What’s the best part about Sweet & Sarah’s Easter marshmallows in the shapes of chicks, bunnies, and eggs? There no boiled cow or horse hooves, tendons or cartilage in them! Don’t get me wrong – I love how cute Peeps are as much as the next guy, but there’s something as sinister and creepy as a Zombie-Jesus about disguising nasty slaughterhouse-scraps as yummy candy for kids. Thanks to Sweet & Sarah your celebration of Easter doesn’t have to support factory farming.
Also, don’t forget to include some vegan Cadbury-style ‘cream’-filled eggs from the Chocolate Wendy House.
• GQ’s Spring Must-Haves include a vegan new-wave boat shoe from Sperry Topsiders (without those leather laces, finally), fancy pocket squares of every pattern and color, bright and bold striped ties and straw fedoras.
When searching for a striped tie that isn’t made from hundreds of worms who are boiled alive, we suggest hitting up your local thrift or vintage store which typically have piles of ties or our favorite vegan tie company, Jaanj.com. As for straw fedoras, that one thing we love about spring. You can avoid the wool hats and go with a 100% plant-based straw hat. LiViTY makes recycled, hemp, organic, and fair trade fedoras in some bold patters and classic shapes, and Engineered Garments makes an organic linen boater cap. We suggest keeping a lid on it and sticking to classics like these:
The Hill-Side offers some selvedge Pocket Squares that we find quite fetching:
• I’ll be as happy as the next guy to see SeaWorld go under. The next guy is our pal Gary Smith, and he’s written an article on SeaWorld and the exploitation of dolphins and whales that flooded the enterprise with a 1.4 billion profit last year. In the article over at Elephant Journal. Ric O’Barry, who was featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary film “The Cove” and serves as the marine mammal specialist for Earth Island Institute, shares some thoughts with Gary on the recent killer whale tragedy. If you needed to be convinced that captive seas mammals are unhappy, this will do it!
“Orcas are the most social animal on the planet, even more so than us,” said O’Barry. “Males will stay with their mothers their entire lives. When we capture an animal like Tilikum, we take him away from the two most important things of his life; the world of sound and family. We put them in a concrete box and expect him to stay mentally healthy. It simply doesn’t work.” - Rick O’Barry, Marine Mammal Specialist EII
• Is Discovery’s Planet Green FINALLY getting the meat/global warming connection? Or not. The promos for Emeril’s Green(washed) Kitchen still lists “beef” as a major ingredient, but I got a recipe for vegan chocolate mousse in my inbox this morning, and they have a vegan section. Strangely, their new showFuture Food: Gastronomic Geniuses seems like a bunch of dudes playing with their meat. The video showcases these “geniuses” shooting bratwurst with paint-balls, and trying to figure out the tastiest way to serve this meat up in mad-science ways. The maddest science is showcasing meat on a self-proclaimed “green” network when it’s the #1 cause of global warming! Hey Discovery, WTF!?
• Rock It Out: A Night to Benefit New York’s Farm Animal Sanctuaries
Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary
This benefit will feature live musical performances, a scrumptious vegan bake sale, and an awesome raffle all to benefit farm animals at Farm Sanctuary and the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary! Check out what these sanctuaries do to save animals like Billy, who was taken in after almost being killed by a sledgehammer at a dairy farm just a few weeks ago:
Saturday, March 6, 2010 from 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: Reidy Hall at All Souls Church, 1157 Lexington Ave @ 80th St, Basement Level
$10 pre-sale, $15 at the door (cash only)
Pre-sale tickets can be purchased at: https://www.mycommunitytickets.com/event_info.asp?eventid=26496
• Did society create monstrous people, or do a collective of monstrous people create civilization? This was the topic of last week’s Hardcore History, and we suggest you listen. Totally mind-bending! Could widespread child abuse and bad parenting in earlier eras explain some of history’s brutality? We think so.
• Learn to Lobby for Animals with the HSUS. We are only a few weeks away from the 2010 New York State Humane Lobby Day on Wed, March 24th in Albany. Join fellow activists to help pass legislation to crack down on animal fighters, stop puppy mills, end canned shoots of captive exotic wildlife, and protect farm animals from cruel treatment. To RSVP and get more info, click HERE.
• Jessica Reid asks GGA readers if a No Kill Nation is possible when it comes to dog shelters. There’s always a fierce discussion on the GGA comment-board, so have you say!
“The truth is you cannot blame having to kill shelter animals on an “irresponsible public” or “too many animals” when a shelter doesn’t implement lifesaving and low cost programs. I personally witnessed missed opportunity after missed opportunity from alienating potential fosters to terrible customer service to rude behavior toward rescue groups. I heard the same stories from other volunteers. These were not isolated cases. These were failures of management and staff to do what they should be doing: saving lives.”
“We’re looking to kill a deer in the name of manliness”.
That’s what the host and subject of the documentary film “An Emasculating Truth” (presented by Dockers) says in the trailer. The trailer consists of very “manly” killing-things-drinking-womanizing-weight-lifting-bull-riding-gun-shooting-circumcising stuff that all lead to a Dockers-wearing dude trying to find out why men are becoming such sissies? Gosh, can’t we get back to being rugged, chiseled, animal-killing, stoic cowboys? Or can’t we at least embrace being lazy, apathetic, sloppy, couch-potato assholes who ignore our kids and expect the woman to cook and clean? I mean, if we’re gonna’ embrace gender stereotypes, why not all of them? When did becoming a man have to have so much… hair product in it?
“Women will succeed. They will eliminate men probably in a thousand years. There’ll be like a few men and like a lotta’ lesbians”.
Masculinity is in danger! Testosterone is down, 17% in the last 14 years! Men are becoming superficial, vain, feminized, gay, metrosexual, and ruled by the ladies they should otherwise be smacking around! Let’s blame it on Tofu! Or how about your female boss. That bitch. We’ve gotta organize and take this society and turn it into a patriarchy! oh, wait…
While Dockers doesn’t actually advocate violence toward women in this film, (just animals – who really aren’t deserving of consideration anyway, you sissy) they are capitalizing on a very trendy idea. A percieved loss of male identity within a culture that is already male-dominated seems to be satirical. But what if there is some truth behind this joke? Being the one who “wears the pants” basically means not letting a woman influence your decisions. Jamie Doak over at BUST Magazine does an excellent job of summarizing the sexism-as-satire vs actual sexism that can be found in this new Dockers Campaign. I guess it might be humorous if the Levi-Strauss company didn’t have such a recent and horrible history of abusing female workers:
Late in 1991 a Levi’s contractor in the US Pacific territory of Saipan was accused of keeping imported Chinese women in virtual slavery, confiscating their passports and forcing them to work 84-hour weeks at sub-minimum wages. A contractor in Indonesia who had been given a clean bill of health by a Levi’s inspector was found to be strip-searching female workers to determine whether they were menstruating as they claimed and thus were entitled to a day off with pay in accordance with Muslim law. Employees of a former Levi’s contractor in Mexico said that at least ten children aged under 14 worked at the plant; workers were laid off for a few days if they went to the toilet ‘too often’, and rain-water poured through the roof, collecting in puddles and causing electric shocks. source
May favorite part about Dockers’ Facebook page is the poll:
“Right or wrong taking a stand”? Total bullshit. Wearing toxic conventional cotton pants made by underpaid, mostly female workers is not taking a stand. It’s falling in line. Did you know that between 1981 and 1998 the Levi Strauss company, who owns Dockers, closed 69 plants and put 17,795 people out of work in the United States, including 1,000 white-collar jobs? They moved all their labor overseas and into Mexico where they can pay people less and factories continue to expectantly violate human rights. Even more factories have been moved overseas and into Mexico since then.
While Levi’s now claims to enforce strict labor standards at its factories, its recent history of mostly-female worker exploitationand its even more recent business (late 2007) with Maquiladoras that continue to violate workers’ rights in Mexico tells a different story. As recently as August of 2009, a factory in Lesotho making Levi’s was caughtdumping needles, razors and harmful chemicals at two municipal dumps that attract young children who search for pieces of clothing to sell. It’s not a desirable thing have leaked into the mainstream media, but the point is that when you have factories all over the developing world, its difficult and costly to maintain strict environmental and labor standards. Levi’s has made huge improvements – including beginning to purchase organic cotton and offer recycled denim, but WRAP certification might be a smart next step.
So what does it really mean to be a man who wears Dockers? Is this campaign a joke? You tell us.
Grasp your pearls, for the future of the luxury market is at risk! We saw this video over at EcoStiletto (a special that appeared on The Luxury Channel) and were both intrigued and sort of disgusted by these luxury brands who are finally realizing that their own futures are at risk if the resource-tap they call Earth dries up. With their own mortality in sight, the main question this video raises is, “Does looking and acting rich conflict with sustainability?” Hello? Does a bear shit in the woods?
Let’s get over the noble idea that these brands actually care about the Earth, right now. It’s like the classic case where a Hollywood mega-star get’s a disease and then suddenly they’re the biggest advocate for finding a cure. They are simply trying to save their own existence, which is not the worst thing. Often it can help, but in the case of an entire market, that means certain sacred cows can not be questioned. Like what? Poverty. Caste and class systems. Money. Materialism. Greed. Hierarchical power structures. Resource access. Viewing the planet as a stockpile of resources. Anthropocentrism. The list goes on.
One glaring issue is that companies like Gucci, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander MQueen, and others that rule the world of luxury, who perpetuate images of desirable and unattainable lifestyles, are all addicted to leather, fur, cashmere, wool, and other animal products. We also know that raising livestock is the single greatest ecological threat that exists. So, until these brands covert all their products to be vegan (which is possible), it’s all greenwashing and very difficult to take them seriously. Even Stella McCartney, who uses no fur or leather, still uses plenty of wool and cashmere. Once again, when talking about environment and sustainability, the livestock industry was completely brushed over and left out, although it is the single greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
If we leave it up to luxury brands to define the mainstream understanding of environmentalism, of course extracting things from nature and turning them into expensive products (and the social and political atmosphere maintaining their position to do those things) will not be questioned in itself. If we let luxury brands use their powerful positions to create the mainstream discourse on sustainability, it’s like letting a drug addict head up the ATF.
I was astounded to hear the list of luxury brands who helped create the documentary “Home” by Yann Arthus Bertrand. Do they not see how drastically they need to change everything about themselves? If the current definition of sustainability is “meeting the needs of the present without undermining the ability of future generations to meet their needs” then I wonder whether these brands could ever be capable of accommodating such an aspiration as that?
According to the video, the “I am not a plastic bag” phenomenon reduced plastic bag consumption in England, but is it simply an accessory of mass distraction as The Observer’s George Monibiot suggests? My fear is that greenwashing will prevail, not unlike the Canadian Fur Council’s “Fur is Green” and Diesel’s “Global Warming Ready” campaigns, and they will attempt to capitalize on the market value of “green” as opposed to actually changing industry practices from labor and environmental impact to animal welfare.
Heritage is what is at risk for luxury brands. Changing the factories, formulas, and ingredients of their products changes who they are at the core, which is a huge and uncertain undertaking. But if done thoroughly, honestly, and openly, it’s more than an opportunity. It’s common sense. It’s not biting off the hand that feeds them. It’s realizing that there is only one Planet Earth, yet many of us live in a way that requires three Earths to sustain the status quo.
What do you think? Can luxury brands change their ways? Or is the very nature of luxury in conflict with sustainability?
Topo Ranch makes some cool, organic, cowboy-cut shirts, jackets and tees for you dudical dudes out there who like yokes. You know… yokes? Those diamondy shapes on the shoulders, duh.
What’s missing from this picture of “The Carbon Bathtub”? National geographic seems to have left out one really important cause of global warming in their latest issue. According to them, 4/5 of greenhouse gas is caused by burning fossil fuels and the rest in from deforestation and other changes in land use. Not a thing mentioned about livestock. Infuriating! Yet this World Watch Institute article says that half of ghgs are caused by the farming industry. Write Nat Geo a nice letter explaining your concern about this oversight: ngsforum@ngm.com
This “Sailor” sweatshirt from KOMODO, collaborated on by German designer Kilian Kerner is 100% organic cotton and is simple, rugged, and handsome. Why complicate things?
If you get a round to it,you might want to pick up a pair of classic, round glasses or sunglasses. I’d steer clear of the exact John Lennon/Harry Potter wire-frame, and go with more of a “The Thomas Crown Affair” Steve McQueen iconic shape in a thicker frame. Like Cary Grant here, you’ll like it. What have you got to lose when everyone has aviators and wayfarers?
![[motor+vest1.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4c8ipv24LdU/S3iKJT9-o_I/AAAAAAAAGuM/eKJx1t1LnxQ/s1600/motor%2Bvest1.jpg)
Also, don’t forget to include some vegan Cadbury-style ‘cream’-filled eggs from the Chocolate Wendy House.
• Did society create monstrous people, or do a collective of monstrous people create civilization? This was the topic of 
