When did housing become fashion?

Darcy Hitchcock

So often do I hear from neighbors and realtors, “the house needs updating.” They are usually referring to light fixtures, counters, cabinets, etc. Things that are nailed down. Not paint colors and a throw rug.

Image: Stuart Miles Freedigitalphotos.net Image: Stuart Miles Freedigitalphotos.net

The fashion industry has tried to convince people that last year’s colors or skirt lengths or whatever are passé; you’ll be an embarrassment to your family and friends if you don’t buy a new wardrobe. That behavior has significant environmental consequences. As this article by Environmental Leader points out, cheap prices and marketing manipulation are helping to strip our planet. Cotton, for example, uses almost 3 percent of the world’s water and according to the Organic Consumers Association, a single T-shirt requires about 1/3 of a pound of agricultural chemicals to produce. Close to twenty percent of industrial pollution comes from dyeing textiles. And the human misery associated with some…

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US Christians ‘bankrolling’ no campaign in Ireland’s gay marriage referendum | World news | The Guardian

With just five days to go before Ireland’s historic referendum on the legalisation of gay marriage, a bitter row has broken out between supporters and opponents over the funding of their respective campaigns. Supporters of a yes vote have accused opponents of a lack of transparency over finances and of accepting funding from rightwing Christian groups in the US.

Ireland’s referendum is the only one in the world where a national electorate is being asked to legalise gay marriage. If it is passed on Friday, gay couples will have the right under the state’s constitution to marry. At present only civil partnerships are recognised in law. Marriage equality would provide full rights of inheritance as well as the right to adopt children – the latter being the most contentious issue of the campaign. A yes vote would also mark yet another defeat for the Catholic church and the political power it used to wield in Ireland.

via US Christians ‘bankrolling’ no campaign in Ireland’s gay marriage referendum | World news | The Guardian.

EZLN: On Elections, ORGANIZE

dorset chiapas solidarity

EZLN: On Elections, ORGANIZE

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MAY 5, 2015

April 2015

To the compas of the Sixth:

To those who are reading because it interests them, even though they’re not part of the Sixth:

These days, every time that this thing they call the “electoral process” happens, we hear and see the stuff that comes out saying that the EZLN calls for abstention, that the EZLN says that people shouldn’t vote. They say this and other idiocies, these big-headed people who don’t study history or even try to understand. And they even put these absurdities into history books and biographies, and then charge for them. That is to say, they charge for these lies. Like politicians.

Of course, you know that we’re not interested in these things that those above make up in order to try to convince those below that they’re concerned about them.

As Zapatistas, we don’t call for people…

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The Beauty In Brutal Breakdowns. | Rebelle Society

I have come to see beauty in the breakdown and no longer shy away from this place of broken, real and uncomfortable. When I let go of resistance, broken-down becomes a place where I can rest. A place of naked tranquil abiding, where the trivialities of life no longer disturb or distress.

As a hospice nurse, I have the rare privilege of sharing in the exquisite and brutal breakdown that is death and the dying process.

I meet people when they are most vulnerable, and together we stand in the eye of the storm, bathed in uncomfortable uncertainty. I go with them into the deepest dark place of broken-down; I meet them in the inescapable exposed reality of the inevitable. It is an honor to help bear their pain, for the pain of loss belongs to all of us — none are exempt.

via The Beauty In Brutal Breakdowns. | Rebelle Society.

Look: 84-year-old yoga master puts his peers to shame: Shanghaiist

The man is such a pro he’s even come up with his own moves, including the “Buddha facing the heavens” and the ‘”four dragons with a pearl” positions.

Hou has volunteered to help at the Winter Olympics, and encourages others to practice yoga to “improve their health and promote fitness around the country”.

To top it off, Hou generously shares all he’s learned to the public. He currently teaches yoga in a local community center for free in Zhangjiakou City.

via Look: 84-year-old yoga master puts his peers to shame: Shanghaiist.

This is how psychedelic drugs could radically change society for the better

Let your mind go and the body will follow, and the culture, and the world, and…

Sophie McAdam

vortex

Terence McKenna, self-styled ‘psychonaut’, ethnobotanist, writer, lecturer, freedom fighter and culture-doubting intellectual, was arguably one of the greatest minds who ever lived. He believed passionately in a basic human right to explore one’s own consciousness, and he advocated the use of psilocybin (the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms) and other natural psychedelic drugs to do so. Controversial until his untimely death in 2000, McKenna was dubbed the ‘Tim O’Leary of the 90s’. Ground-breaking books such as The Archaic Revival, Food of The Gods and The Invisible Landscape inspired a generation to turn off the TV and reclaim their minds from the clutches of culture. This, McKenna told us, ”is not your friend.”

Contrary to what his critics might claim, McKenna never played down the dangers of taking psychedelic drugs. He warned: “Experimenters should be very careful…One must build up to the experience. These are bizarre dimensions of extraordinary power and…

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New Controversy Rages around the Hijab in Egypt

Add this to the list of how stupid and insipid men can be.

Nervana

( Dr.Ali Gomaa’s comments with English subtitles)

The debate around Islamic headscarves (Hijab) and an Islamic dress code for women is still raging in Egypt. Sheikh Ali Gomaa, an internationally known Islamist jurist and Egypt’s ex-Grand Mufti (top interpreter of religious edicts issued by Muslim clerics), recently joined the debate with some very surprising and alarming comments. In his own television program, Sheikh Gomaa not only reaffirmed that headscarves (Hijab) are mandatory in Islam; he labeled any woman who disputes this interpretation as an infidel. His comments have raised fears among non-Islamist Egyptians that supposedly moderate mainstream scholars are now giving their blessing to new institutionalized Islamism.

In Egypt, the dress code for women has been controversial for nearly 100 years. The controversy started in 1919, when many women took off their veils as a gesture of support for Egypt’s freedom from British occupation. Political Islamist groups, however, such as…

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