepreneurs invested $17.3 million to develop the sports content and global expansion of the European company, G2 Esports.
As mentioned in the earlier post, "Looking for a Position as a Top Analyst or a Young Voter?," recruiters now visit gaming competitions to hire winners in what is becoming a $150 billion dollar international gaming phenomena. Companies recognize some youngsters grow up with a talent for gaming development and hire employees at age 16.
Stadiums where spectators watch gamers and teams play "League of Legends", eat snack food, and purchase jerseys and miniature statues of professional, hall-of-fame players attract sponsors in South Korea, China, Russia, and Canada. Tournament prizes totaled $150 million in 2018.
By 2019, since influential gamers attracted millions of followers, some like Ninja (Tyler Blevins) and PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) also racked up funds from endorsements and merchandise. Ninja hawks a graphic novel and his famous headbands.
China's Tencent company provided the "Honour of Kings" game played as a demonstration event at the 2018 Asian Games. Although the International Olympic Committee decided against including electronic sports at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, they will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games.
As mentioned in the earlier post, "Looking for a Position as a Top Analyst or a Young Voter?," recruiters now visit gaming competitions to hire winners in what is becoming a $150 billion dollar international gaming phenomena. Companies recognize some youngsters grow up with a talent for gaming development and hire employees at age 16.
Stadiums where spectators watch gamers and teams play "League of Legends", eat snack food, and purchase jerseys and miniature statues of professional, hall-of-fame players attract sponsors in South Korea, China, Russia, and Canada. Tournament prizes totaled $150 million in 2018.
By 2019, since influential gamers attracted millions of followers, some like Ninja (Tyler Blevins) and PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) also racked up funds from endorsements and merchandise. Ninja hawks a graphic novel and his famous headbands.
China's Tencent company provided the "Honour of Kings" game played as a demonstration event at the 2018 Asian Games. Although the International Olympic Committee decided against including electronic sports at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, they will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Advice for Political Candidates
While a name may indicate a person's individualistic inheritance, it fails to disclose everything people want to know about each other. In the case of political candidates, voters want to know that the politicians they elect will correct the problems that matter most to them.
In his new book, How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions, Damon Centola, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, explains how changing complex behavior, such as changing a medical system or reducing the effects of climate change, requires multiple contacts reinforcing the same message over and over.
Individual social media comments on Facebook, for example, can spread a bit of information, such as a job opening, easily and quickly. But it takes more than a march or rally to facilitate complex changes. It takes supporting messages, how-to instructions, and, maybe, competitive motivation from trusted friends, commentators, organizations, and symbols, like a donkey or elephant. Complex changes require effort; they involve physical risk, social ridicule, prayer, an investment of time and money.
Believing social media has the power to make complex changes is a mistake. Convincing and mobilizing a multitude to take the actions needed to overcome inertia takes hard work. The American Revolution, forming labor unions, cleaning up the Great Lakes, and discovering and distributing a polio cure took more than a one-off Tweet.
In his new book, How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions, Damon Centola, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, explains how changing complex behavior, such as changing a medical system or reducing the effects of climate change, requires multiple contacts reinforcing the same message over and over.
Individual social media comments on Facebook, for example, can spread a bit of information, such as a job opening, easily and quickly. But it takes more than a march or rally to facilitate complex changes. It takes supporting messages, how-to instructions, and, maybe, competitive motivation from trusted friends, commentators, organizations, and symbols, like a donkey or elephant. Complex changes require effort; they involve physical risk, social ridicule, prayer, an investment of time and money.
Believing social media has the power to make complex changes is a mistake. Convincing and mobilizing a multitude to take the actions needed to overcome inertia takes hard work. The American Revolution, forming labor unions, cleaning up the Great Lakes, and discovering and distributing a polio cure took more than a one-off Tweet.
Friday, March 1, 2019
What's In A Name? An Individualist.
People with uncommon names are likely to be individualists, according to a study of Scandinavian names and behavior reported in The Economist
(February 16, 2019). Those who left for America to pursue their own personal success when frosts ruined harvests in the 1860s were unlike those who stayed behind to marry and to spur the growth of labor unions at home. On the other hand, a study at Boston University found the U.S. western frontier was populated with immigrants who had rare names, learned English, and married outside their own nationalities.
These findings reflect those Robert Plomin details in his new book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. (Also see the earlier post, "The 'Where Did I Come From?' Game.") Plomin's studies of twins reared together by the same parents and those raised separately by adopted parents blur the formerly accepted notion about the separate influences of what is inherited in an individual's nature and what the nurturing environment affects.
Inherited physical characteristics, such as height, influence who people in the environment look up to as their leaders. Likewise, behavior traits a person inherits influence the same environmental reactions both natural and adopted parents have toward different individual children. Parents will read to children who inherit a desire to be read to, while a child who breaks the rules and marches to his or her own drummer may badger a parent to buy a musical instrument and take lessons in jazz.
It seems those who bear unusual names: 1) inherited an individualistic temperament from the parents who named them, and 2) their individualistic behavior probably influenced parents and others in the environment to respond to them in positive and negative ways.
Where individualistic behavior is valued, an unusual name could serve as a leading indicator of the right person for the job. The art world that welcomes innovation welcomed Salvador Dali the same way entertainment does Dolly Parton and Oprah; military strategy, Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant; human rights, Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth; vehicle innovation, Elon Musk.
Ambitious politicians, such as Kamala Harris, Marco Rubio, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Beto O'Rourke, and Cory Booker are looking at a mixed pro-con history of the environment's reactions to candidates with unusual names. Zachary Taylor and Barack Obama were successful; Horace Greeley and Adlai Stevenson were not.
(February 16, 2019). Those who left for America to pursue their own personal success when frosts ruined harvests in the 1860s were unlike those who stayed behind to marry and to spur the growth of labor unions at home. On the other hand, a study at Boston University found the U.S. western frontier was populated with immigrants who had rare names, learned English, and married outside their own nationalities.
These findings reflect those Robert Plomin details in his new book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. (Also see the earlier post, "The 'Where Did I Come From?' Game.") Plomin's studies of twins reared together by the same parents and those raised separately by adopted parents blur the formerly accepted notion about the separate influences of what is inherited in an individual's nature and what the nurturing environment affects.
Inherited physical characteristics, such as height, influence who people in the environment look up to as their leaders. Likewise, behavior traits a person inherits influence the same environmental reactions both natural and adopted parents have toward different individual children. Parents will read to children who inherit a desire to be read to, while a child who breaks the rules and marches to his or her own drummer may badger a parent to buy a musical instrument and take lessons in jazz.
It seems those who bear unusual names: 1) inherited an individualistic temperament from the parents who named them, and 2) their individualistic behavior probably influenced parents and others in the environment to respond to them in positive and negative ways.
Where individualistic behavior is valued, an unusual name could serve as a leading indicator of the right person for the job. The art world that welcomes innovation welcomed Salvador Dali the same way entertainment does Dolly Parton and Oprah; military strategy, Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant; human rights, Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth; vehicle innovation, Elon Musk.
Ambitious politicians, such as Kamala Harris, Marco Rubio, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Beto O'Rourke, and Cory Booker are looking at a mixed pro-con history of the environment's reactions to candidates with unusual names. Zachary Taylor and Barack Obama were successful; Horace Greeley and Adlai Stevenson were not.
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