Deeply Superficial

Winter Cruelty-Free Goodies

1. Clarisonic

A (gentle!) electric toothbrush for your face, the Clarisonic Sonic Skin Cleansing System is a gentle way to exfoliate your skin daily. I’ve been try to sleuth out whether this company, Pacific Bioscience Laboratories, tests on animals, because they do also create cleansers and serums, but it’s a bit more difficult because their main product is this electronic device. Please let me know if anyone has any dirt on this dirt-eliminating company.

The Clarisonic Mia (the mini version) is $150.00 dollars and worth every penny because it’s a massage for your face which takes off up to six times the amount of make-up as manual washing. It also combats dryness and evens skin tone, leaving your skin baby smooth, baby.

2. Kat Von D Autograph Liquid Eyeliner

Haven’t been able to find any info about Kat Von D being vegetarian (although I did see her photographed at The Cheesecake Factory last week with her fug bf). But Kat Von D has come out naked against fur, like the rest of the somewhat considerate fame-whores. You can’t judge an eyeliner by its celebrity endorser though. This liquid eyeliner goes on with precision and has that color pop that many dry eyeliners don’t. I like the Rhi-Venge Electric Blue to switch it up a little when everything outside is grey.

3. Moroccan Oil Shampoo

Not tested on animals to the extent of the bunny symbol (the most trusted and universally recognized cruelty-free symbol – they even  specificy that none of their ingredients are animal tested), Morrocan Oil has been the best hair product I’ve found for keeping the hair healthy and soft.

I was a little skeptical when I noticed that the shampoo doesn’t have any sulfates – the component which creates lather (which is actually a good thing as sulfates are thought to strip the hair of its natural oils), but this shampoo does have a bit of soft lather to it if you apply,  rinse, then reapply, so it doesn’t leave the hair feeling stripped as other non-sulfate shampoos do. At $18.00  a bottle, this shampoo requires only a dime size amount, so it’s worth it. And so are you. Take that l’Oreal. (You test on animals, we steal your catch phrase.)

4. TIGI Brunette Goddess Conditioner

The most important thing about this conditioner is that it smells like cupcakes. Secondly, it makes your hair smooth, tangle-free, and shiny. TIGI tests their products on humans, not animals. A great way to have your cupackes without eating them, too.

5. Druide Almond Body Wash

This pricy bodywash ($10.00 for a small bottle), smells amazing, like almond extract, and is a great alternative to bar soap. Druide is a completely vegan brand. The consistency of this product is almost liquid, so it’s more like a concentrated serum of natural ingredients like sandalwood, oriental verbena, and bitter almond.

6. Make Up For Ever Aqua Creamliner

Though their website is extremely flashy and unhelpful – very Fashion File 1993 – the consensus on Make Up For Ever seems to be that they don’t test on animals (and haven’t for ten years), which is great because their Aqua Creamliner is a product far superior to Mac’s Fluidline. This creamy eye make up can be used as both a liner and shadow. It goes on smoothly, but also comes off smoothly, contrary to Mac’s Fluidline which is difficult to apply, even harder to take off, and which dries up almost instantly, rendering it useless.

Another piece of evidence that this brand does not test on animals is that they are affiliated with Sephora.

Here is Sephora’s response letter to their policy on animal testing:

Thank you for contacting Sephora.com

Sephora.com is a retailer for over 250 brands. Our private label brand, Sephora Collection, is cruelty free (meaning, the products have never been tested on animals) (Note from EnviroWoman: Cruelty-free is more than this, the product should also not include animal ingredients), but I cannot guarantee that every brand we sell is. Due to public outcry in the 1980’s, the vast majority of cosmetics companies stopped animal testing.

Other than the CARGO Plant Love lipstick I don’t know of any other lines that we carry that are entirely free from being packaged in plastics.

You will want to look for any of these logos: (Labels can be deceiving, so be careful. No specific laws exist regarding cruelty-free labeling of products, so companies can take liberties.)

• “No New Products tested on Animals”
• “No Animal Testing”
• “Cruelty Free”

If you would like more information regarding Animal Ingredients and Companies that don’t test or ones that do check out these websites:

• www.leapingbunny.org
• http://www.peta-online.org/mall/cc.html
• http://pw1.netcom.com/~axleplus/stuff/hotstuff/company.html

Best regards, Sarah R. Sephora.com Client Services

Phat Joke

No fat jokes intended. Only phat ones.

The Importance of Protein

Protein is essential to human health. Our bodies—hair, muscles, fingernails, and so on—are made up mostly of protein. As suggested by the differences between our muscles and our fingernails, not all proteins are alike. This is because differing combinations of any number of 20 amino acids may constitute a protein. In much the same way that the 26 letters of our alphabet serve to form millions of different words, the 20 amino acids serve to form different proteins.

Amino acids are a fundamental part of our diet. While half of the 20 can be manufactured by the human body, the other 10 cannot.1 These “essential amino acids” can easily be provided by a balanced vegan diet.

How Much Protein?

As babies, our mothers’ milk provided the protein we needed to grow healthy and strong. Once we start eating solid foods, non-animal sources can easily provide us with all the protein we need. Only 10 percent of the total calories consumed by the average human being need be in the form of protein.2

The Recommended Dietary Daily Allowance for both men and women is 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight.3 People with special needs (such as pregnant women) are advised to get a little more.

Vegans should not worry about getting enough protein; if you eat a reasonably varied diet and ingest sufficient calories, you will undoubtedly get enough protein. Protein deficiency, or “kwashiorkor,” is very rare in the U.S. and is usually diagnosed in people living in countries suffering from famine.4 By contrast, eating too much animal protein has been directly linked to the formation of kidney stones and has been associated with cancer of the colon and liver.5,6 By replacing animal protein with vegetable protein, you can improve your health while enjoying a wide variety of delicious foods.

Protein Sources

While just about every vegetarian food contains some protein, the soybean deserves special mention, for it contains all the essential amino acids and surpasses all other food plants in the amount of protein that it can deliver to the human system. In this regard, it is nearly equal to meat. The human body is able to digest 92 percent of the protein found in meat and 91 percent of that found in soybeans.7

The many different and delicious soy products (such as tempeh, soy “hot dogs” and “burgers,” Tofutti brand “ice cream,” soy milk, and tofu) available in health and grocery stores suggest that the soybean, in its many forms, can accommodate a wide range of tastes.

Other rich sources of non-animal protein include legumes, nuts, seeds, yeast, and freshwater algae. Although food yeasts (“nutritional yeast” and “brewer’s yeast”) do not lend themselves to forming the center of one’s diet, they are extremely nutritious additions to most menus (in soups, gravies, breads, casseroles, and dips). Most yeasts get about 50 percent of their calories from protein.8

Here are some examples of vegetarian foods with high sources of plant protein:

PROTEIN IN LEGUMES: Garbanzo beans, Kidney beans, Lentils, Lima beans, Navy beans, Soybeans, Split peas

PROTEIN IN GRAINS: Barley, Brown rice, Buckwheat, Millet, Oatmeal, Quinoa, Rye, Wheat germ, Wheat, hard red, Wild rice

VEGETABLE PROTEIN: Artichokes, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Green peas, Green pepper, Kale, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Mustard green, Onions, Potatoes, Spinach, Tomatoes, Turnip greens, Watercress, Yams, Zucchini

PROTEIN IN FRUITS: Apple, Banana, Cantaloupe, Grape, Grapefruit, Honeydew melon, Orange, Papaya, Peach, Pear, Pineapple, Strawberry, Tangerine, Watermelon.

PROTEIN IN NUTS AND SEEDS: Almonds, Cashews, Filberts, Hemp Seeds, Peanuts, Pumpkin seeds, Sesame seeds, Sunflower seeds, Walnuts (black)

One excellent ingredient to look for is hemp seed protein. Hemp seed is an nutritious dietary source of easily digestible gluten-free protein. It provides a well-balanced array of all the amino acids, including 34.6 grams of protein for each 100 grams. The fatty acid profile of the hemp seed is extremely beneficial, containing omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in a virtually ideal ratio. Other beneficial aspects of hemp seed include a strongly favorable unsaturated-to-saturated fat ratio; a high content of antioxidants; and a wide variety of vitamins and minerals.

I Can’t Watch This

Can You?

The HSUS uncovers veal calf abuse as newborn babies are put to slaughter.

 

Carnivores and Herbivores Agree…

…Factory Farming is a Black Mark on the Human Soul

It would seem that at a very basic level, both meateaters and vegans agree that factory farming is not good for anyone. The churning out of animals as products hits a little too close to The Matrix for people, and even those who cherish their steak and burgers would prefer their dinner came from a happy farm – not a filthy, crowded Cowschwitz.

Whether it’s the development of widespread diseases such as H1N1, the chronic digestive problems caused by consuming animal products full of anti-biotics, the extreme impact that animal waste is having on our environment, or the massive amounts of fossil fuels generated by the animal industry, people of all diets are becoming critical of the current systems we have in place before even looking at the issue of animal suffering.

In Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, “Eating Animals”, he writes from the perspective of a new father concerned about what he’s feeding his child. Initially a fiction writer, Foer decided to take on the “controversial” subject because the drive was in him to get the information not provided to us by the animal industry in circulation. The following article was written for CNN:

Eating Animals is Making Us Sick

Like most people, I’d given some thought to what meat actually is, but until I became a father and faced the prospect of having to make food choices on someone else’s behalf, there was no urgency to get to the bottom of things.

I’m a novelist and never had it in mind to write nonfiction. Frankly, I doubt I’ll ever do it again. But the subject of animal agriculture, at this moment, is something no one should ignore. As a writer, putting words on the page is how I pay attention.

If the way we raise animals for food isn’t the most important problem in the world right now, it’s arguably the No. 1 cause of global warming: The United Nations reports the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.

It’s the No. 1 cause of animal suffering, a decisive factor in the creation of zoonotic diseases like bird and swine flu, and the list goes on. It is the problem with the most deafening silence surrounding it.

Even the most political people, the most thoughtful and engaged, tend not to “go there.” And for good reason. Going there can be extremely uncomfortable. Food is not just what we put in our mouths to fill up; it is culture and identity. Reason plays some role in our decisions about food, but it’s rarely driving the car.

We need a better way to talk about eating animals, a way that doesn’t ignore or even just shruggingly accept things like habits, cravings, family and history but rather incorporates them into the conversation. The more they are allowed in, the more able we will be to follow our best instincts. And although there are many respectable ways to think about meat, there is not a person on Earth whose best instincts would lead him or her to factory farming.

My book, “Eating Animals,” addresses factory farming from numerous perspectives: animal welfare, the environment, the price paid by rural communities, the economic costs. In two essays, I will share some of what I’ve learned about how the way we raise animals for food affects human health.

What we eat and what we are

Why aren’t more people aware of, and angry about, the rates of avoidable food-borne illness? Perhaps it doesn’t seem obvious that something is amiss simply because anything that happens all the time — like meat, especially poultry, becoming infected by pathogens — tends to fade into the background.

Whatever the case, if you know what to look for, the pathogen problem comes into terrifying focus. For example, the next time a friend has a sudden “flu” — what folks sometimes misdescribe as “the stomach flu” — ask a few questions. Was your friend’s illness one of those “24-hour flus” that come and go quickly: retch or crap, then relief? The diagnosis isn’t quite so simple, but if the answer to this question is yes, your friend probably didn’t have the flu at all.

He or she was probably suffering from one of the 76 million cases of food-borne illness the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated happen in America each year. Your friend didn’t “catch a bug” so much as eat a bug. And in all likelihood, that bug was created by factory farming.

Beyond the sheer number of illnesses linked to factory farming, we know that factory farms are contributing to the growth of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens simply because these farms consume so many antimicrobials.

We have to go to a doctor to obtain antibiotics and other antimicrobials as a public-health measure to limit the number of such drugs being taken by humans. We accept this inconvenience because of its medical importance. Microbes eventually adapt to antimicrobials, and we want to make sure it is the truly sick who benefit from the finite number of uses any antimicrobial will have before the microbes learn how to survive it.

On a typical factory farm, drugs are fed to animals with every meal. In poultry factory farms, they almost have to be. It’s a perfect storm: The animals have been bred to such extremes that sickness is inevitable, and the living conditions promote illness.

Industry saw this problem from the beginning, but rather than accept less-productive animals, it compensated for the animals’ compromised immunity with drugs. As a result, farmed animals are fed antibiotics nontherapeutically: that is, before they get sick.

In the United States, about 3 million pounds of antibiotics are given to humans each year, but a whopping 17.8 million pounds are fed to livestock — at least, that is what the industry claims.

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimated that the industry underreported its antibiotic use by at least 40 percent.

The group calculated that 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics were fed to chickens, pigs and other farmed animals, counting only nontherapeutic uses. And that was in 2001. In other words, for every dose of antibiotics taken by a sick human, eight doses are given to a “healthy” animal.

The implications for creating drug-resistant pathogens are quite straightforward. Study after study has shown that antimicrobial resistance follows quickly on the heels of the introduction of new drugs on factory farms.

For example, in 1995, when the Food and Drug Administration approved fluoroquinolones — such as Cipro — for use in chickens against the protest of the Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of bacteria resistant to this powerful new class of antibiotics rose from almost zero to 18 percent by 2002.

A broader study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed an eightfold increase in antimicrobial resistance from 1992 to 1997 and linked this increase to the use of antimicrobials in farmed chickens. As far back as the late 1960s, scientists have warned against the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farmed-animal feed.

Today, institutions as diverse as the American Medical Association; the Centers for Disease Control; the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences; and the World Health Organization have linked nontherapeutic antibiotic use on factory farms with increased antimicrobial resistance and called for a ban.

Still, the factory farm industry has effectively opposed such a ban in the United States. And, unsurprisingly, the limited bans in other countries are only a limited solution.

There is a glaring reason that the necessary total ban on nontherapeutic use of antibiotics hasn’t happened: The factory farm industry, allied with the pharmaceutical industry, has more power than public-health professionals.

What is the source of the industry’s immense power? We give it to them. We have chosen, unwittingly, to fund this industry on a massive scale by eating factory-farmed animal products. And we do so daily.

The same conditions that lead at least 76 million Americans to become ill from their food annually and that promote antimicrobial resistance also contribute to the risk of a pandemic.

At a remarkable 2004 conference, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) put their tremendous resources together to evaluate the available information on “emerging zoonotic diseases” or those spread by humans-to- animals and animals-to-humans.

At the time of the conference, H5N1 and SARS topped the list of feared emerging zoonotic diseases. Today, the H1N1 swine flu would be the pathogen enemy No. 1.

The scientists distinguished between “primary risk factors” for zoonotic diseases and mere “amplification risk factors,” which affect only the rate at which a disease spreads. Their examples of primary risk factors were “change to an agricultural production system or consumption patterns.” What particular agricultural and consumer changes did they have in mind?

First in a list of four main risk factors was “increasing demand for animal protein,” which is a way of saying that demand for meat, eggs, and dairy is a “primary factor” influencing emerging zoonotic diseases. This demand for animal products, the report continues, leads to “changes in farming practices.” Lest we have any confusion about the “changes” that are relevant, poultry factory farms are singled out.

Similar conclusions were reached by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, which brought together industry experts and experts from the WHO, OIE and USDA. Their 2005 report argued that a major impact of factory farming is “the rapid selection and amplification of pathogens that arise from a virulent ancestor (frequently by subtle mutation), thus there is increasing risk for disease entrance and/or dissemination.”

Breeding genetically uniform and sickness-prone birds in the overcrowded, stressful, feces-infested and artificially lit conditions of factory farms promotes the growth and mutation of pathogens. The “cost of increased efficiency,” the report concludes, is increased global risk for diseases. Our choice is simple: cheap chicken or our health.

Today, the factory farm-pandemic link couldn’t be more lucid. The primary ancestor of the recent H1N1 swine flu outbreak originated at a hog factory farm in America’s most hog-factory-rich state, North Carolina, and then quickly spread throughout the Americas.

It was in these factory farms that scientists saw, for the first time, viruses that combined genetic material from bird, pig and human viruses. Scientists at Columbia and Princeton Universities have actually been able to trace six of the eight genetic segments of the most feared virus in the world directly to U.S. factory farms.

Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science, that something terribly wrong is happening. We know that it cannot possibly be healthy to raise such grotesque animals in such grossly unnatural conditions. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film.

We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory — disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat, we live on tortured flesh. Increasingly, those sick animals are making us sick.

Coffee? Tea? Inside Job?

The Dead Know All Y’all

They said our plane crashed into the Pentagon. Flight 77 was a giant fucking  jet. Think it might have done a little more damage? Wingspan, people – wingspan!

That’s right y’all, they took us down mid-air. Not Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, Majed Moqed, and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the American fucking government yo! I’m dead, so what are y’all going to do about it?

 

Just Say It

I don’t listen to that much dub because it’s so gradual, but this track is more like tantalizing…

Enjoy.

Devoted to all the veg curious out there. “You look so curious…”

(with a sidebar message of: step it up a notch, fellas ; )

Booty Luv, on NML radio

Fall Out

The Real Reason Behind Fall Break-Outs

For anyone who has noticed they tend to break out more in the fall, it’s not stress of a new school term or a new job. It’s not because you’re depressed that winter is coming.

In the book, Acne RX, written by Dr. James E. Fulton Jr., I recently learned that there are fluctuations in our hormones that occur once our UV intake is reduced after summer. Our testosterone (the hormone responsible for the libido) increases at this time, providing us with the primal urge to go out and git er done, as biologically, babies have a better chance at surviving if they are born in the middle of summer. Consequentially, it is testosterone that ups our sebum production, clogging pores.  How nice that our outdated animal urges try to force us to have unwanted children.

It has been recorded that acne sufferers in Northern climates tend to have an increase in breakouts during fall, whereas Southern climates do not experience this phenomena.

So if it seems like your skin is always trying to sabotage you just when you’re trying to get your life on a new track, here some steps you can take:

1) Get a little UV as the sun is peacing out. Tan once a week for several weeks. Dermatologists would freak at this suggestion, but it just makes sense doesn’t it? You can always lightly cover your face if you don’t want facial sun damage.

2) Up your skin regimen as fall sets in. If you’re stopped using a product with active ingredients, pick it back up a few weeks before fall sets in to keep the skin running like a well oiled not oily machine.

3) Keeping the skin exfoliated is the trick. Have a glycolic or salicylic peel to get at those impurities deep under the skin’s surface.

Don’t forget to choose solutions that aren’t tested on animals. If we don’t ask for it with our dollars, it will never stop. Pretty much any pharmaceuticals are going to be tested and if you have debilitating acne, well you just have to do the best you can, but here’s a list of the bad guys to watch out for:

Repeat after me .. “I will no longer give my hard-earned dollars  to companies that cruelly and needlessly torture animals and spray their faces with banal products.” Below, you will find a fairly comprehensive list of companies that test their products on animals.

*I have only included the companies which I’m familiar with. Click link for further info.

Companies that are NOT Animal Friendly

• Alberto-Culver Co. (Alberto V05, Baker’s Joy, Consort, FDS, Just for Men, Mrs. Dash, Nexxus, Noxzema, Soft & Beautiful, Static Gaurd, St.Ives, Sugar Twin, TRESemmé) [PET]
• Arm & Hammer *SEE CHURCH & DWIGHT
• Avon Products Inc. [UNC] ["Avon will conduct animal testing only when required by law."]. *However, do, at least have a formal policy against testing via their breast cancer research fund.
• Baush & Lomb (Curel, Soft Sense, Clear Choice) *Owns Charles River Breeding Laboratories
• Beiersdorf Inc. (Nivea, Basis, Eucerin, florena, Juvena, la prairie, Labello) [UNC]
• Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream *SEE UNILEVER
• BIC Corp. *Observing Moratorium [PET]
• Blistex, Inc. (Foille, Kank-A, Glysomed)
• Block Drug Co. (Sensodyne, Carpet Fresh, Lava, Polident, Targon) [PET]
• The Body Shop Int’l *SEE L’OREAL [YES, STOP ASKING]
• Braun *SEE P & G
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (4-Way, Alpha Keri, Ammens, Aussie, Ban, Bufferin, Clairol, Comtrex, Coumadin, DuPont Pharmaceutical, Elisor, Excedrin, Final Net, Fisherman’s Friend, Fostex, Glucophage, Herbal Essences, Keri, Redmond)
• Burberry *Fur promotion or marketing
• Burt’s Bees
• [Coco] Chanel Inc. (Allure, Chanel) *Fur promotion or marketing
• Church & Dwight (Aim, Answer, Arm & Hammer, Arrid, Brillo, Cameo, Carter’s Laxative, Close-Up, Enamelon, First Response, Kaboom, Lady’s Choice, Lambert Kay, Mentadent, Nair, Naturalamb, Orange Glo, Oxi Clean, Pearl Drops, Pepsodent, Rigident, Trojan) [PET]
• Clairol *SEE P & G
• Clorox (409, ArmorAll, Burt’s Bees, Fresh Step, Glad, Green Works, Javex, Lestoil, Liquid Plumber, Oxi Magic, Pine Sol, SoftScrub, S.O.S., Tilex) [PET]
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (Afta, Colgate, Crystal Cosmetics, Hill’s Science Diet, Irish Spring, Mennen, Palmolive, Skin Bracer, SoftSoap, Speed Stick, Ultra brite) [PET]
• CoverGirl *SEE P & G
• [Coco] Chanel Inc. (Allure, Chanel) *Fur promotion or marketing
• Church & Dwight (Aim, Answer, Arm & Hammer, Arrid, Brillo, Cameo, Carter’s Laxative, Close-Up, Enamelon, First Response, Kaboom, Lady’s Choice, Lambert Kay, Mentadent, Nair, Naturalamb, Orange Glo, Oxi Clean, Pearl Drops, Pepsodent, Rigident, Trojan) [PET]
• Clairol *SEE P & G
• Clorox (409, ArmorAll, Burt’s Bees, Fresh Step, Glad, Green Works, Javex, Lestoil, Liquid Plumber, Oxi Magic, Pine Sol, SoftScrub, S.O.S., Tilex) [PET]
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (Afta, Colgate, Crystal Cosmetics, Hill’s Science Diet, Irish Spring, Mennen, Palmolive, Skin Bracer, SoftSoap, Speed Stick, Ultra brite) [PET]

• Dial Corp. *SEE HENKEL
• Donna Karan *Fur promotion/marketing & Fragrances managed/owned by Estee Lauder
• Dolce & Gabbana *Fur promotion or marketing
• Elizabeth Arden (Alberta Ferretti, Alfred Sung, Badgley Mischka, Bob Mackie, Britney Spears, Cynthia Rowley, Elizabeth Taylor, Geoffrey Beene, Halston, Hilary Duff, Hummer, Intervene, Juicy Couture, Liz Claiborne, Lulu Guinness, Mariah Carey, PREVAGE, Wings)

• Fendi *Promotes Fur & Fragrances managed/owned by Unilever
• Gillette Co. *SEE P & G
• Glad Products Company (Brita, Glad, Hidden Valley, Kingsford, Match Light)
• Gucci Group *SEE PPR GROUP
• Helene Curtis Industries *SEE UNILEVER
• Henkel AG (Borateem, Borax, Citre Shine, Coast, Combat, Dep, Dial, Dry Idea, Purex, Renuzit, Right Gaurd, Schwarzkopf, Soft Scrub, Soft &Dri, Sta-Flo, Tone, Zout) [OWN ADMISSION]
• Jergens Soap Co *SEE KAO
• Johnson & Johnson (Aveena, Band-Aid, Clean & Clear, Listerine, Lubriderm, Neutrogena, RoC, Tylenol) [PET]
• Johnson Products Co. *SEE L’OREA
• Estee Lauder: American Beauty, Aramis, Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Bumble and Bumble, Clinique, Coach, Daisy Fuentes, Darphin, Donna Karan, Flirt, Good Skin, Grassroots, Jane, Jo Malone, Kate Spade, Kiton, La Mer, Lab Series, MAC Cosmetics (M-A-C), Michael Kors, Missoni, Ojon, Origins, Prescriptives, Prescrptives, Rodan and Fields, Rodan & Fields, Sean Joh, Stila, Tom Ford Beauty, Tommy HilfigerAmbre Solaire, Anais Anais, Belle Color, Biotherm, Body Shop Int’l, Cacharel, CCB, Cosmair, Dermablend, Diesel, Fructis, Garnier, Gemey, Giorgio Armani, Gloria Vanderbitl, Helena Rubinstein, Inné, Jade, Kerastase, Kiehl’s Since 1851, La Roche Posey, Lancôme, Lanvin, Matrix, Maybelline, Mizani, Movida, Nutralia, Nutrisse, Nutritioniste, Ombrelle, Phas, Polo, Ralph Lauren, Redken, Sanoflore, Sho Uemura, Shu Uemura, SkinCeuticals, Softsheen Carson, Synergie, Vichy, Viktor & Rolf, Yves Saint Laurent

• KAO Cosmetics Corp. (Ban, Bioré, Curé, GUHL, Jergens, John Frieda, Kanobe, Molton Brown) [NTW] *Still filing NEW animal testing patents
• Kimberly-Clark Corp. (Andrex, Cottonelle, Depend, DryNites, GoodNites, Hakle, Huggies, Intimus Gel, Kleenex, Kotex, Little Swimmers, Neve, Pingos, Poise, Pé, Scott Paper, talo, Viva, Wondersoft) [PET]
• Laboratoires Garnier *SEE L’OREAL
• LaCoupe Salon [PER OWN ADMISSION]
• Lever Brothers *SEE UNILEVER
• Lifestyles Condoms (Ansell Healthcare Products Llc)
• Limited Brands (Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, La Senza, C.O. Bigelow) *Unclear on ingredient policy, Veronica’s Secret has sold fur products [STATUS in DISPUTE]

• Mars Candy (Snickers, M&M’s, Twix, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Starburst, Dove, Skittles, Pedigree, Masterfoods) *Yes, the candy company is conducting all sorts of hideous experiments!
• Max Factor *SEE P & G
• Mennen Co. *SEE COLGATE-PALMOLIVE
• Nalgene (Sybron International) *Water bottle maker, imports lab animal restraints!
• Nestlé S.A. (Alcon, Alpo, Butterfinger, Cailler, Callie, Carnation, Cheerios, Chef America, Coffee Mate, Friskies, Gerber Co, Kohler, Maggi, Nerds, Nescafe, Novartis, Oreo, Perrier, Peter, Purina, Sanpellegrino, Thomy, Vittel, Wonka)
• Neutrogena Corp *SEE JOHNSON & JOHNSON
• Noxell Corp (Noxzema) *SEE P & G

• Olay Co. (Oil of Olay) *SEE P & G
• Oral-B Worldwide *SEE P & G
• Oscar de la Renta Ltd *SEE PPR GROUP
• Pantene (Procter & Gamble) [PET]
• Parfums Givenchy SA (Givenchy, Extravagance, Amarige)
• Pfizer Inc. (Bain de Soleil, Visine, Plax, BenGay, Viagra!, Warner-Lambert) [PET]
• Phoenix Brands LLC (Fab, Dynamo, RIT Dye) [NVS]
• Playtex Products Inc. (Banana Boat, Woolite, Jhirmack, Baby Magic, AvoTriplex, AVP, Wet Ones, Diaper Genie) [PET]
• PPR Group/Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Bedat, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron, Ermenegildo Zegna, Gucci, Oscar de la Renta, Printemps, Redcat, Roger & Gallet, Sergio Rossi, Stella McCartney) *No known policy
• Prada Group (Fendi) *No known policy
• Procter & Gamble Co. (Secret, Crest, Vidal Sassoon, Tide, Cover Girl, Covergirl, Max Factor, Oil of Olay, Gillette, Oral-B, Old Spice, Hugo Boss, Wella, Noxema, SK II, Clairol, Eukanuba, LOTS MORE) [PET]
• Purex Corp. (Procter & Gamble)
• Reckitt Benckiser (Lysol, Mop & Glo, Clearasil, Cattelmen’s, Dettol, Woolite, Calgon, Vanish, Veet, Airwick, Finish, Electrasol, Resolve, Spray ‘N Wash, French’s, Woolite) [PET]
• Revlon Inc. (Almay, Jean Naté, Ultima II, Visage Beaute) [UNC]
• Richardson-Vicks (Procter & Gamble) [PET]
• Rimmel (supplied by Unilever)
• Sally Hansen *SEE COTY
• Schering-Plough (Coppertone, Ban de Soleil, Dr. Scholl’s) [PET]
• Scott Paper Co.
• S.C. Johnson & Son (Drano, Edge, Fantastik, Glade, Off, Pledge, Raid, Saran, Scrubbing Bubbles, Shout, Skintimate, Tempo, Vanish, Windex, Ziploc)
• SmithKline Beecham (AquaFresh, Contac, Tums) [PET]
• Softsoap Enterprises (Colgate-Palmolive)
• Suave [PET]

• 3M (Scotch, Post-It) [PET]
• Tom’s of Maine *This was once a GREAT company, and unfortunately, is no longer. Their profits WILL go to Colgate regardless of what they say. Tom’s of Maine has even gone so far as to start putting Fluoride into their toothpastes which once were free of it. AVOID! *SEE COLGATE-PALMOLIVE
• Trojan *SEE CHURCH & DWIGHT

• Vidal Sassoon *SEE P & G
• Vogue Magazine
• Wyeath Pharmaceuticals (American Home Products, Chapstick, Centrum, Fort Dodge Animal Health, Robitussin)
• Yves Saint Laurent *SEE L’OREAL

• Unilever: Ades, Becel, Axe/Lynx, Ben & Jerry’s, Bertolli, Birds Eye, Boursin, Bovril, Breyers, Brooke Bond, Chicken Tonight, Cif, Hellmann’s/Best Foods, Colman’s, Comfort, Continental, Cornetto, Cup-a-Soup, Degree, Domestos, Dove, Elizabeth Arden, Fabergé, Findus, Flora, Finesse, GB Glace, Golden Gaytime, Good Humor, HB, Helene Curtis, Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Iglo, Imperial Margarine, Impulse, Kibon, Klondike, Knorr, Kwality Wall’s, Lakme, Langnese, Lawry’s and Adolph’s, Lever 2000, Lifebuoy, Lipton, Lux, Magnum, Maille, Marmite, Paddle Pop, Peperami, Persil, PG Tips, Pond’s Creams, Pot Mash, Pot Noodle, Pot Rice, Prince Matchabelli, Q-tips, Ragú, Rexona, Rinso, Salon Selectives, Sana, Scottish Blend, Selecta, Signal, Skippy, Slim Fast, Snuggle, Solero, Spry, Squirrel, Suave, Sunsilk, Sure, Surf, Timotei, Twink, Vaseline, Vermonster, Viennetta, Vim, Wall’s, Wish-Bone

This Just In

Perez Tells Portman to STFU

Funny, how often Perez Hilton tells people to STFU, considering that he has such a flaming tongue. Today, Perez is putting aside his message to Stop the Slaughter and calling out vegan and animal activist Natalie Portman for an essay for the Huffington Post she wrote about veganism.

Natalie Portman is against killing. Are you, Perez?

Here is part of Portman’s response to Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals:

“I say that Foer’s ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just “This is tasty, and that’s why I do it.” He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).”

Perez claims that Portman is taking it too far, but has he considered that rape is the basis of the animal agriculture industry?

These animals we eat for their flesh never normally never see a member of the opposite sex of their species for their entire lives. They are artificially inseminated and made to give birth time and time again, until they are considered spent at a young age, then sent to slaughter, many not even making it through the treacherous journey to the slaughter house.

“How about from now on, you eat your lettuce and we’ll eat our steak and neither one of us brings up rape as a means of comparison?”

Perez Sez

Well, Perez, we suggest that you medidate on your quest for equal rights, your campaign against animal cruelty, and your best friend, Teddy, and consider whether that steak is yours to eat after all. The animal agriculture industry contributes at least 30% of the world’s greenhouse gasses, so maybe it’s not just Natalie’s responsibility to go veg but one that humanity needs to open up to together.

 

Storytime

The D List

At Balmoral High School, the social ladder has three tiers: the A List, the B List, and the D List. The A List have rooms with attached bathrooms, cars they didn’t pay for, and allowances big enough to pay for clothing, snacks, and weed. If the A List doesn’t have these things, then they have some look or skill that can’t easily be achieved, like large boobs, or a snowboarding sponsorship with Burton. The A List has imaginary cameras that follow them at all times making everything they say, do, eat, and buy important and special. Sometimes the A List spray-paints the school sign “oral Sex High School”, because it’s funny and they can afford to fuck up.

The B List grew up with or went to school with the A List, but whereas the A List glimmers, the B List is a little thick around the middle with acne scars and split ends. The B List tries. They’re on the school teams, they throw parties when their parents go away, and they put the appropriate amount of layers in their hair, but although the B List rolls with the A List, the B List does not shine. The B List knows that the A List makes them look bad but they stay with the A List hoping that not only will some of that A List sheen rub off on them, but that they will leave a slight imprint of themselves on the A List to prove they have identities after all.

The A List pretends not to see the B List’s flaws because the A List are truly amazing people. But more importantly, the A List can’t only spend time with each other because they would blind each other with their brightness, and what’s the point of brightness when you can’t see?

The D List attends all the same functions as the A List and the B List, but the D List does not get invited – they invite themselves. The D List has eating disorders, jeans of the wrong cut, and journals of embarrassing moments. At parties, the D List talks to as many A List and B List people as possible (even though the harder the D List tries, the lower their rank). But still, the D List mingles with determination, asking safe, non-intrusive questions like orange-skinned entertainment show hosts. The D List compliments the A List and the B List, then chuckles at their jokes from somewhere in the back of their throats, believing that no one notices when they do a room scan to see if there is anyone better they could be talking to.

The A List and the B List pity the D List because it’s so obvious how hard the D List tries to be something they will never be. And it’s true – the D List is pitiful. They cannot befriend other D Listers since there would be no gain in the relationship, and they are shunned by the A List and the B List. But what the D List doesn’t know is that the A List and the B List cherish them more than anything in the world, because without the D List, they wouldn’t exist.

Spooktacular

Wal*Mart Wishes You a “Haunting” Halloween

Contrary to the word on the street, Wal*Mart says they’ll take you down if you shoplift (granted it doesn’t lose them any significant amount of time or profits…)

So… if shoplifting is stealing, what is it called when you shut down main streets all over the continent and pay your employees minimum wage?

 

PS Shoplifting may not be a prank or a joke, but it is and will always be a thrill.

Hey, That’s Illegal

* a clue as to what I’m dressing up as for Halloween

Anarchy is for Lovers

What Is the Opposite of Victim?

Anarchist

Anytime you start down that road of Poor Me, consider what part the profoundly sick society has played in your sorrow – dead end jobs, confining systems, souless workers, poisonous air, disconnected relationships, mindless obligation, destructive greed, etc. – and ask yourself: what would an anarchist do?

Factory Farming – Ugh! As If!!!

It’s such a dawg eat dog world out there these days, people assume that taking, killing, and gorging are part of the process of nourishing ourselves. But if you’ve ever pondered the thought: you are what you eat, the substances that you choose to ingest are not only forming your physical self, but your inner self. {If you’re not vegan, please don’t getcha back up here. Being Halloween and a peak emotional time for me, I’ve hit up a few Reese’s lately (although I’m sure if I had a bit more drive to bake, I could concoct something vegan just as good…)}

Alicia Silverstone’s new book: “The Kind Diet” is sort of the antithesis to “Skinny Bitch” while sharing the same knowledge. Getting older doesn’t have to mean getting fat and sick. I always knew that Cher would make it to the top. Now, if she could just make another good movie (instead of this Miss Match crap).Go Girl.

Storytime

Shangri-La

I look out onto the giant mood ring that is Shangri-La – the tallest building in Vancouver – half-hotel, half-residence, its decorative squares changing from green to orange in the sun. Who needs trees, leaves? “My pleasure,” I put a caller on hold inside the lifeboat-shaped desk, though no one has ever come to rescue me. “Good morning, thank you for the calling The Institution of the Creative Arts, how can I help you?”

I need things, the caller says. I need to squeeze money out of my artistic spirit.

“Are you creative? Do you want to work in the field of the arts but don’t think you have what it takes?” The ads play all day on TV during six hours of courtroom television alongside the depression commercials: “Do you cry all the time? Depression doesn’t usually go away on its own. Participate in this study so we can figure out which drugs will stow the pain away…”

“I’ll transfer you.” I tell the caller and punch in extension 867, red lights nagging on the switch board like a Chrismas tree of Service Engine Soon lights. In front of me, a student stands at the desk waiting to be helped – a slim blonde in aqua kneesocks and a peach flowing dress with pockets, eyes like black paintbrush strokes, the posture of a figure skater.

“May I help you?” I ask the girl at the desk. Your majesty? Your grace? M’lady?

“I here to see admissions officer…” she says with a strong Russian accent, the school a bug zapper for students all around the globe.

Are you sure? I want to ask. Are you sure you want to let them tap into your creativity and suck it up like what’s left of the Canadian water reserves?

I page an officer for the girl, trying to silently transfer warnings through her angled bob. There is a right way and a wrong way to make art and The Institution will tell you if you’re doing it wrong. They will show you how to sear your logos into people’s minds like religion. They will show you how to morph from a person into a brand.

“You learn good skills at The Institution?” she asks.

I look behind me for my supervisor, Nirmala, who is busy on a phone call. “You would learn more at a Hierarchy of Consciousness,” I whisper.

The girl squints in confusion and tilts her head like a puppy.

From behind the electronically sealed door wafts Melina Gravovitch, a melon-pink power suit in a cloud of Jean-Paul Gaultier. She marches to greet the potential student and collect her bounty fee.

“Welcome to the Institution of the Creative Arts,” Melina extends a married hand. She then  waves her pass card against the wall igniting a green light and the girl scurries behind in her heels.

My eyes wander to the window. I scan Shangri-La’s prism clear windows for reflections of foliage below, the squares now a hypercolour mix of tangerine and lime. I wonder if they hold Etch a Sketch powers, if there are knobs somewhere in the boiler room that can be used to write secret messages on them. 9-11 INSIDE JOB, I would write in shaky, loopy letters across the building’s core, sure to irritate  all those who believe that you can’t ask questions if you don’t know the answers.

“Aralei,” Nirmala appears behind me. “Please make 50 copies of these.” She drops a stack of papers on the desk. Nirmala is proof that big eyes are not necessarily a sign of beauty. They bulge from her mocha skin like a pug’s, her white eyeliner making her scleras look as though they’ve leaked out of bounds. Better to see you with, my dear.

I fan through the 2500 slices of tree. Trails of paper seem to stalk me. With every purchase, every decision I make. Can you ever truly regrow a forest? Can you ever recreate that messy, tangled, moss covered wonderland with mere  lines of seeds… Lines do not a forest make.

In the acidic air of The Institution, I blink away the continual sensation that simulated lemon (the kind with the Mr. Clean aftertaste) has been poured into my eyes, an effect of the air-conditioning and nights of sleep cut short. 10:21, the clock says, the longer portion of my day still ahead of me. Outside, my mood building reads green: jealousy of the world outside The Institution. I click away at the keys without looking at them and try to enjoy the sound they make – like a squirrel nibbling on a nut.

“Good Morning, thank you for calling…”

“…thank you for calling The Institution of the…”

“… The Institution of the Creative Arts how can I…”

“Aralei,” Nirmala approaches me from behind, her Cyclops eyes searing into my back. “It’s important that you check the fax machine every fifteen minutes.”

“I know,” I say, the red lights blinking on the phone. One of them stops, a caller given up, set free.

“Well, I just had to deliver some myself,” Nirmala says. “So you want to watch for that.”

May I borrow your telescopic eyeballs to do that? I smile at her tightly, clicking my retracting pen like a trigger. “Thank you for holding,” I swivel away from her and pick up the phone.

“Good morning, will you hold?”

“Thank you for holding.”

“Good morning?” I start to question.

“Will you hold,” I start to demand.

The back up engine of the morning’s Red Bull starts to sputter. Outside, in the downtown shadows, the summer I never got to feel is ending. I staple the report for Nirmala. When I came to The Institution of The Creative Arts, I had the same idea in mind as the students: “I know I’m creative, but I don’t know what to do with it.” I didn’t know what my creativity was trying to tell me, like a crying baby. Didn’t know what to do with myself without people telling me what to do. I pull my nylons up fold by fold under the desk and pretend I’m a hundred years old and have  saggy elephant skin. What would I look back and tell myself now?

Who knows. I’ve forgotten what my own voice sounds like. Couldn’t pick it out of a crowd.

“Good morning, thank you for calling The Institution of…”

Oh. Right. I resister the melodic receptionist coo as my own.

Still pulling at my nylons, I accidentally rip a hole in them. A pool of my real skin peeks through. In the grainy videos we watched cross-legged on the mat in Grade Four about the workers of the world in their factories and uniforms, we were all raring to join in. It was just like playing imaginary – only with real objects. What could be more fun?

“Good… afternoon,” I answer the phone, a pressure tingling in my stomach and behind my eyes like I’m about to puke or pass out, but I can’t even get up from this cage dropped into shark infested waters without permission.

“You have three people on hold,” I hear Nirmala say behind me, always there at the exact wrong  moment.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

It might hurt my feelings, being talked to this way if I had feelings. If I wasn’t a wet match, unable to light.

“I mean good morning…” I tell the caller and laugh off my error.

Nirmala motions for me to put the phone on hold, two fingers in the air dipping into a jar of cold cream. “Never in front of a caller,” she says, untrusting of the secrecy of the hold button.

Bad things happen when I’m tired. I see things. Hear things. Make bad decisions. But the world wakes up early, and therefore – so do I.

Nirmala puts her thumb and pinky to her head to gesture that I should pick the phone back up.

My sister, Ella, used to talk about The Pretty Girl Sphere, a physical law which states that all pretty girls must maintain a certain distance from one another at all times to maintain the authenticity of their positions. Maybe Nirmala has been told her googly eyes are beautiful.

“Hey, thanks for holding… How may I assist you?” I ask the waiting caller in a pitch-perfect nurse’s voice, the ‘may’ and ‘assist’ just for Nirmala  (take that, bitch) – then timely transfer the caller.

“Hey?” Nirmala says as I hang up.

“Oh,” I realize.

“You never know who is on the other end of a call,” Nirmala says, the whites of her eyes like melting ice caps or drowning polar bears. “The phone etiquette is on page two,” she reminds me.

As the phone continues to ring, Nirmala returns to her office and a warm pressure begins to build behind my eyes.

Okay. I still have the ability to feel sad.

I pull out a compact and inspect my face under the grey glow of the neon lighting – sun-forgotten skin blotchy and dry, extra blood pumping through the veins in my eyes to keep them open – they gloss with uncriable tears.

I grab my purse from a lower drawer and without notifying anyone to cover the phones, walk out the glass doors of The Institution and step into the murky mirrored elevator walls, a con artist smile materializing in my reflection. A con-artist is an artist nonetheless. I call for an imaginary soundtrack – a snazzy 80s chica-chica clock-tick drumbeat.

Outside, in the produce-section fall chill, I hear the phone stories above, its slot machine bell-roll ring. I look up at the terrorist magnet of Shangri-La, its squares a purple shade I didn’t know they could become.

I think of the olden days when families worked together cobbling shoes or spinning whatever they spun. When they raised their products as babies and gave them away at the alter. Around the base of Shangri-la, people mull as they were once sculpted to do in the building’s small-scale model – soundlessly, obediently, faceless like a Monet painting. I see the blonde Russian girl among the scene, her outfit brighter than her future, and can feel Nirmala’s gaze staring down at me from above with her go-go gadget rods and cones. Shangri-La draws me towards it, my mouth watering for its Gobstopper colour-changing powers. What do I want to do to it? Draw it? Paint it? Write a book about it? Make a movie about it? But  then my thoughts deteriorate into: what for? My inspiration institutionalized, straightjacketed.

I sidestep the construction debris along the base of Shangri-La and walk towards its entrance, the eyes of the construction workers trailing my behind like Nirmala on a  ‘hey’. The hole in my nylons has spread up my leg – a shedding of my old-lady encasement.

“Hey Lady,’ you wanna see hell?” one of the construction guys lifts up a man hole cover, unknowingly in style in his fall’s must have checked shirt .

I walk curiously to the edge, the fall breeze gusting up from under the streets, and look down into the sewers built to take care of Shangri-La’s everything unheavenly, and laugh, “my hell is much worse than that.”

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Perez Steps It Up

Perez might be on the Just-Let-It-Go Team regarding the events of 9/11, but he’s stepping up now to take a stand against Canada’s archaic seal slaughter in the name of his beloved Teddy.

PSwizzle and Teddy

We need as many celebs on board as possible to end this assault on nature’s young, and what better time to speak up than before the Olympics.

“Every year, sealers bash in the skulls of baby seals and hook them in their eyes, cheeks or mouths, then drag them across the ice – sometimes while they are still conscious! This is disgusting and wrong!!!!” sez Perez.

“The European Union and the U.S. have banned seal fur. And world leaders as diverse as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Obama have condemned the massacre of baby seals. Get with it,Canada.”

“We are so outraged by this unnecessary cruelty! We’ve taken part in the “Save the Seals” Celebrity Ad Campaign alongsid Kelly Osbourne, Jennie Garth, and more.”

What I Forgot To Tell You

What Is The One Component Essential in Achieving Rebirth?

You Guessed It:

In order to begin anew, we must let the past die.

It is over. It cannot touch us.

However sometimes we’re holding onto the past so tightly that it must let go of us.

In order for new selves within our self to be born, we must allow other selves that do not serve us (eg. victim), to die. We are constantly new people. Every seven years the cells in our body fully regenerate. Aren’t you glad?

Second chances all around. Third chances. Fourth.

*Okay, Healing Week can be over now. But you never know when it might experience a rebirth… Watch your back.

Work Less = Wear Less?

Liberation BC supplied a human petting zoo to the Work Less Masquerade Party this year, offering consensual petting to an array of happy animals (unlike the scared animals who get fondled at your regular petting zoos – inaccurate examples of the rest of their kind, that’s for sure.)

The Work Less Party is basically what you might think: individuals who agree that we all need to chill the fuck out.

It’s our own anxiety and rushed stress that’s killing the planet and ourselves, so if we produce less, consume less, and take more time to enjoy what we love, the Earth’s natural balance can fall back into order.

However, the Work Less Party has a few secrets up their sleeve – scroll down to see.

Move over Brad and Angelina – we’ve got a new It Couple. Joanne helps spread Woody Harrelson’s milk message, and no, Glenn’s not an anemic scarecrow – look closer.

This looks like the cover of a Watchtower pamphlet. One day…

G-Rated Jenny, and Isla – representing Procter and Gamble’s many victims

R-Rated Jenny taking home a 1st place prize for best costume.

*Jenny is tame example of the nudity at the Masquerade. Conrad Schmidt himself donned a red military jacket with no pants. Prizes were offered to those who could get naked the fastest, there was a Spank Bank in the corner where spankings were being doled out, and on one table a naked lady was being somehow not set on fire as a man rubbed a flame over her body. Work Less  – Kink More.

Another stellar costume. He went as “Touch Sensitive” lighting up only when touched, but we affectionately referred to him as “Fork Face”

Who Done It?

How do you say… de-groovy, de-with-it, de-fine?

These handsome young men are somehow made more debonair by their mysteriousness. I need to get on lobbying some kind of Afghani law that makes men hide their faces in public…

The Genius’s Guide to SpellCasting

Spells Can Only Be Cast in a Magical World,

but Take Heart:

We Live in a Magical World…

In day-to-day life, we are bombarded with magic – to be more precise, with the surprise intersections of people feelings, and events sometimes called coincidences. We do not even notice the great majority of these, but life is absolutely overflowing with them. Life is also full or patterns, symmetry, foreshadowing, symbolism, irony, dramatic lighting, indispensable props, crucial characters, and moments of truth. One can shrug all these off as accidents, but in so doing one loses all the benefits to be gained from investing them with meaning. Deciding to view the world through a frame that accounts for magical developments makes aspects of life visible that would otherwise ‘not exist’, and prepares one to work in the medium they provide.

Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook

So What Spell Do You Choose to Cast..?

Revenge of the Dumpster

The dumpster is no longer just for diving.

First day of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh…

Win Win

Good News Y’all – No Matter What You’ve Done,

You’ve Still Won!

How is this possible?

And how is it still Healing Week when the week is ova?

Well, it’s healing week because, like I said, the internet is a fantasyland that crosses all the boundaries of time.

Now for the harder question…

How is it possible that no matter how bad you fuck up, or have been fucked, you’re still on the right track??

The minute a problem arises, the solution for that problem also simultaneously comes into existence.

“Thoughts are like data programmed into a computer, registered on the screen of your life. If you don’t like what you see up on the screen, there’s no point in going up to the screen and trying to erase it.  Thought is cause; experience is effect. If you don’t like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking.”

So on the most basic level, the events of our lives may hold emotional charge, but it is us who has the power to interpret situations and transform them.

“Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. They reflect a shift in how we think, releasing the power of correction to the mind to the process of healing and correction. A miracle is not a rearrangement of figures in our dream – it is an awakening from the dream.

Old Newtonian physics claimed that things have an objective reality separate from our perception of them. Quantum physics, and particularly Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, reveal that, as our perception of an object changes, the object itself literally changes.”

Marianne Williamson

So what does it matter then whether we start out optimally, or we transform shit into the optimal? With miraculous thinking (surrendering our judgemet of an unpleasant situation and being open to viewing the situation through a new perspective), we can always flip it. Sound easy? Well, miracles aren’t meant to be difficult, that’s why they’re called miracles.

Step One: We Can Have Lots of Fun

…by Helping Others to Heal Ourselves

With the heartless systems in place in our world, it’s no surprise that we nurse a constant unnamed pain in our hearts.

In order to heal from the inside out, we can all take a moment to question the food we eat and the products we buy, and acknowledge who suffered in their making.

Happy Healing Week

It’s Healing Week on Dawn of A New Era

…because I decided it is because the internet is a fantasyland ~booya~

…and because Misery Loves Company.

We all have our crosses to bear. Or do we? *Snap* Some people just seem so frickin’ happy all the time. Well okay, we may not all have our crosses to bear, but I certainly do.

Dawn of a New Rebecca Dawn

Summer Love

You know it, you’ve mourned it…

Rising hip hop star, Rebecca Dawn, sings and rhymes about the sweet sadness of lost love in “Summer Love.”

Now here is an It Girl who can do no wrong. Well, we’re sure she’s done some wrong at some point, like the rest of us…

Rebecca Dawn lives Campeche, Mexico where she is currently saving the rainforest and conquering academia.

Top 3 It Girls…

…Who Can Do No Wrong!

1. Taylor Swift

Taylor Not-Too-Swift may be the number one selling whatever on the planet right now for her country-pop-blah, but is she really the stepped-on-kitten everyone is making her out to be after the Kanye debacle?

“Swift Pick. In this business, you’ve got to be decisive. So I choose milk. Some* studies suggest that teens who choose milk instead of sugary drinks tend to be leaner and the protein helps build muscle. So eat right, exercise and drink 3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk a day. Music to my ears.”

*…Other studies show that the vast majority of adults are lactose intolerant - dairy contributing to eczema, acne, anemia, arthritis, ADD, fibromyalgia, headaches, heartburn, indigestion, IBS, joint pain, osteoporosis, allergies, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, autism, Chron’s disease, breast cancer, and prostate cancer (!)

Factory farmed milk contains dioxin – one of the most toxic substances in the world, and when you digest dairy, you’re also digesting all the anti-biotics, growth hormones (if you’re American), pesticides, and steroids that the cows are ingesting. The bovine growth hormone, legal in the US, makes cows produce ten times the milk they normally would, causing bleeding and infections of the cows’ udders. Not to mention the constant pain and grieving the cows endure being kept perpetually pregnant, having their babies ripped away from them (who they would normally form longterm to lifelong relationships with), and having their sensitive udders hooked into a machine all day.

Can we give a major Boo-Urns to Taylor Swift for her choice of endorsement here?

If milk farmers didn’t spend millions of dollars a year promoting their products the public might be able to learn about the diseases caused by milk, but instead Not-Too-Swift chooses to reap the profits by diseasing millions of people.

2. Sarah Jessica Parker

Chix love to live vicariously through SJP, whether on the small screen or the big screen. But is Carrie really the Manolo hero Sex In the City makes her out to be?

We are calling you out, Carrie Bradshaw, on your failure to properly research the product you’ve chosen to represent. Garnier is owned by l’Oreal, and l’Oreal TESTS ON ANIMALS. This means that to have photoshopped lucious locks like Carrie’s, you would be paying for a product that practises the Draze test, a procedure in which toxic chemicals are dumped into the eyes of animals while their heads are kept in restraints (their necks often snapping as they try to escape), and you would also be paying for tests that pump chemicals into the stomachs of animals (a hole sometimes cut in their throats) to see how many chemicals the animal can ingest before dying. We’re talking mice, rabbits, cats, dogs, and sometimes primates.

Fuck Garnier and fuck SJP’s lack of judgement here. She’s smarter than this.

Try Naturcolor instead: all natural and not tested on our friends.

3. Rihanna

Poor Rihanna. She got hit in the face pretty bad by her ex, Chris Beat-Her-Down Brown. Rihanna would never hurt anyone. Directly. She would only endorse the unnecessary deaths of millions of animals if they paid her the right price.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but did Chris Beat-Her-Down Brown pour chemicals into Rhianna’s eyes until she became blind? Did Chris-Beat-Her-Down Brown keep Rihanna in intense confinement during the entire course of their relationship? Did he hack muscle tissue off Rihanna’s thighs to test his new cologne on? Brutal humor here, but am I at least proving a point?

Pop sensation, Rihanna, is fueling the multi-billion dollar industry of animal testing and encouraging millions of teens and tweens around the world to jump on board in supporting this archaic, horrific business.

As cutting edge as Rihanna is supposed to be, she is not the voice of the future, but the voice of the past.

Boycott all Procter & Gamble products and Boycott Cover Girl and tell Rhianna what you think of her lack of compassion. Boycott abuse to humans AND animals.

Cuteness of the Nth Degree

Move Over Kate Gosselin – We’ve Got A New Mother of the Year

An 8-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, Katjinga, took a liking to Paulinchen, a little pot-bellied piglet after she was abandoned by her family in Germany. Katjinga’s owners breed a pair of Vietnamese pigs and rescued the runt of the litter after seeing she had been rejected by her parents and the rest of her litter.

Property developer, Roland, found the weak and struggling piglet after she was abandoned by the rest of her family one evening after she was born. “The pigs run wild on our land and the sow had given birth to a litter of five in our forest.
“I found Paulinchen all alone and when I lifted her up she was really cold.”

Katjinga had puppies of her own 10 months ago so her owners thought she might take on the responsibility to care for little Paulinchen the Pig and sure enough the two are now inseparable. Katjinga even started nursing again for the little piggy!

“I felt sure some local foxes would have taken the little pig that very night so I took it into my house and gave her to Katjinga. She had just finished with a litter of her own, who are now 10 months, so I thought there was a chance she might take on the duties of looking after her. Katjinga is the best mother you can imagine. She immediately fell in love with the piggy. Straight away she started to clean it like it was one of her own puppies.”

“Days later she started lactating again and giving milk for the piggy. She obviously regards it now as her own baby.”

This is all so very Lambert…

Fuel Commits Assault

On Saturday evening, September 20, 2009, Chef Robert Belcham and another male chef made physical contact with two female activists. While chalking the sidewalk – a legal act on public property – Robert Belcham dumped an entire bucket of freezing water on a female activist, then proceeded to bodycheck her, while another male chef overtook a female activist half his size by grabbing her wrists and trying to take her chalk. This behavior is illegal. It is assault. And if it happens again, charges will be pressed.

Violence breeds violence.

When the cops arrived the next evening ready to conduct an “investigation” about the incident, they refused to proceed when the female activist pointed out her assaulter. Does this sound like an effective investigation?

Below is a video leading up to the assault. Next time we’ll have it on tape for you.

But no assault compares to a lifetime of this:

Poison for the Soul

“Suffice it to say it is difficult for me to eat factory raised pork because I can always smell the rotting piss when I eat it.”

Robert Belcham

This is why he finds it difficult to eat factory raised pork. Not because of the squalid living conditions endured by the animals.

This week, Robert Belcham chose to serve suckling pig stuffed with foie gras diseased liver for a $100 plate dinner.

A suckling pig is a newborn pig who has only been nursed on her mother’s milk and is slaughtered between 2 and 6 weeks old.

Yes, Belcham has shoved foie gras up her ass. And yes, that's a garbage bag sitting on the food prep surface.

“Because there are no handling facilities for such small animals, these piglets are left in chicken crates overnight on the cement landing at the yards of the abattoir. Even in the dead of winter, these tiny animals are left without food, water or warmth, squealing for hours for comfort from a mother that will never come. At such a tender age, piglets are not yet capable of regulating their own body temperature and will suffer in the cold. Such a long time for a newborn to be without liquids, its a wonder they make it to slaughter.”

Torn away from her mother and slaughtered alone, she cries tears of her own innards out of the empty sockets of her eyes.

The “food” that Fuel serves is not “Fuel From the Earth, Fuel for the Soul”. It is not natural to slaughter a baby, and it is not natural to shove 16-inch steel pipes down the throats of ducks to fatten their livers to ten times the size (but then Belcham clearly over-feeds himself so perhaps he is not aware that over-eating is not natural…) (low blow….! Shrug.) Robert Belcham talks about supporting the local farming community, yet he ships in his foie gras from Quebec. Hypocrite much?

LUCID DrEaMiNg!

8 Techniques to Wake Up in Your Dreams

I’ve been practising lucid dreaming now for awhile and finally was able to trigger myself out of a dream with the technique of screaming: Lucid Dreaming! to remind myself that I was in a world of my own creation. I was able to fly (which in my dreams is more like the swimming levels in Mario World…), but then I fell back into the dream and got sidetracked on some plotline of telling people I was from the future (hence the flying)…

How can we take lucid dreaming to the next level and learn the secrets of the dream world?

The experience of being in a lucid dream clearly demonstrates the astonishing fact that the world we see is a construct of our minds. This concept, so elusive when sought in waking life, is the cornerstone of spiritual teachings. It forces us to look beyond everyday experience and ask, "If this is not real, what is?"

In order to acquire that “rush” of knowing that we are dreaming (how nice would it be to have this option in real life…), to break the loop of reoccurring nightmares, and to re-map our neural pathways, here are some tricks for reaching a state of lucidity:

1. Dream Recall: write down your dreams as soon as you wake up in the morning. Not only are they educational to access the catacombs of your mind, but when you become familiar with their patterns it becomes easier to recognize them while you are dreaming.
2. Reality Testing: carry a piece of text with you in your waking life and read it from time to time. Read the text intermittently to test that you are in “reality”. If you are dreaming, chances are the text will change when you look twice at it.
3. Fly: visualize yourself flying or doing something that you would like to do in your next lucid dream.
4. Scream: practice saying the words: Lucid Dreaming! to yourself throughout the day. Or, yell them in your car for scream therapy. This will remind you to say them in your dream – a cue to remind yourself you’re dreaming.
   
5. Set the Intention: before bed, intend to wake up in your dream. Say to yourself: “tonight, I will wake up in my dream” and repeat it like a mantra.
6. Wake Up: lucid dreaming is more prone to occur during naps and other sleep interruptions (like puking!), so set the alarm (I have an ocean waves alarm so the wake up isn’t so rough) if you want to break on through to the other side.
7. Relax: once you wake up in the dream be like a poker player with a winning hand. Too much excitement will wake you up.
   
8. Spin: once you’re lucid, the motion of spinning (like a kid trying to get dizzy) can re-stimulate the dream into action if your realistic mind starts to buzz-kill the dream.
   

Oswiecim

These Little Piggies Didn’t Get to Go Home

Unlike Allister, these pigs never had a home and are most likely leaving the factory farm they’ve suffered in their entire lives to be crammed inside a truck (sometimes without food or water for up to 3 or 4 days), and left at the slaughter house.

I watched these pigs for a moment on the Highway 1 struggling for space in this crammed truck bed on the way to their deaths, then pressed an “Even if You Like Meat…” pamphlet against the window as I passed. But we are all so deeply embedded in the chain, aren’t we? From the truck drivers who need to pay their bills, to those of us veggies who come up a little short on rent and end up serving chicken at a wedding banquet… And if you speak up too loudly about the violence, you just might lose your job.

But the consumer choices we make on a daily basis do matter. So do the letters we send, the demos we attend, the alternatives to old patterns we dream up, and the information we share.

Tempeh Bacon

Tempeh Bacon Recipe

• 3 Tbs. Bragg’s liquid aminos or soy sauce
• 1/3 cup apple cider
• 1 tsp. tomato paste
• 1/4 tsp. liquid smoke
• 1 8-ounce package tempeh
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 Tbs. peanut oil or vegetable oil

1. To make the marinade combine the soy sauce, cider, tomato paste and liquid smoke in a wide, shallow bowl or pan and mix with a fork until the tomato paste is fully dissolved.
2. Cut the tempeh into thin strips (less than 1/4 inch thick) lengthwise. You should be able to get about 12 strips. Rub the strips with the crushed garlic, then toss the garlic cloves into the marinade. Submerge the tempeh strips in the marinade and let sit, for at least an hour and up to overnight. After marinating, discard the garlic.
3. Heat the oil in an 11 or 12 inch skillet over medium heat. Add the tempeh strips and cook for 4 minutes on one side; the bottom should be nicely browned. Flip the strips over and pour the remainder of the marinade over them. If there isn’t much marinade left add a splash of water. Cover and let cook for 3 more minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed. Uncover and check for doneness; if necessary keep cooking uncovered until all sides are nicely browned. Remove from heat and serve.
   

   

   Once intended for Polish Jewish inmates, P is now for pig.

An Open Letter to Perez Hilton on 9/11

On the eve of the 8th “anniversary” of 9/11, Perez Hilton posted this on his blog:

Charlie Sheen Must Be Bored, Yaps Away About 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Talk about vying for attention!

Charlie Sheen has written an open letter to President Barack Obama asking him to reopen the investigation about 9/11. Charlie is convinced that “the official story behind 9/11 is a fraud” and by pulling this stunt just a few short days before the eighth anniversary, we can only imagine he is attempting to get some other crackpots to jump on the bandwagon. In his letter to the President, Charlie claims that “9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Charlie also believes the “Bush/Cheney regime” and the CIA orchestrated 9/11 as a ploy to invade Iraq.

Let it go, Charlie. Concentrate on your career, something you can control and will get paid to talk crazy for.

Before I begin this letter let’s get two things straight:

1. I’m by no means a Charlie Sheen fan past Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
2. I read Perez Hilton for the following reasons:
a) to spin any celebrity stories related to animal rights, and
b) the pink crack factor. Credit where credit is due, when one feels like turning off one’s brain for a moment, Perez
somehow has the best sources in the biz, combined with an apt for narrative commentary (although his own
self-promotion tends to taint his “opinions”).

Dear Perez:

The official story behind 9/11 is a fraud.

This can be proved with the simple fact that Building 7, the third building to collapse during the terrorist attacks controlled demolition, was NOT EVEN MENTIONED  in the official 9/11 commission report. Not to mention that this investigation was not conducted by an independent party outside the government. If this does not raise a red flag for you – that a 47 story building that collapsed to dust due to several small fires was so callously left out of this supposedly meticulous report – then what in Britney’s nipple tassles could?

Damage to the other surrounding WTC buildings was much worse, and yet they did not magically disintegrate in 6.5 seconds (a textbook controlled demolition speed) as Building 7 did. Building 7 is the first steel-beamed building to collapse due to fire EVER in history. Not only this, but firefighters and news crews predicted this collapse (..?)  What pretense did these individuals have for this revelatory prediction when Building 7 was the first ever of its kind to collapse?

In this open letter, I will only ask you to meditate on the scam of Building 7, although there are buildings and buildings more evidence regarding 9/11 that are worth re-examining.

To fully honor those who perished in 9/11, their families, and those of us who still reside on this planet, what is so crazy about re-questioning the incongruous information gathered to explain the events of 9/11? We all have the right to our opinions, but more importantly, we have a duty to research those opinions before deciding upon them, and if we are afraid to question conclusions that we have arrived at – this is the true indicator that those conclusions cannot hold steady in the face of evolving truth. Millions of people now believe that the government had minimal to full implications in the 9/11 attacks, with a larger percentage of the population growing every day as new information surfaces, and as engineers and  architects help us to understand the nature of controlled demolition. The true definition of a “conspiracy” is that of a ploy orchestrated by a small group of people. Does a small group of military-trained men with no access to the WTC fit the bill? Or does a think-tank with a skeleton key, mass warfare, and a financial greed that has already attacked most corners of the world fit the bill?

It may have taken us a while, but now is the time to re-question why these events occurred. We are still at war, we are still at the mercy of terrorist-labeling governments, and we are still targets for further economic ammunition.

So maybe, Perez, you should concentrate on your stating-the-obvious career and get back to calling the whory ‘whory’ and the unpretty ‘unpretty’, something you can control and will get paid to talk crazy about.

Pissed-offedly,

Isla Kay, and all those who support a new investigation into 9/11

The following presentation is a collaboration of scientific findings presented by The Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

…Worth 2 Hours of Your Life!

A is for Anarchy

Traces of anarchy everywhere you look…

“The very use of the word ‘violence’ to describe the actions of protesters in the face of the police state we witnessed is ridiculous. Pepper spraying a girl repeatedly in the face after she attempted to hand a flower to a police officer is violence. A broken Macy’s window is not. And even though some activists don’t prefer property damage as a tactic, maintaining some amount of perspective is important. What is a broken window compared to a million Iraqis killed, or entire cities destroyed by the U.S. occupation forces? A whole lot of windows get broken when the U.S. drops bombs. Which is the bigger concern?”

-Katrina Plotz, member of the Anti-War Committee and
the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War

Some Pig

Do You Want to Go For A Walk?

Isla and CL and Allister

Oops-A-Dazy is a rescue and sanctuary organization that helps animals find homes and also provides sanctuary for rescued farm animals.

Full Vent

In order to get what we want,

we have to decipher what’s in the way…

An 8 step technique for manifesting your wildest new eras.

Choose the area of your life you want to focus on: relationship, health, money, career…

Now write out your answers to the questions below:

1. Regarding this, what is your current reality — the simple, unvarnished truth?

2. Regarding this, what do you want to feel? List the emotions you want to feel.

3. Why do you want this? List positive reasons that feel in tune with your body.

4. List reasons why you do NOT want this. Why can’t you have this? What beliefs or evidences point out that you can’t have this? What costs, sacrifices, or changes are required? Is there any “unforgiveness” lurking around? Why are you afraid to have this? Keep asking for more reasons why you don’t want this. Generate a list of reasons.

5. Exaggerate, even to the point of caricature, these “old decisions” and considerations you uncovered in #4. Temporarily, give full vent to any inner voice of” the critic”, “the injured”, “the victim”. (Do these inner residents of your consciousness sound familiar to you? Allow their personalities to come into being so that they can  STFU be heard.)

6. Forgive, release, and update each old decision/consideration you uncovered in #4 by finding a new, higher wisdom. You will know that you have successfully updated it when your body says yes.

7. What is the higher quality — the essence — of what you are wanting in #2? (freedom? joy? etc.)

8. Name specific ways that you can express this quality in your life right now — regardless of circumstances, people, problems, personal shortcomings, the economy, perceived limitations.

I’m Hatin’ It

A successful attempt at black humor.

It’s Starting to Kill Me

Next up on

NML Radio…

Do What You Want by Jase from Outta Space.

A song about heartbreak and separation.

This one goes out to all the mothers who are separated from their babies time and time again in the mass kidnapping of the dairy industry.

And to all you dairy lovers, I feel your turmoil! But remember that if you can’t mentally grasp the thought of giving up dairy, cut down and take it day by day.

*Incidentally, it was my own heartbreak, heartpulverization, heartgarboration!

that truly allowed me to connect with the suffering of animals.

Does This Count As Culture Jamming..?

Dogs – They’re Just Like Us

They Rock Out Like Us

They Nap Hard Like Us

They’re Secretly Famous Like Us……. *This is Herman, named after the one and only PeeWee

From the Mouths of Tweens

I ran into these banana slurpee drinking, hipster-in-training, bike riding young men at a gas station and stopped to chat with them about why they were interested in becoming vegetarian…

We laugh at the end; I laugh because if I could have paid my new friend, Ron, to tell people not to eat chickens (or their eggs) or to at least cut down on their consumption, I would have, but he came up with that statement entirely on his own.

Sometimes the youngsters know better than the oldsters.

*Update: change.org just posted this footage of the standard practice of killing male chickens at birth. Haven’t watched it yet because I’m horrified. Give me a few days…

Deathless

Human Nature is Human Habit

We look to animals as our role models for how we should behave – animals kill other animals for food, so therefore humans should do the same.

And yet, we justify killing animals by categorizing them as a lower form of life whose lives are not worth as much.

So how can we view animals as both our role models and our inferiors?..

Coup d’Etat

Seize the State of the Plate

The Coup is a vegetarian restaurant in Calgary that has been around for a few years and is just getting busier. Although some pronounce it “coop” like chicken coop, the restaurant is actually named after the event that occurs when a small group overthrows the government. Of course this Coup is not talking violence, it’s talking about (cutely and quietly) overthrowing the mainstream meat-based restaurant trend. So far, the restaurant really is re-defining meat, with its new sibling restaurant, Meet, next door (more of a tapas lounge), the reason for this addition being that The Coup was literally bursting at the seams with hungry veggies. I usually run into at least a few people I know here… then start eyeing their table as I wait for a spot to open up.

The Coup offers dinner dishes like:

The Field Trip

organic greens with a yogurt dill
dressing, surrounded by a Mediterranean
tahini spread, sesame date yam
dip, sundried tomato hummus,
sunflower-seaweed pate, served with
organic foccacia and lavash

The Wild Rose Smoke Stack

fresh greens, pan seared
portabella mushroom, smoked
balsamic tahini eggplant, quinoa,
sautéed greens and shallots, fresh
organic tomato topped with
sprouts and hemp oil

…and here are some photos of lunch dishes below.

Supporting local, organic, biodynamic farming, The Coup can overthrow my government any day.

If I Hear the Word “Passion” Once More…

“From the dawn of time

They taught her why

Not to ask those questions…”

Sarah Slean, John the 23rd

Top 7 Defense Strategies

to Avoid Talking About Animal Rights

I used to be comfortable being a quiet vegetarian who rarely brought up issues surrounding factory farming (and such) so as not to alienate people. But in making the activist switch, I have pretty much thrown this taboo subject out the window of a formerly-known-as WTC building, and now challenge people to think about the animal products they’re eating.

Here are some knee-jerk reactions I’ve drawn lately when the subject of factory farming is breached:

1. That’s your mission; I have other things to do.

The problem I have with this statement is the “your”. Animal rights are not my mission. They are our shared responsibility as a planet. I’m sure as hell not doing it alone, and I’m not doing it for the glory. Different people have different paths. You don’t have to become an animal activist to live compassionately, you simply have to question your current consumer choices and examine if there are more  humane choices available.

2. It’s great that you have beliefs you’re so passionate about.

O_m_g. Firstly, the way animals are currently being treated in the world has nothing to do with belief. You can choose to believe it or not – doesn’t change that it’s happening. Secondly – if I hear the word passion once more I will passionately *snap*</>. Speaking out for animal rights is not something people do because they are passionate about it, but because they have seen things that have disturbed them to the very core and cannot go on living their lives with this knowledge. Passion is for hot guys – not abused, exploited animals. That would be called: compassion.

3. Vegans are all pale and anemic.

Mmmkay… I know a few vegans who could kick pretty much anyone’s ass. *You know who you are…

Comments like this are almost parallel to racism to me, because it’s making judgments of people based on the color of their skin and or other physical traits. It’s the generalizing that’s dangerous. Thinking of the palest person I know, she’s a rampant meat-eater. Not all vegans define themselves exactly the same (eg. honey), but generally, eating a diet free of most-to-all animal products has the divine by-product of being somewhat guilt-free – and that’s attractive. Sure not entirely guilt-free, we all have our crosses to bear. But we all have the option as to whether we want to contribute to suffering and that’s empowering.

4. I come from a meat-eating background.

So did basically everyone. Pretty much all past cultures have included meat in their cuisines, but with the same amazing technology that allows farmers to monitor their cows’ health via cell phone, we can now prepare things like Tofurky sausage that are just as tasty as guts (even my brother’s dog Busta Rhymes  seemed to like the taste of Tofurky this morning and I’m fairly sure he comes from a meat-eating background).

5.  Meat isn’t sustainable because there are too many people in the world.

Well, okay – let’s say we’ve surpassed the magic number of people that should be on this planet. How can we mend this sticky situation? Well, first we have to feed everyone here. Oh – wait, we can’t do that with meat. Meat-eaters use WAY more water a day than veggies, use WAY more  fossil fuels, emit WAY more carbon dioxide, and are indirectly eating way more in general because of how much grain it takes to feed a single animal. Let’s deal with the situation as it is, not as it should be, and let’s work on keeping the people we do have in this world healthy and happy so we can make responsible collective decisions about the future of our procreation.

6. The environment concerns me just as much as animal suffering.

So then we’re agreed on saving the rainforest. Aside from the info mentioned above, raising livestock takes up a lot of precious  space and contributes to deforestation. Not only that but animal waste is polluting our water systems at an alarming rate and stinking up entire counties in a mass-crime against fresh air! (cough* Coalinga *cough)

7. I need to eat.

Food = meat. So what do you want from me?

I certainly understand why people see animal products as the be-all end-all of food. We are a society of habit and pattern and have been taught to prepare certain foods and not others. Fair enough. All I ask is that people be open to trying new things and consider seeking plant-based alternatives. That doesn’t need to happen overnight. You develop a taste for new things with time. I no longer see ground beef as food, for example, especially when it’s shoved in my face on TV like raunchy, plot-less porn. “Food is an art,” my friend, Keith, was telling me last night, and art constantly needs new methods to progress and stimulate.

Make It So

Cause-Effect vs. Intention-Manifestation

A new way to look at goal setting in our attempt to find balance between being active and allowing the universe to do its thing.

One of the key models for goal achievement is that of cause and effect. This model says that your goal is an effect to be achieved, and your task is to identify and then create the cause that will produce the desired effect, thereby achieving your goal. Sounds simple enough, right?

However, the main problem with this model is that nearly everyone seriously misunderstands it. And that misunderstanding comes from not knowing what a “cause” really is.

You might assume that the cause of an effect would be a series of physical and mental actions leading up to that effect. Action-reaction. If your goal is to make dinner, then you might think the cause would be the series of preparation steps.

To an outside observer, that certainly appears to be the case. The scientific method would suggest that this is how things work, based on a purely objective observation.

However, within your own consciousness, you know that the series of action steps is not the real cause. The actions are themselves an effect, aren’t they?

What’s the real cause? The real cause is the decision you made to create that effect in the first place. That’s the moment you said to yourself, “Let it be” or “make it so.” At some point you decided to make dinner. That decision may have been subconscious, but it was still a decision. Without that decision the dinner would never manifest. That decision ultimately caused the whole series of actions and finally the manifestation of your dinner.

Where does that decision arise from? It might arise from your subconscious, or in the case of conscious decisions, it arises from your consciousness. Ultimately your consciousness is the greater power, as it can override subconscious choices once it becomes aware of them.

Missing this very simple distinction has contributed to quite a number of failed goals.

If you want to achieve a goal you’ve set, the most crucial part is to DECIDE to manifest it. It doesn’t matter if you feel it’s outside your control to do so. It doesn’t matter if you can’t yet see how you’ll get from A to B. Most of those resources will come online AFTER you’ve made the decision, not before.

If you don’t understand this simple step, then you will waste a lot of time. Step 1 is to decide. Not to ruminate or to ponder or to ask around and see whether or not you can do it. If you want to start your own business, then decide to make it so. If you want to be married and have a family, then decide to attract a mate. If you want to change careers, then decide to do so.

It blows my mind that people think that something else has to come before the decision. People waste months trying to figure out, “Is this goal possible?” And this makes a lot of sense to do so if you’re at a certain level of consciousness. But all you’re really doing is creating delay, and you’ll simply manifest evidence to suggest that the goal is both possible and not possible. You think doubt in your head, you find doubt in the world.

Time and again I’ve seen evidence that not only people, but the universe itself, can sense a lack of commitment to a goal. Have you ever heard someone tell you about a goal of theirs, and you can just sense how wishy-washy and uncertain they are about it? They say things like, “Well, I’m going to try this and see how it goes. Hopefully it will work out OK.” Is that evidence that a clear decision has been made? Not remotely. Are you going to help this person? Probably not — who wants to waste their time on someone who isn’t committed?

But what happens when you sense total certainty in the other person? Will you help them if they ask for it? You’re far more likely to help a committed person because you can tell they’re eventually going to succeed anyway, and you want to be part of that success. You even feel more energized and motivated yourself to contribute to the success of people who are very clearly committed to a goal that resonates with you and which is genuinely for the greatest good of all.

Mecca Lecca Hi Mecca Hiney Ho

Don’t you think this process works the same way within your own mind? If your consciousness is divided against itself, do you think it will commit all its internal resources to your goal? Will your subconscious give you all the energy and creativity it possibly could, or will it hold back? Think of your subconscious mind as a multi-tasking computer processor. What percentage of resources will it devote to a task that you’ve told it to execute with the words, “Run this for a little bit and see if it works, but quickly dump it if it seems too difficult”? Now what if you gave that CPU a process labeled, “Run this now”? The universe itself works on the same principle. Think of it as the superconscious mind. When you’ve made a clear, committed decision it will open the universal floodgates, bringing you all the resources you need, sometimes in seemingly mysterious or impossible ways.

Whenever you want to set a new goal for yourself, start by setting it. Take the time to become clear about what you want, but then just declare it.

Say to the universe, “Here is the goal. Make it so.”

Do not ask the universe for what you want. Declare it. Don’t ask. This is very similar to prayer, but you are not praying FOR what you want. You are praying WHAT you want. You are simply saying, “Here it is. Make it so.” It is like planting a seed in the ground. You do not say to the ground, “Here is the seed. Please, can you make it grow?” You simply plant the seed, and it will grow as a natural consequence of your planting and tending to it. It is the same with your intentions. Simply plant them. There’s no need to beg.

Intend that your goal manifest in such a manner that is for the greatest good of all. This is very important, as intentions that are created out of fear or a sense of lack will backfire. You may get what you want, but it will yield a bitter aftertaste. Or you may get the exact opposite of what you want. But intentions that are genuinely made for your own good and the greatest good of all will tend to manifest in a positive way.

After I declare my intention, I wait for the resources and synchronicities to arrive. Usually they begin to manifest in 24-48 hours, sometimes sooner. Sometimes these synchronicities appear to be the result of subconscious action. I just happen to notice things that may have been there all along, but now I see them in a new light, and they become resources for me that I never noticed until after I declared my intention. But many times it’s nearly impossible to explain such synchronicities as the result of my own subconscious action, even if I step back and try to look at them purely objectively. Sometimes they come in such unusual avalanches that I can only explain them as the result of superconscious action. On some level the universe itself is aware of my intention and is doing its part to help manifest it. I also find that the more inviting I am of these synchronicities, the more easily they flow. Right now I typically experience about 10 per week on average, and I think that’s because I have many different intentions in the process of manifesting, so there’s a constant flow of resources coming to me.

The mental and physical planning and action steps come later. That’s how I organize the resources that have arrived. Once enough resources have come to me, I can begin to see how they all fit together to achieve the goal. But if the path seems too complicated or difficult and I don’t like what I see, I put out some new intentions to make it the way I want it to be. I declare, “Let it be simpler.” I again wait for the synchronicities to arrive, and a simpler approach becomes clear. Usually for an approach to be simpler, it means I have to get past some personal block within me. I have to grow on some level in order to be able to take advantage of a simpler solution. Or perhaps I have to learn a new skill first. So while it might be simpler, it might also be harder on a personal level. For example, by putting out the intention to do more to help people, I had to develop my communication skills. That makes the goal easier to achieve, but it’s more work up front.

In truth this is a simple and direct process. But our minds are so cluttered with the flotsam and jetsam of social conditioning that we have a hard time thinking on this level. We get so attached to seeing our goals manifest a certain way because that’s how they manifest in TV shows or in movies. Or maybe that’s how our parents or friends did it. But this attachment to a particular “how” blocks us from allowing our goals to manifest far more easily. If we could loosen up a bit on the “how” and just learn to allow the manifestation to occur in its own perfect way, goal achievement would be far easier.

So often I see people sabotage their own goals because they do not understand the power of intention. Realize that EVERY thought is truly an intention. Every thought. So most people manifest a cluttered mish-mash of conflict in their lives because their thoughts are in conflict. They simultaneously set a goal and then unset it. “I want to start my own business.” “I wonder if it will work.” “I wonder if I’ll succeed.” “Maybe this won’t work.” “Maybe John is right, and this is a mistake.” “No, I’m pretty sure it will work just fine.”

If you are trying to achieve goals on the level of action-reaction, meaning that you’re purely focused on the action steps, while at the higher level of intention-manifestation, you’re putting out conflicting thoughts, then you’re sabotaging yourself. If you go on a diet and exercise like crazy, while all the while thinking, “I’m fat. This is hopeless. This is taking too long,” then your higher level intentions will override your actions, and negative or incongruent results will follow.

If you want to achieve a goal, you must clear out all the “hopefully” and “maybe” and “can’t” nonsense from your consciousness. You cannot allow yourself the luxury of a negative thought, and that is an intention to manifest what you don’t want. This takes practice of course, but it is the essential art of learning to use your consciousness to create what you want. When you are congruent in your thoughts, your goal will manifest with ease. But when you are incongruent in your thoughts, you will manifest conflict and obstacles. As within, so without.

Why is it you’re able to do this? Because you have that power. Not believing in yourself simply means you’re using your own power against yourself. You’re like a god saying, “Let me be powerless,” and you don’t even realize it. If you think/intend weakness, you manifest weakness. If you project your power outside yourself and onto the external world, you lose your power.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to do this. It is a natural human ability. But it takes practice to develop your consciousness to the level where you can apply it and especially to learn to trust it.

What happens if you decide to manifest a really, really big goal, one that seems physically impossible? The process will still work. It’s just that there will be a lot more steps, and you may be led through various synchronicities for years before you’ve reached the point where your ultimate goal can manifest. It might take longer than your human lifetime if the goal is so big. But you will certainly make progress if you use this approach. So what is your goal? Say it out loud right now, and let it be for the greatest good of all. Then say to the universe, “Make it so.” Wait for the synchronicities and unusual coincidences to arrive. Follow them where they want to lead you, even if it seems strange at first. Allow your goal to manifest.

Laser Beams In My Dreams

Skip the Brazilian, Go For the Beam!

dawn of a new era chats with Collette from Midwest Cosmetic & Laser Surgery Centre to delve into the magical process of laser hair removal.

Laser hair removal works through the process of selective photothemolysis, causing permanent damage to the hair follicle by targeting darker areas of melanin, while not heating the skin.

“The anagen phase is when the hair is most vulnerable to the laser,” Colette explains.

Why Laser Hair Removal?

In comparison to electrolysis (electricity delivered to each individual hair follicle), laser hair removal is faster, more efficient, and less painful. Although electrolysis can be a good solution for fair hair. Generally, people also feel that laser hair removal is less painful than waxing and it’s definitely more effective long-term. It’s very satisfying and liberating.

What Are the Typical Results?

Genetic pre-disposition is always a factor to be considered, but generally you’ll see a difference with each treatment – with the hair becoming softer, the shaving issue is 100% improved. The back can be more difficult because it’s an area of thicker skin, but the bikini area responds wonderfully, as well as the chin and the upper lip.

How Much?

Bikini is around $125, underarm area is around $125, and full leg (both) is about $650 (which includes bikini and feet). Nobody wants to be a hobbit!

Who’s Doing It?

Anyone from their 20s to 60s, mainly.  We all have dormant hair follicles that are prone to becoming active if certain hormones are triggered through things like pregnancy and menopause.

Those with light skin and dark hair are the best candidates for Laser Hair Removal. But those individuals with darker skin can have coarser hair and can therefore also benefit from it. The LightSheer laser works the best for those with darker skin tones.

Does It Hurt?

Some people say it feels like an elastic band snapping against your skin. It’s a little more intense than this – a bit sharper than an elastic. But everyone’s pain threshold is different. If it’s pain-free, it’s not doing what it’s supposed to.

Any Way to Ease the Pain?

Suck it up! It’s over fairly quickly. Some people are more apprehensive and choose the EMLA, a topical anathestic cream which costs about $40 and is put on  60-90 minutes before the treatment. It doesn’t take the pain away, but does take the edge off. Tylenol can help take the edge off, too.

(*Collette uses a special trick of of placing the climax of her stories at the climax of the pain.)

What Can Go Wrong?

The most common problem occuring with laser hair removal is hyper-pigmentation because the laser is attracted to pigment. If you’ve been out in the sun, the laser gets a little over-excited and can discolor the darker area of the skin. 80% of hyper-pigmentation goes away, but it can be permanent. Improper technique can burn the skin and cause small blisters so choose your clinic wisely and choose a technician you’re comfortable with.

Or… you could just be a

Just saying : )

*Title in reference to a cheer we used to do at the YMCA Camp Chief Hector. The 12-13 year old group was called the Kananaskins, and we sang a cheer that went a little something like this…

(stomping and clapping)

We’re the ones from Kananaskins

We’re the ones who have the fun

We’re the ones who act like asses *donkeys* (this was a Christian camp…)

Put the others on the run.

Second verse same as the first

Whole lot louder and a whole lot worse.

(Repeat lines 1-4)

Chorus:

Laser beams – woo, woo (twirling gesture)

In my dreams – woo, woo

Laser beams – woo, woo

In my dreams – woo, woo

(…there was more to the cheer… something about a chicken train that we were riding all day… Crazy Christians.)

He’s Got Your Crazy

Okay, so we all know that Alec Baldwin is a bit of a nutjob, having made such poor choices as calling his daughter, Ireland, a “rude little pig” on an exposed answering machine tape. But in Baldwin’s “save the celeb” article for the Huffington Post about forgiving  Michael Vick for the horrific dog-fighting facilities found on his property in 2007 , Baldwin brings up some good points about  how the real villains in animal rights are those who are able to let their eyes glaze over when discussing matters like vivisection and animal testing, etc..

Dogfighting is undoubtedly sick, but so are many of the processes by which we obtain our goods in this animal product based world. The real villain was the teenage girl on West Broadway the other weekend who looked directly at the photographs of ducks being force-fed, and replied (insert Regina-from-Mean-Girls-white-privileged-parents-fucked-this-girl-UP tone): “they’re gonna die anyway!”

Here are some excerpts from Baldwin’s plea:

On rehabilitation:
What Vick did is, obviously, senseless and reprehensible. But I believe Vick, as a wealthy and talented athletic superstar who performs his job out in the open before crowds of amped-up and highly opinionated fans, suffers an unfair disadvantage as compared to, say, the heads of a meatpacking plant or the directors of a medical research lab where animals are suffering the cruelest imaginable abuses behind walls and doors that remove them from our sight and, therefore, judgments. Vick did horrific things and he deserved to be punished. He served his time and now I wonder what good does it do to exile him in shame and not let him show his example of how one can be rehabilitated after that kind of behavior. If Vick returns to his true form as an NFL pro, that platform can mean real progress for the animal rights movement. Or do some people really not want to open that conversation? Vick is one man who, along with his friends, brutally tortured and killed many innocent dogs and called it a sport. Each day in this country, millions upon millions of animals are suffering lives of daily abuse in factory farming, but we turn away because that animal, unlike Vick’s dogs, ends up on a grill and then on our plates. Animals that are not raised as pets suffer in ways that you and I don’t really want to know.

On the real problem:
Vick is easy to target as a villain. But the man who should have been setting an example for his young fans about how to comport oneself off the field can still do so. Donating a healthy figure from his enormous salary to any mixture of animal rights groups seems like a good start to me. I have a list for Vick when he is ready. But to ban Vick, to cast him aside and simply hate him, knowing that someone in his position stands potentially ready (and I do stress potentially) to effectively serve the interests of the very groups and individuals that he most offended, would be a mistake. Especially when there are enterprises operating in this country who will torture and kill more animals than a thousand Michael Vicks ever could, but you can not buy a ticket to watch them perform their job on a Sunday afternoon.

On forgiveness:
Vick deserves another chance. One chance. Just like all of us who eat meat, drink milk, attend rodeos, circuses, zoos and horse races and yet find it easier to hand Vick the bill for all of the other, more systemic abuses in our society may find ourselves needing another chance one day. Just like Michael Vick.

What role does forgiveness play in reforming the world’s treatment of animals?

Fuck You

The title of this post is in reference to the video below…Not everything is about you.

Hard to criticize Poppa Pitt when he’s active for so many good causes (the legalization of pot, gay marriage, anti-religion…), but it is necessary  to question impactful individuals who acknowledge some oppressive systems but not others.

Let’s take it a step further Brad and examine speciesism!

Then we’ll vote for you.

Go Back To Europe

CrimethInc. Convergence Gathering In Pittsburgh Disrupted By Racial Fury

During the last week of July, CrimeInc. held its annual Convergence gathering in inner-city Pittsburg in an attempt to transform an urban space into an anarchist community (as opposed to previous gatherings which had been held in rural outdoor areas). At the end of the week-long gathering, a disruption took place where several APOC (Anarchist People of Color) who had attended the gathering stormed the space and began ravaging people’s belongings demanding that they leave the city (!)

This terrifying racist behavior is disappointing and unsettling, as I considered attending this gathering and will likely attend one in the future. Below is a summary of what took place at the convergence.

This is a brief statement followed by personal accounts detailing the events of a controversial disruption that happened at the end of the CrimethInc. Convergence in Pittsburgh this July. These texts have been written by some anarchist people of color who participated in the convergence and were present the night of the disruption. There has been some discussion about it on the internet, but we hope to offer people more context from our perspectives about that night. Still, mostly questions remain about how to proceed. Hopefully at least, these accounts will provoke honest, open, humble conversations about all of the issues raised, so that we can figure out how to move forward as radical communities in struggle.

There is so much ground to cover to convey what happened throughout the weeklong convergence. Check back soon for further reportbacks about the rest of the convergence.

Brief Statement

What seemed like an awesome, performative disruption—a reclamation of space, an expression of anger, an opening up of dialogue—shifted quickly into something else entirely. At the end of a night of Cabaret at the CrimethInc. Convergence in late July, about half a dozen anarchist/autonomist people of color—some who had participated in the convergence all week and some who came into town just for this “action”—stormed into a hall full of people, reading a statement about gentrification and white supremacy, while screaming slogans.

People watched in silence, uncertain of how to respond to such intense aggression from this small group of friends. With no provocation, the disrupters* started grabbing people’s backpacks and sleeping bags and throwing them out into the hallway, under a rallying cry of, “Get the fuck out of here! Get the fuck out of Pittsburgh! We’re not fucking kidding!” They cleared people’s bags from the shelves, from off the ground; they grabbed lamps, chairs, anything they could get their hands on. Tossing everything out of the room, people’s belongings were dumped into jumbled piles everywhere. The disrupters screamed that white people were gentrifying the neighborhood the Convergence was in—neighborhoods everywhere—and that they wouldn’t stop what they were doing until all of the white people from the convergence were out of the building, out of Pittsburgh. It was the middle of the night, and almost everyone had been staying in that building. With nowhere to go, many people started to leave.

The disrupters became increasingly aggressive with the people in the room. They got up in people’s faces, and yelled at them to leave, “Go back to Europe! I’m sick of looking at your white fucking face!” Provoked into fear and panic, many people left the room, tears streaming down their faces. Others responded with a variety of racist comments demonstrating just how far a lot of people have to go in terms of understanding white supremacy and privilege. The disrupters used thinly veiled intimidation and threats, like screaming, “Get the fuck out of here! I am not a pacifist!” while pulling bags out of people’s hands; they muscled past the people who tried to block the flow of backpacks and purses out into the hallway, thrusting the belongings into people’s heads, backs, and other parts of their bodies.

In an attempt to deescalate the situation, people eventually started encouraging everyone to leave. Convergence attendees poured out onto the sidewalks, and started organizing alternate housing and carpools. Many people’s belongings were still lost and strewn all over the convergence space, but with the police arriving to investigate the scene, everyone had to go somewhere. By nearly 2 am, all of the people who did not identify as people of color—and all those too traumatized by the aggression of the disrupters—were out of the upstairs, yet the disrupters still refused to leave. Some people of color from the convergence called a caucus with the disrupters, but after an unproductive attempt at dialogue, finally, the disrupters left.

Apparently, a few friends of the disrupters had known about the planned disruption beforehand, but afterwards, everyone apologetically explained that they had expected the disruption to have a radically different character. Some people mentioned the feminist disruption of an anarchist gathering in the UK where women hijacked a meeting to screen a movie about feminism when describing what they had imagined. We certainly hope people would have intervened if they had foreseen the aggression and violence the disrupters chose to employ.

–from people of color who attended the convergence and oppose the disruption

*We are referring to this group of people as “the disrupters” because the only way they referenced themselves was as people from APOC (anarchist people of color). However, they were certainly not acting on behalf of all APOCers. And like with any decentralized group structure, when a few people do fucked up things under a banner that many people feel affinity with, those people risk delegitimizing the whole movement rather than bearing the responsibility for their own actions. To be clear, this disruption was NOT an APOC action.

The other side of the “Smack a White Boy” attack can be read here. Disrupters admit to moving the belongings of attendants and physically evicting people. Here is an excerpt:

We were not open to negotiation and stated such. There is no negotiation for colonization. As we were approached
with physical force one of us responded with,

“Don’t try to fight us, we are not pacifists, we will defend ourselves!”

This is not anarchy.

Anarchy is the end of oppressive behavior.

Dolphincide

The Cove

Japan’s Shame Exposed

Can I Try It Really Quick?

The Tiger Truck Is On the Prowl

Ex-hunter Steve Hindi of SHARK (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness) has pimped his ride into an indestructible armored truck with four inescapable hundred-inch video screens to expose animal cruelty, educating people all over North America. The ferosh vehicle is named  “The Tiger” because it’s always on the prowl.

“The Tiger gets you coming and going. That’s just the way SHARK likes it.”

Camden Courier-Post, February 24, 2005

“The video looped repeatedly, showing scenes of cattle being violently jerked from their hooves in rodeos.

Far from entertaining, the film was meant to shock – and it did, slowing traffic Wednesday evening outside Campbell Soup Co.’s headquarters.”

Thrown objects of ignorant passerby are easily deflected by the truck’s bullet-proof siding.

Activists Joanne Chang and Anthony Marr had one request for Steve Hindi on his interview on Co-Op Radio FM102.7 yesterday:

bring it on home!

The truck’s presence is requested at next year’s Calgary Stampede – the pinnacle of the year for the BTT  (Behind the Times) city of Calgary, Alberta. 4 animals died this year in the Calgary rodeo and there is no proof more solid than this to show that the “sport” is inhumane.

Real sports consist of willing participants.

On behalf of the entire compassionate population of Calgary, I would like to summon the Tiger Truck to crash the massive hick fest that is the Calgary Stampede.

Go Terrorist!

Non-Violent Demonstrations to Protest Violent Acts Considered Terrorism

Under US Law

4 Animal Rights Activists in the US known as the AETA are the first to be tried under the new Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act for conducting a series of  home demos outside of UC Berkley and UC Santa Cruz vivisectors’ residences. The act prohibits individuals to gather in peaceful protest against animal rights issues, labeling the animals are “products” of enterprise.

Even Obama refuses to use to word “terrorist” these days. Because you know what’s just as terrifying as masked men taking down your plane?  Your economy crashing down around you as the wealth falls into the hands of fewer and fewer, and your own government bombing the fuck out of your workplace to push a political agenda then spinning the event through the controlled media.

What is terrifying is having our right to free speech crushed by capitalism.