Rocky on the Ropes

No pandemic would send Rocky Balboa or the folks on the World War II home front into a black hole of loneliness and depression. Follow their advice: Get physically fit. Activate you own version of Rocky's raw egg concoction and his run up Philadelphia's Art Museum steps. Grow your wealth. During World War II, Captain America advised citizens to fight for freedom by investing $37.50 in a war bond that would yield $50 in ten years. Today, bonds are sold online at treasurydirect.gov. Discover farming. Pick apples, berries and watermelons at local farms, buy fresh corn at stands along country roads, plant tomatoes in your own Victory Garden and grow flowers to attract the honeybees that pollinate crops. Enjoy home entertainment. Once listeners gathered around the radio to hear a closet full of items tumble out on "Fibber McGee and Molly" or they read comic books in lighted closets during blackouts. Choose from a much wider variety of ways to enjoy home entertainment today. Hone your arguments. While sheltering in place, take time to scroll through social media, listen to talking heads, read up on the issues and then express your opinions in "Letters to the Editor" and elsewhere.

Rebirth of Self Worth

As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere and the coronavirus diminishes (We hope.), neighborhoods can expect to witness blocks and blocks of yard sales and mini-entertainment venues. Sheltering in place is providing an opportunity to examine the contents of closets, cabinets and drawers; to rediscover old family recipes; practice musical instruments, dance moves and baton twirling; paint a picture; knit and build a bird house or a bookcase out of wood. Also, a backyard garden or community plot can lead to sales of flowers and produce, such as tomatoes and lettuce.

     With neighbors walking from yard to yard in the sun, hungry shoppers will need grilled hot dogs besides lemonade. Custom sunscreening can join facepainting at a "service station." And entertainers can set up lawn chairs and sell tickets to 15-minute shows of magic, sock puppets, dance, and band concerts performed in costumes.

     At yard sales, kids learn to talk to customers, negotiate prices, make change, keep an eye on the cash box and look out for shoplifters.  Shows offer children a wonderful chance to organize, price and prepare signs for their performances.

     When my friend's 7-year-old saw her making a to-do-list before beginning her virtual workday at home, he wanted one too. As a result, he makes his own bed, sorts his wash by white and colored, puts all toys away except the one he is playing with, reads a book to his little sister, brushes the dog, writes out or draws what he would like for lunch, watches a certain TV program at 9 am, dusts the living room and helps unload the dishwasher.

     I see that the Whirlpool home appliance manufacturer, according to trendwatching.com,  sponsors #ChoreClub to give parents ideas for engaging children ages 2-11 in life skills as well as
 learning activities. Pairing socks becomes a matching game, cutting a pizza teaches fractions and learning Spanish involves a scavenger hunt for household products that print directions in two languages.

     Between running yard sales and entertainments and mastering essential adult skills, growing up in the COVID-19 pandemic might not be so bad for kids (and parents).

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. 

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. 

Golden Bridges to Peace

Military strategy suggests it is far better to give an enemy a "golden bridge" that permits retreat or saving face rather than to back an enemy into a corner, where the only option is an all out battle.

     Students might begin by suggesting "golden bridges" they could offer bullies and move on to identify a country's enemies and offer suggestions of "golden bridges," i.e. desirable options, that are better than open warfare between two countries. Using Bill Clinton to open a back door channel of communication with North Vietnam might be a useful gambit; he was involved in a past mission there.

     U.S.-China relations began to improve with a ping pong match between the two countries. Could a basketball game improve relations between the United States and the basketball-loving North Koreans?  With partners who are performers and an interest in visiting Japan's Disneyland, the ruling family clearly is interested in the entertainment field. Could a "golden bridge" be created by using North Korea as a movie location? Far-fetched? An Israeli Labor Party election was postponed, because it was scheduled on the same day as a Britney Spears concert, reports TIME magazine (April 24, 2017).