Jez's Blog

When we are asked about how technology is hurting our environments, how many of us think of cellphone? In the CNN news article: How to make your cell phone greener?, by Amy Gahran, CNN notes, "cell phones have become one of the most ubiquitous hallmarks of life in the 21st century, but they aren't necessarily good for the environment."

According to the author of How to make your cell phone greener?, the materials used to produce cell phones, from plastic to rare, powdery metal tantalum, which is now known as a conflict mineral due to its causing of local exploitation and violence in Central Africa (where the mineral is primarily mined), present a variety of environmental, and even human right issues. Further, energy is needed to charge cell phones, and also to transmit calls, texts/media messages and data across wireless carrier networks. Such electricity consumption adds up to greenhouse gas emissions.

Personally, I think cell phone is one of humans' greatest invention. It allows us to communicate, and to hear each others' voices no matter how far apart we are with the person in the other side of the phone. Communication has definitely become easier and more efficient with cell phones. However, like any other new technology, the industry of cell phone is hurting our environment. This has brought us to the question: how do we protect our environment while still being able to enjoy the services of cell phones? Here are some ways that are informed by How to make your cell phone greener?. Some of them I have never hear of, however, I think it is quite important for people to know them:

1. keep your cell phones out of landfills

2. sell or reuse your used cell phones

3. buy an used cell phone rather than a new one

4. choose cell phone models that claim to be greener than most; choose cell phones that are made of recycled or recyclable materials

5. text -- texting is the most energy-efficient communication option

6. call from an old-fashion land line, which uses less power to transmit calls

Save the Earth from that "one missed call"!




Reference:
-http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/09/24/greener.cell.phones/index.html CNN Environment: How to make your cell phone greener? CNN© 2010 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.]

"A woman has been arrested in America after footage was found on her mobile phone of her two-year-old daughter apparently smoking marijuana" -- Telegraph.co.uk

What the heck? This was the first thing came up in my mind when I saw this on the news. I was too shocked to realize what the mother has said in the video. However, as I watched the video again on YouTube, I caught the words "don't blow on it," and "bad". Also, I caught the mother's laughter, sounded satisfied and proud. I felt disgusted then. What is it to be proud about if your 2-year-old daughter smokes marijuana? What was the mother thinking about?

"It is everyone's first time to be a parent," a friend of my parents told me when I complained about my parents to her, "they've been trying their best to do it right." Her words made me stop complaining because I know what she said was true. I found a book called How to be a Parent on my father's bookshelf before. I thought it was funny, but I was also touched because I knew he bought the book because of me. He wanted to be a good parent, and he wanted to do it right, which was why he needed a book to teach him, that's all. However, because of this memory, it has become more confusing that a mother would teach her own daughter to smoke marijuana -- an action which may cause various health problems, such as heart attack and lung infections. I do not see how it is "trying to do it [to be a parent] right".

I have noticed the dressing of the little girl and the house in the background while watching the video. The little girl's dress seems too big for her, and the house seems dark, small, and unadorned. It is quite obvious that it isn't a wealthy family, and as most of us would agree, that poverty causes the lack of education, which causes recklessness in people's behavior. Perhaps, this is why the mother teaches her 2-year-old daughter to smoke marijuana. She might not know how dangerous marijuana could be when inhaled to one's body. I don't know... I really don't understand what the mother was thinking when she gave her daughter marijuana. Somebody should teach her that this is not right!

Last night, while I was trying to finish my humanities homework, I found myself rather moody. There was nothing else but all these homework piling up on my desk, which I thought it might help reminding me how much work I had to do, and so that I had no time to be whiny and emotional. However, it was useless. I could not concentrate at all. Therefore I gave up trying to work, and decided to take a break. Then, as I dazed, a friend called. What a perfect timing? I thought. And so we started to chat.

I planned to mutter through our entire conversation, but apparently he was planning to do the same thing; and as tradition, when one complains, the other one automatically became the listener. In this case, I, the quiet one, became the listener as a matter of course. So I listened as he complained. He complained about all kinds of things in his life. It was too much to remember all of them, but I do remember one of them.

"My aunt once told me, 'imagine that you have a bag to put everything you have in it; and how heavy the bag is, is how heavy your pressure is,'" he said, "and everything includes your family, friends, school, job, books, clothes, and etc... it's everything." I loved this saying. It is basically saying that the more things you care about, the more responsibility you are taking. Yet you can never make everything all right, and that is where pressure comes from. However, before I could relate myself to the saying, he started to tell me how it relates to him. His bag is heavy because of it has his family in it. He told me how close everyone in his family is -- from his grand parents, to his aunts, uncles, father and mother, to his cousins and him -- and how this fact bothers him. "Everyone puts their attention on you," he said, "it's kind of stressful sometimes." Yeah, I agreed. I have a very big family on my mother's side, and I am the only person in the family who goes to an international school. So everyone has been quite curious about my future. They have been asking my mother about me, and of course, my mother always keeps them updated. This gives me a feeling as if I'm on a stage with a thousand audiences watching me. It enlarges every mistakes that I make. And so I'd have to be very careful of everything I do. Stressful, sometimes.

I have a discrepant mind. Thus, as I thought further of the saying, I thought that sometimes, on the other hand, what if there is nothing in the bag for you to carry? ". . . how heavy the bag is, is how heavy your pressure is." If you empty your bag just to avoid the heaviness, would you feel a since of emptiness? Could it be the more you are able to carry, to handle, the stronger you get? Like weight training -- the heavier you can lift, the stronger you become. Maybe it could be nice to have your "everything" after all. Besides, things that you would put into the bag are all the ones that you love, aren't they?





-http://www.selectism.com/news/2009/07/22/capsule-ny-shades-of-greige-bags-for-spring-2010/ [Image. Copied by Jez. 12 Sep. 2010.]

CNN reports, 30 year-old Chris Keith was 12 when he learned that his family didn't die in a car accident in 1985. Chris was explained, by his grandparents, that his father suffocated his mother, shot his brother, Mikey, in the back of the head while he slept, and the worse of all, before he committed suicide, Chris' father, shot Chis in the forehead. Medics had declared everyone in the house dead.

"It was almost like going through it again. I started feeling all these feelings again, of anger, of betrayal, of feeling like nobody wanted me. I was angry at the world, and mad at my grandparents for waiting so long to tell me," said Chris, ". . . . my own dad tried to kill me, so who am I supposed to trust?" These words struck me while I was browsing through the article. How would I feel if the person who I love, and that I trust, tries to hurt me? Shocked, angry, betrayed, and lost perhaps.

According to Chris, incident such as the one that Chris has experienced in 1985 still happens. For example, the resent case in South Carolina where a mother is accused of suffocating her two boys before putting them into their car seats and letting the car roll into a river. Why would a parent try to kill their own children, their own flesh? Chris wonders these questions as well.

Looking at news and stories like this makes people frown. Also, it may cause people to wonder about the morality of our society. What happened to morality among people that is causing parents to kill their children? However, fortunately that in Chris' case, he is able to bear his sorrowful memory, and stay positive about his life. "Doctors don't know why I'm alive. . . . I have a second chance in life, and I just want to make the most of it, and maybe help others who are internally suffering," he said to the CNN reporter. Chris married young, at the age of 19, due to his longing for a family. He believes that his 6-year-son is the proof of that good can come from evil. Now Chris tells his story to youth groups at juvenile justice centers. He tells struggling youth that they are not alone. "Even when we feel we have no inner strength left, you can make it," he says. I'm impressed by Chris' positive attitude toward his unfortunate past.

He's got many goals in life. At the top of the list: "To not end up like my dad."



Reference:
-http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/03/survivor.family.massacre/index.html#fbid=cxFA5Zf2tbH&wom=false [Picture, CNN News Article: My own dad tried to kill me. Copied by Jez. 04 Sep. 2010]