On the way to a meeting held by BP claims czar Ken Feinberg in Slidell yesterday, Derrick Evans wheeled his diesel pickup truck and FEMA trailer to a Mississippi River ferry crossing south of New Orleans. Derrick is probably the world's most experienced hand at dragging FEMA trailers. Over the past few years, he hauled 30 ft aluminum sided Katrina icons more than 30,000 miles across the country speaking out for the disenfranchised and homeless afflicted by the aftermath of Katrina.
Derrick traces his heritage back to emancipated slaves who first settled Turkey Creek, MS, after the Civil War. He's a teacher and activist who has dedicated his life to helping vulnerable people along the Gulf Coast, a population that repeatedly confronts natural disasters and chemical assaults. "It took me a while to realize, but at its heart this whole thing is an environmental problem," he says.
Now the oil disaster had spread its poisonous tentacles across an entire coast of treasured marshlands, upending the lives of fishermen and people who depended on the wetlands and oceans for their livelihoods--and their sanity.
So Derrick and supporters of fishermen and their families gave the KatrinaRitaville Express an overhaul. They decorated the much-traveled FEMA trailer with slogans appropriate for the current disaster, combining the Katrina disaster with BP's. It was not too difficult since they share common traits. Marked with brilliant colored tape, messages shout out from the trailer in colors of the of the rainbow: "Resilient not Dumb!; We still B-PEED ON; Stop Feeding Folks Jumbo Lies." For the time being, Derrick has renamed it the "Tarball Express."
People here embrace it. From gas stations to river crossings, locals relate to FEMA trailers the way New Yorkers view the site of the twin towers. It's an icon of tragedy and destruction, a symbol of toxic contamination and fear.
Yet it inspires hope. Last weekend, Derrick dragged the trailer to a commemorative event in the lower 9th Ward for the 5th anniversary of the Katrina catastrophe. The FEMA trailer was a perfect symbol for the community still heavily scarred by the natural disaster and a failed public response. Now the trailer was BP's baby.
Back in the bayou, Derrick waited in line at the Mississippi River ferry crossing wondering if he would be able to board. A few days before, he and I had run into an over-zealous barge captain who threatened us with arrest for photographing the trailer crossing the Mississippi (even though there were no warning signs). Post 9-11, security experts decided the secret workings of car ferries would be perfect targets for terrorists roaming the bayou. After a thorough background check, police were satisfied we had no terrorist intentions and we went on our merry way.
As we waited in line for the ferry, a CNN news flash popped up on my cell phone. "Oil rig explodes in the Gulf!" I turned up WWL news talk radio, which for three months covered the BP oil disaster 24-7. Since the well was capped, the radio powerhouse moved on to more important topics, ie, the future of the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints and the latest hanky-panky of local politicians, a colorful lot in these parts.
But today, the oil spill was the topic du jour. Garland, Spud and the rest of the WWL radio hosts were consumed again with the oil disaster, questioning oil industry experts about what may be going on. Sketchy details were emerging that a petroleum production platform 80 miles off the Louisiana coast had exploded and burned. Its crew of 13 donned survival suits and jumped into the Gulf, bobbing like orange slices in a Louisiana punch bowl.
Memories of watching the Deepwater Horizon disaster flooded over me: the underwater cams showing mysterious mechanical objects floating eerily a mile below the surface, the heart-stopping flow of a giant black and brown oily plume laced with bubbles of methane.
Could this be a similar nightmare?
Information was spotty. What kind of well was it? Was it actively producing oil? Was it still on fire? Were crewmembers injured? We turned around from the ferry crossing and headed to downtown to a meeting of local groups dealing with the current BP oil catastrophe, not knowing if another one was headed our way.
Derrick parked the Tar Ball Express on a street near the hotel. People drove by and honked in support of the zany slogans taped to the side. We rushed to the meeting and put our heads together. An AP report said the Coast Guard reported a mile-long oil sheen in the water. That sounded serious. "Let's go," Derrick said, exhausted from traveling hundreds of miles across the Gulf to meet with fishing communities over the past few weeks.
We cranked up with truck and headed south, trailer in tow, rolling by the huge Mississippi River levy and massive chemical plants that spew who knows what into the air. News reports filtered in. The Coast Guard seemed to contradict reports of an oil sheen. The 13 crewmen of the rig were rescued and safe. The raging fire on the platform was extinguished. It wasn't a drilling rig, but a production platform owned by a Texas company called Mariner Energy. The platform collects and processes oil and gas piped in from a maze of other underwater wells.
By the time we pulled into the Venice marina early evening, the crisis had passed. There was no media filing live reports from the dock as they did during the BP blowout. Reports confirmed the fire was out and apparently no oil had escaped. It was just another oil fire, another brush with disaster that continuously threatens this petro-coast. The bayou and the Gulf had dodged another bullet. But it was a scary reminder that tens of thousands of oil and gas wells in the Gulf pose a threat to all who depend on these waters. The Gulf is resilient, but there's a limit to what it can take. At some point, our thirst for oil and gas will deliver a knock-out to this national treasure and fertile marshland that is fast slipping into the sea.
Yet we seem oblivious to the damage around us. Government scientists insist the oil is largely gone despite protests from fishermen who say they see oil in the water each day. The day of the platform explosion, NOAA opened up 5,000 sq miles of fishing, stating "today's re-opening announcement is another signal to tourists that the northern Gulf is open for business." That's right, one of the natural wonders of the world is now open for business.
We took pictures of the Tarball Express as the sun faded into the carbon-rich marshlands. A towering gas plant and refinery loomed in the distance. The scene presented a quintessential paradox of a paradise locked in a losing battle. It was another day lost to the powers that most likely will destroy it.
Let's pause and remember a simpler time, when oil was still our friend, it didn't matter what food you ate, and being a friend to the earth meant nothing more than picking up your litter and turning out the light.
At least, that's what you would think looking at these old-school green PSAs.
Some of these vintage ads are funny, some are cute, and some just leave you scratching your head. Take a look and tell us if you think these PSAs are effective or just silly.
NEWARK, N.J. — Hurricane Earl played havoc with travelers' Labor Day weekend plans even as it weakened Friday on its path up the East Coast toward New England.
Train service was suspended in the Northeast, flights were delayed or canceled up and down the Eastern seaboard and coastal roads washed out. Even Interstate 95, the most heavily traveled highway in the East and a gateway to the beaches of Cape Cod and Maine, was expected to flood in Rhode Island.
Amtrak suspended service between New York and Boston until Saturday morning after a tree fell across electrical lines in New London, Conn., at about 12:30 p.m. The rail carrier already had planned to stop service by 4:30 p.m. due to the storm.
Continental Airlines had canceled about 60 flights by Friday afternoon, and some regional carriers had done the same, though other major carriers reported few or no cancellations.
Southwest Airlines said it canceled flights Friday at three East Coast airports – Islip, N.Y., Providence, R.I., and Boston's Logan Airport – as the hurricane approached. The airline expected to resume service at all three by Saturday morning.
Southwest expected to resume flights Friday afternoon in Norfolk, Va., where flights were canceled starting Thursday night.
Arriving flights at New York's LaGuardia airports were delayed about half an hour Friday because of weather, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
On Massachusetts' Cape Cod, ferries to and from Nantucket were suspended at noon, leaving some vacationers stranded on the mainland. On the island, a steady line of pickup trucks towed boats to safe storage until the storm passed, assistant town manager Gregg Tivnan said.
In Atlantic City, Bob Quinn of Rochester, N.Y., was planning to leave ahead of the storm Friday.
"We were going to be leaving Friday by noon, so we figured we would probably catch the good weather and get out of here just before the bad stuff came in," Quinn said.
One man drowned in rough surf in New Jersey on Tuesday and another was missing after going into the ocean Thursday night, state officials said.
Ellen McDonough of Boston and a friend were waiting in Hyannis on Friday morning for one of the last ferries to Nantucket. The two had long planned a Labor Day weekend getaway to the island.
"It's not a 3-foot snowstorm. I think us New Englanders are tough," McDonough said. "We've had this weekend planned, and no hurricane is going to stop us."
The National Weather Service was forecasting winds up to 65 mph on Nantucket, with gusts up to 85 mph. Earl packed winds that had reached 145 mph before losing strength.
In North Carolina, portions of Highway 12, the main artery through the Outer Banks, were closed because of tidal flooding. Officials said the road to and from Hatteras Island – home to seven villages – would stay closed through Friday.
The highway is critical should residents and tourists who obeyed evacuation orders try to return soon. Several counties had asked people to leave risky areas, including Ocracoke and Hatteras islands.
On Ocracoke, Highway 12 was open to 4-wheel-drive traffic early Friday, Hyde County spokeswoman Jamie Tunnell said. Officials hoped to open the road to all vehicles by the end of the day.
Farther north, Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri urged drivers to stay off Interstate 95, which was expected to flood Friday evening.
In Maine, two cruise ships, including the Explorer of the Seas with about 3,000 passengers, sought the safety of Portland Harbor to ride out the storm. Hundreds of smaller boats were pulled from the water up and down the coast.
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Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Boston; Bob Salsberg in Hyannis, Mass.; Tom Breen in Kill Devil Hills, N.C.; Eric Tucker in Providence, R.I.; David Sharp in Portland, Maine; Angelique Yack in Atlantic City, N.J.; and AP Airlines Writers Joshua Freed in Minneapolis and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.
The explosive growth in bottled water use by Americans, and indeed, much of the rest of the world, is due to many factors, including both unfounded and legitimate concerns about tap water, disappearing water fountains from our public spaces, misleading and false advertising, and a desire to emulate our famous (and infamous) public figures. We used to drink 1 gallon of bottled water a year, on average. Now it is nearly 30 gallons a year per person. These issues are all addressed in the book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, along with the serious environmental and energy consequences of our bottled water use.
More and more, we are seeing celebrities drinking bottled water, carrying bottled water in public, or even hawking bottled water for a fee. It is hard to miss the huge advertising blitz with Jennifer Aniston for Smart Water, in a deal that is no doubt worth millions to her (I've heard one million, I've heard four million, I've heard stock options: does anyone actually know? A million dollars will drill more than 300 water wells in Africa).
Celebrities live in a different world, where they come to expect special treatment. Perhaps the weirdest expression of this is seen in the bottled water demands in contracts and riders that celebrities require when they perform, or speak, or otherwise appear in public. We've all heard about the recent demands of Sarah Palin for two bottles of "unopened still water" with "bendable straws" (on top of her demand for a specific kind of private jet on top of her $75,000 plus speaker fee). She's not the only politician to be picky about bottled water. As Vice President, Dick Cheney insisted on 4-6 bottles of water in his room, along with two bottles of "Sparkling water (Calistoga or Perrier)" if his wife accompanied him. Of course, Cheney also required that "All televisions [in his hotel rooms] tuned to FOX News..." lest he accidently see other sources of news and information. Senator John Kerry wanted his bottled water "uncarbonated. Poland Spring preferred. No Evian."
But there are lots more strange demands (thanks to the Smoking Gun for collecting and displaying a great collection of celebrity contracts and demands):
During his 2003 Poodle Hat Tour "Weird Al" Yankovic demanded bottled water in his dressing room but insisted that it NOT be Dasani water. In contrast, Kelly Clarkson insists that her water BE Dasani (though her band apparently wants Fiji Water).
AC/DC asked for both Evian and spring water (in addition to 3 oxygen tanks and 3 masks).
Mary J. Blige insists on Fiji water "absolutely, positively must be FIJI" at room temperature.
As part of the flight arrangements for Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Nordegren in 2004, the contract specified "Mr. Tiger Woods drinks liter bottles of Evian cold... Ms. Nordegren drinks Fiji room temperature..."
Christina Aguilera wants Arrowhead, along with L'Occitane vanilla-scented candles with matches, 4 black bath towels, and Veuve Clicquot champagne.
For a while, Madonna insisted on having bottles of special Kabbalah water at her photo shoots and appearances. She may still.
Other celebrity bottled water demands? Clay Aiken ("anything but Evian"); Brooks and Dunn ("spring water for the local crew; Evian or Napa... iced down for the artists"); Kris Allen (20 bottles of "SmartWater...No Dasani or Aquafina"); the Jonas Brothers ("6 bottles Vitaminwater (yellow, red, orange)"); Mariah Carey (mineral water so she and her dog can bathe in it. Oh, and she also wants bendy straws); Britney Spear's 2000 tour insisted on dozens of bottles of Evian, though in 2005 she went through a Kabbalah phase when Madonna switched from Evian to Kabbalah.
And there are even some efforts by a few celebrities to be, at least a little, environmentally sensitive: In 2008, Pearl Jam asked for bottled water, but "preferably ETHOS water, no Aquafina, Dasani, or Evian." Ethos Water is sold by Starbucks and some of the profits are given to help fund drinking water projects in developing countries. Sheryl Crow, who tries hard to be green, insisting on recyclable, biodegradable, and organic stuff, asks for backstage "watering stations," with water that "must be sourced from a local spring water vendor," though she also asks for Perrier water, owned by Nestle.
We want to know what celebrities are doing, who they are dating, and even what water they are drinking. And we want to imitate them: do what they do, eat what they eat, drink what they drink. If we're going to look up to them as role models at all, wouldn't it be nice if they were good ones?
On Wednesday, culminating a more than yearlong effort, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) outlawed fox and coyote pens, the gruesome practice of releasing a fox or coyote inside a pen to be chased and often torn apart by dogs. The Humane Society of the United States has long been campaigning to end this abusive practice, and we have made a major advance with the new policy in Florida that will save countless foxes and coyotes from this form of staged animal combat.
The process of "penning" begins with the trapping of wild foxes and coyotes. The animals are then packed into cramped cages and sometimes trucked long distances without food or water. When they reach their destination they are released one by one, bewildered, into an enclosure and forced to run for their lives. Dogs may chase the fenced-in wildlife for hours, to the point of exhaustion, but no matter the size of the enclosure there is no escape.
Georgia DNR
Judges score dogs on how relentlessly they pursue the captive animals. The "winner" is the dog who can stick to the prey the most often. The loser? The fox or coyote who is ripped to shreds or mauled to death.
In Florida, the Maines family spent more than a year painfully witnessing what went on in the fox pen next door to their house. They took photographs of dogs attacking a cornered coyote on Christmas Eve, and listened to the eerie sound of dogs killing animals in the murky depths of the pen. They then took their story to the Fish and Wildlife commissioners, sometimes driving 10 hours to testify about their heartbreak. They made a website, spoke to their legislators, purchased billboards, and quickly built a grassroots movement 3,000 people strong.
Thousands of HSUS members also got involved. Some attended their first FWC meeting, others wrote letters to the editor, and the most dedicated traveled to shake their state representative's hand for the first time and ask for help.
Through it all, the FWC commissioners listened with rapt attention and they inspired constituents with their interest in forging a solution to stop the cruelty within pens. In the end, they refused to continue the practice with useless regulation, summing it up perfectly when stating that they just couldn't figure out how to find the right way to do a wrong practice.
In their unanimous decision, the Commission stopped a callous and cruel practice. They showed how hunters and non-hunters should be working together to ban every single fox pen in the country and showed the power of what happens when the good in all of us unites to stop the worst of what we can do to animals.
Now the other states that allow fox pens need to fall in line.
This post originally appeared on Pacelle's blog, A Humane Nation.
"But we're pagan," he continued, "and we want our wedding to have some pagan element."
"Only we want it to be subtle," she said. "We don't want our families to feel uncomfortable."
"That's simple," I answered. "We'll honor the elements." It's a feature of most contemporary pagan rituals. "We all have to breathe. We all need light and warmth. We all stand on the earth that feeds and shelters us. We all need water to stay alive, whatever else we believe or don't believe."
The word pagan simply means country-dweller, although many contemporary neo-pagans are urban dwellers, as were many pagans in classical times. From the Judeo-Christian perspective, the designation came to describe anyone who was not a monotheist. Paganism isn't really an "ism" at all. Pagan practices are specific to a time, place, and culture. Although Isis was at one time worshiped all over the Mediterranean world and the Rites of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis drew pilgrims from everywhere, no pagan community or practice (to avoid the charged word "cult") has ever been hailed as a world religion. Yet all so-called world religions have pagan roots and practices that vary from one region to another. All the world religions have splintered into sometimes violently opposing sects. They also continue to make war against each other, or their more extreme practitioners do.
So who needs religion? you might wonder as you hum John Lennon's "Imagine." I am not going to answer that question beyond muttering, "Religions! Can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em."
Paradoxically in its particularity, attention to the local (this mountain, this river, this cycle of seasons), the pagan approach offers a way to recognize our commonality, not just with our fellow human beings but with all the life on this planet. For most of human existence, religious practice had to do with ensuring that there would be enough food, that resources would be preserved, that the gods (source) in the form of rivers, springs, mountains, and soil would be honored, fed, and replenished so that the people would continue to thrive.
Whatever our religious beliefs, we know that we are made of the same elements as this planet. The sea is in our blood, the air is our breath, are bones are crystalline, the sun's fire (in whatever form) warms us and fuels. Climate change, in which we play a role, has shifted the balance of the elements. Whether or not human agency is clear in every instance, we can't help but be aware of elemental upheaval: tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, the devastating flooding in Pakistan, fires in the Western United States. We have put diverse ecologies at risk as we compulsively drill for what is in effect ancient sunlight. A huge glacier just broke away from Greenland, and the seas are rising.
Instead of regarding the elements as our enemies, something to harness, subdue, exploit or escape, maybe it is time to start honoring them again, restoring them, learning from them, aligning with them, recognizing that all life, not just our own, is sustained by the elements, of one substance with them. Maybe we all are pagan, urban and rural dwellers on this earth.
Camilla Fox with dear friend Virginia McKenna of the Born Free Foundation
Blogging from Oxford, England from the Compassionate Conservation Conference- a ground-breaking International Symposium on animal welfare in conservation practice. The Symposium, sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and the Born Free Foundation, has brought together scientists and practitioners from a range of disciplines to debate animal welfare issues in conservation, look for practical outcomes and promote a dialogue between the two disciplines that are often perceived as mutually exclusive
The Symposium is organized around the following themes:
• Animal welfare in field conservation
• Captive animal welfare and conservation
• Conservation consequences of wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release
• International trade in live wild animals
Here with me is my colleague, good friend, and Project Coyote Advisory Board member, Dr. Marc Bekoff who addressed some challenging ethical questions around reintroduction and conservation projects in his keynote address including:
• Should we kill for conservation?
• What trade-offs must be made between ethics and conservation goals?
• Can conservation biologists do good science - save individuals, species, and ecosystems - and also be compassionate?
• What role does sentience play in our decisions?
It is refreshing to see these challenging issues of how we balance conservation with the needs and lives of individual animals debated in an international forum with some of the brightest thinkers and visionaries of our time. It is my hope that out of this symposium there will be more collaboration between conservationists and animal welfare advocates where common ground and goals can be identified.
For more information about this conference and related issues:
It wasn't the collective gasp, followed by the sigh of relief I expected. Instead, the response among those I spoke with to the news of another oil rig disaster in the gulf, along with the follow-up report that its impact appeared to be minimal, was something more akin to a collective deer-in-the-headlights episode. Casual observers -- as well as the media -- seemed not to know what to do with the news.
Call it "disaster saturation," perhaps, but the response was strangely dulled -- almost slack-jawed. Not in an apathetic or disinterested way, but in a way that suggested a profound sense of powerlessness and confusion, and maybe just a hint of fatalistic resignation. "Now what?" seemed to be the message in the eyes of my neighbor.
"Now what," indeed.
As any historian or philosopher will tell you, human society has progressed in lurches, rather than in a steady, manageable growth pattern. Working against a pronounced (and understandable) tendency towards personal and cultural inertia, the human world tends to change when crises are thrust upon it. As much as intellectuals would love to see us develop ourselves along a considered path of collective self-actualization, it's large scale changes in the status quo that get us moving. Perhaps an aggressive neighboring warlord amasses an army and invades our land. A large scale viral epidemic impacts the population. An economic collapse reveals the weaknesses of the financial system and displaces the established social structure.
This is when things really change. Some might see this as mere collective short-sightedness, but I've always seen us as more of a "when the chips are down" kind of species. We are nothing if not adaptable, and when you combine that adaptability with our inherent social nature and the associated evolutionary imperative of altruism, it seems clear that we are at our proudest moments in these times of crises.
And that is what makes this moment in history so uniquely frightening.
Consider: the only way we know how to make dramatic, systemic changes for the better is when disaster is upon us. It's what we do. Sure, we fritter around the edges in the meantime, but it only amounts to so much. Like children, we learn from experience first, not so much through foresight.
But consider also the economic, industrial and environmental scale of modern human society -- when one oil rig disaster can threaten to turn a vast swath of ocean into a dead zone and potentially collapse an entire region's economy.
The fact is that technology and population have raised the stakes of our mistakes to such an unprecedented level that our species and our very planet cannot necessarily sustain our old way of evolving as communities. Learning-by-disaster is not a sustainable pedagogy when the disasters now take place at such a scale, they may be catastrophic for entire ecosystems and the human cultures that depend on them.
But how do you change a pattern so fundamental to human history?
The climate change debate is a crystalline example of this dilemma. Any intellectual analysis of the changes already underway due to planet-warming pollutants -- even a passing analysis -- should elicit enough concern to generate meaningful action, and yet what have we been seeing? On the one side, adamant denial despite incontrovertible evidence. On the other, an increase in conspicuous, emblematic "green" commodities, but very little decrease in the conspicuous consumption that feeds the crisis (and in the context of an economic downturn that is having relatively little impact on the wealth of the upper middle and upper classes in this country). And all the while, both sides spend most of their energy being frustrated with the other, rather than fully engaging (either intellectually or materially) with the actual crisis.
But the problem isn't stupidity on one side or greed on the other, so much as it is the fundamental way we learn and evolve as a species. Human history can be seen as a process of fault response, and fault response is inadequate. This is why those that advocate stepping away from social and technological progress and returning to "simpler" times are misguided. To survive into the next century, we need to fundamentally shift from a fault response society to a fault tolerant one.
Ironically, this means looking to the model offered by the most "cutting edge," even radical, sector of society - technology; the very sector that many might be simplistically inclined to blame for the inevitable situation we find ourselves in.
IT systems are defined by their fault tolerance. Since fault can be catastrophic, it has become simply unacceptable in complex, enterprise-level operations. A hospital, public infrastructure or large corporate operation can be irreparably harmed by a systems failure -- and systems failures can come in unanticipated ways. What makes an IT infrastructure sound, then, is it's ability to continue operating in the face of the unanticipated. Back-ups, secure servers, and drives operating in parallel in such a way that allow for the catastrophic collapse of any one discrete system without the accompanying collapse of the entire infrastructure.
In this way, the Information Technology field has countered this human paradigm by working around it in an uncharacteristically forward-looking way. Critical errors still inevitably occur, but the greater system is structured to accommodate them so that these problems can be addressed as inconveniences -- or even as urgencies -- but not as catastrophes. Generally speaking, the stakes are simply too high to allow for any other approach.
How to translate this concept to the world at large and build the Fault Tolerant Society? Obviously, as with any high-sounding theoretically notion, it's the application that's the hard part. We are so used to looking at social change in a polarized way; driven from the top down or the bottom up. Building the Fault Tolerant Society will take a little of both. In a democracy, fuel for change obviously emanates from the electorate, but it's just as clear that there's a need for visionary leadership in making any abstraction into a reality. The currency of political debate can't continue to slide backwards towards warring views of religion and cosmology, it needs to be about building a world that will allow us to continue disagreeing about religion or oil or whatever without suddenly having it all collapse out from under us as the result of our next big mistake.
As clear that this is all easier said than done, it's just as clear that the current administration in Washington has neither the interest nor the vision to approach such a challenge. It's simply not in the portfolio of a president who, for whatever reason, seems incapable of appreciating the full implications and urgency of the very campaign rhetoric that swept him into office.
But the first step is clear; it's well past time for the citizenry to start asking our would-be-leaders what systems they intend to put in place, not simply to prevent disaster, but to deal with disaster -- and their answers to those questions should be the among the first criteria used to judge those would-be leaders worthiness of our support.
The author is currently working on a book examining the concept of fault tolerance in political, economic and environmental institutions
Being an eco-friendly consumer isn't about placing a giant solar panel on your roof. Paula Cino is the director of energy and environmental policy with the National Multi Housing Council. As she told the Post, "Our individual behavior has a huge impact on sustainability. The resident has a lot of opportunity to make big differences themselves without any input from the landlord whatsoever."
A dozen restaurant owners were arrested, and a criminal investigation of the poachers supplying the restaurants is under way. The raids involved more than 100 wildlife agents. The Wildlife Conservation Society, a nonprofit group, helped develop the campaign by surveying restaurants in Lam Dong province.
On a balmy afternoon this past July, the staff at Quail Hill farm in Amagansett pulled 500 pounds of their Amagansett Peach garlic out of the ground. The blushing cloves are now drying in a barn. Some will be given to farm members as part of their weekly food share, some will be saved for planting the next crop next fall. And some will be auctioned at Sotheby's in a few short weeks.
In fact, about 30 growers from the tri-state area will be offered up heirloom crops -- from cranberry beans to Newtown Pippin apples -- on Sept. 23 at the storied auction house. Chefs and grocers and food makers will bid. The farmers will go home with their money.
The auction is a passion project for some Sotheby's staff and farmer friends, who declare there's as much valuable art being created on nearby farms as in SoHo studios. (The cases of auctioned produce will get eaten throughout the city in the days that follow, part of Eat Drink Local, a local food celebration throughout the Empire State. And a post-auction cocktail party and dinner will raise money for GrowNYC and the Sylvia Center.)
But hopefully the auction is also a coming-of-age sign for heirloom vegetables: those old-fashioned symbols of food diversity that are just the sort of innovation our dysfunctional food system needs.
Because outside this auction, and the city's Greenmarkets and CSAs, heirlooms occupy a pretty small portion on our collective table. In most realms of the food chain, a few major players -- Holstein cows, Red Delicious apples, Roundup Ready soy beans -- have squeezed others, literally, out of the field. By United Nations estimates, nearly 40 percent of the world's collective livestock breeds are on the verge of extinction; 80-90 percent of grain and vegetable varieties are similarly doomed.
Yes, heirloom tomatoes -- those sometimes-odd and always flavorful love apples -- have gone from rarity to nearly ubiquitous darling of farm stands, large supermarket chains and even city Green Carts. There's a similar success story for heritage meats, of course, with certain breeds of turkey, pigs and other animals being taken off the endangered breed list.
But you still won't find many heirloom veggies in the seed rack of your local hardware store. For these more special accessions, farmers and gardeners mostly rely on specialty sellers like Landreth and networks like Seed Savers Exchange.
The good thing about seeds is once farmers -- and the rest of us -- are committed to saving them, things can change relatively fast. Massive food buyers from Wal-Mart to Sodexo have robust, if small, regional buying initiatives that provide a market for the strange and the indigenous from around the country. When McDonald's started using Cameo and Pink Lady apples for its apple slices, it created a massive market for these varieties.
This isn't just good news for those who like the gastronomic options offered by Black Krims or Red Wattles. Scientists like Cary Fowler, who heads the Global Seed Trust, the massive seed storage bank burrowed into a Norwegian glacier, argues that one of the main benefits of such diversity is it serves as a hedge against whatever slings and arrows befall the global food system. He says farmers will need "climate-ready" crops that can cope with erratic rainfall, occasional droughts and the ultra-warm nighttime temperatures caused by climate change. These traits exist in the fields and pastures of the people who raise our food, which makes preserving them all the more valuable a proposition.
Because whether at the supermarket counter or the auction block, this is all about what we'll pay for our food. More specifically, what different links in the food chain -- the chef who features heirloom cauliflower, neatly cut, perfectly cooked; the Hudson Valley pie maker who has to have Long Island cheese pumpkin; those of us who hanker for heirloom potatoes; the mayoral candidate who wants to use food to fix her city -- will pay.
And, in some joyous symbiosis of supply and demand, we get to eat from the landscape around us, keep our rural neighbors employed, and thank the farmers who keep and steward the seed.
If you're into marsupials (and who isn't?), my favorite, hands-down, is the wombat. Not just because they are vegan and terribly, terribly cute, or because they're a bit lazy and are known Down Under for their ability to find shortcuts between A and B whenever possible -- but because they have developed an incredible physical adaptation: The reinforced rump.
Two weeks ago, my coworker Karen and I left the office a little early and walked across Manhattan to the Trader Joe's store in Chelsea, where a small group had gathered making signs and chatting. Among them were members of the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a grassroots group working to improve wages and working conditions for farmworkers. Over the course of about 45 minutes, dozens more people filled the sidewalk in front of the store, including labor activists from the Jewish Labor Committee, Just Harvest USA and the Farmworker Solidarity Alliance, as well as local youths and a handful of musicians from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.
Trader Joe's, along with Publix, Kroger, and Dutch-held Ahold grocery chains (which include Giant, Stop & Shop, Martin's and Peapod), are the most recent targets of CIW's Fair Food Campaign. Over the last nine years the Coalition, together with partner organizations like the Student/Farmworker Alliance, has managed, through well-organized consumer campaigns and sometimes boycotts, to convince some of the food industry's largest corporations (including Taco Bell/Yum Brands, McDonald's, Subway, Whole Foods and Compass) to agree to the tenets of Fair Food: an extra penny a pound for tomatoes (nearly doubling the wages for pickers, who've not seen a raise since the mid-1970s), a labor Code of Conduct, greater transparency in the supply chain and incentives for growers that respect human rights.
The major fast food wins the Coalition has enjoyed have not come without a fight - in 2007, Burger King hired private investigators to spy on the Student/Farmworker Alliance and vice president Stephen Grover was caught using his daughter's online alias to smear the group virtually. Chipotle, a chain built on promises of "food with integrity," is the highest-profile holdout, and has spent the last few years dodging the Coalition. But they've made much greater strides with restaurants than with the grocery chains - only Whole Foods, which like Chipotle built its reputation on ethically-sound food, has managed to sidestep the bad publicity that heel-dragging retailers have experienced.
Like Whole Foods and Chipotle, Trader Joe's attracts a decidedly progressive league of shoppers, but has managed, at least until recently, to avoid much scrutiny, in part perhaps through what CNN Money recently dubbed its "obsessively secretive" behavior. The chain has not escaped controversy entirely - two years ago, when 17-year-old Maria Vasquez suffered fatal heat stroke in a California vineyard that grew grapes for Charles Shaw wine, also known as Two Buck Chuck, which is sold by the chain, labor activists were quick to pressure Trader Joe's to push its suppliers for stricter adherence to labor regulations. But if Joe is feeling the heat, he's not showing it. My email to the company was left unanswered, and Chelsea Now reporters Bonnie Rosenstock and Scott Stiffler received an evasive response from TJ's publicist, Alison Mochizuki:
At Trader Joe's, we work with reputable suppliers that have a strong record of providing safe and healthy work environments and we will continue to make certain that our vendors are meeting if not exceeding government standards throughout all aspects of their businesses.
A few weeks before the Trader Joe's rally, Karen and I met before work (to shoot the video below) at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village, where the CIW's mobile Modern-Day Slavery Museum had set up shop for the day to educate passers-by about six of the seven cases of slavery prosecuted on behalf of farmworkers in recent years. The museum, housed in a cargo truck similar to the one that held enslaved workers in one of the cases, puts these modern abuses into historical perspective, documenting Florida's checkered past from the days of Spanish chattel slavery, through its use as a hub for importing African slaves and the creation of systems of state-sanctioned slavery, like the convict-lease program of the late 1800's, through which the state would actually rent out African-American men, often convicted on questionable charges, to farm owners. It points out the fact that farm laborers were specifically left out of Roosevelt's New Deal in 1935, and have still never been awarded rights that were extended to other kinds of workers 75 years ago, including the right to bargain collectively. Since then, the most common form of labor abuses entail "debt peonage," often using a "company store" set up, sometimes withholding wages so that workers lack cash to buy food and other goods anywhere but from the employer, who sells them to employees at radically inflated prices.
But the six cases of modern slavery on display are a radical departure even from these abuses and hearken back to the days when slavery was a way of life in the American South. Prosecuted and won between 1997 and 2008, the cases involved forced, underpaid and even unpaid labor, physical violence and in some cases, kidnapping and imprisonment. The Coalition was instrumental in the uncovering and investigation of each of these six cases, and it was out of this work that the Fair Food Campaign was born.
Often, farmworkers are especially vulnerable because they are undocumented and in fear of being deported - and the blame for engaging in illegal work always falls on them, rather than on the growers, distributors, restaurateurs and retailers who profit from their cheap labor (and whose punishment, if it comes, tends toward the wrist-slapping variety). Florida's most recent case of slavery, indictments for which came down in July, is an excellent example - Haitian nationals were allegedly lured to Florida with promises of decent jobs, had their passports taken from them upon arrival and were basically imprisoned, barely fed and in one case, raped by her captor. And just yesterday, in what the FBI is calling the largest case of human trafficking ever brought to court in the US, six were charged - including four from labor contractor Global Horizons - allegedly involved a similar bait-and-switch, as well as passport withholding.
Even for those among us who are shocked and appalled by these sorts of abuses, it is easy to turn a blind eye and believe company spokespeople who seek to assure us that they would never do business with growers who would abuse the rights of their workers. But without a much greater level of transparency in our food system, and without giving workers the right to bargain collectively, how are retailers or their patrons ever to know where corners may be getting cut to provide us with the low prices we crave? Most Americans, particularly those with no ties to agriculture, have no clue that such abuses still happen, let alone that they may be complicit in such exploitation through their purchases, which is why the Modern-Day Slavery Museum is such a powerful vehicle.
If you eat a tomato this weekend - or even if you hate tomatoes - try to honor the holiday by thinking about who picked it. If, like those of us in New York, you've been suffering an uncommonly hot summer, consider what it might be like to pick two tons of tomatoes a day under the Florida sun, all to earn $50 or $60. Ask yourself if you'd want to earn a more livable wage, to be assured things like access to water and shade and protection from pesticide spray, and to have a voice in the circumstances under which you went to work. I would.
Wednesday evening was the first (and perhaps the only) debate between Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) and her Republican challenger Carly Fiorina.
I'm not a guru of politics. I'm not a pundit of policy debates. I'm not a Beltway lobbyist. My knowledge of politics does not go beyond 101, those classes we take during our freshman college year. I live in New Mexico -- not California.
Yet, I care passionately about Senator Barbara Boxer's reelection. Why? Because I care deeply about life on Earth and I'm very concerned about climate crimes that are killing animals, birds, trees, and also humans in the U.S. as well as all over the world.
Soon I'll tell you about why we must help Senator Boxer's reelection campaign, no matter where in the U.S. we live, but first I'll share a story of how I came to know Senator Boxer.
March 19, 2003: I was living in Seattle. It must have been midday, when I got a call from Cindy Shogan, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, a Washington-DC based non-profit organization. "Turn on your TV", said Cindy, "Senator Boxer is showing your polar bear photo on the Senate floor". She hung up, and I was nowhere near a TV. Later someone emailed me a screenshot from CSPAN -- Senator Boxer showing a poster-size image of one of my polar bear photos from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
That day Senator Boxer passionately argued to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. President George W. Bush was pushing very hard to sell the Arctic Refuge to the oil companies. Cindy had brought some of my photos and a copy of my just published book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land to Senator Boxer's attention. Cindy's hope was that it could help counter the arguments made by then Republican Senators Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski, who had portrayed the Arctic Refuge as a "white nothingness" or "barren, frozen wasteland". Vice President Dick Cheney sat at his Senate office most of the day, expecting that the Senate would split the votes 50-50, he will break the tie, win the vote, and let the oilers move forward. To their dismay, Senator Boxer's passionate plea resulted in a 51-49 votes that day. Her use of my book and photos during the Senate debate, however, resulted in my soon to open exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution to turn into a political football. But that's another story. I slowly began to learn about American politics.
Later that year, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco opened my Arctic Refuge exhibition. Senator Boxer attended the opening reception. She told us a story. On March 19, when she returned home later that evening, her granddaughter said, "I'm very proud of you grandma for protecting the polar bear." That day she indeed did. And she continues to be a champion of the Arctic Refuge, which is a crown jewel of America, and it is also the most biologically diverse conservation area in the entire Arctic. Later this year, on December 6, we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We must never sell the Arctic Refuge to the oil companies.
In 2007, Senator Barbara Boxer became the first woman ever to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Fast forward to 2010. We had BP's unforgiveable oil-and-methane spill in the gulf, a disaster Jerry Cope and Charles Hambleton have called the crime of the century. Then on June 10, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski launched an attack to block Environmental Protection Agency's effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act. Senator Barbara Boxer made a passionate counter-attack. She showed poster-sized images of blackened birds killed by BP's spill. While showing the dead-bird photos, Senator Boxer said, "They're almost too painful. But for someone (Senator Lisa Murkowski) to come to this floor to say too much carbon is not dangerous, then I'm sorry, we'll have to look." Her passion prevailed and the Republican attempt was defeated by 53-47 votes.
Wednesday evening during the debate at Saint Mary's College, Senator Boxer talked about protecting the California coast from offshore oil-and-gas development (Carly Fiorina favors offshore development in California). On May 13, Senator Boxer and five senators from California, Oregon, and Washington introduced legislation to ban all future drilling along the Pacific shoreline.
Offshore oil development is a dirty and dangerous business. When something goes wrong it kills a helluva lot of marine life and also destroys people's way of life. Some Californians may remember very well the 1969 oil spill off of Santa Barbara coast that spewed 200,000 gallons of crude, and killed seals, dolphins, fish, birds, and other marine life.
I've been extremely concerned about offshore drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of arctic Alaska. To prevent a BP like catastrophe in the Arctic Ocean that Shell was just about to embark on this summer, I wrote a piece BPing the Arctic? on May 25. Two days later President Obama reversed his earlier decision and suspended Shell's drilling for 2010. We must put a permanent ban on offshore drilling in America's Arctic Ocean, the way Senator Boxer and her colleagues have proposed for the Pacific coast.
Resource expert Michael Klare has pointed out that most of the easy oil in North America has already been extracted. We're now going after what he callsextreme-energy with potentially devastating consequences -- offshore drilling in deepwater, offshore drilling in extremely harsh environment like the Arctic Ocean, or the Tar Sands of Alberta in Canada.
Senator Boxer is doing the right thing by protecting the coast of her home state from offshore drilling. It's time that we move away from the death grip of oil-and-coal and start a clean energy revolution in the U.S. During Wednesday evening's debate Senator Boxer also pointed out that her aim is to make California "a hub of clean energy industry". This is what all Americans need to hear. Clean energy is no longer an idea that has the promise to create new jobs. Elizabeth Lynch wrote recently in The Huffington Post that China has already beat the U.S. to become the new green tech giant. We need the same direction for U.S. -- it'll create new jobs, actually lot of new jobs, and help control global warming at the same time. For that we need Senator Barbara Barbara Boxer and not Carly Fiorina (whose sympathy is with the oil-and-coal companies).
After the U.S. Senate killed the climate bill in late July, many of us were disappointed (but not surprised). We pointed our fingers to what went wrong and why our climate movement failed, but then we got to work to figure out how to move forward. Just a few days ago I founded ClimateStoryTellers.org that you can check out. And for action you can check out great activist movements -- 350.org and the Climate Justice Network. Last year with a puny budget and a lot of passion, Bill McKibben and his compatriots at 350.org organized 5200 climate rallies in 181 countries. And this coming October they're planning Global Work Party -- 1400 events already planned in more than 135 countries. Our climate movement is moving forward with many new ideas, renewed energy, and enthusiasm.
And we need Senator Boxer with us on our new climate movement train. She is a champion of our environment and clean energy economy, and we must do everything to help her win reelection.
I'm with her.
Are you?
Subhankar Banerjee is a photographer, writer, activist, and founder of ClimateStoryTellers.org
[Edits/Corrections: replaced "Last night" with "Wednesday evening"; added url link to "California Academy of Science"; added one line, "In 2007, Senator Barbara Boxer became the first woman ever to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee."]
My visit to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana this week turned out to be even more interesting than I had expected. We went on this trip to investigate the progress of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup and the ongoing claims process for those affected by the disaster. However, shortly after the Army Black Hawk helicopter touched down in Grand Isle, Louisiana, right on the Gulf of Mexico, we were greeted by news of an oil platform explosion some 135 miles or so to the southwest of us out in the Gulf. Thirteen men went over the side of the platform into the water following the explosion. Fortunately, all of them survived, apparently without serious injury. They were luckier than the eleven men who perished during the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig more than four months ago.
While this latest oil platform fire raged, back at the site of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy another important step in permanently plugging the well was just beginning. Surface support ships and deepwater submersibles were moving into position to remove that well's malfunctioning blowout preventer and prepare it for a new, functioning blowout preventer to be installed the next day.
Once that step was completed, work would continue on the relief wells that - when finished - would allow the "bottom kill" to proceed by September 20, effectively driving a stake through the heart of the well that has caused so much heartache and set off a multi-billion dollar Gulf cleanup and restoration effort.
Ironically, this latest explosion occurred as Louisiana's governor, along with other state and local officials, were calling on President Obama to lift the moratorium on deepwater drilling that he imposed three months ago. Both explosions serve as graphic reminders that drilling for oil thousands of feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico remains a very risky business.
This week's accident also reinforces the need to create a culture of safety in this industry, much as the culture we have endeavored to create in our nation's 104 nuclear power plants.
With the goal of safety in mind, a new cop has been put on the beat. It is called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement or BOEM, and housed within the U.S. Department of the Interior. One of BOEM's first responsibilities is to create a new regulatory framework and enforcement structure to replace the abysmal efforts of the former Minerals Management Service to regulate the offshore oil industry.
Let me hasten to add, though, that all was not cause for gloom and doom in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration briefed us that the trillions of oil-eating microbes that Mother Nature has deployed throughout the Gulf of Mexico continue to provide by far the most cost effective cleanup work that's being done in the Gulf. Just a few months ago the water was teeming with oil, now the presence of oil is measured in parts per billion.
While the skimmers there still skim occasionally, and hundreds of miles of boom remain deployed to protect beaches and marsh land, the tide has turned in this battle. As further proof, on the day we were there, the federal government reopened several thousand square miles of additional federal fishery waters to fishermen.
That doesn't mean that there isn't still plenty of work to do in the months ahead. There is. But a lot of good work has already been done. It's still being done by a large and dedicated team led by the Coast Guard, and includes - among others - the U.S. Army, the National Guard, NOAA, EPA, local fishermen and their "vessels of opportunity," some BP employees, and private contractors like Miller Environmental from Corpus Christi, Texas, whom we met.
The battle is likely to rage for some time over whether we should continue to remain dependent on hard-to-recover fossil fuels like the oil that lies thousands of feet below the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and whether we should remain dependent on the enormous quantities of oil that we import from undemocratic, unstable countries around the world, oil that now comprises a third of our nation's huge trade deficit.
While that battle rages, though, America has got to be smart enough to put the pedal to the metal to hasten the day when we harness the power of the wind off our coasts to help power millions of flex-fuel, plug-in hybrid vehicles like GM's Volt and Fisker's Karma and Nina that will be built right here in America and my home state of Delaware. And, we've got to make even bigger strides in harnessing the energy of the sun and other clean energy sources to meet more of our energy needs. Finally, we need to adopt energy conservation policies that affirm our country's belief that the cleanest, most affordable form of energy in the world is the energy we never use.
Sen. Carper is the senior senator from the state of Delaware. He is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management and recently returned from a visit to the Gulf coast where he toured impacted marshlands off the coast of Louisiana, visited a beach cleanup site and was briefed on the cleanup and recovery efforts from the Coast Guard.
The trip was part of Sen. Carper's ongoing examination of the Gulf coast oil spill cleanup and claims process. Sen. Carper held two hearings this summer, "The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Ensuring a Financially Responsible Recovery Parts I and II," which focused on the costs associated with the response and recovery operations relating to the oil spill in the Gulf. As part of these hearings, the subcommittee heard testimony from representatives of BP, Transocean, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC (a subsidiary of Mitsui Oil Exploration Company), the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Kenneth Feinberg, head of the BP claims process.
At only 22 years old, Elisa Sednaoui is truly a model-slash-actress, strutting down the runways for Tuleh and Diane von Furstenberg and posing for H&M campaigns, while earning her own IMDB profile with credits like "Bus Palladium" and "Indigene d'Eurasie." She's also become a fixture at film festivals, giving her the chance to bring a little bit of the catwalk to the red carpet. Take a look at Sednaoui's style and tell us which looks are chic and which, if any, are gauche.
Bristol Palin was on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on Friday night and Jay asked her about her new gig on "Dancing With The Stars." She said she doesn't have much dance experience, to which Jay asked, "Did you go to your prom?" and Bristol responded, "No, I was pregnant."
Speaking of, the two discussed Bristol's recent breakup with Levi Johnston. She said, "I'm not disappointed, I'm not heartbroken." She explained that Levi is totally different now, remarking, "The guy I fell in love with was a hard-working Alaskan man that didn't want to wear straight-legged jeans and boots and be chased by [gossip site] Radar...it's sad to watch." Check out what else she had to say.
Welcome to the Last Look, where we round up the Style scraps that didn't make it to our news page this week. Click through and catch up on what else happened since Monday!
Fall is coming and I'm more than ready for it. I've already put my shorts away (albeit prematurely, at least here in NYC), I impulse purchased a few fall scarves, and my nimble fingers have lead me to some serious online shopping for my favorite fall accessories... boots. I already have about 4-5 solid pairs from last year's rotation -- but is that enough? No. Am I continually finding the need for new boot elements that I didn't even know existed? Yes. I need a thicker wedge, a tougher combat, more laces, a deeper brown, a rounder toe, a different decade of vintage, a lower heel, a higher heel... the line between need and want has now become very thin. Where do I turn to indulge my addiction?
For the timeless, rugged, androgynous look, I'm all about Frye Boots. Spit on them, drag them through mud, trek through the city in them, get them caught in a tractor -- these boots look just as fantastic (if not better) five years later as they do the day you buy them. Take a look at some of the classic and fall looks:
From upper left, clockwise: Harness, Heath Tall Riding, Veronica Combat, Melissa Tall Lace
Photos courtesy of Frye
Sometimes, I must admit, I'm not particularly classic. Sometimes I want my footwear to scream look at me now! I'm tall! I'm stunning! I'm uninhibited and sexy and I have really good balance! This is when I turn to Jeffrey Campbell. Let me take this opportunity to brag that I've always been a wedge/platform girl -- I distinctly remember showing up to my eighth grade dance in five inch black platform sandals while my peers wore pastel kitten heels and strappy sandals. I wore those platforms pretty much until college when my bestie made me toss them. Well, not even a decade later -- they're back in style, Jeffrey Campbell is working the hell out of fall, and I'm ecstatic.
From upper left, clockwise: Lita, Pixie Fur, Denmark, Two Timer
Photos courtesy of Solestruck
Of course there's a major middle ground between classic and daring. Some of my favorites include All Saints, Aldo (yes, Aldo), Dr. Martens, Acne, Cole Haan, Bass and of course, the store we all love to hate and hate to love, the brand selections at Urban Outfitters.
As we approach Labor Day Weekend, I'd like to officially welcome you to fall footwear. Lace them up, zip them closed, shimmy into them -- grab your argyle socks and cardigans and blazers and denim -- welcome to the best season of them all, relish in the beauty.
Main Line Media News caught up with Marjorie Margolies, mother of Marc Mezvinsky...you remember, that guy who married Chelsea Clinton not too long ago? While Margolies isn't at liberty to say much about the marriage, she did remark, "I'm totally delighted to be Chelsea Clinton's mother-in-law; she's a doll."
Kirsty Hume first made a name for herself in the '90s, but now the supermodel is back as the face--and body--of Agent Provocateur lingerie. The thirty-four-year-old blonde bombshell dons a bright orange wig and models some of the brand's offerings as "Betty Sue." Sarah Shotton, creative director at Agent Provocateur, told WWD that Hume is the "perfect woman," and "has a film noir, feline quality to her that I felt had brilliant synergy with the collection and what we are about at Agent Provocateur." Check out the fall commercial.
Sound the HuffPost Style alarms! We have a First Lady meeting of the style minds! Germany's Bettina Wulff met Malawi's Callista Mutharika on Thursday in Berlin. Each woman showcased her particular brand of personal fashion--Bettina, who has been having a gray moment as of late, opted for a skirt suit and Callista went for a vibrant blue print and metallic accessories. Check it out:
Fashion Week has taken over Australia from Sydney to Melbourne and, with it, a slew of hair trends. So what's big in 'dos down under? Karen Elson-style red tresses, sizable poofs and tons of headgear including bows and, er, Eiffel Towers. Click through our album and tell us which looks you'd try and which you wouldn't touch.
Steve Madden has taken over a $48.8 million loan to Betsey Johnson LLC that is currently in default. SEC documents filed Thursday show that if this loan is not paid by August 20, 2012, Madden will end up owning the brand and possibly the collateral that secured the loan in the first place - namely the designer and her business partner Chantal Bacon's personal assets, as well as the company's intellectual property, aka its brand name.
Director Sofia Coppola stepped out to the "Somewhere" photo call in Venice and the subtle stylista took on menswear for the occasion. She donned a button down shirt, long shorts and black wedge pumps and carried a large bag, all Louis Vuitton. Check out Sofia's ensemble and tell us what you think.
One of the best parts about the changing of the seasons is getting that inevitable email from my friend Liberty Jones, a publicist for Washington's venerable Neiman Marcus, inviting me to her twice annual beauty preview event where my colleagues and I sample various luxury products and fragrances awaiting their public launch.
Here's what I learned and a quick recap of some of my favorites.
Warning: Most of these are not recession proof, but if you're resourceful, you may find the next best thing at your local CVS.
1. Try goth glam, even if you are not Evan Rachel Wood.
I allowed the lady behind the Bobbi Brown counter to give me a mini-makeover with Brown's much anticipated Black Velvet campaign coming this fall. My eyes immediately were struck by the sumptuously rich Black Raspberry Lipstick ($22) and the equally stunning dark purple and charcoal hues in this collection. I also like Chanel's Rouge Noir ($28). If you work in a conservative office environment, these colors may be too vampy for a day look, but you'll give off a "Twilight" allure and air of mystery with anything from this collection.
2. Nails are the new accessory and purple is the new black. The "lady is a vamp" theme continues with a dark, infernal nail color, like Chanel's Paradoxal Purple ($23), or, my fave, Deborah Lippman's Dark Side of the Moon ($16). Remember: an interestingly laquered nail invites closer inspection, so it's best to keep nails short and well-groomed in order to pull off these unique shades. But they scream "autumn" and can be worn to the office or out on the town.
3. Cheeks have a natural flush.
The cosmetic experts at the event explained to me that this
Fall's "must have" dark eyes and lips should be the most pronounced features of your visage, so keep your cheek color to a minimum. They should have a natural flush, like you just came in from kicking some leaves in the park. To achieve this look, try Lancome's Blush Subtil in Shimmer Mocha Havana ($29.50).
4. Even perfumes are dark and mysterious this fall.Remember back in the day when Estee Lauder fragrances conjured images of an ethereal "beautiful" bride, or a languid day at the beach in "White Linen"? Those days are no more. Well, perhaps your grandma still wears those perfumes, but the modern Estee customer will be instantly drawn to her new perfume "Sensuous Noir" ($60). It seethes with a quiet sexiness, and has a powdery base that's not too much. I've been wearing mine to bed and putting it on as soon as I get out of the shower. The best part is that it has a lasting effect, and who can resist the "Noir" in the name? My friends at Neiman's tell me that a good size sample of this delectable scent can be found in their fall beauty bags.
5. It all goes back to your skin.
What do vampires and goth beauties like Rose McGowan and Winona Ryder have in common? Ridiculously smooth, almost transparent faces. None of these fall looks will work on tired looking and sun drenched skin. My favorite luxe beauty cream that gave my face a shot of luminosity and sun protection is La Prairie's Cellular Radiance Emulsion with an SPF 30 ($425).
"Gossip Girl" actress Blake Lively has found a friend in Anna Wintour, according to Marie Claire UK. In a recent interview with the glossy, Blake "casually name-dropped" the Vogue Editor-in-Chief, saying, "I was speaking with Anna Wintour and we were just talking about different fashion houses and I said, 'I love Chanel,' and she said, 'You should come with me to the show.' I also said I loved Dior. She said 'OK, well I'll take you to the Chanel and Dior shows and we'll meet with Karl and John [Galliano] afterwards.' Insane!" Blake also remarked that she never uses a stylist, adding, "Number one, [fashion is] such an expression of self."
In any case, the pair seems to be close and Blake appears to be Anna's cover girl du jour. She's been on multiple covers and inside the mag numerous times.
Remember when Mrs. Obama was criticized for wearing Lanvin tennis shoes (price $540.00 US) last year? People thought that the First Lady shouldn't be wearing high-priced designer shoes while working at a Food Bank in DC. Well, good news for Mrs. O and other fashionistas who love French label Lanvin. H&M has just announced that luxury design house Lanvin will be the next lower priced line for H&M. Hooray. This is such great news. The only time I shop Lanvin now is at the Barney's Warehouse Sale because it is so pricey. I am looking forward to getting some affordable Lanvin, and I can't wait to see this collection from the exquisite French label. People StyleWatch reports that there will be previews available on Nov. 2 with the collection in H&M stores on Nov. 20th. This is going to be crazy, as this will be the peak Black Friday shopping season time. I'm sure Mrs. Obama can get hers first though if she needs it. She might need to stock up for future public engagements.
"H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less. I have said in the past that I would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public," Alber Elbaz, artistic director of Lanvin, says in a statement confirming the collaboration this morning.
I wonder if Lanvin would've collaborate with H&M pre-the great recession? Whatever the cause, I am glad it's happening. Lanvin for all! :)
Bridget Hall is contesting her arrest for driving while intoxicated last Sunday morning, Page Six reports. The supermodel was pulled over at 3:17 a.m. on August 29 in East Hampton, New York, and allegedly released on her own recognizance, meaning she promised to appear in court and answer a criminal charge. Now, Hall says that she wasn't drinking at all and has hired lawyer Salvatore Strazzullo to fight her case.
Hall told Page Six she would never drink and drive and that she was simply tired, adding, the police "asked me to do the sobriety tests, which went fine. When he asked me to do the Breathalyzer, I was happy to do it because I'd not had one drink that night....I was totally shocked when it registered positive." Hall is an East Hampton resident, having moved to the town last spring. Her court date is scheduled for September 30.
Hall is best-known for her Sports Illustrated shoots from the early aughts and walking the runway for Ralph Lauren, Chanel and Gucci, and while New York Magazine has her listed as mostly-retired, Hall is still signed to One Management.
Actress and model Milla Jovovich took Tokyo this week and swung by a "Resident Evil: Afterlife" press conference on Friday. For the occasion, she wore a shredded white t-shirt over a tank top and tight black pants. She accessorized with strappy sandals and her hair was pulled back to show off her one, ornate earring. Check out her ensemble and tell us what you think.
Excentreefashion and clothing store hopes to help you make a fresh, sharp and informed organic clothing, ecofashion and ethically freindly purchasing decsion. 1 Garment, 1 Tree, 1 Future.
The "lady is a vamp" theme continues with a dark, infernal nail color, like Chanel's Paradoxal Purple ($23), or, my fave, Deborah Lippman's Dark Side of the Moon ($16). Remember: an interestingly laquered nail invites closer inspection, so it's best to keep nails short and well-groomed in order to pull off these unique shades. But they scream "autumn" and can be worn to the office or out on the town.
Remember back in the day when Estee Lauder fragrances conjured images of an ethereal "beautiful" bride, or a languid day at the beach in "White Linen"? Those days are no more. Well, perhaps your grandma still wears those perfumes, but the modern Estee customer will be instantly drawn to her new perfume "Sensuous Noir" ($60). It seethes with a quiet sexiness, and has a powdery base that's not too much. I've been wearing mine to bed and putting it on as soon as I get out of the shower. The best part is that it has a lasting effect, and who can resist the "Noir" in the name? My friends at Neiman's tell me that a good size sample of this delectable scent can be found in their fall beauty bags. 
