Excerpts from recent South Dakota editorials

Black Hills Pioneer, Spearfish, April 11

Practice radical self-acceptance

Staying healthy, both physically and mentally during a time of social distancing for the COVID-19 pandemic can be a challenge.

But psychologists both locally and nationally offer advice for traveling in these uncharted waters.

First and foremost, they say, is to establish a routine. Go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable time, write a schedule that is varied and includes time for work as well as self-care.

They even suggest developing a self-care toolkit. This can look different for everyone. A lot of successful self-care strategies involve a sensory component — touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell, movement and comforting pressure.

Find the softest blanket in your house or even a stuffed animal with which to cuddle. Then, make yourself a cup of hot chocolate — see, you’re feeling better already. Those things are calming.

Instead of turning on the television news, play some comforting music and put a simmering pot of spices on the stove. You could include things like cinnamon, orange peel, pumpkin pie spice or vanilla.

Make time for quite time, the psychologists say.

And, when it’s not snowing outside, try to get out at least 30 minutes a day. If you’re concerned about contact with others, trying getting out first thing in the morning, or later in the evening. It is amazing what fresh air can do for spirits.

Make time also for reaching out to others. We are social animals, so try to connect with other people to seek and provide support. You can do this through phone calls, FaceTime calls, texting, social media, group teleconference on your computer with Zoom, Skype and MeetMe platforms among others.

Even though you may feel isolated and depressed, try to stay hydrated and eat well. Stress and eating often don’t mix, and we find ourselves over-indulging, forgetting to eat, and avoiding food. Drink plenty of water, eat some good and nutritious foods, and challenge yourself to learn how to cook something new.

Remember that everyone is a little on edge right now. Give everyone, including those in your household, the benefit of the doubt, and a wide berth. A lot of cooped-up time can bring out the worst in everyone.

Cut yourself some slack. You can’t meet all the demands of work deadlines, homeschooling children, running a sterile household, and making a whole lot of entertainment in confinement.

We can get wrapped up in meeting expectations in all domains, but we must remember that these are scary and unpredictable times for everyone.

Lower your expectations and practice radical self-acceptance. We are doing too many things in this moment, under fear and stress. This does not make a formula for excellence.

Instead, give yourself what psychologists call radical self-acceptance — accepting everything about yourself, your current situation, and your life without question, blame or pushback.

You cannot fail at this — there is no roadmap, no precedent for this, and we are all truly doing the best we can in an impossible situation.

Calm. Caution. Compassion. Communication. We can do this together.

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Madison Daily Leader, April 7

Cancellations could promote understanding

The finales of winter sports and all spring sports have now been canceled in South Dakota due to the coronavirus pandemic. That goes for both high school and college sports.

In Madison, many winter sports teams, such as gymnastics, wrestling and girls basketball, had already completed their seasons. But the MHS boys basketball team had qualified for the state tournament and now will only wonder what might have been.

Bulldog head coach Jeff Larson stayed optimistic during the time the state tournament was postponed in early March until it was finally canceled this week. (Daily Leader sports editor Larry Leeds wrote a story in Friday’s newspaper about Larson’s anticipation of a possible tournament.)

We’ve read about the disappointment of college and high school athletes all over the country not being able to finish their seasons. And for seniors participating in spring sports, they won’t get a season at all.

We understand the disappointment, but we believe in the long run the athletes will understand. It’s hard to put this whole thing in perspective while it’s still going on, but perspective will come later.

And that will be part of the story. Just like athletes who had their careers interrupted by World War II, events changed by 9/11 or games postponed or canceled by natural disasters like earthquakes, we believe today’s athletes will gain an understanding that not everything in life is certain. There are more important things than athletic contests, and the cancellations are for the greater good.

Young people will gain perspective from this situation and maybe even a greater understanding that societal issues are more important than high school and college sports events.

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Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan, April 9

A Roosevelt moment

These are dark, anxious times for all of us — it can be felt in every town, around every dinner table and in every waking hour. But, if nothing else, this also makes it a fitting moment to recall the 75th anniversary of the death of Franklin Roosevelt, whose unprecedented four terms in the White House were defined from beginning to end by mighty troubles and the conquering thereof.

For context, FDR’s death on April 12, 1945, arrived as devastating news on the threshold of one of the brightest hours in human history. Less than a month after his passing, the European phase of World War II ended with the surrender of Germany; four months later, Japan capitulated in the Pacific, bringing the terrible global war that had consumed the last half of Roosevelt’s presidency to an end. But he didn’t live to see it.

He won the presidency four times, and from 1933-1945, he became as much a part of the American landscape as the Rocky Mountains, and seemingly as imposing and invincible.

My mother told me her memories of the day Roosevelt died. She was in her early teens and walking home from school, having just heard the news. She recalled being in tears and terrified because she couldn’t remember any other president in her young life. For her, Roosevelt WAS America, and it was as if a piece of the world she knew was gone.

And so it likely was, too, for many people who had been lifted out of the depths of the Great Depression or had marched to war to defend this nation against tyrannical enemies.

In recent years, we’ve been celebrating our “Greatest Generation” — really, a final farewell to those old warriors — by remembering the 75th anniversaries of many events tied to World War II, from its beginning in 1939 and America’s entry in late 1941 to its end. Roosevelt’s passing stands as one of these milestones.

Now, his legacy can provide inspiration for the resolve we’ll need to forge a path through this current maelstrom.

Roosevelt himself did that through 12 tumultuous years, guiding the ship of state through one storm after another. It was an overwhelming task, ultimately with nothing less than the fate of civilization on the line.

He came to office in the bleakest depths of the Great Depression in 1933, taking the reins of a nation that may well have been on the brink of social collapse. He also came in as the Dust Bowl was smothering much of the nation.

Through ambitiously sweeping legislation — including the New Deal and its alphabet soup of programs and reforms — he slowly got Americans back to work. Among many other things, he created a social safety net for retirees called Social Security and oversaw a program to plant millions of trees across the plains to protect fragile soils from scouring winds. He soothed nerves with his “fireside chats” and his inherently positive public demeanor, all while mostly using a wheelchair due to a crippling bout with polio.

As war clouds built in Europe in the late 1930s, he worked carefully — and often against weary public sentiment — to support those nations standing up to, and then fighting, the Axis powers.

When America was finally forced into the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, FDR rallied a stunned nation and mobilized its industries into a wartime dynamo that ultimately transformed this country into an industrial colossus.

Roosevelt was far from perfect. He often addressed issues by simply adding more layers of cumbersome bureaucracy. His attempt at a more austere economic path after his 1936 reelection plunged the nation back into recession. He tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937 in order to create a compliant judicial branch. His decision to send Japanese Americans to concentration camps in 1942 is a sad chapter in our history. The list can go on, depending on your views and philosophies.

Nevertheless, FDR rose time and again to challenges when his country needed him — until he couldn’t anymore. He was a tired, sick and haggard soul, withered by polio and the weight of the world, when he ran for reelection in 1944, determined to finish the job of winning the war. It finished him at the age of just 63, although he looked far older. Upon his death, he was listed in the daily wartime casualty reports published in newspapers across the country: “Army-Navy Dead: ROOSEVELT, Franklin D., commander-in-chief …”

The 75th anniversary of his passing comes at an extraordinary moment, with a pandemic crippling the world and crushing economies. In a way, you could call it a “Roosevelt moment,” for it’s the kind of dire situation he faced many times.

These days demand someone like an FDR — someone with the vision, resolve and energy to build a better tomorrow. Whether our current leadership is up to that herculean task remains to be seen, for there is still a lot to endure and so much to heal. But Roosevelt’s legacy is part of America’s DNA, and it can still teach us a lot in the days to come.