Thursday, March 16, 2006
By Russell King
When the TV show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" first aired, all I could think was "Shouldn't we be asking 'Who wants to be a good person?'" It's one of those wild dreams I have as an American dad: That our culture will finally start sending messages that are actually good for my kids to internalize.
No, I haven't been holding my breath.
A bit later, two films came out about the same time and the timing made me take notice: "All about the Benajmins" glorified greed and a super-hyped consumerism (and presented a grotesquely degrading image of black Americans), while "John Q," made a hero of an everday American dad who was willing to sacrifice his own life to save his son's (and presented a realistic image of blacks). It seemed like progress, but it faded. Today, we're stuck with "Get rich or die trying" and "ATL," both of which make "Benjamins" look like kid stuff.
TV hasn't improved either. We have "reality" shows in which people compete, connive, lie and cheat for the rewards of money and fame. We have "talent" shows in which not only do people compete for money and fame, but half the "fun" is watching the judges rip the contestants. We have "game" shows that invite open conflict between players (again, competing for money) and use a host who is openly hostile, sarcastic and insulting to the competitors. We even have a program that glorifies a man who is widely known for his complete lack of virtue, who personifies the ugly parts of our culture and economy.
I feel the same disconnect and disappointment in the majority of video and computer games being marketed to our children. In most, "success" is defined in terms of the defeat, if not humiliation, of others. Winning is often based on being superior at "virtual violence," but even the games based on sports frequently include displays of poor sportsmanship and weak character.
I've had this dream of convincing some game producer to make one called "Who wants to be a saint?" in which success is achieved by acts of generosity, compassion and mercy. I haven't been holding my breath for that one either, but somebody has come through for me (well, almost).
"Food Force" is a game launched last summer by the United Nations, and it's already had more than a million on-line players. In this game, kids race against time to feed thousands of people on the fictitious island of Shevlan. They pilot helicopters while looking for hungry people, negotiate with armed rebels blocking a food convoy and use food aid to help rebuild communities. Finally!
"Food Force" is available as a free download inn MAC and PC formats through a dedicated web site. It's recommended for kids from 8 through 13 years old. You can check it out here: http://www.food-force.com/
Monday, March 13, 2006
Sound thinking from the folks at www.ThinkProgress.org :
College athletics sponsors like Nike, Adidas, and Reebok make millions of dollars each year by adorning college athletes with their "swooshes" and other brand logos. Now, those corporations have an opportunity to help college athletes in the classroom. Today, the Progress Report is launching Graduation Madness: The March to a Final Four-Year Degree. In conjunction with this year's "March Madness" (the annual championship tournament of 65 of the nation's best college basketball teams), Graduation Madness will encourage corporate athletics sponsors to start including incentives for academic performance in their sponsorship contracts. It's an innovative, progressive way to harness market forces to improve the future for our country's young athletes, the overwhelming majority of whom will go on to careers outside of sports. Please take action now -- join us at GraduationMadness.org to sign a letter to Nike, Adidas, and Reebok, and to check out an interactive tournament bracket showing all the teams' graduation rates.
MANY COLLEGE ATHLETES SUFFERING ACADEMICALLY: NCAA student-athletes graduate at significantly lower rates than university students generally. Of the NCAA men's basketball players who entered college in 1997, only 44 percent had graduated by 2003. Moreover, of the 65 teams that qualified for this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament, 30 fail to meet minimum academic standards as defined by the NCAA. This problem is compounded by the fact that the overwhelming majority of young athletes depend on a college education to build careers outside of sports. Only 0.8 percent of students who play Division I men's college basketball go on to become professional athletes. Students who drop out of college lose essential skills for their adult lives, and typically earn about half as much as college graduates.
NIKE, ADIDAS, AND REEBOK NEED TO GET OFF THE ACADEMIC SIDELINES: Corporate sponsors such as Nike, Reebok, and Adidas provide critical resources to collegiate athletics programs. However, since successful coaches and teams are more likely to receive lucrative sponsorship deals, both coaches and their departments face enormous pressure to emphasize athletics at the expense of academics. Last November, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics "lamented the increasing number of colleges that are pushing to give athletics scholarships and playing time to those low-performing students only to cast them aside if they fail in the classroom." Corporate sponsors are in a unique position to use market pressure to incentivize increased focus on academic success.
NCAA WARNS OF DWINDLING EMPHASIS ON ACADEMICS: A new draft report by an NCAA presidential task force warns that the "ever-larger sums of money spent on college sports" create "a looming crisis" that could threaten schools' integrity. "The prospect of distortion and even corruption of the academic values of individual institutions is very real, and in time, the entire academic enterprise can be diminished." Student-athlete academic success must remain a high priority in college athletics. As John Swofford, Commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, has emphasized, college sports "is a business being conducted in an educational setting with an educational mission. That's the difference."
WHAT WE'RE ASKING FOR: Graduation Madness has a simple set of demands. First, we want corporations to recognize that they have a shared responsibility to ensure that collegiate basketball players graduate. Second, we want corporations to provide financial incentives to sponsored schools that consistently exceed minimal academic standards, as defined by the NCAA. (Many sponsorship deals already include performance-based incentives, such as for teams that advance to NCAA postseason play.) Finally, we want corporations to terminate sponsorship deals with schools that consistently fail to meet minimal academic standards. College athletics sponsors are already intimately involved with college athletes on the playing field -- Nike famously "badgered Auburn University's football players to stop covering up their swooshes when taping their ankles," despite players' concerns over injuries. All we ask is that they also take an interest when those students are in the classroom.
Join Graduation Madness now.
Friday, March 03, 2006
By Russell King
One night, years ago, Logan was having a sleepover with a bunch of little buddies and they would not settle down at bedtime. Rhonda looked at me and said, "OK story-teller, do your thing." My creative well was dry at the moment, so I just started telling the first story that popped into my head. Why a story by Leo Tolstoy, which I'd heard probably 20 years before, was the one that popped, I'll never understand. But it turned out to be a smash hit with the kids, and is now requested by visiting kids at sleep-overs. Logan says it's his favorite.
I change the story a little in retelling, but the core remains:
The King, wishing to be the best king he could be, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to any one who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do.
And learned men came to the King, but they all answered his questions differently: Answering the first question, the efficiency experts said that to know the right time for every action, the King must create a strict schedule and stick tightly to it. But others said there were some things that cannot fit into a schedule and some things pop up unexpectedly so the King should hire magicians who could tell him, beforehand, what was going to happen. Answering the second question, the councillors, priests, doctors and warriors all told the King that they were most important to him. To the third question, the scientists, warriors and priests all argued that what they did was the most important thing to do.
All the answers being different, the King agreed with none of them, and gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right answers to his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his wisdom.
The wise man lived in atop a moutain and spoke only to common folk. So the King put on simple clothes and, halfway up the mountain, dismounted his horse, left his guards and went on alone.
When the King approached, the wise man was digging the ground in front of his hut. Seeing the King, he nodded a greeting and went on digging. The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.
The King went up to him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit, to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And, what affairs are the most important, and need my first attention?”
The wise man listened to the King, but answered nothing. He just kept digging.
“You are tired,” said the King, “let me take the spade and work a while for you.”
Giving the spade to the King, the wise man sat down in the shade.
When he had finished two of the garden beds, the King repeated his questions. The wise man again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out his hand for the spade. But the King did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the King at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said: “I came to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can give me none, tell me so, and I will return home.”
Just then, the King saw a man come running out of the wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood was flowing from under them. When he reached the King, he fell fainting on the ground moaning feebly. The King found a large wound in the man's stomach. The King washed it as best he could, and bandaged it with his own shirt. But the blood would not stop flowing, and the King again and again removed the bandage soaked with warm blood, and washed and rebandaged the wound. When at last the blood ceased flowing, the man revived and asked for something to drink. The King brought fresh water and gave it to him.
Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had become cool. So the King carried the wounded man into the hut and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed the man closed his eyes and was quiet; but the King was so tired with his walk and with the work he had done, that he crouched down on the threshold, and also fell asleep – so soundly that he slept all through the short summer night. When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could remember where he was, or who was the strange man lying on the bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes.
“Forgive me!” said the man in a weak voice, when he saw that the King was awake and was looking at him.
“I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for,” said the King.
“You do not know me, but I know you. I am your enemy who vowed to kill you. I knew you had gone alone to see the wise hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and I came upon your guards, and they recognized and wounded me. I escaped from them, but would have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same. Forgive me!”
The King was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him.
The King then went looking for the wise man. Before going away, he wished once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before. The King approached him, and said: “For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man.”
“You have already been answered!” said the hermit, still crouching on his thin legs.
“How? When? What do you mean?” asked the King.
The wise man replied: “If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug those beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have been sorry for not having stayed with me -- and I might have starved after a while. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. When that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died soon after. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. There is only one time that is important – Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The moment past is a but memory, the moment coming a hope."
To this day, the King is remembered by his people as the greatest king of all, for his knew the answers to the three questions: The most necessary person is the person with you; the most important thing to do is to do good; and the most important time is now.”
