Clintons and Monsanto--a match made in hell

Well.

I hinted back in January about Hillary Clinton's shady choice to align herself with Joy Philipi, the fourth-generation "family farmer" whose hog farm is home about 2,000 unfortunate pigs. Philipi is also the former president of the National Pork Council, a "poster organization for corporate agriculture." (If you are unfamiliar with industrial pork production, you might take a painful look at this provocative piece that Rolling Stone put out in late 2006. Warning: this will likely put you off bacon for awhile, or at least have you running for the nearest small family farm).

Now, even more damning ties to agribiz are popping up--this week, the second of two scathing open letters to Senator Clinton, written by former supporter and fellow Wellesley alum Linn Cohen-Cole hit the internets (read the first here). Prompted by an emotional reaction to a PBS special on farmer suicides in India (the result of farmers being tricked into buying expensive biotech rice, which didn't grow, leaving the farmers desperate, starving, and drowning in debt), Cohen-Cole spent the last few months digging up information on Clinton's ties to Monsanto, the biotech company that sold the GM rice to the Indian farmers. And she did a bang-up job--these letters are full of juicy (and scary) links that read like a primer on Monsanto's evil doings--of connecting the dots.

Sigh. I can't say that I'm shocked as much as saddened by this information. Sometimes it really does seem like we're just fucked--I doubt that Obama's nose is much cleaner than Hillary's--and even if by some miracle, Monsanto went out of business today, their GM seeds would continue to drift through the air, contaminating natural crops, and the chemicals they've tricked and bullied farmers around the globe into buying would continue to leach into ground waters and otherwise sicken us.

If you don't know much about Monsanto, and most people don't--they spend about $50 million in PR every year to keep us misinformed--they are the evil scientists who brought us DDT (outlawed in the 1970s, but due to a long half-life, still sickening people around the globe), rBGH and Agent Orange. And they are as powerful and insidious as they are tricky and ruthless. Right now, Monsanto is fighting on a state-by-state level to keep family farmers from labeling their dairy products "rBGH-free." They also make massive donations to university agriculture programs, but only if they're doing biotech research. And (shudder) who knows what those crazy fuckers are cooking up these days.

A few years ago my dad, who was drafted into the Navy during the Vietnam War, joined the ranks of thousands of fellow veterans who've developed prostate cancer since being exposed to Agent Orange while serving in that conflict. Of course, prostate cancer is not the only increased health risk for vets, and things are even worse for the Vietnamese still living with contamination, over 3 million of whom suffer its consequences (cancers, diabetes, spina bifida and other birth defects) today. In the 1973 Peace Accords at the end of the war, Nixon acknowledged America's responsibility for Agent Orange's destructive impact and promised $3 billion in reparations to the devastated country.

But the US has yet to cough up a dime of that sum (and needless to say, neither has Monsanto). If you are of a mind to take action on the Agent Orange issue, check out the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign.

To learn more about politicians with ties to Monsatan (including Clarence Thomas, Jon Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, and former Secretary of Agriculture Anne Veneman) and see what else you can do, check out the Organic Consumers' Association's Millions Against Monsanto campaign.

What else can you do? Support your local small-scale family farmers. Get yourself some organic/heirloom seeds, share them with your friends, tend them carefully, doing your best to protect them from GM contamination, and save them, Lorax-style. They are the best hope we got, as far as this mouthy femme can see.

Heavenly Haps

Over the last two nights, the sky has been home to a full lunar eclipse, a satellite shooting, and a meteorite--well, millions of those, I guess, but this one happened to fall down in Oregon. Witness to only the first of these celestial happenings, I'll focus on that one.

I was working late, having gotten started late as usual, I was parked here in front of my computer, and having surfed the web for most of the day, I knew it was coming, but I also knew that it'd been snowing most of the day in Baltimore, so I assumed the skies were cloudy. But when I got a text message from the glorious K Love, one of my absolute besties (and ex girlfriend of Mr. Man--yes it is an incestuous elite circle in which we circulate) I looked out the window to the west, and it looked clear, so I ran downstairs to the easterly windows, and there it was, the full Virgo moon, momentarily masquerading as a crescent. Mr. Man and I stood there a few minutes, then decided we'd get a better view from outside, so we gathered up the Devil Dog (I've renamed the pets--ever since the Devil Cat got brave, they are really a pain) and headed to the churchyard across the street.

And we were glad that we did. It was colder than a witch's tit out there, but the moon, the eclipse of which was fully apparent through the screened window, was bigger and clearer out there, and looked like it was covered in a blood-stained piece of lace. (an omen of things to come? I'm not a white-lace-panty kind of girl, but it is getting close to that time...)

Not only that, but the churchyard is a big one, on the corner of the block, and a diagonal path cuts across it that is often used by locals. One of our neighbors happened to take this path as we were standing there, and we alerted him to the eclipse. We'd never talked to this guy (whose name I didn't get--I was picking up dog poop when he divulged it to Mr. Man, who promptly forgot it) but before long, he and Mr. Man were discussing international politics (mostly immigration policy--we live in a predominantly Latino neighborhood, and our neighbor rightly feels that the US doesn't want him here anymore). Dressed only in a hoodie and jeans, he was incredibly chatty and content to stand out there in the cold with us for about 15 min.

When the conversation came round to our location--the churchyard--and our neighbor asked us if we believed in God, I had to fib a little and tell him yes, suspecting that it would lead to a longer, more complicated and potentially heated conversation. We gathered up the Devil Dog and headed in, glad to have finally met one of our neighbors (though for the moment, even more glad to have skirted the God talk).

People in Baltimore sure are religious. "Pastor Eddie" (I'm still trying to figure out how he got my name and address) wants me to attend his service--he sent me a postcard with the Lord's prayer on the front of it last week. I'll be damned.

In other celestial news, my new haircut is out of this world! The stylist and I settled on "fashion mullet" to describe it. I'll be debuting my new 'do in NYC next week. Until then, keep an eye on the sky.

PS

Happy V-day, y'all

Making inter-species peace at home

In response to a mounting workload and a recent flurry of internet research and writing, I've been having a lot of dreams that I'm blogging or web surfing. Weird, though perhaps not overly so...back when I was a waitress, I had dreams nightmares about that--I'd be working two gigantic sections, often separated by several miles, and I wouldn't be able to find the kitchen. When I was in grad school, I started dreaming about complex communication theories and would wake up murmuring long words, and in spite of the occasional new insight, this generally troubled me as much as the restaurant dreams--I mean, if your mind can't distance yourself from your work while you sleep, how peacefully are you resting? This new work dream seems different, though. I worry that it might be evidence that computer culture is infiltrating the workings of my mind...maybe I've got spyware on the brain (ba dum pum).

Anyway, it happened again this morning, but this time, as I emerged from dreamland, I had some unusually tender feelings for Bitsy, our neurotic feline, who was gently messing my hair from her favorite spot, my pillow (her presence there usually pisses me off) and as I padded down the hall to the bathroom, I remembered why--in my dream, she was helping me find what I was looking for online. In real life, Bitsy is generally a nuisance when it comes to computer work--if she's around, she's trying to get into my lap, or worse yet, onto my desk, between me and my keyboard. But this morning, I really felt like she'd been helping make progress on the subconscious interweb.

Maybe it was because Bitsy has been making some breakthroughs of her own lately. Ever since Miz D, who is allergic to cats, moved into what used to be Mr. Man's office (and Bitsy's private safe spot, complete with baby gate to keep Belle out) she's been getting much braver about spending time in common spaces, and lately, has been trying to get into my lap right in front of Belle and when Belle blocks her, she has been much more aggressive--she'll jump up on a chair and swat at her, mean-like, whereas in the past, she spent most of her time on the stairs (see photo) glaring at the dog and crying for her dad to pick her up and place her safely on the back of the couch.

I should explain that the pets have been a major issue since we moved in together. Mr. Man is very protective of Bitsy (perhaps overly so) and my Belle, though I don't think she would ever hurt Bitsy, is not shy about pursuing her intense curiosity about her new sistercat. We have differing ideas about how to handle this situation, which (a word to the wise) could likely have been avoided if we'd done our research before introducing them, although Bitsy has pretty much hated every other animal she's ever lived with. Mr. Man's therapist even suggested that we get some books about blending step-families, because the situation has caused so many arguments.

Anyhoo, bladder empty, I laid back down beside Mr. Man and told him about my dream. We snuggled for a minute before he had to get up and head off to school. As he generally does, he left the door open so that Belle could hop up and take his place on the bed. I was hoping against hope that Bitsy would maintain her position on the pillow and that Belle would snuggle up on the other side of me, but I didn't really think it was possible.

But they did! No drama whatsoever! I drifted off again, happy, and woke up several hours later (no computer dreams this time) to find them both right where I'd left them, and even when we all got up, there was no hissing, no nothing. Maybe they didn't hear us when we said we weren't celebrating this Hallmark holiday today (though we'll have a date this weekend). Maybe Belle's finally figuring out that Bitsy's not going to take her shit, and Bitsy's realized that Belle's not going to eat her.

Of course, as I write this, I imagine Belle's got Bitsy cornered in the bathroom. Baby steps.

Eat this

In spite of my strong ethical concerns around food (and my belief that not eating your veggies might make you crazy--look to Britney Spears for evidence of that bit of wisdom) and the fact that I've been an on-again-off-again vegetarian for years (I eat meat now, but hardly ever, and only when I've met the farmer, or really trust the restaurant) I generally think that Peta is a pretty fucking stupid organization, a belief that was recently strengthened when they bought my mailing address from some other group and sent me a plea for donations, thinly veiled as a questionaire, which included two pages of address labels. Now, my background in psychology and media theory makes me privy to the knowledge that groups like Peta give people those kinds of freebies in order to guilt us into making donations--studies have shown that when people don't donate, they don't use the labels. Now, I don't want to use about a 1/3 of the labels they sent me, because they say "Peta" on them, and I don't want anybody to think that I'm a blood-hurling hater. (Disclaimer: I would never buy a real, new fur, but I do own a fake one, as well as a vintage wool cape w/a fur-lined hood that my gramma gave me. I also hate factory farms, pet factory farms, and stuff like that.) I'm gonna snip the Peta logo off and use them anyway--take that, Peta!

I hope a) that you're still with me after that long intro and b) that you'll forgive my long-windedness (I named this blog Mouthy Femme for a reason) but anyway, Peta redeemed themselves by a smidge when I ran across this little bit of brilliance while I was pretending to work today. I can say for Peta that they are pretty brilliant promoters--they've got star power galore--but teaming up with Free Range Studios, the geniuses that produced Store Wars and this little Garth Brooks/Walmart video, may have been their smartest move yet.

I'm not all that keen on the impotence argument, but it beats shaming a marginally chubby do-gooder for not taking on the meat industry (to be fair, Al Gore did deserve to be shamed for failing to mention the meat industry's substantial contribution to Global Warming, but "characture-izing" him as a sloppy chickenshit was unfair, in my opinion). And of course, this video was like some kind of weird dream where political candidates actually discuss food, which is a hope I hold near to my heart.

Speaking of shaming fatties, have any of you seen this bit of fascist insanity? I got it from a food listserv and thought that maybe it was some kind of sick joke but I poked around and see that it's true: Mississippi lawmakers are trying to bar restaurants from serving food to people with a BMI over 30. For those of you who may not know, Mississippi is the fattest state in the country (you can see how fat your state is here) and has been for at least the last two years--I guess they think that publicly shaming and starving fatties into submission might knock them down in the rankings. Aside from stating the obvious by calling this idea fascist and insane, I'm pretty much speechless on this one. (I can hear your collective sigh of relief from here.) Ok. You can go now.

Where is My Mind?

It occurs to me that in my haste to lay shame upon the (RED) campaign, I forgot to mention that Mr. Man and I did, indeed, volunteer at the Charm City Kitty club's most recent production, Groundhog's Day, last weekend. And it was loverly. It may have been my excitement over getting out of the house, or it may have been all those cute queers, but it was AWESOME.

Volunteer activities included moving a bunch of chairs around, tidying the restrooms, making a list of drink prices for the second bar, and installing a giant vagina over the doorway into the theater. The show didn't sell out, so we got to enjoy it from the comfort of seats, which was great, since volunteers often have to stand. Though it would have been great if it'd sold out, of course, especially since the act were so wonderful.

Highlights included:

• Electric Junkyard Gamelan. This band fucking rocked. And was also fucking adorable. Almost ridiculously so, though it didn't take anything away from their quirky musical stylings.
• Gray. "Ex-soldier turned wordsmith," this local poet commands mad presence. I've got a little crush.
• Eileen Myles. I don't know if this is her regular schtick, but she was totally old-school lezzied-up (think plaid flannel and longish gray hair) which is not generally my "type" but I do generally get hot and bothered by any kind of humorous intellectualism, and she had me laughing myself into a coughing fit. I think I might have peed a little, but I drank several glasses of Woop! Woop! Shiraz, so...

No offense to the other acts...but I just didn't like them "that way." The CCKC, on the other hand...I think I'm in love.

BUGGE(RED)?

I've had mixed feelings about Bono's (RED) campaign for quite some time--while I think that huge corporations can impact social change in ways that individuals cannot (like Starbucks' switch to rBGH-free dairy last year), the (RED) campaign actually encourages individuals to fight AIDS by buying red tee-shirts and other crappy pap from the GAP (who we all remember has a questionable record when it comes to human rights anyhoo) and other big bizes with questionable ethics. And while I think that Americans needed a huge reminder that AIDS is still out there, and the (RED) campaign has certainly accomplished that, I think that it has also 1. served as an enormously powerful PR tool for all of the corporations involved and 2. enabled soccer moms and frat boys across the country to feel self-satisfied and activist-y, when really, they are just...consumers.

So imagine how pleased I was to see this article in today's Times, even if it did link to each of those corporations, and also linked to Bono and the Superbowl, but didn't link to the Global Fund, the international aid organization that distributes the money raised by the campaign. (To be fair, they just don't link the way bloggers do, to actual websites, but rather, to their own stock market pages.) However, they did cite a controversial article published in Ad Age (subscription required, or I'd have linked it) last March, that said that as of that time, (RED) had raised only $18 million, but had spent $100 million on advertising. (RED execs later argued those totals at $25 and $50 million, respectively.)

If it were an "eco-friendly" endeavor, I'd call it corporate "greenwashing" but I guess it's more appropriate to call this whole campaign...wait for it..."redwashing."

Another note about the article--while I applaud the Times for publishing this story, I think they could've done better--they open by quoting health workers who credit the campaign with the building of hospitals, and the increased funding that has allowed them to focus on research and supply beds for people who come there seeking treatment. But as they later point out, the campaign contributes a mere 2% of the Global Fund's funds...which actually hasn't increased the amount of money spent on aid in this arena, but rather, allowed the Fund to shift funding to other areas. I'm not saying that the donations haven't made a difference, or that the Times were wrong in covering that side of the story, but I know that a lot of people scan articles and often don't click through to the second page, where they mention detractors like Ben Davis, who encourages philanthropic individuals to Buy (Less) and donate directly to AIDS service organizations, and Brook Baker, chairman of Health GAP, who asks:

"'Do we really want something as important as H.I.V.-AIDS to be funded by holiday shoppers?'"

which is a pretty good question.

All in all, kudos to the Times, w/whom I've got a little love/hate thing going--this piece was better that this confusing piece of thinly-veiled pro-cloning shit yesterday...

Anyway. Two more things about the (RED) campaign--last summer, Mr. Man and I saw some guy in P-town, walking around with a "HAMME(RED)" tshirt on, which we agreed, was pretty fucking funny. And also, I saw Bono once, back in the day, when I was 14 and U2 was touring with the Pixies, and not to hate on the short guys, but minus the shoe lifts and tricky camera angles, he can't be more than 5 foot 4.

Say it with me now...POSER!!!!