North Korea Taps into the Power of Distraction

Magicians and medical professionals use distraction. Look over there, and while your attention is diverted, something unusual happens or a shot is administered. Distractions are useful, but, beware, they also can be dangerous. In a school lunchroom, one student calls attention to someone coming in the door; an accomplice steals a cookie or two.

     In international relations, countries often need to maintain focus on more than one problem. In my eBook, A Dangerous Mix of Washington Outsiders, I imagined an espionage plot occurring while the U.S. was celebrating the first budget surplus in 28 years, impeaching President Clinton, and preparing for the 2000 elections. My plot is imaginary, but North Korea's recent missile launches are real. Dealing with the coronavirus cannot be allowed to distract world attention from North Korea sending missiles into Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone three times during the month of March, 2020. Because of COVID-19, the Olympic games, scheduled to be played in Tokyo this summer, already have been moved to July, 2021. Canceling them altogether may be necessary, it there is a danger athletes might be killed by a wayward North Korean missile.

     North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, who failed to see any progress on a nuclear deal with the U.S. in 2019, resumed missile testing shortly after 700 legislators met for the country's Supreme People's Assembly. The size of the meeting also indicates North Korea, which had imposed a national lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, is no longer concerned about large congregations.

     What U.S. attention is focused on Korea is devoted to figuring out how to share the cost of military defense spending with South Korea and the virus-related cancellation of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills. Those preoccupations also avoid concern, not only about North Korea's missile tests, but also about the World War II reparation claims that undermine cooperation between U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan. The lack of Russian and Chinese sanctions needed to control North Korea's nuclear ambitions also is overlooked.

     At stake is more than a couple of missing cookies. 

   

Threats to Olympic Sites

Insurance companies feared financial losses if the coronavirus caused the cancellation of this summer's 2020 Olympic Games in Toyota. As it turned out, the games were rescheduled for July, 2021. Violence, including World War II, that marred the noble purpose of the games in the past, could again be a factor next year, if North Korea continues to launch missiles toward Japan.

     Environmental threats from pollution and climate change also have had an impact on the Olympics. Debris in the waters off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before the 2016 summer Olympics worried open-water swimmers and skippers in boating events. High winds delayed skiing events and kept spectators off the slopes at the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

     Despite efforts to switch away from fossil fuels and plant trees to control the sand and dirt blown south from the Gobi Desert, athletes at the 2022 winter Olympics in China could face a breathing, as well as a competitive, challenge at events in Yanqing and Chongli, north of Beijing. During winter, heating homes and factories increases pollution in an area that suffers year round. Smog is likely to obscure views from the 4-story tower built in Yanqing to give visitors to the Olympics a glimpse of the Great Wall of China.

     Since the fur from four goats is needed to respond to the fashion industry's demand for one cashmere sweater, grazing goats turned the Mongolian steppes north of China into a desert no longer capable of protecting Beijing from wind-blown sand. To stabilize top soil, the government removed up to 700,000 villagers in northern China from land designated for planting trees. However, at the same time climate change reduced rainfall in arid areas, many non-native trees planted in China required more water and worsened water shortages. An attempt to plant shrubs needing less water is underway. In any case, it is hard to know if China's new trees and shrubs will be ready to shield 2022's Olympic athletes from the Gobi Desert's blowing sand. According to Congbin Fu, the director of the Institute for Climate and Global Change Research at Nanjing University, growing forests is a long-term process that "can take several decades or even 100 years."

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. 

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. 

   

   

Tour Sites Beyond A Country's Capital

News coverage rightly focuses on the capitals of countries. In governing centers, elections, coups. terrorist attacks, and earthquakes deserve attention, because they affect the political directions and needs of a country. Nonetheless, capital-centered news draws attention away from much that a country has to offer. This realization came home to me this morning, when I heard news warning U.S. citizens to avoid travel to China during this period of trade and spying tensions.

     Consider some of the sights and activities visitors to China have discovered  in cities beyond Beijing. Find a map or globe and locate:

Yanqing - North of Beijing, visitors will see flower exhibits from over 100 countries at the International Flower Festival with the theme, "Live Green, Live Better," which begins April 29, 2019. From a nearby 4-story tower, tourists also will be able to see the Great Wall of China when smog does not obstruct the view. In 2022, this city will be the site of some Winter Olympic events.

Chongli - North of Yanqing, this city also will be the site of some Winter Olympic events in 2022.

Moving southeast from Beijing toward China's coast, locate:

Qingdao - This deep water port was annexed by Germany and used by the German navy in 1887, captured by Japan in 1914, and returned to China in 1922. Germany's lingering influence is evident in the city's famous brewery, Tsingtao; a German Protestant church; and the Governor's House Museum. Prior to September, 2019, you may have been able to see movie stars coming and going from what was expected to be this new center of Chinese filmmaking before authoritarian control caused investors to leave.

Suzhou - Farther down the eastern coast, west of Shanghai, is China's traditional cultural center for intellectuals known as "the Venice of the East" because of its picturesque canals and stone bridges. A museum here traces silk production, and the UNESCO heritage Humble Administration's Garden and the Garden of Cultivation attract millions of tourists.

Xiamen - Still farther south, west of Taiwan, the deep water harbor, also known as Amoy, was once a pirate hideaway and tea exporting port. Now, it is known for its beaches and earthen Hakka roundhouses. A ferry takes visitors to Gulangyu Island to see the former mansions of European and Japanese traders.

Haikou - At the base of China, east of Vietnam, this city on Hainan Island is a tropical beach with water sports and arcades.

In western China, there are at least two notable cities, one in the south and one in the north.

Chengdu - If you've seen a Giant Panda at a zoo, it probably came from the research and breeding center, established in 1987, that you're welcome to visit at Chengdu, far west of Shanghai.

Lanzhou - This stop on China's ancient Silk Road map is the gateway to western China. It is a multicultural city, with Chinese Han, Muslim, and Tibetan influences, at the Zhongshan Bridge over the Yellow River. Lanzhou beef noodles and barbecued meats are local specialties.

     Beyond the capital of any country, what are the other significant cities you would like to visit?

Are Kind Kids Cool?

Social media showed a young motor scooter rider risking his life to stop the traffic behind him in order to let an elderly woman with a cane cross a busy street.

      Coty-owned cosmetic company, Rimmel, found a partner to help the one in four women aged 16 to 25 in ten countries who experienced cyberbullying and the nearly half of those who began harming themselves. While not a perfect solution, Rimmel began directing customers to the Cybersmile Foundation's website, which, according to trendwatching.com, guides users to local resources and organizations that offer help to those attacked by cyberbullies.

     National Geographic's website claims helping others satisfies a basic human desire to feel good about oneself. At nationalgeographic.com/family/help-your-kid-make-world-better/, there are ideas for what children can do when they see others being bullied.

     Japan, a country with one of the highest densities of robots in the world, 303 to 10,000 industrial employees according to The Economist magazine (Nov. 10, 2018), found robots do not satisfy customers in department stores, beauty salons, hotels, and restaurants.

     Studies show robots could replace half of Japan's workers in 20 years. But will the driverless vehicles Japan plans to employ during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics stop to help a lost tourist or a man with a walker who has fallen in the street? Social media reported bus drivers, without any prompting or promise of reward, performed both services in the last couple of weeks.

     Are kids cool if they seek out and sit with lonely kids in school lunchrooms? (See the earlier post, "Overcome Lunch Table Loneliness.") They are to everyone in the world who ever has needed a little help and received it from a friend or stranger.

World Goes to the Polls in Brazil

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, a reporter went up into the hills to interview young boys flying kites. A translator conveyed the false notion that people living in the crowded makeshift homes above Rio preferred their friendly communities to the lonely confines of the modern homes in the city below. Those flying the kites told a different story. They saw the kites as a symbol of their dreams to escape.

     By a margin of 55% to 45%, Jair Bolsonaro was elected Brazil's new President on October 28, 2018. His concern for money laundering, financing of terrorist groups, and other suspicious transactions in Brazil led to granting more power to the country's Financial Activities Control Council (COAF). Promoted as a way to speed investigations and integrate the functions of various government agencies, others view this bureaucratic reorganization as a threat to traditional guarantees of bank and financial secrecy.

     Brazil's most popular politician was not running in the first round of voting for president on Sunday, October 7, 2018. An independent judiciary found Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, guilty of corruption and sentenced him to prison. Like others in Brazil's political elite, Lula, as he is known, was charged with taking bribes from construction companies looking for contracts from Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras oil company. Since the Odebrecht construction company was not satisfied only to bribe itself into Brazil's political process, the world has an opportunity to prosecute its corrupt tentacles in at least ten Latin American countries, the United States, and Switzerland. (See the latest news about Odebrecht's bribery case in Colombia in the post, "Cut Off the Head and the Colombia Snake Dies?") In the United States, Petrobras itself, which trades in the US market, was fined $853 million for corruption under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

       Fernando Haddad, the former Sao Paulo mayor with degrees in economics, law, and philosophy, represented Lula's Workers Party (PT) in the first round voting of the presidential election. The PT, which once brought prosperity to Brazil under Lula from 2003 ti 2011, gave way to the mismanaged economy, recession, and bribery of his successors: Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached for hiding the country's budget deficit, and Michel Temer, who fought a charge of corruption . Haddad is tainted with his association to PT's past sins and a suspected willingness to end an investigation into corruption.

      The Brazilian rainforest, considered the world's lungs for its ability to absorb carbon dioxide and combat rising temperatures, drought, and fires, is endangered by Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who belonged to nine different political parties during his 28-year congressional career. As expected, Bolsonaro and Haddad met again in the second round of voting. In the first round,  Bolsonaro nearly won half the vote needed to avoid a runoff

     Bolsonaro is the hero of Brazil's soybean farmers and cattle ranchers, because he would withdraw Brazil from the Paris Climate Accord and open the way to finance unlimited deforestation of the rainforest. With his running mate, General Hamilton Mourao, he shares an authoritarian approach to reversing the effects of Brazil's lingering 2014 recession: unemployment, reduced personal income, and a lack of education, health, and other government services. It also should be noted, Brazil's National Museum of historic treasures, housed in a once beautiful Portuguese palace, burned down on September 2, 2018, despite warnings about a lack of maintenance. Mourao claims the army has the ability to solve Brazil's problems, including drug-related violence, the way Brazil's military dictatorship did from 1964 to 1985.

     Bolsonaro's supporters like his outspoken attacks on indigenous rainforest communities, women, blacks, and homosexuals. During the first round of voting, Bolsonaro was in the hospital while recovering from being stabbed in the stomach at a campaign event. He claims to be Brazil's President Trump, when one is more than enough for the world.

     Brazil, once one of the promising emerging markets known collectively as the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), has fallen on hard times, but the country is too important for the world to ignore. There will be as many as 30 different political parties in Brazil's new congress. The Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) that dominates congressional coalitions has to deal with members used to receiving pay-offs in jobs, funds for pet projects, and graft in return for passing necessary reforms.

     The world's multinational corporations are in a position to exploit Brazil's political, economic, and social woes or to dream up win-win solutions for their stockholders and the country's kite flyers.

     Local farmers complain that the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) that developed maize, soybeans, eucalyptus trees, and zebu cattle to thrive in the tropical heat and acidic soils on the savanna that covers 5% of Brazil's farmland no longer helps them. Biotechnology, now in the hands of Bayer, which just acquired Monsanto, and Syngenta, a Swiss pesticide producer, serves their agribusiness interests. Meanwhile, Munduruku tribe members, who formed the COOPAVAM cooperative, watch farms press toward the patch of forest where they harvest the wild Brazil nuts they press into oil for eco-friendly Natura cosmetics and school lunch food. At the very least, multinationals could abide by government regulations requiring only 20% of forest areas should be cleared for farming.

     Boeing is in a position to honor or undercut the interests of Brazil's Embraer aircraft company employees and its metalworkers union. Young engineers are used to moving from projects on commercial aircraft to executive jets to defense projects. Since Boeing is only interested in acquiring the company's short-range, 70- to 130-seat commercial jet business in order to compete with Canada's Bombardier, Inc. and Airbus, excess employees rightly fear they would lose their jobs. Couldn't Boeing's worldwide operations offer them employment elsewhere?

     All in all, Brazil's presidential election is a world, not just a national, event worth watching.
   

Virtual Reality Goes to School

To prepare students for future success, they need early exposure to new technologies the way Bill Gates learned computer science in his teens.

     California-based, Facebook-owned Oculus recognized the importance of getting kids up to speed on virtual reality (VR) and donated its VR headsets to schools, libraries, and museums in Japan, China, and the United States. According to an "Innovation of the Day" post on trendwatching.com, Oculus also is helping the public school system in Seattle, Washington, develop a course intended to teach how to create VR and helping teachers learn how to make the most educational use out of VR technology.

     Virtual reality is already a hit in the gaming world of China's Tencent company's "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" and "MonsterHunter: World." Competitors played Tencent's "Honour of Kings" at the 2018 Asian Games' eSports demonstration event in Indonesia. The eSports' event will be an official part of the 2020 Asian Games but not a part of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.  Although the games include such sports as boxing and shooting,  the International Olympic Committee said electronic sports promoted violence and contradicted Olympia values.

     It should be noted: VR is not just for kids. Elderly folks, physically unable to enjoy the foreign travel of their younger days, readily put on VR headsets to travel on new adventures. 

Who Would You Like to Meet?

At a luncheon in Chicago, I was seated next to Jesse Owens in 1956. We didn't reminisce about his track and field victories at Hitler's 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. We discussed why attitudes toward race were different in suburban Chicago and other areas of the city.

     The Atlantic magazine ends each issue on its last page by asking readers to respond to a question. In June, 2018, the question was: "Which two historical figures would you most like to introduce to each other?" It is a question young and old anywhere in the world can and should pose to each other.

     Reader responses reminded us to recognize the enduring influence of people from diverse backgrounds, such as Julia Child, Albert Einstein, Louis Braille, and Mother Teresa.

     Why readers wanted to hear the conversations of the people they introduced revealed interesting topics. One wondered what Alexander Hamilton would tell Lin-Manuel Miranda he got right and wrong in his prize-winning musical.

     Another wanted Barack Obama to show Abraham Lincoln "the fruits of his enormous accomplishment."

     What would Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla chat about over coffee, a woman wondered. And then, someone thought William Shakespeare and Mae West would realize they both live on through their quotable remarks.

   

The Perfect Test

Ask students to write five questions on a unit. Then, have them exchange papers and answer each other's questions. When did they discover?

There are many aspects to writing test questions.

• What is a test trying to determine?
• How accurately does a test measure what it wants to determine?
• How will the test taker interpret the questions?
• How easy is it to take the test?
• How easy is it to grade the test?
• How easy is it to cheat on the test?

Have you ever thought about making a career out of developing tests?

Essay tests on literature are more difficult to take than math tests, but they are a better measure of  understanding the subject than selecting multiple choice options, for example. True or false, yes or no, and matching columns are easy tests to take and grade, but there are many cases where they are not an accurate measure of what you might be trying to determine, and they can make cheating easy, too. Flash the student next to you three fingers, and they can give you a sign for true or yes on question three.

     Besides pencil and paper tests, there are many other types of assessments. Before elections, telephone survey questions are popular. Thermometers take temperatures, barometers measure pressure, and stopwatches time speed. Sensors in fields tell when and where crops need water. Lie detectors catch criminals as do other crime solving forensics. 

     I was reading a scientific research paper a student intern helped write, when I started thinking about test-making careers. Listed in the paper were the kits, such as a "Fine Science Tools Sample Corer," Item No. 18035-02 from Foster City, CA, USA, that companies develop to help scientists anywhere in the world make standardized measurements. The previous post, "Lyme Aid," and the earlier post, "Teens Find Drought and Zika Remedies," talk about the need to develop more medical tests.

     Floyd Landis knows all about the testing kits that already exist. He is the former cycling teammate of Lance Armstrong, who gave Landis his first testosterone patches and introduced him to boosting energizing, oxygen-carrying red blood cells through the process of doping. With these physiological enhancements, Landis set a spectacular time cycling through Stage 17 on the French mountains to win the Tour de France the year after Armstrong retired. His victory was short lived. When he failed the drug test that showed synthetic testosterone in his urine, he was stripped of his title, lost his home and wife, and repaid donors almost a half million dollars.

     Landis suspects testing has not caught up with the latest ways cyclists compromise the sport. Some, supposedly clean racers still set the time he made while using unauthorized measures on Stage 17. Investigations in the UK, for example, continue to find abuses of the Therapeutic Use Exemption system that permits athletes to take banned drugs for medical conditions.

     Of course, athletes and students aren't the only ones who try to game the testing system. Teachers who knew their evaluations depended on the grades their student achieved on standardized tests were caught erasing wrong answers and substituting correct ones on their students' tests. After Volkswagen violated the US Clean Air Law by using a computer code to cheat on emissions tests, the company paid a $25 billion penalty.

     Well aware that doping, match-fixing, and other abuses have plagued former Olympic Games, France has launched "Compliance 2024," a group formed to establish new laws, practices, and norms to promote transparency and accountability to govern the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Such a group emphasizes opportunities for international careers in the test-making business. The perfect test is yet to be developed.

(Answers to test in later post, "Help for Human Rights:" 1.C, 2.D, 3.B, 4.H, 5.A, 6.E His troops were short on amo, 7.G, 8.F) 

     

China Tries to Build a Tree Wall

Rather than keeping immigrants out, China's new tree wall is designed to keep out the smog-producing sand and dirt that blows south into Beijing from the Gobi Desert.

     To combat pollution's health hazard and fossil-fuel causing climate change, China is employing a 3-pronged plan: 1) manufacturing electric cars and banning gas-fueled vehicles, 2) constructing towers to filter dirty air, and 3) planting a wall of pine and poplar trees.

Trees are the focus here, because electric cars powered by lithium batteries and air-filtering towers were the subjects of the earlier post, "How to Meet the Clean Air Challenge."

     Like the Sahara in Africa that even blows sand into Europe, the Gobi Desert expands into China, covering as much as 1,000 more square miles annually. Besides causing pollution, sand eliminates farming and livestock grazing land and closes roads and rail lines. By adding to the demand on groundwater and the loss of trees for firewood, population growth in Inner Mongolia, directly south of the Gobi Desert, also strips Beijing of any protection from wind blown sand. In both Africa and China, before close analysis, planting trees seems like a good solution to stabilize topsoil, absorb greenhouse gases, and even increase rainfall.

     According to an article in Mother Jones (August, 2017), Beijing's forestation efforts began in 1978 and accelerated as a government priority after 2000. Since then, up to 700,000 villagers have been forced off their family plats to make way for trees. By 2018, the government set ambitious planting targets: 32,400 new square miles worth of trees by the end of the year and an increase in the forested area of China's landmass from 21% to 23% by 2020 and to 26% by 2035. Villagers are paid to plant seedlings, and in 2018 armed police and 60,000 soldiers from the People's Liberation Army were reassigned from duty on the northern border in order to plant trees in Hebei Province around Beijing and the area where China will host the Winter Olympics in 2022.

     In response to the government's commitment to battle sand, the State Forestry Administration gained an incentive to claim the frequency of sandstorms decreased 20% between 2009 and 2014, rainfall increased almost six fold in 29 years, and a high percentage (60% to 75%) of new trees survived three years. By planting trees, running solar power fields, and attracting ecotourists, contractors, such as Wang Wenbiao, who heads the $6 billion Elion Resources Group, are making fortunes implementing these government programs. Wang also owns the Seven Star Lakes Desert Hotel and golf course which has a fountain at the entrance and a green lawn and grove of poplars.

Trees in the fast growing poplar genus include aspen trees that require an extensive root system to acquire the large amount of water desert conditions do not provide. Pictures of what are said to be poplars do not look as though they are growing the 3' to 5' annually that is expected.
     The smog reduction potential of China's electric cars, and maybe air filtering towers, seems to offer more promise than forestation.

Olympic Games Blur Country Borders

It certainly is more fun and less dangerous to compete under the five linked Olympic rings representing the sporting friendship of all people than to engage in a worldwide arms race. After all, with the mingling of countries and cultures in today's world, its hard to tell which country wins or is bested at an international sporting competition. A sample of the athletes who will begin competing in PyeongChang, South Korea, on February 9 uncovers the multicultural passion for sports.

     Peninsula communistic and democratic rivals from North and South Korea will enter the Olympic arena together, and their women will compete together on an ice hockey team.

     Figure skating pair, Ryom Tae Ok and Kun Ju Si from North Korea trained for the Olympics in Montreal, Canada.

     As a refugee, Shannon-Ogbani Abeda learned to ski in Alberta, Canada, where his family fled from Eritrea, Africa, but he'll be competing for Eritrea at the Olympics.

     Born in Ghana, Aftica, Maame Biney will be lacing up her speed skates to represent the U.S.

     Bobsledders from Nigeria, Africa, will match skills with Canadians and Germans.

     In the winter games, Pita Jaufutofua from Tonga will trade the taekwondo competitors he had in Rio's summer games for the Norwegians, Swedes, and Russians he'll meet, when he straps on his cross country skis.

     Magnus Kim, a cross country skier whose dad is Norwegian and mother is South Korean, will compete for South Korea.

     Chloe Kim, whose parents are from South Korea where her grandmother still lives, is a Californian riding her snowboard for the U.S.

     Born of Chinese parents, Nathan Chen will leave his Salt Lake City home in Utah when he hopes to land a record number of quad figure skating jumps for the U.S.

     So, when athletes from diverse countries and backgrounds come together in PyeongChang, let the world honor Baron Pierre de Coubertin's 1896 vision for the modern Olympics. Show a shared love of athletics really can help the people of the world understand each other.

   
   

   

Follow the Interest

Just as criminal investigators are advised to "follow the money," "follow the interest" is good advice for those hoping to engage young people in world affairs.

     A variety of interests might draw a student to Africa. Consider fashion. What inspired Ruth E. Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther,  the comic book-inspired movie kids are eager to see? Like Carter, who studied African tribal patterns, colors, and silhouettes, fashion conscious movie goers will be inspired to think about how they too could incorporate the Ndebele neck rings Okoye wears in the movie into their outfits.

     Students interested in film careers won't think twice about casting people of color from any country in the movies they plan to make. They know Lupita Nyong'O, a young Nigerian-raised star won an Academy Award for her supporting role in 12 Years a Slave.

     Fashion designers-in-the-making also have seen Nyong'O modeling African-inspired clothes in Vogue. The magazine also introduced them to Nigeria and the Lagos-based Maki Oh, the designer responsible for the dress Michelle Obama wore on a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2013.

     Paul Simon's interest in music caused him to sing with Mama Africa Miriam Makeba in South Africa in 1987 and to record his Graceland album with South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo choral group. The British hip hop grime of Ghana's Stormzy draws the current generation of music trend setters to Africa.

     With the Olympics approaching on February 9, student downhill skiers, cross-country skiers, bobsledders, figure skaters, and speed skaters might want to learn more about what produces champions in Austria, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Sweden.

     Those interested in soccer, already follow their favorite sport in Barcelona, Madrid, Manchester, and Brazil.

     And if students like food and cooking, those interests can take them anywhere in the world.  

   

2017's Unanswered Security Questions

Information about North Korea, the so-called Hermit Kingdom, is particularly sparse. Who can name any city there besides the capital, Pyongyang? Yet the country seems to have cyber, chemical,  biological, nuclear, and long-range missile warfare capabilities. The West knows how to track strategic materials and components, but it seems international intelligence services have not been paying attention to these dangerous goods reaching North Korea. When the US did pay attention, it spotted ships from China and the Maldives delivering oil and supplies in defiance of UN sanctions. (Also see the later post, "Plain Talk about Nuclear North Korea.")

Can February's Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, avoid becoming another Boston's Patriots Day? Or might North Korea's interest in the Olympics give South Korea an opportunity to deflect Kim Jong un's determination to deploy his nuclear missiles?

Then, there is the question of how Michael Flynn, a U.S. General and Intelligence Officer, became a Russian pawn. Did he give into the temptations of any ambitious, hardworking adviser who lacks the West Point credentials and wealth of those he saw rising to the top in Washington, DC?  If so, there are many such bright, ambitious young men and women whom the U.S. can overlook and fail to compensate at its own peril.

Finally, the nagging question of why President Trump continues to whitewash Vladimir Putin remains. We know Putin uses the technique of quieting his opponents by staging their deaths and ordering their assassinations. In the UK, a former Russian military spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter barely survived their March 4, 2018 poisoning attributed to the Kremlin. Putin also threatens the relatives of opponents. Oleg Navalny is in a penal colony in Russia to punish his brother, Alexei, for using his blog to mobilize anti-corruption rallies. Has Putin won Trump's goodwill by threatening the attractive women in his life?

What to Look For at the Olympics in February: Fashion

Any woman who has tried to buy a new winter coat this season knows the selection is limited to one style, a black sack. Fashion designers have an opportunity to gain inspiration from the wide variety of coats athletes from 90 countries will be wearing when they enter South Korea's stadium for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. Most talked about on what the USA athletes wore were their fringed leather gloves right out of the ol' West.

The running outfit of Shalane Flanagan, the U.S. woman who won the New York City Marathon on November 5, 2017, should be as much of an inspiration to fashion designers as her winning time was to track athletes. Her red and black top was coupled with an unattached red sleeve on her right arm and an unattached black one on her left. Not the usual attire for a distance runner.

And speaking of athletes inspiring fashion, look for female Muslims sporting NIKE's new Pro Hijab when they take to the field at the Summer Olympics in 2020.

Terrorism Alerts

New York City's Police Commissioner, James O'Neill, didn't just tell us, if we see something, say something, he told us what to look for. He said to put down our cell phones and look for something out of place. An automotive vehicle driving down a bike path certainly was something out of place in New York City on October 31, 2017. Years ago, an NYC vendor said something and successfully alerted the police to prevent a disaster, when he saw wires and smoke coming out of a van in Times Square.

     Looking back on other tragic events, we remember later seeing unattended backpacks at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA, and at the Boston Marathon in 2013. Also there was the unusual young white man attending a Bible service in an African-American church and the high school boys who wore long black coats. In department stores, security looks for potential shoplifters carrying large shopping bags and wearing big winter coats, especially in summer. When a security guard at the Watergate complex saw a piece of tape over a lock, he found the burglars who led to President Nixon's resignation. Then, there are unusual purchases of too much fertilizer and too many boxes of ammunition. And there is unusual behavior: a "Do Not Disturb" sign on a hotel door for three days, an unusual amount of activity on a web site, or pilots in training who don't seem to care about learning how to land a plane.

     When Nobel Prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman, was asked to investigate the cause of the Challenger space shuttle's explosion, he saw a photo of a small smoke puff coming out of one side of the craft. His advice that anything not supposed to happen according to a project's design should signal trouble is applicable in other circumstances, as well. A police officer shooting anyone holding up his or her hands should not happen. Neither should the sound of a gun being fired in a convenience store be heard. Current police practice requires going to anywhere a gun shot is heard, because any sound of a gun shot in a neighborhood is out of place, as is a woman's scream and screeching tires.

     Finally, keep the telephone number of your local police department handy. When you see or hear something, the next step is to say something to prevent more violence.

Look East at South Korea, China, and Japan

North Korea is not the only country drawing attention eastward. On February 9, 2018, the Winter Olympics will begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

     In October, 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China confirmed Xi Jinping as China's President for his second, and probably not final, 5-year term. His Chinese Socialism for a New Era is designed to replace Russia with China as the world's other superpower.
Unlike Russia, Xi cracks down on the corruption that makes President Putin vulnerable to opposition by those suffering economic deprivation. But Xi is not confident enough of his position to lessen censorship or to release from house arrest the widow of Liu Xiaobo, a leader of China's pro-democracy demonstration in 1989, or to free, permanently, critics, such as activists, Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow, who organized a 2014 pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong.

     China's neighbor in Japan continues to push for a constitutional amendment that would give the country the right to maintain a military force. Like Xi, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a landslide election in October, 2017 that solidified his position and plans for economic growth. In 2020, the Summer Olympics will come to Tokyo.

   

North Korea: Bill Clinton's Second Chance

                                 Diplomacy Only Choice for North Korea-US Relations


     On Andrea Mitchel's report July 7, 2017, James Clapper said the only solution he sees for the North Korean situation is diplomacy. To that end, consider:

     President Bill Clinton always wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. He tried unsuccessfully in the Middle East to follow in the steps of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter. From his experience bringing home two U.S. hostages from North Korea, he has credibility with Kim Jong Un. By opening up new contacts with the United States, he could help free Kim Jong Un from the Chinese clutches that threatened to replace him with his half brother, Kim Jong Nam. The last thing Pyongyang needs is more cloistering sanctions.

     President Trump offered Xi Jinping a great trade deal in exchange for help curbing North Korea's threats to South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Why shouldn't Pyongyang benefit from a great U.S. trade deal? Or, better yet, from Tiger Woods' help building a golfing resort in North Korea. Asians love golf.

     No Clintons were among "The 100 Most Influential People" in TIME magazine's annual list in 2017, but Kim Jong Un was. Wish he'd come to the U.S. to attend TIME's New York party for invitees. At least he knows he's on the list with Donald Trump, Juan Manuel Santos, Theresa May, Pope Frances, and other world leaders.

     Couldn't President Clinton bring Dennis Rodman back to visit basketball-loving Kim Jong Un and set up a future exhibition game by the Harlem Globetrotters in North Korea? After all, they are called the Globetrotters. It may be too soon for help with U.S. training methods to pay off for North Korean athletes marching into PyeongChang, South Korea, for the Winter Olympic Games next February. But sending a well-dressed contingent of new speed skating challengers there would announce that their golfers, archers, and badminton and ping pong players will be ready for the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

     And isn't it time for the ePals.com website, that enables U.S. classrooms to work on projects with classrooms in foreign countries, to reach out to teachers and students in North Korea to learn about more cities than Pyongyang? Later, President Trump would discover there is a beach city called Wonsan that would be perfect for a golfing resort. Could an earlier North Korean-US partnership classroom project create a toy for Hasbro or Mattel to market?

     Entertainment seems to have a magnetic pull on North Korean leaders. How did Kim Jong Nam lose his chance to succeed his father? He discredited the family by trying to go to Disneyland in Japan. And wasn't Kim Jong Nam's mother an actress and isn't Kim Jong Un's wife a singer? U.S. booking agents might discover some untapped talent in North Korea. Ben Affleck is someone who could handle the challenge of developing an ARGO-type script and acting in and directing a film, not in China but in North Korea.

     With nuclear weapons and long range missiles, Kim Jong Un got the world's attention. He's now in a position to capitalize on a new opening to U.S. diplomatic, trade, development, media, sports, education, and entertainment resources. This is his moment...and Bill Clinton's.

   

   

   

Share the Olympic Experience

Teams coming from around the world to begin competing in the Olympic Games Friday will experience new people, products and sights in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. To help us share their experiences, I checked the innovations trendwatching.com now sees in Central and South America.

     In Brazil, Olympians might pick up a new smartphone and learn Twizer provides help choosing apps, making the most of apps, and incorporating a new phone into daily lives. The Twizer service is free for everyone.

     Other interesting things Olympians might hear about in Brazil include: the fact that for six hours on one day, Uber drivers picked up clothes, bedding, personal hygiene items, non-perishable food, and pet products for free to help Porto Alegre Prefecture's vulnerable people during the winter. Olympians might see the Ben & Jerry's inspired social media campaign, #amoreprogresso, disagree with love. Last spring Ben & Jerry's opened its store in Sao Paolo to let people discuss, over ice cream, contentious issues about corruption and politics.

      Olympians coming from countries with a corruption problem also might look into Peruleaks, an independent, secure platform that enables citizens anonymously to provide encrypted information about crimes and corruption to journalists who check accuracy before publishing a whistleblower's observations. Peru's Peruleaks is part of the Associated Whistleblowing Press (AWP), a Belgium-based nonprofit, that combats corruption.

     Venezuela is trying out a new crime fighting measure of interest to Olympians from almost any country. In the El Hatillo district of Venezuela, empty out-of-service police cars park in the city's most dangerous areas to serve as a security presence criminals are loath to ignore.

     Olympians from countries writing a new constitution, such as Thailand, might ask competitors from Mexico to tell them about the system in Mexico City that invites citizens: 1) to submit proposals for a new constitution at Change.org and 2) to vote on proposed changes. Ideas that receive more than 10,000 signatures are submitted for consideration by a government panel.

     Athletes determined to keep fit by eating healthy foods with no added hormones would be interested in the Chilean company called the NotCompany, which relies on the artificial intelligence (AI) expertise of the Giuseppe startup to make meats, cheeses, and milk out of nuts, peas, grains, and other plant-based crops.

     Female Olympians thinking about life after competition could check out Peru's Laboratoria program for training women with little to no computer science knowledge and no college education. After graduating from a 5-month coding course, women receive job placement services in Peru, Chile, and Mexico.

     And, finally, what can Olympians do with plastic bottles after they finish drinking their water? If they pass through Panama, they might see the Plastic Bottle Village being built by a Canadian entrepreneur. Once steel mesh frames are filled with up to 10,000 plastic bottles for insulation, concrete covers the frames to make walls.

   



   

How Do Films Depict Countries?

Renowned film authority and co-author of the film bible, Film Art: An Introduction,  Kristin Thompson, once said, "I think you tend to get interested in films from countries you've visited." After I saw a Persian/Iranian film at a foreign film festival this weekend, I would rephrase her observation to read, "I think you tend to get interested in countries from films you've seen."

     According to Film Art, the elements that directors put into each frame of their films, their mise-en-scene, are: setting, costumes, lighting, and the actors' expressions and movements. The movie I saw this weekend used these elements to show me an Iran without terrorists. Instead, waves lapped along a beach at the Persian Gulf, where the humid climate caused structures to rust and fog reminded me of San Francisco and London. The setting also showed a country with a mix of gated single-family homes, a modern high rise apartment, and many low small rundown dwellings. A female actor's costume changed from a plain brown headscarf to a colorful flowered one, when she went to meet her boyfriend. Male actors wore jeans, but women didn't. Dim lighting set a somber tone of a troubled relationship. Unlike what we might expect in a Muslim culture, unchaperoned men and women stood and walked close together when they were dating, men and boys freely gambled on games and sports, and children misbehaved and talked back to their parents.

     At this weekend's foreign film fest, I also saw a movie where actors in the role of German business consultants in Pakistan and Nigeria found their glib solutions didn't work when confronted by terrorists.

     Often foreign films aren't suitable for children, but in earlier posts, "See the World in Oscar-Nominated Films" and "See the World at the Movies," I identified some that were. Since movies offer an excellent glimpse of other countries and cultures, keep looking for children-suitable ones like the upcoming Pele: Birth of a Legend. Seeing Brazil in the film will provide an interesting way to compare the movie's setting, costumes, lighting, and actors' expressions and movements with the real life we'll see in this summer's Olympic games in Rio.