An open letter to all mothers

 

Why am I addressing a letter to all mothers?  Because I think mothers of all ages need more attention and help than they are getting in our present times.  Older mothers usually have a daughter or two hanging about, and those who don’t will still have nieces, daughter’s-in-law or grand daughters. All should be interested in this post because it affects all mothers, mothers-to-be, and their female progeny.

There is a recent Italian study reporting that for the first time, microplastic particles have been found in the placenta of human fetuses.  Microplastics carry with them substances that can cause long-term negative effects on human health. However, in 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) said there was not enough evidence to say that mothers ingesting these particles was harmful to human health.  Will the WHO take this recent Italian study seriously? I doubt it. But we’ll see.

What does this mean specifically for Canadian mothers? In 2016 a federal Canadian study found that 29,000 tonnes of plastic garbage, the equivalent of about 2.3 billion single-use plastic water bottles, ended up in Canadian beaches, parks, lakes, and in the air. The Trudeau government has imposed a federal ban on single use plastic products, with regulations finalized by the end 2021.

So, we are becoming more aware of what mothers and babies are actually up against. But it’s more complicated than that, as current identity politics is challenging the language of motherhood so that the physiological challenges we are facing become even harder to address. I know that language is always changing, but changes have both intended and unintended consequences. Take for example a maternity ward in the UK has replaced the term ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chestfeeding’.

Women are being told that their identity and experiences need to more gender ‘inclusive’, and to use gender ‘neutral’ language, because anything else is exclusionary. Yet these asks can be exclusionary to women – to their lived experience and identity. But in trying to have a genuine conversation about these issues quickly labels one transphobic, even for those of us who support trans rights.  

While gender identity and biological sex are not equivalent, the assertion that they have nothing to do with each other can distract from pressing biological reproduction issues, such as microplastics in the placenta. Or the fact that globally the sperm count has declined by 50%. Yes, you read that right.

We know that gender is not a neutral social construct that can be claimed by anyone. To pretend that it is, is at best short-sighted, and at worst purposefully harmful. Gender has a history and a weight to it. People can be different, and those differences celebrated, without erasing other peoples’ lived experiences and identities, and without distracting us from pressing issues within human reproduction. That’s the message we should be fighting for. Next time.

Another Vaccine Option for Canada?

Given the enormous amount of time the Canadian media, following the lead from their US counterparts, spend bad-mouthing Russia, I really don’t expect the suggestion I am going to make here will go anywhere. 

 

But I’ll make it anyway. It seems like a prudent and practical thing to do. 

 

With the bad faith and runaround from our current vaccine ‘non-suppliers’, I think we Canadians have the right to ask our government to look elsewhere for possible vaccines. And where might that be? 

 

Eastward, to Russia. Of course I realize that some of you may want to throw up at the mere suggestion. I understand. After all, how can our government be expected to buy anything as important as a life-saving vaccine from a country we’ve been taught to fear as an enemy. 

 

On the other hand, if that fear can be recognized as a disadvantage to the health and well-being of our nation, this fear and aversion might be worth revising in the light of the pandemic. But even if Canada somehow managed to overcome the political fear and distrust of Russia, how do we know the vaccine is safe?

 

Well, The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world recently announced the “Sputnik V” vaccine provides more than 90% immunity with apparently minimal side affects. This is significantly better than the Oxford/AstraZenca vaccine (70%) developed the UK. Both vaccines use the same adenovirus-based technology, but currently only one has been authorized and is coming to Canada – even though it is much less effective.

 

Twenty-one different countries since December have granted emergency use authorization of the Sputnik V vaccine, including Israel and United Arab Emirates. EU diplomats in Moscow have been given the green light to receive the vaccine, and mainstream media is starting to report on the countries lining up to distribute and/or make the vaccine, including Brazil and India. 

 

I would personally feel much relieved if Sputnik V could be added to Canada’s arsenal of options, poor as they have been, and politics be dammed. Next time.

 

Shorting the system

 

I started this post last week to continue investigating the Great Reset, you know, that great world plan the elite bankers and European leaders have in store for the western bankrupt world. How ever, my attention was momentarily stayed, like many others, by the furor surrounding the Great Stock Market Upset. 

 

I have never owned a stock in my entire long risk-taking life. I have rarely had enough money that might even tempt me to throw it away on the gambling casinos of the stock market. The immediate needs of food, shelter, education for kids kept my attention safely away from these kinds of ventures. However, the past couple of weeks have rather riveted my attention to what is happening in the hedge fund stock markets. Of course I am talking about that group of individuals, the ‘Reddits’, who are mostly young, male, unemployed or marginally employed, and are extremely tech savvy. They also, or at least some of them, appear to have a simmering resentment against stock short sellers. 

 

Short sellers are those who come together, also as a group, pick out a struggling company and place a bet that the company will fail. They even help the company’s failure along by using media to inform everybody in the market that the company is in trouble which further drives the price down. When the company’s stock goes down far enough, and is facing bankruptcy, the shorters cash in their bets. Then when the company is all but destroyed, the short sellers start bidding the company price back up again in order to get it into the position of being sufficiently well enough, but not too well, to short it again. Wonderful sport, these short squeeze vultures, who are the financial elites of wall street. So enter those with time on their hands, some having lost jobs during the pandemic or memories of being teenagers when their parents lost their homes during the 2008 blood letting.

 

They decided to pool their resources and enter the stock market world and try to short the shorters. They found a flailing company that was being shorted by the hedge fund managers and began to buy the failing stock GameStop. But the Reddits plan was different. When the stock went up due to their own buying they didn’t cash out. They just kept buying and as more people piled in, the stock kept going up. The shorters began to sweat and wound up losing a great deal of money. 

 

Now they are very angry. They are appealing to the new American government to do something about these upstarts, although the Reddits did nothing illegal. They simply outwitted the shorters – they won a rigged game, at least temporarily. Will the Biden government oblige? Will they come up with some new plan to protect their big donor short sellers? Probably. We’ll see what the Reddits do next, or people like them who are using the power of distributed virtual networks to unsettle the status quo. And what effect, if any, they might have on the Great Reset. Next time.