August, 2009

There's a little town in Japan called Taiji which used to seem like an unremarkable place with Buddhist temples, a whale museum, fishermen and a verdant national park nestled around a small cove. It used to have a big secret, too. Through the award-winning documentary, The Cove, the bloody secret of this town has been exposed to the world. Beginning September 1st through March 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are slaughtered. With the world watching,Taiji is now at the epicenter of an ongoing battle to stop this horrible practice. The thousands of dolphins are routinely rounded up by fisherman and driven into the cove. There, they are chosen by dolphin trainers for a destitute life in a tank somewhere around the globe or a swim-with dolphin program. The so-called less appealing ones are chopped up and found neatly stacked in styrofoam trays in Japanese supermarkets (often mislabeled as whale meat).  Most Japanese people are completely unaware of what is happening in Taiji. While Taiji might be thousands of miles away, there's much you can do right now to help stop this slaughter. 1. Send a letter to Obama Administration officials and the Japanese Ambassador to the US 2. Ask others to get involved. 3. As a tourist, think twice before you participate in a swim-with-dolphin program or visit a captive dolphin. There's a good chance such an animal could be from Taiji. 4. See the Cove! It's a beautiful, engaging, enthralling and fascinating film that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The secret is out. The slaughter has begun in Taiji. We can all take action now to shut the cove down.

Last week Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said that discriminating against gay people shouldn't be illegal. That's right, Herbert thinks sexual orientation shouldn't be a protected class in the way that race, gender and religion are. Herbert said "We don't have to have a rule for everybody to do the right thing. We ought to just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do and we don't have to have a law that punishes us if we don't."

Um sure, we all ought to do the right thing, but people don't do the right thing, that's why we have laws! What if the same thinking went for all immoral actions? I mean, people ought to do the right thing and not steal, murder, or rape others. Should we forgo the laws that punish such crimes and hope that people just "do the right thing?" Sorry, people do not always do the right thing hence why we have laws in place.

Peter Danzig from the Foundation for Reconciliation says Herbert’s comments demonstrate that he’s unaware of the discrimination LGBT Utahns face, “A lot of people in the predominant culture of our state just don’t know a lot about the kind of discrimination that the LGBT community face. It was a surprise to me to discover that you can be fired simply because your employer discovers that you are not heterosexually oriented.”

So Gary, if we're going to live under the assumption that people will "do the right thing", then the right thing to do here would be for you to support protecting the homosexual community from discrimination.

cpstorm's photostream (CC)

KCRW, the Los Angeles public radio station, is by far my favorite station, which says quite a bit coming from someone who grew up listening to the incredibly awesome variety of broadcasts in Boston.  The station is a one stop shop for NPR news, "hand-picked" music, and entertainment, and now KCRW has launched "Five Things From KCRW", a blog series that each week features a new top five list of favorite things compiled by the stations on-air personalities.

Even if you don't live in LA, you should check out these lists to discover fresh and funny run-downs of topics such as "Top 5 Condiments" (one of my favorites), "5 Books for Summer Reading" (it's not too late!), and "5 Ways to Make Each Day Worthwhile" (a healthy reminder).  There's sure to be something for everyone, and who doesn't love lists of cool things.  More

Yesterday Swiss tightrope walker, Freddy Nock walked up a steep cable on the slopes of Germany's highest mountain, Zugspitze. Nock accomplished the feat with only a balancing pole and with no nets or safety ropes. The climb was used to raise more than $19,000 for the German charity "Menschen fuer Menschen," which runs rural developmentprojects in Ethiopia. Check out the amazing video:

In our last Carbon Footprint Battle (a series we've been running that I just made up), we found that buying downloaded music online is probably better for the environment than buying CDs. Well, now, we come to the next great battle: real books versus e-books. Can you guess who's gonna win this one? Well, given that in the first sentence of this New York Times article they tell us that for e-readers like the Kindle "the carbon emitted over the life of the device is offset after the first year of use," we get an idea of how this might play out.

The Cleantech Group conducted the study of e-books versus paper books, and their answer is unequivocal. E-books win, hands down.

“The new study finds that e-readers could have a major impact on improving the sustainability and environmental impact on the publishing industry, one of the world’s most polluting sectors,” a statement at Cleantech’s Web site states. “In 2008, the U.S. book and newspaper industries combined resulted in the harvesting of 125 million trees, not to mention wastewater that was produced or its massive carbon footprint.”

However, given that e-books account for only about one percent of the publishing industry's business at the moment, the mere advent of e-readers has had almost no impact on the environment. More

What do Snow White, Monday Night Football, Jimmy Kimmel, and now Spider-Man and Iron Man all have in common? Give up? Well, as of this morning, they're all owned by Disney. Yes, it was announced today that Disney has bought Marvel Comics for $4 billion in cash and stock. This is Disney's biggest acquisition since it bought Pixar for $7.6 billion back in 2006. Why such a purchase, now, in this economy, in which Disney actually paid quite a premium to own the Marvel brand? Reuters says it's all demographics.

"This helps give Disney more important exposure to the young male demographic that they have sort of lost some ground with in recent years," said David Joyce, an analyst with Miller Tabak & Co. Indeed, Disney has long been a blockbuster brand with girls thanks to characters such as "Hannah Montana," "Cinderella" and "Snow White," but has struggled to achieve the same kind of success with boys.

And, just think of the marketing power Disney has that Marvel couldn't tap into. With ABC, ESPN, cable channels, theme parks, distribution rights, and so forth and so on, Disney has the power to push Marvel further into the general population (you know, in case you missed those indie Spider-Man flicks). More

Feeling stressed, I suggest you check out this great NY Times article about researchers discovering that "the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence." Considering it's stressful to be stressed, I can see how this cycle feels never ending.

The piece went on to explore how when we are in a rut, we often dig ourselves deeper and deeper into ruts. Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist who studies stress at Stanford University School of Medicine, told the NY Times, “we’re lousy at recognizing when our normal coping mechanisms aren’t working. Our response is usually to do it five times more, instead of thinking, maybe it’s time to try something new.” I think more people than not are guilty of doing this, it's just so easy to get comfortable with our poor coping mechanisms (ie: drinking, drugs, over-eating, shopping, etc) even if they only produce a temporary relief. The scary truth is if not treated with care, that stress can kill you. Stress can raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, and cause depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

...And this is why I do yoga, although getting on that crowded subway to then push through those crowded NYC streets to get to my often crowded class isn't always so soothing. Ahhhh stress, you are a tricky habit.

Dolphins and whales are renowned as the ocean's most playful and intelligent creatures. But as apex predators they also play a pivotal role in maintaining ecosystems. In fact, some scientists theorize that unchecked whaling post World War II--which eliminated half a million whales in the north Pacific alone--may have been responsible for the chain reaction that has led to current declines in marine life populations today.

Unfortunately, cetacean hunting is still a global phenomenon. Dolphins are massacred by the thousands in annual drive hunts in places like Taiji, Japan, even with warnings of toxic levels of mercury. And whales continue to be hunted everywhere from Greenland to the Antarctic despite international regulations, most often in aboriginal hunts but also as "research." To get an idea of the loss in numbers check out our interactive map of the hunting hotspots around the globe. And be sure to see The Cove for a heart-stopping look at the shadowy dolphin hunting practices in Taiji, in theaters now.

While on HULU to watch a little of one of my favorite movies, The Last of the Mohicans, I learned that another movie I like (for very different reasons) was also up on the site. The Future of Food came out a few years before Food, Inc and was the first thing that taught me what was really going on in our food system and what genetically modified meant.

It is totally worth your time to give the movie a watch - as any time spent thinking about how you can eat better and how we can all work to make a more sustainable food system is time well spent.