The Life Slant - Page 14

Veganism Saves the World

Go Vegan

*Go Vegan and Save the World

This week was particularly challenging. A number of separate reports are stark wake-up calls on the acceleration of the climate crisis and its collision with the hideous Sixth Mass Extinction. 

My colleagues proposed that we add a Category 6, or, sustained winds above 190 miles per hour, to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Increased combustion of subsidized fossil fuels is adding mega zettajoules of heat into the oceans. This heat is driving Nature’s fiercest storms, hurricanes and cyclones, to greater intensities. It is also slowing them down by 10 percent, causing more destruction.

On October 23, 2015, Hurricane Patricia had maximum wind gusts of 215 mph, making it a Category 6 in the proposed updated system. Credit: NASA

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R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Professors & Teachers

Professor.  Just the word elicits respect, and respect is something we don’t have or show a lot of in 2018 America.  We call physicians ‘doc’, coaches, bosses, aunts and uncles by their first names, and almost everyone else ‘dude’ …  except for politicians and lawyers.  But even the most confident of us wants to impress when dining or conversing with a professor.

Teacher doesn’t have the same shine, does it?

Teachers seem more human, more approachable, and generally speaking are not shown the type of respect college professors enjoy.

Why?
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Tokyo Slaughters Pregnant And Baby Whales

Poached Minkes on Japanese ship inside Southeron Ocean Whale Sanctuary

*Japan is still torturously harpooning whales inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary; it’s a demonstration of bloody ruthless power.

Eight years ago, proceedings were instituted at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, where Australia accused Japan of pursuing a large scale Antarctic whaling program.

Four years later, the ICJ ruled that Japan must immediately stop its whaling program. The World Court found the loophole in the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling that permits lethal scientific research did not apply to Japan.

Whaling Vessel represented as research vessel
Japan has not produced any meaningful scientific research after 25 years of killing more than 20,000 whales.
Photo credit: Australian Broadcasting Corporation

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Just Login to our System

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Login to our system

*“Just login to our system.”  A very common demand these days.  You can’t get a mortgage or buy a toy or receive medical care without creating an account and logging in.  It sounds reasonable, but is it?

Entering your life’s data into any system is risky, as we are repeatedly reminded by the steady stream of news reports about hackings that assurances about the safety and security of your data are mere rhetoric, no matter the company or organization.  Demanding that you to login to a system assumes that you are willing to take a huge leap of faith, and trust that:

  • the system is well-built and supported,
  • the people administering the system are highly skilled, and that
  • state-of-the-art security measures (ineffective as they may be) are in place and the people administering them are highly skilled.

This is like asking you to jump off a cliff based on a stranger’s assurances that “it’ll be OK”.
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Bees – Nature’s Smart Superheroes

*Bees are admirable little creatures, but they’re in terrible trouble.  Nearly 7.6 billion procreating humans need them in order to survive. That means you.

Twenty thousand species of bees pollinate about 85 percent of flowering plants, or 336,000 species, including most of the 80,000 kinds of trees on Earth. In fact, bees help us breathe because without plants, we couldn’t exist!

Bees: Forager Honeybee Nappnig
A forager honeybee napping on a lemon blossom petal in Hollywood, California.
Photo Credit: Dr. Reese Halter

Bees pollinate 75 percent of the world’s food crops and 100 percent of cotton, which clothes us. Bees account for as much as $577 billion in commerce per annum.
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A Father’s Journey – Part 4. Open Hearts

A Father's Journey

* Friends and strangers, far and wide have opened their hearts beyond my wildest imagination.

*Stephen Pecevich, a single dad of three in the Boston area, had his life take a complete detour when his youngest child was diagnosed with cancer before she she was even 60 days old.  Follow the story of how this devoted father found faith and strength on what Stephen calls “a life detour”, as we publish regular excerpts from Stephen’s own memoir, which will be available in its entirety in the near future.

January 25th

Dear Sydni,

*I awoke in such an upbeat mood this morning. You smiled upon me in my dreams last night. Your beam assured so that it strengthened my resolve as I greeted the present day.
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Hard of Listening

Active Listening

*People pay thousands of dollars for education, yet listening is free. Nobody likes to be criticized. And to some extent, everyone displays some measure of defensiveness – the impulse to reject all criticisms by denying their validity and undermining the messenger.

Unfortunately, defensiveness does not serve us. It encourages us to ignore potentially useful feedback, which inhibits our ability to improve. It behooves us to rely on those with relevant qualification and expertise. We cannot learn that which we think we already know.

Listening isn’t something we’re all innately born with, and we’re all guilty of not listening at times.  Listening is a skill just like reading, writing, and talking.  That’s good news because it means we can all learn to listen and connect with the speaker. Like any skill, the more we practice it, the better we become. We have had practice reading, writing, and talking, but how much actual practice have we had learning how to become better listeners?

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Seven Words to Approach With Caution in 2018

Seven Words - Offensive Language

*“Don’t use that word!” This new, weird battle cry being barked by presidents, governors and protective moms somehow persists in the Land of the Free. Even casual conversation can be a tricky affair these days, with unlikely words laying in wait like landmines set to explode by the slightest touch, often causing unwanted clarification, heated debate or scolding.
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While the North Pole Cooks, Trump Tweets

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Trump Tweets ignoring Climate

*There is a giant gulf today between those who promote and profit from fossil fuels, including Presidents Trump and Putin, and our life support systems – Nature. In my latest book, Save Nature Now, I’ve dubbed it “Black Gold Fever,” a contagious excitement over the riches of fossil fuels.

Consider this, there has never been such an accumulation of money on our planet controlled by a handful of people. The bulk of that wealth was derived from killing Nature at the expense of the health of our biosphere, the livable space occupied by all living organisms.

Instead of prudently protecting our home, since 1997 earthlings have burned as much fossil fuel as the previous 250 years. Keep Reading

Some Will Go To College – All Will Go Through Life: Part Three – We’ll Be Amazed

College - Bookbags - We'll be Amazed

*There has never been a good answer to the question, “Why do we have to learn this?”  Asked millions of times by millions of students, it is invariably responded to by teachers with avoidance tactics or gibberish because very often the real answer is: you don’t.

We invest heavily in information from the bell curve, yet ignore much of what it tells us.  We know ahead of time that students like Jane, whose classidemic test scores fall in the center or the left of the standardized test bell curve, will not do well in Algebra or Biology class, yet we are compelled to require that they take those courses.  Why?  In order to give them a well-rounded education??Achievement Ladder - We''ll be Amazed

Because they’ll need it to get into college and we must prepare all students for college no matter what??  Or is it because the idea that we all must strive to get to the top of the achievement ladder – that in its essence education IS striving to get to the top of the achievement ladder –  is so ingrained in us that we can’t even question it?

Nature’s Wellness Science: Big Trees

The ancient oak

*We all need Nature. Nature provides us with powerful,  free medicine that maintains our health and wellbeing especially in this man-made toxic 21st century.

Big, old trees are crucial as superlative carbon dioxide warehouses that also absorb mega amounts of pollution. Big trees regulate the climate, the water cycle, and provide priceless shade in the heat of the summertime as well as create vital habitat for creatures.

As the ancient ones age they increase, not decrease, in their ability to perform as Nature’s giant oxygen generators and carbon warehouses.

General Sherman Tree
General Sherman is largest single stemmed tree on Earth. At over 2,500 years old this giant sequoia reaches 275 feet towards the heavens.
Photo credit: Reese Halter, Sequoia National Park.

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Some Will Go To College – All Will Go Through Life: Part Two- What About Jane?

Waitress

*On an autumn day in September of 1962, President John Kennedy challenged a nation to do the impossible and send a man to the moon in just seven short years. Perhaps the thing he his best remembered for other than his unfortunate death, we take his declaration for granted.

What is interesting is that at a time before digital calculators and watches, before microwave ovens and before TV shows were regularly broadcast in color, the audience at Rice University did not greet his proclamation that “We choose to go to the moon” with incredulousness, or appear to wonder how such a monumental goal might be achieved, but instead greeted it with eager applause and giddy enthusiasm.
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Harpooning Nature’s Last Masterpieces: Endangered Whales

Newly killed whales

The ocean-killing nation of Iceland intends on resuming commercial whaling on June 10. Its self-appointed quota of as many as 200 endangered fins, the second largest whales next to blues, is both illegal and morally wrong.

Whaling
Whaling is a gruesome bloodlust, a cowardly display of barbarism. Photo credit: alternews.com

In 1986, a world moratorium on commercial whaling took effect. Iceland, Norway and Japan refuse to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Norway is currently the leading offender then followed by Japan and its whale-trading partner, Iceland.

The sheer brutality of chasing until over-heated and then lancing our brethren, the whales, with harpooned-tipped grenades is horrific. Keep Reading

Some Will Go To College – All Will Go Through Life: Part One- Curves, Tests and Grades

College

Teachers, school administrators, school boards and government agencies across America work diligently to educate our youth, yet the U.S. consistently ranks squarely in the middle of worldwide achievement in Science, Math and Reading.  How can this be in what we all like to think of as the greatest nation on earth?

There are two underlying fundamental problems with the American education system in the 21st century.  The first is that there is not now, nor has there ever been, an American Education System.  From the time of the first New England schoolhouse to today, local education has been paid for by local tax dollars, with local government setting curriculum and standards for hiring teachers in accordance with the bidding of local voters.

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Celebrating Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossoms

Hundreds of thousands of visitors come from around the world to witness the spring majesty of Washington D.C.’s flowering cherry trees. This breathtaking event reminds us that trees are remarkable.

There are over 80,000 tree species and their progenitors have inhabited our planet for over 350 million years. They provide watersheds, supply drinking water for billions of people, protect cities from stormwater runoff, and reduce cooling costs to our homes and buildings by as much as 40 percent. City trees also absorb mega-tons of air pollutants each year.

Trees and ancient forests are superlative carbon dioxide warehouses. In return, ancient forests provide more than one of every three breaths of oxygen. Ancient forests provide invaluable habitat for animals. They are also vanguards of some of the most potent cancer, coronary and pain medicines known to science.

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A Father’s Journey – Part 3. Independently Breathing

Father and Baby

* A small victory; independently breathing

Stephen Pecevich, a single dad of three in the Boston area, had his life take a complete detour when his youngest child was diagnosed with cancer before she she was even 60 days old.  Follow the story of how this devoted father found faith and strength on what Stephen calls “a life detour”, as we publish regular excerpts from Stephen’s own memoir, which will be available in its entirety in the near future.

January 22nd

Dear Sydni,

You stepped forward today (figuratively speaking of course). Your dedicated overnight nurse said you slept well all throughout the night (your first good night’s sleep). And then, at 11:00 A.M., the ICU staff began weaning you off the respirator.
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Chemical Chaos in the Ocean – the Death of Dolphins and Sea Turtles

Ocean Pollution

Dolphins and sea turtles are in dire jeopardy. Necropsies, or autopsies performed on animals, show that as poisons are brimming in the oceans, animal deaths are piling up.

Over the previous several months, hundreds of scrawny, frightened and bloated gray dolphins have been stranded along Rio de Janeiro’s coast. Their autoimmune systems were completely compromised by a measles virus. These highly intelligent mammals were discombobulated, covered in grotesque rashes and gasping for oxygen – a terrifying way to die.

Dead dolphins and sea turtles
Photo credit: Instituto Boto Cinza.
The tragic death of dolphins and sea turtles is a wake-up call to stop polluting our planet, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Investing in Education = Investing in our Future

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Never Stop Learning

The bell rings and twenty-nine angelic faces look to her for guidance. In that moment she realizes that while as Governor overseeing the statistical lives of her state’s almost four million citizens is a huge responsibility – one she takes seriously, being entrusted with the actual lives of these twenty-nine cherubs is a grander burden.

Initially an eager participant in the new ‘Leaders in School’ program, the Governor is becoming increasingly dismayed as the reality of spending an entire day working as an educator in the public school system is becoming clear. It was bad enough that she had to make her own coffee and breakfast this morning and then actually drive herself to school, but facing a day without her personal assistants seems like cruel and unusual punishment.

The day is only forty seconds old, and she is already looking for a light at the end of an awfully long tunnel.

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Responsible Right of Way

Crossing Light

Once upon a time in a land called America, schoolchildren were taught how to cross the street by their parents or their older siblings.  Red light means the cars stop, and green light means the cars go. Pedestrians were not so confused by basic traffic etiquette.

Wait for the red light and make sure the cars have stopped, look both ways, carefully cross the street.  For decades, first graders across the nation successfully crossed the street without tens of thousands of dollars worth of flashing lights and annoying beeping and counting and pictures of a cute little walking man at every stinking intersection.

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