No Soap for Sale

Going Organic: Yes, it is Better for You!

2009-07-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

So, this blog is 6 feet under, but I'm resurrecting it tonight because I just read a very misleading CBC article on organic produce. The article, which is here, questions the health benefits of organic produce, suggesting:

"[A] study — released in July 2009 — concluded that when it comes to organic produce, there is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of added health benefits... The study concluded that while there were small differences in nutritional benefits of organic produce, they weren't enough to be of any public health relevance."

However, obviously, the health benefits that come from organic produce don't come from their increased nutritional value; they come from their not being laden with chemicals and pesticides! To suggest that benefits should be quantified in terms of the produces' "nutritional value" is as shifty as it is idiotic. The article also stated:

A University of Alberta study published in June 2007, found that organic fruit and vegetables may be better for you, but might not better for the planet. The study concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by getting organic food to your table from distant farms outweighs the potential health benefits to you.

Somehow, the CBC has also forgotten that shipping is not unique to organic produce. Of course long-distance shipping is not great for the environment, but to imply that people should be buying non-organic foods in order to be ecologically responsible shows a lack of logic and a lack of integrity.

You can read more about the new Organic Products Regulations that were set in place in Canada on June 30, 2009 here. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the regulations... Also, if you're interested in local organic food, the 2008 guide to Organic Food in the Tri-County region is available here.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

2009-04-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, I've been such a blogger fail. We might as well admit it. Two post-less weeks? That's two too many. I will offer no excuses. Instead, I will replace my blogging-lack with blogging abundance. Go forth, children of the interwebz, frolic amidst this digital fruit.

In this post I will say something vastly obvious that, despite its being vastly obviousness, no one ever seems to think of. I'd go so far as to call it an alternative perspective. Here goes:

The other day I was hanging out with a good friend, who often goes on long-winded rants. (I secretly suspect that this quality may have something to do with why we're such good friends. But. Anyways.) The subject of her ire was Chapters because OMG THEY NEVER HAVE WHAT I WANT AND THEY PUSH ALL OF THE INDEPENDENT SELLERS OUT OF THE MARKET AND NONE OF THE EMPLOYEES KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT BOOKS AND WHERE DID THE SQUISHY CHAIRS GO, ASHLEY? HUH? WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE SQUISHY CHAIRS?!

(As someone who spent more than a year of my life working in the children's section of Chapters, telling stories, reading kids' books like nobody's business, and cleaning up those detestable squishy bags of stuffing and disease, I have my own opinions on these complaints, but I digress...)

The point is, this rant occured while she was standing in Chapters, shopping. She proceeded to head to the checkout with about $30 worth of book stuffs.

Okay, now. The general overhead for a book purchased in Chapters is about 60%. This means that she had just invested $18 in a company she finds not only lousy, but a hinderance to the local book market at large. I ask you, what is wrong with this picture?

We do it all the time. We complain about Chapters, McDonald's, about companies that test on animals, about meat sellers who treat their livestock in ways we find abhorrent, about chemical companies that release too much pollution, about Exxon and oil companies, about companies that pay their lower-level staff wages we find unreasonably low for the value of their work. And yet, we keep buying from them. We enable them to keep on keeping on.

The general line of reasoning seems to be: "My purchases don't make a difference. This book, this tank of gas, this cheeseburger is nothing in the big picture." But we forget that there isn't some big picture, out there, happening. The big picture is you and I getting up in the morning, walking out the door, and deciding which companies we want to support today. Which business' philosophies are ones of which I approve? Which are not?

I'm not going to say that the same things will matter to the same people. The fact that Chapters refuses to stock first-time poets may or may not be an issue for you. KFC's pumping their chickens full of hormones until they are so fat they can neither support their own weight nor copulate might not cause you to blink twice. Old Navy's use of sweatshop labour might be alright in your books. There are valid and in-depth arguments to be made for both sides of these issues.

The point is, if you're going out and consciously handing money to someone who you think is doing something lousy, in order that they might keep doing it, and you're reaping the benefits of their actions... Well, who's doing the lousy thing? You guessed it.

We can't research everything we buy without becoming a nation of hypertensive loons, but we can research a lot of it. I try not to buy from Chapters anymore. I like results of PertPlus more than most other shampoos, but not enough to support Proctor & Gamble. My dog never once in her life at Iams. I'm learning that I'd rather go buy my clothes from Value Village than the mall. If there's an album I really like I don't just download it, I buy it. This is just me. You might come at this from a completely different angle.

The point is: I implore you, dear readers, to consider putting your money where your mouth is. Maybe you'll put it different places than I put mine, or the next person puts theirs, but put it where you think it belongs. Don't, for heaven's sake, hand $18 to the thing you think is the devil of the capitalist world. It's just good sense.

The Problem with Big Pharma, Part II

2009-03-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Alright, this is part II of my longwinded ranting about big pharma. Strap on your seat-belts, because here I go again.

When last we spoke, I left you with the question of how my doctor had been so mind-booglingly stupid as to confuse the staph infection I had on my leg with fleas; the only real commonalities are 1. they itch and 2. they look funky. My answer is a little tongue in cheek, but not altogether absurd.

Big Pharma and Med Students

There's a developing trend in med schools that's a little scary for those of us who want out doctors to be reliable, unbiased, and well-studied. That trend is drug manufacturers sponsoring lectures and professors, and "educating" those enrolled in med schools.

In 2005, University of Minnesota students complained that PowerPoint slides for a lecture on erectile dysfunction were watermarked with the logo for Cialis (a drug for erectile dysfunction manufactured by Eli Lilly). Moreover, it was found that the professor giving the lecture was on the advisory board for Cialis and, hence, had a vested interest in the company.

How can we expect that these students are getting the full story of so-called "erectile dysfunction" (which many say can be improved by adding a little chili to your diet) if their lectures are being given by a specific drug company with aims towards profit?

Another example of the biased condition of med schools is made clear in the story of David Healy; Healy was offered a position at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), which is a U of T affiliate. Shortly after the offer was made, he gave a lecture at the CAMH in which he raised concerns about new anti-psychotic drugs, saying the had the potential to do a great deal of harm in some patients and should be perscribed carefully. The physcian-in-chief of the CAMH, Dr. David Goldbloom, was extremely angered by the lecture and withdrew the job offer.

Even though the audience present had ranked Healy's lecture as the best of the day, he was still punished for speaking out against drug companies (specifically, the manufacturers of Prozac, which has a patient suicide rate of 10/1000 as opposed to the average 1.5/1000). So, it seems the best lecturers are being turned away, if they don't agree with pushing pharmaceuticals.

Maybe this doesn't exactly explain the kind of ineptitude my doctor exhibited, but it certainly does explain (what I would call) the declining quality of doctors overall. The real facts are being made secondary to the facts that are going to sell a higher number of drugs.

Revising Guidelines

Another point I want to quickly speak to is the revision of cholesterol guidelines and what constitutes "high cholesterol." Once upon a time, the cut-off for high cholesterol was much higher than it is today: it's moved from blood cholesterol levels of 280mm per deciliter all the way down to below 100. Why the drastic change?

In 2003 it was found that eight of the nine major experts who wrote the 2003 cholesterol guidelines were employed by major drug companies. Hence, a lower cut-off means more people have "high cholesterol," which means more people need drugs. In 2005 the guidelines changed so that 500,000 more people would be advised to take statin medication. That meant $250 million more in profit for drug companies.

To put things in perspective: a middle-aged man who takes statins for 10 years reduces his risk of heart attack by 2%, on average. However, napping about 3 times a week for 30 minutes reduces your risk of heart-attack by about 37%. So, why are we paying for these drugs, again?

Moreover, people who do not have evidence of occlusive vascular disease SHOULD NOT BE TAKING STATINS. That means that 3/4 of the people who are currently on them, should not, in fact, be. This means that the doctors that we put so much faith in are frequently perscribing drugs to people who don't need them!

You've got to ask yourself, have the risks of cholesterol over 100mm really changed that much, or is there something else going on here? Who's benefitting?

The drug industry, though it does a lot of good for a lot of people, does not deserve the kind of power and authority that we give to it. One of the things that we so often forget is that we are consumers, dealing with businesses. The pharmaceutical industry is a business. The media exists, businesses exist, drug commercials exist to sell us products. They are not parents, or gods, or protectors of mankind. The are a bunch of folks who are out to make money. And there's nothing wrong with that. The problems start when they start deceiving us and we don't look take responsibility for ourselves and look into the deceit.

Amber Pinsonneault's Feed Your Head is a great place to starting learning about natural health alternatives and what works. Again, the facts found in this post were taken from James Winter's "Lies the Media Tells Us" and the documentary "Big Bucks, Big Pharma."

Big Pharma: Do You Often Experience Pain, Dizziness, or the Urge to Take Drugs You Don't Need?

2009-03-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Those of you who know me are probably aware of my long-standing hatred of doctors. I think it started when one looked down his nose at me, diagnosed me with fleas (when I really had a fever, mild blood-poisoning, and staph infection) and told I ought to take better care of my cats (to this day I have never owned even one cat). This was before ushering me out the door with a perscription for flea cream. Thanks, doc. There have been various -- indeed much worse -- incidents since, but it was at that moment that I realized that being doctor doesn't necessarily mean you can tell the difference between a sick person and plain old itchy one. So, it wasn't shocking when, a few years later, I discovered that all the faith I'd had in pharmaceuticals was equally unfounded.

Mostly, the realization came through seeing too many ads on tv, getting curious, and looking into what was going on. What I found out was that there's a lot of ground to cover when you're talking about big pharma and why they are more-or-less evil incarnate, so I will try to break it down as best I can. Moreover, I think I have found the reason why Dr. McFleas was so vastly insipid as to imagine I had a common feline ailment, but I'll explain that in an upcoming post (this subject will be basis for a few posts because of the volume of information).

But, for now, let's start with the obvious:

Advertising to the Public

Alright, so you're sitting at home, watching some Grey's, or whatever shameful innocuous drama it is that you watch, and we cut to commercial. Suddenly: Are you too fat? Are you too thin? Does something on you hurt? Do you occasionally experience emotion?!!? There's a pill for that!

There's a reason why for most of the 90s and early 2000s the combined profits of the top ten pharmaceutical companies exceeded the combined profits of the other 490 Fortune 500 companies. There's a reason why big American drug companies have a profit margin of about 17%, where 3.1% is considered high. There's a reason why in Germany today a typical glass of drinking water contains anywhere between 30 and 60 antibiotics, hormones, pain killers, chemo chemicals, etc. Why?

Because, overwhelmingly, our global society believes that pills are a cure-all answer. And a big part of the reason we think that is advertising. Every year, 4.2 billion dollars are spent on advertising drugs directly to consumers. Mostly, the money is spent on advertisements which "brand" pills, or create an emotional bond between the consumer and the product. For example, let's look at this Nexium ad:

Alright, so, for the first 15 seconds of this 1 minute ad, we have no indication that we're being offered a pill. We've got an all-American dad, "the Finisher" who runs his family, gets things done, lives the upper-middle class ideal. The way he bursts down the hall with a puffed out chest is more than a little reminiscient of Superman. The first thing that's being sold isn't a pill, it's a persona, a lifestyle. Nexium isn't just about heartburn, then. It's about being a successful man and a good dad.

Then we find out about what the pill supposedly does. And the side effects: his doctor did say that headache, diarrhea, and abdominal pain could be side effects of Nexium. But let's not dwell on this for too long! We quickly move on to a picture of him and the kids are hanging out on the immaculate lawn in front of a picture perfect treehouse. (And, p.s., did any of you have a treehouse like that growing up? I mean, I wasn't the only one with a structurally unsound hodgepodge of 2" by 4"s in a tree, was I?)

So basically, we have viable ad for a pill sandwiched between two montages that have absolutely nothing to do with medicine. They are there to create a brand identity and sell a lifestyle.

It's an effective tool, because every year hundreds of people walk into their doctor's office with a list of meds that they're interested in. The way we are told to feel about Nexium is as much about fatherhood as it is about acid reflux. Whether or not we actually NEED these drugs becomes irrelevant: I mean, women have apparently asked for Viagra and Cialis. Not the way that works, ladies!

But there's a lot more going on than just the obvious branding advertisements we see everyday.

Other forms of advertising

Let's talk about the other stuff, the advertising we don't know about. There's a lot of stuff we just don't see, but, make no mistake about it, it's there, it's impacting our lives, and drug companies are spending a truckload of money on it. The target? Doctors.

Ghostwriting

Somewhere between 11% and 50% of the articles in any given major medical journal will be written by, you guessed it, big pharma. Industry workers write articles and then pay doctors to submit these articles to journals under their names, as if they had written them. These articles are more favourable toward the drug in question by an 8:1 margin. "Cialis is so badass! Medically speaking, this is the most badass drug of all time. 100% guarenteed to increase badassitude with no ill effects. Perscribing this drug means that your badass too!" Other doctors then read these articles and perscribe the drug, not being fully aware of its success rates, side effects, etc. The result? The world gets screwed.

Making Laws

Big Pharma doesn't merely obey laws; they make them too. This is because they can afford to hire lobbyists. In 2003, big pharma had 675 lobbyists in Washington, which is more than 1 per congressman. Moreover, in 1992 the Perscription Drug User Fee Act was passed, which allowed drug companies to pay the FDA in order to speed up drug approval (I'm not saying the FDA couldn't speed things up a little, or a lot, but in such a way that they agree to do a lousy job in order to pad their pockets). Drug companies and the current forms of government making friends = no good for consumers.

"Educating" Medical Students and Doctors

This is a HUGE issue in the pharmaceutical industry. You know when you walk into the doctor's office, and he or she looks like a pharmaceutical float? The Ambien pen, the Septra pad, the Xanax lancer, the Lipitor coat? Yes? That's the result of sales reps! Yes, there are sales reps who visit your doctor in order to pump their companies drugs.

Overwhelmingly, the reps are young, flirty, good-looking women. These reps are employed to bring doctors lunch, remember the names of their wives and kids, their birthdays... Basically, it's all about making the doctor feel special. What's more, these reps have huge expense accounts; friendly bribes are commonplace.

One example: a former drug rep, Phyllis Adams, arranged a $35,000 "unrestricted educational grant" for a doctor... it was used to put a swimming pool in his backyard. No joke.

According to another former rep, ten minutes with a doctor means that your market share is going to go through the roof. In other words, that doctor is going to start perscribing your drug a lot more, because gee, aren't those people at GlaxoSmithKline nice? That's great for the company, but not necessarily great for the people who are being put on meds that they don't need, or meds that they could get for cheaper, or these meds instead of those meds, which would actually work better for them.

But it doesn't stop with the wisened old doctors; now big pharma has moved in on med students... I'll be talking about that and other facets of big pharma in my next post.

Also, fyi, most of the facts for this post are coming from James Winter's "Lies the Media tell Us" and the documentary "Big Bucks, Big Pharma," which is available to watch at FreeDocumentaries.org.

Here, Have a Nerdy Past Time!

2009-03-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

Alright, everyone, I come to you this week bearing exciting news -- especially if you are a fellow media-nerd. I have found a way in which to expend virtually no effort while similtaniously improving my media literacy! Sound too good to be true? I assure you, it's not! (Alright, I probably sound sort of like an infomercial here, but I'm still fairly geeked about it.)

The source of my newfound knowledge and glee is FreeDocumentaries.org. This website hosts about a hundred full-length documentaries, most of which provide altnernative media perspectives on exciting issues such as Cuba, Nicaragua, US interventions, democracy... You name it and they've probably got it.

Basically, I have combined this website with my extraordingary powers of facebooking, twittering, and general online time-wasting in order to create a fabulous situation of passive learning. Simply put one of these films on in the background while you browse and you'll probably learn something that will blow your mind without even having to do anything!

Here are a few of my favourites:

War Made Easy // how the US government promotes war in the media
The Corporation //ways in which the modern "corporation" operates (to be taken with a grain of salt, I think)
The Lies that Led to War // lies the media has told in order to perpetuate the "war on terror"
Nicaragua: A Nation's Right to Survive // about the US's invasion of, occupation of, and terrorist regime in Nicaragua

Next up, I have my eye on the uber-corny sounding Secrets of the CIA (though I'm sure it will be better than it sounds). It might even be good enough to warrent my full-attention and a bag of popcorn...!

An Addendum: More Stuff You Should Know About Feminism in the News

2009-02-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

It occurs to me that perhaps my last post needs an addendum. I gave you one example of the poor treatment of feminism in the news, but my point was not to hold up a lone article and say "Wow, how lousy is this?" Rather, I wanted to make the point that there is a fairly consistent resentment towards feminism present in mainstream media.

I could site articles such as Feminism or femininity, the abhorrent treatment of the murder of Tracey Lynn Kelsh by our own Windsor Star, the statements of Anne Cools' which were quoted on International Women's Day (apparently, women are the cause of male violence) and many more such happenings; there's a lot to choose from. But not only is "feminism" degregated; women themselves are often "othered."

What I mean by that is this: when a man does something, it is reported as good old fashioned news. When a female does something, it's often explicitely stated that she was a she. We talk about gunmen, robbers, businessmen, whatever. And then we have stories about the female shooter, the female robber, the business woman who overcame the odds. The man is normalized and the women is othered. Sure, when it's a small turn of phrase, it isn't a huge deal, but it points to something: the fact that we, as a society, take masculinity as the standard, and feminity as the other, the secondary, the non-standard.

In many papers they'll have a women's section, with tips on cooking, celebrity news, house and home information. The suggestion is that what is news to women is different from what is news to men. The implication is that maybe women just aren't interested in business, sports, world politics. In this way, they're again marginalized and othered. And the gender binary is perpetuated.

In part, I suspect that this has to do with the fact that women are notoriously lacking from newsrooms. Let's take ABC for example: in 1991 female correspondents numbered 14, or 19% of the total. In 1998, the number was 26, or 39% of a smaller news roster. Not very significant numbers. And yet, at the time, they were lauded by the TVtimes for their progression. I always find it strange when we celebrate women making up, say, 1/3 of something. It speaks to how normalized our lack of presence is. We make up more than 50% of the population, but we're thrilled when we account for 27% of new hirings.

Speaking for black women, the Internation Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) said:

There are now more women of color working in the U.S. news media than ever before…. The unfortunate reality, however, is that in all but a few rare cases, women journalists of color are not positioned to make decisions about what becomes news. In effect, women of color have established a presence in the news gathering process, but they have very little influence over news content or product. As a whole, these women are present, yet they are without power and without a voice.

The same is true of women on the whole. Though female presense is increasing in the newsrooms, it is still miniscule in the positions that count. A story that any female report writes can be edited, re-worked, clipped, nipped, and tucked by her editors. The same is true for male reporters. Until female presense at the head of the newsoom gets a lot stronger, we can probably expect much of the same.

"Oh, for the love of Betty Friedan!"

2009-02-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

That's what you would have heard me exclaim if you'd been sitting next to me as I looked over my regular news sites Friday morning. The cause of my issued expletive? An article in the Times Online entitled "Madonna syndrome: I shoul d have ditched feminism for love, children and baking."

"Oh, this'll be good," I thought, as I began reading the article by ex-"feminist," Zoe Lewis. I was not disappointed. Lewis, in part, cites the life of Madonna as evidence that women who strive to make it big eventually revert back to a desire for children and a traditionally matronly life. The rest of the article is a mix of pseudo-science and sexism. Here are a couple clips from the article:

"I was led to believe that women could “have it all” and, more to the point, that we wanted it all. To that end I have spent 20 years ruthlessly pursuing my dreams - to be a successful playwright. I have sacrificed all my womanly duties and laid it all at the altar of a career. And was it worth it? The answer has to be a resounding no."

"I thought that men would love independent, strong women, but (in general) they don't appear to. Men are programmed to like their women soft and feminine. It's not their fault - it's in the genes."

"As I write this I feel sad, as if the feminist principles that my mother brought me up on are being trashed. Am I betraying womanhood? No, I am revealing a shameful truth. Women are often the worst enemies of feminism because of our genetic make-up. We have only a finite time to be mothers and when that clock starts ticking we abandon our strength and jump into bed with whoever is left, forgetting talk of deadlines and PowerPoint presentations in favour of Mamas & Papas buggies and ovulation diaries."

Excuse me while my head explodes, messes up the floor, and then the little bits of my exploded head explode again. Let's take a look at what this article really says about women.

1. The article forgets the reality that there are a vast array of feminisms (pl.), from womanists, to new feminists, to post-feminists, to marxist feminists, to amazon feminists, and so on and so forth, all with different agendas, ideas, and standpoints. The plurality of feminisms are widdled down into a single all-encompassing 'feminism,' which is portrayed as the simple choice between 1) being a working woman or 2) fufulling one's so-called "womanly duties" by being a stay-at-home mom.

Employment equity is forgotten about, physical abuse is forgotten about, rape is forgotten about, the struggles of racialized women are forgotten about, religious inequality is forgotten about, issues surrounding contraception are forgotten about, the culture of eating disorders emerging in young and college age women is forgotten about.

By suggesting that feminism is singular and merely represents the choice between work and motherhood, Lewis and the Times are completely degrading all that the word encompasses. The 'feminism' that they are talking about is nothing more than a caricature.

2. Since when does having a child, baking, or being in love preclude you from being a feminist? Since when is it one or the other? Gee, I guess that batch of oatmeal squares I made last week was more politically loaded than I thought.

3. I don't even know where to start with this idea that "men like their women soft and feminine." For one, Lewis is blatantly assuming a heteronormative standpoint. Let's wave as the voice of lesbian women, third gendered persons, and two-spirited persons are thrown out the window, shall we?

And then, excuse me, but holy genetic determinism, batman! You're telling me that what men like is programmed by their genes? Oh, right, the 'I want a soft woman gene,' that's right next to the 'I like plaid gene.' I mean, seriously? There are plenty of men -- I know plenty of men -- who dig fierce women. And who said that as soon as you become a mom you have to become "soft" or "feminine"? If you think that, you've obviously never met my grandma.

4. And what's this shameful truth that once that maternal clock starts ticking "we abandon our strength and jump into bed with whoever is left"? Alright, so I'm 21, and nothing on me has started ticking yet, but I still feel pretty confident in stating that this is ridiculous. Not every woman goes batty for babies when she's on the heels of menopause.

The average number of children per woman has been going down since the mid-30s and, at the same time, the number of couples who are childless by choice is increasing. That's not to say that some women don't decide that they want children when their period of fertility is drawing to a close, but it certainly isn't universal.

As for "jumping into bed with whoever is left," that's most sexist things I've heard in a while. It suggests that women's biological desires are so strong as to completely incapacitate their rational judgement, that baby-mania is enough to drive a woman to hop in the sack with someone who is otherwise abhorrent. Thanks Zoe, that's a really flattering summation of my 'biologically-determined character'!

To be fair, though, Lewis does offer a few points of balance in her article. She says "wife and mother should be given parity with the careerist role in the minds of feminists." I dig that. she also states "I wish a more balanced view of womanhood had been available to me. I wish that being a housewife or a mother wasn't such a toxic idea to middle-class liberals of yesteryear." Again, a very valid point. But these moments of validity are quickly followed and invalidated by outrageous sexist statments, and are thrown in at "the back of the bus" -- or the end of the article, which most readers don't get to.

All in all, this article represents the common misrepresentation of feminisms offered by the mainstream. Moreover, when you're done with it, you can read other articles from the "Explore Women" section of the Times online, which include Fashion, Beauty, Diet & Fitness, Relationships, Family, Celebrity, Body & Soul, The Way We Live, and Horoscopes. Oh yes, we're a complicated sex.

Now, will someone please pass me the sports section?

The news that doesn't make the news...

2009-01-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

In corporate media there is something know as "the buying mood." It essentially refers to news media's creation of a state that inspires readers, listeners, and viewers to buy products. It's unsurprising that such a thing exists, considering that 80% of revenues for newspapers come from ads (James Winter, Lies the Media Tells Us). Newspapers, thus, walk the line between working for corporations and providing the public with fair and objective news. Television news stations also negotiate the line between reeling in viewers for their corporate sponsers and disseminating the news. Even the CBC, formerly publicly funded, is turning towards more private sponsorship.

One of the stipulations of "the buying mood" is that the content of the news shouldn't overshadow the products for sale on the next page or in the upcoming commercials. For example, in 1996 Chysler Corporation's ad agency, PentaCom, sent out a contract to 50 magazines with the following clause:

"In an effort to avoid potential conflicts, it is required that Chrysler Corporation be alerted in advance of any and all editorial content that encompasses sexual, political, social issues or any editorial that might be construed as provactive or offensive."

Essentially, that means if your magazine plans on running anything Chrysler doesn't agree with, they'll pull their ads and their money. Now, I don't necessarily blame Chrysler for this, that's their business perogative, nor do I blame magazines who go along with it, because that is their's. But we are fools if we think that news media can provide objective and hard-hitting news while at the same time pandering to their corporate sponsors.

According to Sut Jhally, commercials work by issuing an emotional appeal to potential buyers. Hence, it makes sense that corporations would want to limit the amount of emotional appeal news content has, so that ads can stand out by comparison. Of course, there are many other reasons why our corporate news stays relatively unemotional, but we'll talk about those in later posts.

This brings me to the real point of this post: Israel and Gaza. I have noticed that whenever I turn on the TV, I get the same non-specific turns of phrase, the same pictures, the same neatly processed and cleaned up stories. "The buying mood," makes it impossible to show any images that actually capture the intense conflict going on.

The following images are very difficult to look at. But I think they are very important pictures to look at because they represent the truth of what's going on in Israel and Gaza. You won't see them on the evening news. They have been collected and captioned by The Big Picture.

Mahmoud Tark, an nine-year-old injured Palestinian boy, is transported by Red Crescent officials on an ambulance at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to a hospital in Al-Arish December 30, 2008. Palestinians wounded in the Israeli attack on Gaza trickled into Egypt on Monday after a day and a half of confusion and disagreement between the Hamas and the Egyptian government. (REUTERS/Amr Dalsh (EGYPT)
Samera Baalusha (34) (right) sits with her daughter Eman (15) and surviving son Mohamad (15 months) while waiting to see the body of her 4-year-old daughter Jawaher Baalusha during the funeral held for Jawher and her four other sisters who were all killed in an Israeli missile strike, on December 29, 2008 in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip. Jawher Baalusha and her sisters were killed during an Israeli air raid while they were sleeping together in their bedroom. Medics stated that the raid had targeted a mosque near their home in Jabalia. (Abid Katib/Getty Images)
Many bodies lie outside the Hamas police headquarters following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on December 27, 2008. (MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)
A wounded Palestinian girl is carried into the Al-Shifa hospital on December 28, 2008 in Gaza City, Gaza. (Abid Katib/Getty Images)
A medic crouches over the body of an Israeli man after he was killed in a rocket attack launched from the Gaza Strip and hit the southern Israeli town of Netivot on December 27, 2008 following Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian costal strip. The rocket attack killed one man and wounded four others, according to the Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross. (HAIM HORENSTEIN/AFP/Getty Images)
The body of a Palestinian security force officer lays in the rubble after an Israeli missile strike on a building in Gaza City, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Fadi Adwan)
A wounded child awaits medical attention at the Shifa hospital on December 27, 2008 in Gaza City, Gaza. (Abid Katib/Getty Images)
Wounded Palestinians are treated on the floor of crowded Kamal Edwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on December 29, 2008, following an Israeli air strike on the nearby Jabalia refugee camp. Israeli tanks massed at the Gaza border today as warplanes continued pounding Hamas targets in the densely populated enclave. (MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)
Masked Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad run with homemade rockets to put in place before later firing them into Israel on the outskirts of Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Ashraf Amra)
Palestinian firefighters try to extinguish flames at a medical warehouse after an Israeli airstrike targeted at a fuel tank nearby in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008. Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers Sunday, pounding Hamas targets, smugglers' tunnels and a central prison. (AP Photo/Xinhua)
An Israeli police officer kneels over a dog that was badly injured after a rocket landed in the southern town of Sderot, Israel on December 30, 2008. (GIL COHEN MAGEN/Reuters)
Palestinian men bury the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan at Beit Hanoun cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. Lama and her sister were reportedly riding a donkey cart Tuesday near a rocket-launching site that was targeted by Israel. (MOHAMMED SALEM/Reuters)

My point in posting these images is to remind us that what we see when we sit down in front of the television at night isn't what's going on. TV news isn't the news.

Here's an interesting story. The BBC recently refused to air a video (available here) created by the Disasters Emergency Commitee, DEC, about the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza. The clip opens by stating that it is not about the rights and wrongs of the conflict, but rather about the fact that there are human beings and children in Gaza who are in desperate need of aid. Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General (who in 2005 travelled to Israel to hold a personal meeting with Ariel Sharon, and is reported as having "a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors"), stated: "We do want to cover the humanitarian story, we want to cover it in our news programmes where we can put it in context, we can do it in an even, carefully balanced, objective way. We worry about being seen to endorse something which could give people the impression that we were backing one side."

However, I think we get a better glimpse of the truth from Andy Burham, the cultural secretary, who said it was a difficult decision for the BBC "because of the way it is funded."

Is the BBC really fufilling the role as a provider of news by refusing to air very important information on how to donate to DEC? Are they really giving their viewers all the information? Who are they choosing: the public or their corporate sponsers? Are there, perhaps, some personal biases getting in the way of the news? Is the buying mood affecting what they choose to air? Again, it is their business perogative to do as they do, but it certainly doesn't make for what they claim they are trying to achieve: objectivity.

Now, the focus of this article has been more about media, and some limited reactions to one conflict, but I think the lack of images, the pick-and-choose stories, the dull stories given by professionally unemotive faces, say something really huge about corporate media. You've got to ask yourself: why I am I seeing what I'm seeing? Why not show the real pictures, why not tell me what really happened today, why not give me some information on humanitarian aid? Do I really want to get my news from people whose JOB IT IS to worried about a corporation's bottom line?

More information on Israel and Gaza (from some sources that are perhaps less biased) is available from many of the media links in the sidebar.

Hopefully, I'll blog in more depth on the topic at a later time, but I feel like this post is already starting to go in a few too many directs, so I'll stop here for now.

The Materials Economy (or What Ever Happened to my Barbie Dream House?)

2009-01-28T16:58:00.000-08:00

This is a post for those of you who eat, who occasionally expend capital, and who spend a couple days a week in the physical world. I imagine that's most of you.

I'd like you to take a moment and consider all the stuff you've owned in your lifetime. All the Christmas presents you've loved and lost, late night burrito wrappers you cast aside, those childhood toys you grew out of, that donkey cigarette dispenser you didn't really need, the quesadilla maker you never did learn how to use but got on sale for $9.99. From whence did they come? Thither did they go?

Over 4 million have watched as Annie Leonard explains the wacky system we call "the materials economy," or where all our stuff comes from and where it goes when we're done with it. Her 20 minute web-documentary, "The Story of Stuff," looks at our current linear system of extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal, and offers us some environmentally friendly alternatives. I watched it and thought it provided a very eye-opening 20 minutes and represented a solid backbone on which to assemble an understanding of the materials economy. Here's a brief sampling of facts covered by Leonard:

We're running a linear system of production on a finite planet; the system is, hence, unsustainable.
America accounts for 5% of the world's population, but uses 30% of its resources and creates 30% of its waste.
80% of the worlds original forests are gone.
Human breast milk is the food at the top of the food chain with the highest levels of many toxic chemicals.
Only 1% of materials that flow through the materials economy in North America are still in use 6 months later! 99% are trashed!

If this sounds like the kind of thing you'd like to learn more about, then here's Leonard's video in all it's cartoon-y, but still academic, glory:

(A slightly cleaner version is available at www.thestoryofstuff.com, but alas, I cannot embed it, so you'll have to head over there if you want an optimal viewing experience.)

Of course, a documentary covering such a vast amount of information in 20 minutes is bound to present some points of contention. Andy Brain of www.andybrain.com made a post that I think has some fair criticisms of Leonard and I would recommend reading both his text and the comments that ensued for a fuller understanding of some of the ideas being discussed.

All in all, a good, if incomplete, introduction to what's your stuff's been up to and what it gets up to before and after your time with it.

Listen up, ladies!

2009-01-20T17:09:00.000-08:00

So, I've decided to embrace irony and peddle a product on blog that claims to be against sell-you-shit news. Moreover, I've decided that, what the hey, I'm alright with turning a little pink when I'm sitting in class and some of y'all are critiquing this blog post. Don't try to stop me, because here I go, unabashedly making all of our lives slightly more awkward than they need to be. Modest madams need read no further. For you women of brave heart, for you dames dedicated to living green, come with me as I tell of a product that could change your life. Or at least the way you menstruate.

Now, I'm blogging on this product because I've actually never seen it advertised in a mainstream ad. Moreover, in all the time I've been watching news segments on how to make your life greener, this one's never come up. Here's the story.

Last year I was taking a women's studies course and somehow or other the prof brought up the topic of the menstrual cup. "What do you mean, MENSTRUAL CUP? Like, is that A JAR you MENSTRUATE into?!" was the general cry of horror. "Well, no. Not exactly. More like a rubber... tampon. Is that weird? That's not weird, is it?" the prof questioned us at large.

On a scale of one to weird, the general consensus was that it was slightly weirder than raising alpacas in your basement, but no weirder than, say, a three-headed chicken. The girls in the class were mostly shocked by how immodest one would have to be to insert one of these things, to empty it, to have the hudzpah to walk around with it up in there. The discussion changed tracks fairly quickly -- no one would own to using one, or even express an opinion beyond "ew, gross!" and I realized that, for some reason, we have this idea that the tampon and the pad are modest, acceptable, and lady-like, while the cup is not. I had to ask myself: why?

From a purely logical standpoint, the distinction doesn't make a lot of sense. Essentially, there's not a heck of a lot of difference between the tampon and the cup. To put it somewhat bluntly, they both go in the same place, collect the same thing, and, eventually, have to come out the same way. And yet we'll head to the store every month for one, but we won't even consider the use of the other.

If I had to guess, I'd say that this has an awful lot to do with marketing and commercials. Most of the major manufacturers such as Kotex, O.B., Playtex (who in the 1960s had a contract with NASA to manufacture space suits), and Tampax don't manufacture them. You might be thinking "well, if they don't manufacture them, there's probably a good reason for it!" And your right, there is: they don't generate much profit.

Let's do a little math. Every period, the average woman uses about 20 tampons. Let's say you're a fan of, oh, the Tampax Pearl Plastic Multipax: $9.59 CAD for 36 tampons. That's $9.59 x 8 packs a year x about 43 years. Congradulations, you've just made a lifetime investment of $3311 in the Tampax Pearl! And that's before tax.

On the other hand, you can order a menstrual cup, such The Diva Cup, currently the only menstrual cup that's approved for sale in Canada, for $35 USD. The things last for about 10 years, though recently Diva Cup has altered the "recommended lifespan" of the cup to 1 year. (The main motivation in the recent lifespan alteration was profit, you can read all about it here -- not that I'm necessarily hip to keeping it around into the double digits, but hey, make your own choices.) The point is, even if you follow their advice exactly, you're spending a minimum of $41 less annually.

But, aside from your wallet, let's not forget the implications for the environment. Every year in the US an average 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons are disposed of. 19 BILLION pieces of garbage! These pads and tampons contain surfacants, adhesives, additives and dioxin, none of which are great for the environment. Think of all that waste. Comparatively, you could be disposing of a container no bigger than a pudding cup once every few years.

Of course, there's more to the relative dis-use of the cup than advertising. Sure, the menstrual cup doesn't get hyped much in the media, but it's not like the thing doesn't has a completely glam past either. Looking at the history of the cup I found the following images, which I share because they're both historical and hilarious.

Admittedly, you'd be hard-pressed to find a gal willing to subject herself to any of the contraptions pictured; most of them look more like pre-historic torture devices than anything else. But the cup has come a long way since Leona Chalmers patented the first one in 1937. The modern one is even sort of cute.

So here it is. The Pros:

Better for your body than pads/tampons, which contain chemicals (hence a reduced risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome)
Great for swimming, sports, etc.
Enviro-friendly
A cheaper alternative
No more "oh crap, did I buy..."

The Cons:

Potentially messy/painful if used incorrectly (this usually resolves itself with a little practice)
Requires you to be fairly comfortable with your lady bits

The Diva Cup isn't for everyone, but it's a great money-saving green alternative to some of the more commonly used solutions. And it's not arcane or unfeminine. You can find a detailed FAQ on the Diva Cup's website and a fun history of the menstrual cup at Mum.org. In Windsor, the Diva Cup is available at Nutrition House, locations at Devonshire Mall and 7650 Tecumseh Rd East, as well as at Pure Nature, location at 25 Amy Croft Dr.

So, there you have it. A green alternative you probably haven't heard much about.
End awkwardness.

A Thought on Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T12:02:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Perhaps it's a sign of maturity that on Christmas morning I slept well past 11 o'clock and today, the day of President Obama's inauguration, I was in the living room by 8:30 flipping over news stations and anxiously sipping my morning coffee. Although, my alacrity in watching the inauguration doesn't mean I'm buying into the mythic portrayal of Barack Obama quite yet. Don't get me wrong, at the very least America is looking for change. That's been the theme of Obama and his supporters over the course of this campaign -- though I still maintain that if change is what they're looking for all they have to do is drop by the National Treasury... it's just about all that's left there, har har. But I kid. Sort of.

I don't mean to take away from the fact that today the American people did witness a monumental event; they stood and cheered as a black man swore in as president on a spot that was, ironically, built on the backs of slaves. This is after some 200 years of electing white men to office. I don't even need to say that that's a great move toward inclusivity and plurality.

But I'd like to step back for a minute. Yes, years after the civil rights movement America's finally decided to elect a president with black skin. Yes, after an issue comes into public consciousness and stays there for a century or so, eventually we do something about it. Pats on the back, all around. But what about the issues that are a little less apparent?

With Barack comes new budget director Peter Orszag. Prior to the inauguration Orszag directed the Congressional Budget Office, where he concentrated "particularly on the unaffordable costs that taxpayers face in Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs," according to a New York Times article. Wait, what? Medicare?

Sure, in the 2007 fiscal year, Medicare spending accounted for a big chunk of change, one in which I'm sure valid reforms could be made. But, between the money allocated to the Department of Defense and the War on Terror, the US spent "$474 billion in FY 2006, which is 56% of net discretionary spending, $505 billion in FY 2007, and $554 billion in FY 2008, or nearly 60% of discretionary spending" on the Military. (Copies of the Budget of the United States Government since the 1996 FY are available here for those interested.) More than half of the country's discretionary spending is going towards war and Obama goes with a budget director that's looking for ways to reform healthcare spending?

Listening to the inauguration speech today, I got chills when Obama stated that "[w]e will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense." Is it just me, or does that sound a little too much like the old Manifest Destiny tripe for 2009? And then I'll admit that I was a little confused when he said that the American forefathers "understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please." Sorry, we are talking about America, right? Land of the Monroe Doctrine?

I guess what I'm interested in when it comes to Obama's presidency is how his foreign policy works itself out. In "Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism" (which can be read online in it's entirety here) Joel Andreas investigates America's legacy as a war machine. At the beginning of the campaign, I wondered if perhaps this legacy would begin its decline under Obama, though this does not seem to be the case considering the official Obama/Biden policy that states: "Obama and Biden will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years. While working to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, Obama and Biden will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material." (The rest of the official Obama/Biden agenda is available online here.) Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a world without nuclear weaponry, but I'm pretty sure what's being aimed for isn't a planet rid of nuclear weaponry, but a planet where America controls all the nuclear weaponry.

Yes, on the one hand, it's great to see a nation so united. It's great to see a man who isn't George Bush take the reigns next door, ~~even if he did gaffe a little on the presidential oath.~~ (edit: turns out the guy giving the oath gaffed and Obama un-gaffed; colour me slightly more impressed!) It's great that America finally has a black president. And it's great that so many people have faith that this man can change their country for the better, and who knows, maybe he'll deliver. But, on the other hand, shouldn't we be concerned about a system where 50+% of discretionary spending goes towards war?

And shouldn't we be concerned when a new president walks into such a system with a budget director who's going to try to trim the fat in medicare? Just a thought.

A Letter to the Reader

2009-01-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

In Fall ‘08 I was flipping through the University of Windsor’s course calendar looking for a class that would require zero thought, zero effort, and zero studying, with a potential for poor class attendance. I say that not because I’m a lazy arse – I promise you, if anything, I tend towards the hyper-active when it comes to studying – but rather because I had an already over-burdened course load and didn’t want to find myself in the same situation I had found myself in for the past 3 years; suicidal and in a paper-filled room worthy of John Nash over the two weeks before exams.

There, tucked between Video Production I and Cinema History, I found it, my beacon of slackery goodness: Media Literacy. “I watch the news! Sometimes I don’t fast-forward through the commercials when I tape things! How can I go wrong?”

So, I went to the first class. I got the syllabus. The prof, Dr. Winter, talked about the CIA and Cuba and why the fluoride in the municipal water was going to kill us all – if it didn’t retard us first. I thought he was probably the kind of guy who went home at night and sat next to a ham radio wearing a tinfoil hat. I decided to attend the second class only because I happened to be on campus and couldn’t resist the unlimited potential for unintentional comedy.

But when I left the second class, I wasn’t laughing. I was actually angry. He made the point that 80% of a most newspaper’s revenues come from advertisements. He made the point that, given the revenue breakdown, it’s clear that newspapers sell audiences to advertiser’s, not advertiser’s to audiences. He said that, in Canada, the news is controlled by a handful of wealthy families who represent their own biases and agendas in their papers. And he said this was wrong.

I was, and still am, of a slightly different opinion.

Sure, the facts of what he’s saying are true. 80% of rev comes from ads, audiences are sold to advertisers, rich old bastards control everything. We can find supporting evidence for all of that. But I wouldn’t say that this is “wrong.” I still maintain that it’s not anyone’s job to provide us with the news, with the truth, with any information that’s against their own better interests.

I would say that if we want the news it’s our responsibility to pursue it, to disseminate it, to talk about it, to analyse it. Don’t change them. Change us. Hence, this blog.

As an aside, Media Lit ended up being the hardest class of the semester and in the two weeks before exams I went from John Nash’s papering-the-walls-crazy to full on Howard Hughes nuts. However, I got through it and I have a better appreciation of Dr. Winter’s work than I had when I walked out of those first couple classes. I see more errors, biases, and governmental cheerleading chants in the news than I did before. I find commercials infinitely fascinating. I note the language and turns of phrase when someone’s reporting, where before I just listened. I strive to be aware of what’s missing. I watch movies for both the apparent story plotlines and also the more ostensible social ones.

Why did I tell you all this? Well, first, I want to recommend two of James Winter’s books: Mediathink and Lies the Media Tells Us, which are great jumping off points for learning more about corporate media in Canada. I especially recommend the latter, despite the price. (Moreover, if any Windsorite out there wants to borrow my copy, I’ve always been hip to the book-exchange, so let me know). Secondly, I thought I ought to acknowledge Dr. Winter as a big influence in my becoming critically-minded about the media. Finally, for those of you who have taken the course and know Dr. Winter’s opinions, or have read his work, and perhaps sensed his influence in the blog, I also wanted to define myself against him and admit my own biases.

Namely, there are two. I am 1) pretty much a libertarian (an oft misunderstood political stance that I will talk about in more depth later) and 2) the kind of feminist that would make James Winter shake head in dismay; i.e. I think women are, essentially, men with boobs. I’m pretty ardent about it.

So there you have it. The story, the vision, the blogger, and probably the most letter-like post I plan on making. I'm looking forward to talking media with whoever happens to read this, and will hopefully provide some alternative insight into the stories, reports, ads and images we're steeped in everyday.

Cheers,
Ashley