Constitutional Literacy 101

Flex Your Rights is an organization founded by Steve Silverman (a friend from my DC days) to educate citizens about their constitutional rights. In the face of racial profiling controversies, post-911 erosions of our civil liberties and the ever increasing numbers of people locked up (with our tax dollars) for minor drug possession offenses, Steve took action. He consulted directly with law enforcement and created an educational movie (narrated by Ira Glass) that makes the appropriate methods for asserting your constitutional rights during police encounters clear. Learn how to avoid confrontation while refusing to relinquish your 4th and 5th amendment rights.

Check it out on Yooutube.com (its 48 mins long) or, better yet, support this and future work by visiting www.flexyourrights.org Get the DVD in exchange for a small contribution of $19.99 (tax deductible even).

Ann Coulter as Performance Art

I had a heartening thought last week while watching a video of Coulter being interviewed on the Today Show. Tom said, "She only says all that crazy crap to draw attention to herself and her books to make more money." A light bulb went off and I thought, "What if Coulter is actually just an insanely genius artist?"

Think about it. What if she simply co-opted the rhetoric of the right to create this insane character in a grand, long term stunt to illustrate how extreme, how ridiculous her statements can be, how vicious and vile her venom can become still have today's media and audiences judge it worthy of attention? That would make her an incredibly hilarious and absurdly insightful artist worthy of my admiration and awe.

The fact that she's a silver spoon CT kid and her uptight New England manner were the driving force behind that revelation. More motivational was my tendancy to want to find a way not to HATE the more disgusting members of our society - the need to find some tiny, miniscule way to feel empathy with that demon bitch.

Alas, probably not the case. No matter how cool it would be and no matter how much I wish it were true, Ann Coulter's stupidity is probably not pretend. She believes the crap she says. This also means that I am just another pawn helping her make a few more bucks by spreading her cheap, scandal-heavy message (no worries - no actually knows this blog exists much less reads it).

And now I'm a pawn to Henry Rollins too:

Bending Wood

I'm taking a carpentry class at the vocational school and am trying to build two bedside tables for my class project. My big dilemma right now is what type of wood to use. I picked out some wood types based on what looked the most beautiful to me. Just so happens that every single one is a imported hardwood (aka cuttin down rainforests). So now, I have to either pick a less flashy domestic wood and stain it to cover up the fact that its very plain or compromise my values and build with Brazilian Rosewood. Ugh.

I never thought something like this would matter to me. I always pick the more sustainable option. Flashy, trendy and colorful little things rarely overcome my sense of doing the right thing and the big picture but that was BEFORE it was my own artistic creation. I want to be proud of the way it looks with no caveats or disclaimers like, "oh, well it looks really common and plain but no rainforests were cut down to make it." I'm always bitching that good designers should be able to please their aesthetic sensibilities within sustainable practices and that those that failed to do so were just suffering from a lack of innovation and creativity. Big words until I actually am put in a position to have to change a design I was perfectly pleased with.

Oh well. I'll just have to be satisfied with the great moral superiority of my bedside tables instead of the beautiful color and grain. UGH. Its just that I soooooo dislike people who walk around satisfied with their moral superiority. Especially the hippie superiors. They can be such judgemental as**oles.

I already feel like a big jerk from making my best friend Samm feel bad for shopping at Walmart.

Maybe I can get away with just adding a Rosewood veneer - only using a teeny, tiny bit of Rosewood.

Its the little things

Last year, when I learned about the connections between parabens and cancers (and petrochemicals absorbing directly throught the skin in general) I was hesitant to make moisturizer changes because I'm very picky about the texture of what I put on my face. I had only recently switched from Estee Lauder to Jack Black at the time - a men's product but practically weightless and with 20 spf and 50% cheaper than Lauder. I tried Juice but the texture was thick and I didn't like the smell. Burts Bees wasn't doing it for me either.

When I found Korres, I was able to go straight home and toss every old lotion with any type of paraben straight into the trashcan with no regrets. They were the first homeopathic pharmacy in Greece and have created hair, skin and face lines with absolutely NO petrochemicals - not even mineral oil. If you can't find them locally, you can always get them at Sephora.

The Pomegranate balancing face mousturizer is heaven. After using it for a few days, I realized that I no longer needed as much lotion on my face and that it felt a lot less dry after washing. Despite the fact that they use only plant derived effective ingredients, they're still 50% cheaper than Estee Lauder (one jar is $23.50 or so, I used to pay $32.50 for my Lauder). Their Acacia conditioner is also probably the best I've ever used.

So now I don't have worry about absorbing toxins all day from the things I'm putting on my skin to protect me. That's a huge weight off my back.

I can't wait until companies like Korres, Juice, Burt's Bees and Dr. Hauschka start eating up enough market share to make all the big, dept store brands take notice and come out with pertrochemical-free lines. Until they do, stop giving Clinque and Este Lauder and Christian Dior your hard earned cash for a bottle of ultra cheap chemicals with perfume splashed on top.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Go in your bathroom right now and look at the ingredient lists on all your different lotions. Look for any word with "paraben" at the end of it - methylparaben, butylparaben, propylparaben, etc. Those are the companies that don't give a crap about your health and are WAY overcharging you for the toxic crap they're shilling.

F**k politics

OK, so politics alone doesn't command enough of my attention to inspire me to write about current events more frequently than once a year or so. After being inspired by Sammantha, Mike and Matty's blogs, I've decided to revamp and just write about whatever the hell I please.

More to come.

American Damage

I feel like I can not continue to let major damage to our children, future workforce, crime rate, living space, bodies and values continue. Long-term mistakes in corporate policies and motives need to be reframed as values issues.

Do we want America to be a country where a family can't run a sustainable farm and still make a living?
Do we want America to be a place where we knowingly feed children food that causes problems later in life and fail to implement the most basic solutions to some of our major problems?

Ugh. HOW HOW HOW??? Still need to figure out how it all comes together in a concise, digestable way. Is it a consumer education campaign? UTR (Under the radarscreen) policy maker effort? Got to be both. Is it nonprofit, PAC or a private business?

Ugh. Back to work.

Doctors Without Borders: time to return that physics review

So, ever since the election, I've been on this "I'm applying to Medical School in Hungary" kick, right. Fortunately, I was speaking with an old friend from college tonight and she reminded me of a few key points:

- In med school, you have to memorize a bunch of chemical mechinisms (part of the reason I became an animal behavioralist and evolutionary theorist in the first place)

- She's from Poland and begged me to believe her when she says, "Rose, EVERYONE in Europe - I don't care if its Eastern Europe or Western Europe - wants to come to America. They may talk all this shit about hating America, but really, they'd all give their left nut to get a job here and have our standard of living. There is high unemployment, slow growth, shitty economy." I argued that this "standard of living" costs an arm and a leg and you spend all your time working just to stay afloat but she countered that I may have a hard time finding a job in Europe.

- You probably shouldn't go to med school if you don't really want to be a doctor.

Fuck. there goes another idea. I suppose it at least served a purpose in giving me something positive to focus on after the election - it kept me from catching the nasty case of depression that was making the rounds.

She asked me why I wouldn't go to school for Industrial design or painting. I don't want to do something for a living that just creates another excuse for people to consume more unnecessary garbage.

She said that I should go to Hungary and learn the beautiful language and take painting classes.