“I perceive what I think, and therefore I am,” said Jewel, riffing the famous Descartes phrase, during a New York Times-hosted Zoom interview.

She spoke for an hour from her Utah home as candles shone in the background. She led the audience in a meditation exercise, answered questions, and played guitar to perform her new song, “Grateful.”

I attended one of her concerts over a decade ago. But while I know Jewel best as a singer and songwriter, she’s also an actress, author, poet, mother, philanthropist, and activist.

Jewel discussed Never Broken, her nonprofit foundation devoted today to help people suffering with coronavirus-related depression and anxiety. The website offers free online resources for people to cope and get centered.

The pandemic comprises three aspects, Jewel said:

• The virus
• The economic fallout
• The mental health fallout

On the latter point, she alluded to the importance of mindfulness to identify our mental strengths. Jewel was concerned that if society doesn’t significantly improve then the suicide rate could increase.

And that leads us back to the above quote. It’s important to not only think but to recognize your thought patterns.

“If you want to see what you are thinking, look at your hands.”

In that way, she said, your hands represent the action of your thoughts.

St. Catharine’s College and the University of Cambridge joined forces last month and created a list of 297 ideas to flatten the curve.

It’s a massive undertaking and many of the ideas make a lot of sense — such as removing park benches and door handles. Other ideas might be viewed as controversial — such as encouraging employees to bring in their own lunch and eat at their desks instead of going out. But when you stop and think about it, there really isn’t controversy if everyone has a shared goal.

One of the ideas is to discourage kissing.

Reducing physical distance to ward off the coronavirus is not a novel concept. In recent weeks, France urged its citizens to stop kissing and both Ireland and South Africa banned kissing.

Europe is familiar with kissing bans. In 1439, King Henry VI of England banned kissing to fight the Black Death. And in 1562 while fighting another wave of that epidemic, the Italian city of Naples banned it.

Closer to home, kissing was banned in Alabama during the 1918 flu pandemic. That virus was responsible for 500 million global infections and about 20 million deaths.

Throughout the United States in 1918-1919, schools and churches were closed. Retail stores had staggered operating times. Most businesses were shut down. Mail delivery and garbage collection were delayed. Funerals were banned. Social distancing was enforced. People were fined if they walked outside without masks.

Sound familiar?

It is fascinating to read how different segments of American society are adjusting and changing their operations because of the coronavirus crisis.

Businesses want to reopen with health guidelines, schools and colleges recognize that the short-term will look different, and government agencies seek to update their archaic policies.

The Ragon Institute, a research facility in Cambridge, MA, wants to bring employees back to the workplace with staggered shifts, social distancing, weekly employee testing, and daily employee temperature readings. Employees would be given daily masks, gloves, and sanitizer. Anyone symptomatic or feverish would be barred from entering the building.

Staggered classes and longer days are among the plans at K-12 school districts, to include continued distance learning and online education.

“The new norm is that public education is probably not going to be what it’s always been for the near future. But it would be a shame to take this crisis and not improve on how we interact with students, how teachers are teaching and kids are demonstrating their learning.”

Source: Chris Funk, superintendent of the East Side Union School District in San Jose, CA

College presidents across the country intend to reopen campuses this fall but it’s unclear if students will be there. Based on a survey of 1,171 high school seniors, 1 in 6 will not attend. In another survey, 40% of parents said their kids may delay going to college.

The U.S. Supreme Court begins holding oral arguments via telephone today for a series of postponed cases. And for the first time in the Court’s history, the audio feed will be available to media organizations for rebroadcast to the world.

Chris Pugliese, the general manager of Tompkins Square Bagels in New York City, says it best:

“I tell my guys at the store that everything is related to the first Rocky movie. We don’t have to win. We just have to get through this fight. We’re going to get up, get bloodied. We just need to be standing when it’s over.”

Source: Bon Appetit