What is Plastic?

Does anyone remember the days when we would go to the grocery store and all we had to worry about was paying the bill? Now, we have to remember to bring our bags in from the car and then keep the bags to the side of the cart so that they are ready to use once the groceries start piling up on the conveyor belt. We also have to make sure that we brought enough bags for the amount of groceries we were planning to buy because, heaven forbid, 5 cents a bag is just highway robbery! On top of all that, we have to bag our own damn groceries instead of checking the cash register to make sure those Gushers! really are on sale for $2 each, assuming that you are allowed to Mix n Match with Scooby Doo snacks which are also on sale - 3 for $6. Guess what? They weren't. Oh well, too late now! Please leave the store.

While we are talking about COVID, the efficiency of this whole process had to be increased as stores wanted us in and out, as fast as possible. Conveyor belts are being sanitized with every purchase and the longer we take to bag our groceries, the slower the whole sanitize/bag/place all your personal belongings on the floor process took! People glared at us from the other end of the conveyor belt wondering why we can't bag 100 items faster. Stores made us feel rushed and, if they did offer to bag our groceries for us, they would use their own store bags. Here we go now; back to the plastics. With all the online Walmart grocery orders I did just this year, I have more plastic bags stored up now than I did before we were told to start bringing our own cloth bags to the store.

Is it a safe assumption to think that every person being asked to bring their own shopping bags to the store understands the environmental effects of plastic bags? At first, we assumed that it was because there were too many plastic bags floating around in abandoned parking lots. Then, we saw it as a threat to our children, aged 3 and younger. So dangerous that plastic bags had to come with a written warning. Caution: Risk of suffocation. A plastic bag is not a toy. Ok, we get it. Plastic is bad. However, does the world know the real answer as to why?

According to ibanet.org, the major impact of plastic bags on the environment is that it takes many years to for them to decompose. In addition, toxic substances are released into the soil when plastic bags perish under sunlight and, if plastic bags are burned, they release a toxic substance into the air causing ambient air pollution. Nonplasticbeach.com says this about the environmental impact of plastic: Plastic pollution causes harm to humans, animals and plants through toxic pollutants. It can take hundreds or even thousands of years for plastic to break down so the environmental damage is long-lasting. It affects all organisms in the food chain from tiny species like plankton through to whales. Beached whales. Has anyone seen the videos? Just search it on YouTube. It is horrific! If fish were meant to live on land, this is what it would look like. Legless sea creatures, stuck on a beach, with nowhere to go. Huge, awe-inspiring animals, choking on plastic and no one can save them. Their final minutes are spent stranded on a beach, looking at an environment that was never meant for them. How does an event like this happen? Was it all because of a plastic bag? A jug of water that some corporation chose to use to store the tap water that they are selling back to us at double the price? Did anyone ever stop to think of the environmental impact that this plastic jug would have on every human being on this planet? No. Because we only think of profit, not the greater good of humanity.

But, it is not only plastic! You know that soft and fuzzy feeling you get when you crawl into your most snuggly hoodie in the dead of winter? Well, that feeling should come with a hit of guilt after you read this: your hoodie is most likely made of polyester and fleece. They all release microplastics which break down in the ocean and kill the ecosystem, thanks to information posted by Reimagine Co. What about your favorite leggings or when you go buy a new bikini for the summer? All bad...nylon, spandex, acrylic, and microfleece were materials that were either sold to us as comfortable, super stretchy, or warm in subzero temperatures, but they all came at a cost that big corporations will never admit to. Beached whales. I am currently watching a documentary on Netflix about plastics and microplastics in the ocean. Huge plastic containers being taking out to the middle of the ocean and dumped where no one can see. Yet, one man did see and he had a camera. Now, he has a death threat from these corporations who don't want us to know what they are doing to our sea life. Let's not forget that if these microplastics are in the bellies of all our fish, they are sure to be in our bloodstream as well.

I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about what is being done to educate the world about the harm done to our Earth. I recently listened to a Ted Talk Interview about a young climate activist. Her movement is about climate justice and her name is Xiye Bastida. I was so intrigued to learn that she is willing to fight for what she believes in because she was taught from a young age that the environment is everything. It is our rain, our rivers, our moon, our trees, our agriculture, and our food. My words, not hers. I am sure she is much more eloquent than me. Her belief is that if you take care of the Earth, it will take care of you. So let me introduce her story...

Xiye Bastida is a Mexican-Chilean climate activist and member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec nation. She is one of the major organizers of Fridays for Future New York City and has been a leading voice for indigenous and immigrant visibility in climate activism, according to Google. She is just 19-years-old and already quite experienced speaking with politicians. Her first time speaking was at a conference in Malaysia, at 15-years-old, and the most recent discussion was virtually, with Joe Biden in April 2021. Her parents are both environmentalists. When she spoke about the school strike for climate that she initiated, I was moved to tears. She is one person, fighting this fight as hard as she possibly can. She realized that she was not alone on that first day when she walked out of class to protest the government, who was doing nothing to change their policies. She was not alone when she led a march in New York and the police gave her a nod to allow the students to walk through the city, chanting the words, "If you adults won't save the world, we will".

She is on the administration committee of the People's Climate Movement and a former member of Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. She is co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, an international not-for-profit organization that is inclusive and intersectional “just as the climate movement should be”, according to Wikipedia. As if that's not enough, she also has a platform for training activists, who want to fight the environment, as mentioned in Entrepreneur.com.

What is this information overload meant for? To show you that one person can make a difference. She mentioned that many students did come to her after the school strike for climate, saying that they agreed with her but didn't know how to make a difference. They didn't believe that one person's efforts could help. She told them that they were wrong. By showing up and by telling your friends to show up, the worldwide march in September of 2019 grew to 7.6 million people standing up for climate change. One person can make a difference by spreading the word, rejecting corporations who continue to do unethical things, and educating other youth and adults on how we can start to undo the harm that has been done to Mother Earth. The whales might not survive, but if we don't make changes now, what hope do we have? The youth are on board. Are you?

Child of Hate Crimes

This week, the world we live in, here in a small city, south of London, Ontario, was brought to a halt. On Sunday, June 7, 2021, a family was innocently enjoying an evening stroll down their street when they were viciously run over by a racist man in a truck. How did the world get this bad? There have been horrific things in this world. However, when a man with Russel Crowe syndrome decides to accelerate at a traffic light because he is suddenly ignited by a family dressed in Muslim garb, the movie Unhinged, has only taught me that you have to run away, as fast as you can! How can I compare this tragic event to such a horrible movie, you might ask? What else can I compare such an unimaginable event to? I can't fathom what witnessing such an event would look like. There were many witnesses, by the way. I can't imagine what I would say to that man if I could go up to his truck with a golf club and a pair of scissors. I can't believe that something like this would happen so close to home and I am saddened that the only thing I feel, as a result of this upsetting event, is that I no longer feel comfortable walking on a sidewalk in London...

To top off the fact that a well-respected and educated mother and father, a 15-year old daughter in high school, and a dear 74-year old grandmother are no longer in this world, poor 9-year old Fayez Afzaal lies in a London hospital with broken limbs and possibly no knowledge that he is the last living family member after this larger-than-life incident. My first thought was, does he have family close by who will raise him as their own? As the funeral stated, Fayez is now an orphan. My son said it would be cool to be an orphan. That way, you can have super powers! If this is how a 6-year old thinks, then I really hope that Fayez will eventually be himself again and (maybe) be as optimistic as a kid who has never experienced harship in his life.

It has truly touched my heart, the outpouring of love from the community and support from the government, in response to this horrific event. Not only did Doug Ford waive COVID protocols so that Ontarians could gather for the vigil, all leaders of the federal government arrived within days of the event to show their solidarity against Islamaphobia.

So, where do we go from here? Influential members of the Muslim community are talking to the press to turn the tragedy of this event into something that incites change in policies. Government can take action to eliminate racism. Policies can be created to treat people equally instead of favoring a specific race. If multiculturalism is embraced from the top, the citizens of this country can be proud to display who they really are. Trudeau, himself, admitted that we are not as multicultural as we claim to be!

Yet, my mind comes back to the source of the racism. What ideas were in the head of this man, Nathaniel Veltman? How could he have the gall to think that running over one Muslim family would even out the playing field? What kind of a man has the balls to drive over a fellow human being (or 4), believing that it is the right thing to do? It has me revamping my whole post about the number of personality types. Could he really just fall into the "mean" category and leave it at that? Perhaps, I have to expand my personality types into the reasoning behind WHY they have this personality...

Let's take a look at The Celestine Prophecy by Ahmed Redfield. Haha, that was my spellcheck, ironically enough! It is actually written by James Redfield and I gotta say, it changed my life! It states that there are 4 control personalities or "dramas": the interrogator, the intimidator, the poor me, and the aloof. There is a particular order to these as well, based on how much control or fear you want to exert on other people. The book infers that people develop these personalities from childhood because our families are the first people we practice taking energy from. It is all about control and how we obtain energy from others. Perhaps, for Nathaniel, he felt that he had no control in his life...by ruining another family's life, he would somehow regain control in his life. Or, maybe it will all come out that is was simply a case of mental health issues. Temporary insanity is still a plea, right? We cannot presume that Nathaniel was completely innocent in his actions. While the police have not linked him to any racist organizations, somebody put this bug in his ear. We are always looking for someone to blame when things go bad. This week, it was him.

This is the first time that I am naming a criminal publicly. A little nervous here. Anyway, something to ponder and I hope something to tug at your heartstrings in this pandemic world we live in. People are dying, not due to COVID. This family did not deserve to be victims of racism and they certainly did not need to die at the hands of it. They had done nothing wrong. As for Fayez, nothing in this world or this universe would ask a 9-year old to live the life that he is now about embark on. My heart breaks when I think of him and what he has gone through; what he will feel when he is told the news of his family, while recovering alone in the hospital; and how he will react when he realizes that this world is full of bad people with bad thoughts. We will be dropping off a card for Fayez next week. The London Islamic School has a dropbox to forward any messages to the hospital where he has just come out of surgery. God speed, Allah be with him, and praise Jesus that he lives a long and prosperous life without residual remorse or anger.

Stay tuned for my next post about Plastics!

Stay At Home Orders and Remote Learning

We have been living the pandemic life for over a year now. When we look back to a life where we weren't restricted in our traveling, shopping, or work routines, do we remember it fondly? I, honestly, can barely remember a life before COVID! Was one of the COVID symptoms memory loss? Why is it that the last year has felt like 10? I guess when we are told by our government that we can't leave our homes, life can sometimes feel like a prison sentence. It was bearable last year, when the kids were in school and we had time to work on adult things. House cleaning, budgets, and exercise. Oh, how I miss exercise...I see neighbors jogging down the street on a daily basis, and I think, Why can't that be me? Well, maybe because I am now bogged down by house cleaning, budgeting, and working, all while my kid is constantly pestering me at home! Perhaps that is why I can only dream of an hour when I could just run out of the house and just keep on running like Forrest Gump!

Let's talk about how long the kids have been home. It all started in March 2020. Not only were we told to stay put for March break, suddenly all the play places closed and we we couldn't even enter McDonalds to keep the kids occupied. It seemed that everyone was on board for no more play dates either. But, the kids are home for the whole week! Now, the next announcement comes in that the kids won't be returning to school until April and that remote learning will begin. What is that?? I never signed up to teach my kid at home! If I knew I would be teaching my kid when he was 5-years old, I would have chosen a completely different career path...

Not only did they get rolling with online learning within a few weeks, they kept extending it without telling us, having full knowledge that the kids would not be finishing the school year at school. I was doing arts and crafts wth my kid on a daily basis. Don't even get me started on teaching him how to pronounce words and sounds in French! Where was this written in the parenting contract?? It was very frustrating for every parent, I am sure. But, what did this do to the kids? We are left explaining that the school is closed because of COVID. They can't see their friends because of COVID. The playground is closed because of COVID. No wonder they act like COVID is the monster under their bed now!

How will we move past this? How many of our kids will need therapy to recover from the effects of this pandemic? It has shattered a huge part of their childhood. Sure, kids are resilient. But, they do not forget. They will not brush off the past year as just something that happened in their life. They will not distract themselves with house cleaning, budgeting, or working because that is what adults do. They will constantly be on the lookout for the next pandemic and anytime someone gets sick or dies, they will wonder if it was the COVID that got them.

Well, that's all there is to say about that (in Forrest Gump's voice). The kids are suffering, the parents are suffering, and the teachers are suffering. With cases so low in schools, it does make me wonder that all these "fly by the seat of your pants" decisions made by our government are random and unnecessary. We will never have the herd immunity that the US does but we trust our citizens to stay home when we are told to stay home and limit travel when we are told that interprovince travel will only spread the variants further. In the end, it is always the children who suffer. We are old enough to have learned about the horrors of the world: genocide, mass murders, H1N1, SARS, terrorism, and pointless wars. However, the innocence of the kids will never be recovered after this. Remember that, the next time you are being threatened with a pencil to your butt when you are making your kid do math or write a paragraph.