Kirok & Kalo

I read a couple of interesting items today. One was about a NASA mission intended to test the idea of kinetic, planetary defense systems, and the other about a proposed cartoon mascot for public health measures. The former reminded me of an STO episode in which an amnesiac Captain Kirk emerges from an obelisk outside a village of American natives. The planet is Amerind. How novel, no? Planetary defense systems are standard fare in Sci-Fi “space opera,” – in Star Trek, Babylon 5, Starship Troopers, and you can probably think of others. The NASA mission is called DART, and it is pretty cool.

Kalo is a proposed cartoon mascot à la Smokey Bear intended to encourage children to wear masks, wash hands and do whatever Kalo recommends to prevent the spread of communicable diseases; well, COVID in this specific instance, but I can imagine how Kalo could be used to disseminate a variety of healthful messages to the young. This brief Medscape item tells the story of Kalo. If you are a parent, you know that young children are very biddable and usually inflexible in beliefs that they have either formed or internalized. Hence, they are the perfect audience for advertising. Why do think Zuckerberg wants them on his platforms?

Well, here’s an opportunity to take advantage of that audience for the good of the entire society – not something that you would ever expect to see from industry or social media.