The Life Slant - Page 14

Protect the Whales, Save the Planet

Whale Breach

LOS ANGELES — Over the past couple of years, I have reported on skyrocketing whale deaths – it is horrific and worrisome.

Let me tell you why:

Whales are farmers of the sea. Their flocculent fecal plumes are rich in iron and nitrogen, which fertilize phytoplankton and prochlorococcus (cyanobacteria). Together, the phytoplankton and bacteria provide almost two-thirds of all the oxygen  we breathe. Oxygen makes up almost 65 percent of human body weight.

Whale on Beach
In June 2015, 337 sei whales were victims of man-made global warming along a remote stretch of Chile in the largest mass stranding of baleen whales ever recorded. Image Credit: ToxicWeb/Flickr

Fossil fuel heat has infused 300 zettajoules of energy into the oceans, half of that has accumulated since 1997. It’s the equivalent energy of detonating one Hiroshima-style bomb every second for 75 straight years. Think about that for just a minute. Hiroshima. Every. Second.

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Clean Mind, Fit Body

Fit Girl Working Out

LOS ANGELES — We’ve all heard that “New Year, New me” saying right?  Don’t make it a new you just because January 1st rolls around.  Change your way of thinking and you will change your fitness.  

For starters, throw that saying right out of the window.  Along with all of those self-proclaimed online fitness gurus on Instagram.  In fact, anytime you see the word “fitness” in the title of an IG handle, turn and run.  It’s like a used car salesman who goes by “Honest Joe.”  It’s a safe bet they’re not honest.  In this case, a safe bet they know nothing or very little about fitness.

A lot of people think they need to mirror exactly what they see “Instagram models” doing, what workouts they do, what they eat, what they wear, etc.  And they think that they have to do all these different kinds of workouts they see on Instagram or in magazines.  But you don’t need to do all of those weird goofy exercises!  All you need is to stick to the basics!

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Strawless in America, Ban Them All

olive ridley sea turtle

LOS ANGELES — The only way 7.5 billion procreating humans can survive on this planet – our only home – is to mimic Nature. There is no waste in Nature. There is no unemployment in Nature. All life forms are interdependent.

Americans consume 500,000,000 petroleum-based plastic straws daily, or, 1.6 straws per person. That amounts to an unfathomable number of more than 182 billion plastic straws per year.

Plastic straws injure and kill untold numbers of sea birds and many other forms of sea life each year. A couple of years ago, marine biologists in Costa Rica found a distressed olive ridley sea turtle with what they thought was a parasitic worm burrowing into its nose. Using a Swiss army knife (the only tool on the boat) they performed a snap surgery. The biologists were horrified upon extracting the impediment to discover that it was a plastic straw.

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Toxic Relationship: The one who never loves you back

TV Addiction

WASHINGTON — Do you ever feel sad when your favorite TV show comes to an end? Whether it’s because you just binge watched on Netflix or Hulu, or the dozens of websites you can stream from, or whether it’s a season finale and you have to wait until next season to watch. If your response is yes to any of the former, then you have experienced what is called a parasocial relationship. In other words this relationship is a one-sided experience between viewers and their favorite characters.

Social Psychologists have found that parasocial relationships are a real thing. At its most basic level, they have shown that viewers are inherently prone to develop relationships with the characters they see on television, not only in fictional accounts, but other forms of news media. Yes, this can include our dear supreme leader, President Trump.

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Confront to Overcome

Confront to Overcome

WASHINGTON — When I find myself faced with life’s obstacles, I remind myself; if you can confront it, you can overcome it. Internally, I welcome these two concurrent actions. If life has taught me anything so far, it’s that there will always be new obstacles awaiting us. No matter what stage in our lives we are in, what we’ve accomplished, or how much we’re revered by others, there will always be new obstacles.

With every new level you reach, new devils await. They are zealously anticipating your arrival because they’ve seen many before you who have entered this realm, clinging to their altruistic thoughts and ideas of how things should be. Keep Reading

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