Kickball Lives!
An article in today’s WSJ on kickball caught my nostalgic Boomer’s eye… I started thinking about that red ball, recess, and grade school. 
I would never have imagined back then (way, way back then) that there would be such a thing as WAKA, the World Adult Kickball Association. Kickball, it seems is quite popular among "recent college graduates" who according to the WSJ "appreciate its combination of minimal physical exertion, ample game-time socializing and postgame drinking." 
Sounds like the perfect sport for the recently publicly labeled entitlement generation.
No less an authority than Dr. Mel Levine has proclaimed an epidemic of twentysomethings "who had too much success early in life
and who’ve become accustomed to instant gratification…many of the individuals we see are heavily
committed to something we call ‘fun.’" Must have been all those blue first place ribbons for "participation" that they have….now they are all expecting to graduate from college, put in a hard morning as CEO of General Motors, and play competitive kickball until Happy Hour.
The entitled have responded at Corante by blaming their elders…. for misinforming them. Is not-it one word or two?
Good Thing There Isn’t a Tux Challenge
August 5, NYC…MeMe Roth hosts the Wedding Gown Challenge. Wear your dress from the BIG DAY to demonstrate that you have stayed fit and healthy and NOT BIG for all those years despite all those children in defiance of the obesity trend.
OK, so what if the dress fits but not the glass slippers? Can we still come to the ball if we’re divorced?
Well, here are some interesting facts from the recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services–Marital Status and Health: United State, 1999-2002: Although being married is better for your overall health, "Obesity is the one health condition that does not follow the pattern.
Overall, married, middle-age men had the highest obesity rate, followed
closely by divorced men. Among women, those cohabiting had the lowest
rate, followed closely by never-married and married women, " writes in Focus on Social Issues.
Sounds like its a good thing that there isn’t a Wedding Tux Challenge…the BIG turnout wouldn’t happen.
And headaches? "Women who had never been married were the least likely to suffer from headaches." Ok, it did go on to say "followed by married women" but I couldn’t resist.
Headlines that Push Instead of Grab
The headline, Finding
Time to Exercise is the kind of headline that makes me not want to
read the article that follows. It makes me want to pretend I didn’t see it. I already know that I should exercise
more and I know why I should exercise more (Is there anyone out there
who doesn’t?)…but since this article was part of a series
of other things that we should find time for that I thought sounded more
interesting than exercise, I took note. I may not be obsessed with exercise but
I admit I am a little obsessed with completion…the
exercise article was part of the series so for me, it was all or nothing.
So, I read the article on exercise; after all, it was short and I did have a
little extra time. As it turned out, after all the usual shoulds and even President
Bush finds the time the bottom line was to lower the bar really low….start with 10 minutes per
day and you can count going up and down steps. Sounds like a winning plan to me!
As I read the other “Finding Times†I noticed that they really were not
about finding time but rather about
making better use of time. For instance the article on finding time to read
suggested essentially having something to read with you at all times so that no
idle moment goes unread. I concur
wholeheartedly with that one…I just thought that behavior on my part was more about ADD than time management.
I did notice that the Finding Time to Exercise article was the
#3 most emailed article in the WSJ today…I guess it did grab attention after all. Or, they just emailed it away.
Now, the #5 most emailed article did grab my attention, Why
Don’t Kids Do Chores Anymore. My kids tell me that this is an absolute fact, phrased like this: “Mom, none of our
friends have to do chores.†I suggest then
that perhaps we not look at them as chores but as opportunities to learn skills
that their friends do not possess.
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