No parking spots, but where are the people?
Here was Clover Point on Saturday just after lunch time. A glorious weekend day, not a parking spot to be had and the misuse of the Clover Point area is obvious.
Thanks Lisa and cohorts!
Dave Teece
Victoria
Get the Earth back to room temperature
Re: “Don’t complain about heat, it’s worse elsewhere,” letter, May 15.
I will stop complaining about the heat when the Earth finally cools to room temperature and stays there permanently.
As a “well site geologist,” unless you were referring to well water for drinking and agriculture, you have contributed to the problem and your complaints about my complaints fall on deaf ears.
Aaron Malmgren
Colwood
Origins of Mother’s Day date to the Middle Ages
Re: “Refocus, decommercialize Mother’s Day to return to its roots, sociologist says,” May 13.
Nicole Thompson asserts that Mother’s Day originated in the United States, but its history goes back much further than that.
Thompson does not mention that Mother’s Day has universal historical and religious roots. In the U.K., the custom began during the Middle Ages. It has always been held on the fourth Sunday of the Christian festival of Lent.
The custom came about because this was traditionally when those who had moved away for work would come back and visit their ‘mother church’ and their own mothers, which is also why it is often referred to as Mothering Sunday.
Growing up in England, I clearly remember attending Mothering Day services on a Sunday in March. And there are Mother’s Day traditions in many countries and religions around the world. That is what makes this such a special event.
There are many reasons why people wish to remember and honour not just the mothers who have, or are raising them, but women who have mentored, supported and cherished them through good and bad times.
Yes, it has become more commercialized as the years have gone on, but the intent of Mother’s Day, no matter where one lives, tends to remain the same today.
We return or call home to our mothers.
It is quite wonderful in this day and age to appreciate someone for what they do for others. Appreciation may not be fashionable at the moment, but that does not make it any less valuable.
Mother’s Day is just that: A day that unites us in recognizing and valuing the important women in our lives.
Anna Bowness-Park
Victoria
Memorable Mother’s Day thanks to the burial park
Upon entering Royal Oak Burial Park to visit my mother’s grave on Sunday, I was greeted by a burial park employee. He handed me a bouquet of greens and three carnations along with a kind comment related to Mother’s Day.
Lest I say this year’s time at the gravesite of my mother was memorable.
As I left the park, I stopped to thank the chap once again, only to see that he was still fully engaged in handing out bouquets.
Take a bow, Royal Oak Burial Park!
Tony Southwell
Saanich
Try different tactics to fight climate change
For years climate-concerned Canadians have made little progress in persuading federal or provincial governments to do anything greatly effective in curbing our total climate warming emissions.
The same political parties fund and allow continuing and even new fossil fuel projects and spreading our geographical footprint at the expense of climate cooling treed areas and other climate stabilizing ecosystems. But preserving comfort and safety, and the very lives of all our descendants, needs decisive action now.
Elites tend to believe themselves less vulnerable, and only they really matter enough to act decisively for. They favour those with whom they converse most often and who they see as having the most agency, and therefore, importance.
Fossil fuel lobbyists and allied stakeholders fit this description.
The recourse in this time of emergency is to stop voting for larger party candidates, even those who would like to stop fossil industry supports and transition humanely to clean energy systems, but toe their party line and so allow fudging and unethical and life-destructive behaviour to continue.
The climate-concerned must switch support with membership, money, volunteering and voting to Green parties.
Though not enough votes are initially garnered to change which party forms government, it should push governments and allied parties to fear being dethroned or diminished so they enact better legislation and regulation, thus reducing our impending problems.
Continuing the same tactics and getting similar results in a similar system of forces while expecting change isn’t good enough. Try differently.
G.R. Evans
Saanich
All those tough guys have given many things
Re: “Breaking news from the world of the tough guys,” letter, May 13.
So toxic masculinity is bad for your health? Don’t get too upset, toxic masculinity built every bridge you’ve ever driven, walked or cycled over.
All good things.
Paul Barriscale
James Bay
Again, more on that plastic bag subject
“You cannot destroy matter” — at least, that’s what we were taught in school.
I’m 84, so that school was a time ago, but I don’t think they have altered that thought.
This idea that we now have degradable plastic bags is just making some of the people feel better about using them.
All that plastic does is to degrade, or break down into ever smaller pieces so that it sort of disappears into the soil or oceans. It breaks down enough that even the smallest of creatures in the oceans can ingest it.
It breaks down in the soil so that plants can even enjoy taking it up in their roots. Probably even we are enjoying it in what we eat from our gardens.
We even hear the word “compostable” when talking about those millions of doggy doo bags. And that is just so wrong. In a million years, a plastic bag will never compost.
It may get to a point where you may not recognize it as plastic, but it’s still in there and in there forever, destroying the lovely soil in your garden.
And, being absorbed by the vegetables you grow there. Sounds rather yummy doesn’t it.
Give it as many years as you please, a product of petroleum will never become organic.
Just a thought, but maybe we should make it against the law to alter the plastic so that it degrades. At least when we see the plastic bag blowing in the wind or washed up on our shore, we can gather it up. We can’t gather up the tiny pieces that gather on our shores and that will fill our lovely soil beds.
Now of course, what we do with all the used bags that are gathered up is another story. And one we haven’t yet developed properly.
And, the other side to all of this is that it would be a very rare thing to find a household in the world that doesn’t rely on plastic bags for some part of their living.
So, we will never be without them.
Lyall Eriksen
Colwood
We are already using Indigenous words
Esquimalt, Saanich, Nanaimo, Tillicum, Nunavut, Quebec, Yukon, Manitoba … all names derived from Indigenous languages.
You will manage to learn to say and read all of the new words, too!
Angela Ferguson
Victoria
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