I care. That's all.

I haven't been able to run or yog (a self-created verb for "do yoga") lately because for some reason my lower back has been killing me, so when not on the job hunt or not watching Jeopardy or not exploring this glorious glorious city which I am so familiar yet so foreign to, I can be found nose deep in lots of sobering trafficking and poverty literature for reasons of
- staying humble - i.e. realizing that, say, the money used for a cab ride home from a night out is more than what a girl halfway around the world is sold into prostitution for
and
-being informed on how I can make a difference here or how I could one day.

BUT ENOUGH WITH MY NARCISSISM.

A week or so ago, 60 Minutes profiled the famously press shy Bill and Melinda Gates and their eponymous Foundation (highly recommend click on that link to watch the footage), and I was left so in awe of their incredible generosity. My brother, who worked for Microsoft a while ago, has only the highest regard for them, but the 60 Minutes team really brought The Foundation's work to life.

"All lives, no matter where they are lived, have equal value." -Melinda Gates

Wouldn't it be the ultimate dream to build a fortune with the eager desire to give it away? That would really be the most satisfying thing in the entire world.

The other week I went to a lecture on poverty cleverly titled '1.4 million Reasons' at NYU by a gung-ho Aussie Hugh Evans, with Hugh Jackman headlining. Cool to use his celebrity to draw people in to be informed on the issue, although I admit, I was feeling quite "rah rah BYU!" after because even though Provo doesn't reel in lots of 'sexy' headlining speakers, the information presented was nothing new to what I had studied in a global issues-type classes. Hurts to admit, but point Cougars and your excellent use of your painfully frugal budget.

Anyway, the main takeaways from the presentation were that with persisting efforts of existing organizations poverty can and WILL be eradicated within the next 20 years. Mind blowing. We can be hopeful!


I Google Buzz share a lot of lowbrow humor from Fail blog, which is purely mindlessly silly in a 12-year-old humor kind of way... but this is especially apropos for this post!

"Empathy Fail"

I'm so inspired. More to come on this front soon...if I can only be a little less anxious about how I'm portrayed on this blog. Sometimes the angst is crippling. Thanks for reading, reader!

Feeling all warm and velvety inside

THIS makes me so so happy...

Why can't all revolutions be as peaceful as The Velvet?

Vaclav Havel jamming on drums? Sounds like a party to me!

Probably the most brilliant line of foreign policy ever:
“We Czechs and Slovaks have a tradition of dealing with various issues in the pub rather than on the battlefield.”

You know I'll drink some sparkling cider to that!

photo via NYT

One man's mission to promote peace

Here's a link to the Greg Mortenson forum that occurred here at BYU last week.

WATCH/LISTEN/LEARN.

The man is miraculous.

REAL 'Reality Shows'

I've made a new resolution that whenever I become infuriated that I haven't slept well, I'll put my frustrations in perspective with these kinds of stories.

Exhibit A: MUGABE IS DELUSIONAL. THE END.

Exhibit B: To think THIS kind of sentiment will only grow as WWII fades deeper into memory is so tragic I can't even conjure words. Yeah, I know if we're looking at numbers, Stalin and Pol Pot and others killed far more people, but SERIOUSLY?!

Exhibit C: As if we didn't expect or suspect this already...

De-mystifying milk

My dad emailed me the following excerpt a while ago from a health for volleyball players Web site
(Remember how I'm the shortest one in my family and that my two younger sisters are 6'2" volleyball phenoms?).

Except in Europe, where the food standards are where they should be (sheesh), I can't remember when I last had a glass of milk.

I went vegan for a solid 2 weeks last year, and learned some cool things along the way. i.e. that the only tribe in Africa that drinks milk is the only tribe with cases of osteoporosis (which makes sense if you read further below).

But after reading rumors here and there, beginning from when I read Fast Food Nation in high school, about its non-nutritional value reversal, I was sold on the following.

(Basically, milk is freaky genetically modified cow udder puss. sick.)

Today, what we call "milk" is truly a poison and a far cry from the nutritious food that it once was. Milk consumption is now being blamed for everything from cancer to diabetes.

There was a time when milk came from healthy, happy and well-fed cows...this is no longer the case.

Today, most of the milk we consume comes from what Sally Fallon, founder of the Real Milk Movement, calls "freaks of nature".

Through strange breeding practices, which produce cows that have unusually large pituitary glands, and through the use of FDA approved genetically engineered growth hormones for cows... these Freak cows produce 3 to 4 times the milk of a normal cow.

Fantastic, we now have cows that are so stressed by the amount of milk that they are producing that not only does the milk contain significantly lower nutrition, but also it is higher in puss! Yea,
I said puss.

Also, from the poor quality of grains these cows are fed (cows should be eating grass anyway), the milk that you are pouring on your cereal has been shown to cause liver problems, tumors, sterility, and mastitis in the cows that produce it..."Got Milk?"

Today, all processed milk is pasteurized for the sole purpose of increasing shelf life.

Pasteurization is a process by which milk is heated to such a high degree that it destroys all the bacteria in the milk. Milk is a living organism that contains live cultures (bacteria) that are essential to the immunity of the milk and to the milk drinker.

When milk is pasteurized, all the live-cultures and enzymes are destroyed, rendering the milk a dead-food.

Once this immune enhancing bacteria is destroyed, the milk is now susceptible to invasion by unhealthy bacteria.

All your life you have probably believed milk is good for you, helping you build strong bones and muscles. In it's pure form, milk can be good. But even then, that's nothing absolute.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was right on the money when he said, "Milk is for babies". No other living creature consumes milk after infancy, so why should we?

The fact is that milk does NOT help calcium absorption like many experts claim it does. In fact, milk hinders calcium absorption.

The lactose and pasteurization process that milk undergoes often makes calcium in milk not able to be absorbed by the human body.

Also, the cows that major milk products come from are often disease-ridden animals, pumped full of chemicals.

The legal limit for white cell allowance in milk is ridiculously high. So why care about white cell count?

If you ever have a pimple and squeeze it, and that beige colored puss sprays out, just think about the laws that allow milk to be anywhere up to 20% puss-content.

There are numerous studies that show milk contributes to heart disease and cancer.

Milk exhibits an "inflammatory" response, more commonly accepted as the key indicator for heart disease.

Milk hinders the digestive tract, slowing the efficiency of recovery from workouts.

So what should you do?

If you are going to drink milk, your best choice is to find an organic farmer that sells raw milk. If you can't get your hands on raw milk, make sure you're using certified organic milk from your super market.

ALSO, I LOVE this alternative food labeling where it is shown how far the food has traveled. Brilliant.

images from swiss miss

"I feel independent"

Thanks to "Dr. Greg" Mortenson, my Pakistan/Afghanistan interest has been piqued... poking around the web, I found a couple of things you may find interesting as well.

(I don't pretend to be an expert on this, by the way. I still have a lot of learning to do.)

Concisely shows what the Pakistani madrassas of nationalists (rather than Taliban insurgents) are up to nowadays. Nice.



Also, has anyone seen the movie Tea with the Taliban? What did you think?


And also, click through this inspiring slideshow on how Afghani women are moving forward, despite the Taliban threat.

"I love working at the National Museum—I feel independent. I can work, study, travel, earn money. Under the Taliban, I couldn't work. They beat one of my relatives so badly on the spine for not wearing a burka that two days later, she died."

- Qudsia Zohab, an employee of the National Museum of Afghanistan and a literature student at Kabul University

via Marie Claire

How much I, an American woman, take for granted.

The practicalism of peace

The other day, I both finished the book Three Cups of Tea and watched the movie Funny Face. I realized that the two had similar themes. (Ok, a stretch, but hear me out if you so desire)


In the movie, Audrey Hepburn's character is a book shop girl and budding intellectual (and then model) who harps on the concept of 'practicalism: peace through understanding' throughout the movie.

The first half of the movie was mind-blowing eye candy: New York, Paris, lots of pink and glamour, what's not to love?! However, by the end I was finished with all of the themes of or related to "about face"...the lack of depth of conventional beauty, the lame songs, even to the fact that technically, (spoiler) she and Fred Astaire don't get married (although it's implied).

Plus, Audrey's acting and singing were really bad...like "make it stop!" bad. yikes.

My point is, that while practicalism was preached in a very face-value of a movie, it can also be understood in, well, more noble ways... like in Three Cups of Tea.



Many complain that charity work is largely motivated by face value...people trying to advance themselves socially, politically or personally.

But Mortenson's story of an innately radical sense of altruism to build schools for women and girls in Pakistan is overwhelming: the scope of what is accomplished far outweighs even the grand effort, and for this, I salute him with deep respect.


Really, education and understanding is our only way to world peace.
And it's disappointing that many do not see this as a natural, 'practical' solution.

Twittering Tehran

Regarding the current events of the tainted Iranian elections, I suggest you read this fascinating Q&A on TED of how social media is quite literally, revolutionizing a revolution.

I hopped over to NY Times to get more details, and sure enough, they had an article detailing this very phenomenon happening amidst the Tehran tumult.

Wholly supports my belief that 'journalism is the first draft of history.' Exciting to see it be written in ways that, even a couple years ago, had not been invented.

(Photo via NY Times)

Conflict-free diamonds are a girl's best friend

I highly recommend watching this ABC 4-part fictionalized documentary that looks at the diamond industry politically and culturally...from the war zone to the show room.

I loved the movie Blood Diamond for shedding light on this issue, thus I really enjoyed Diamonds for taking on a whole new (and more complicated) storyline and cast of characters that all revolve around the business, deception and cruelty of 'conflict' diamonds.




It's well-thought out, with plotline not limited to Sierra Leone or even Africa, but more realistically connected to many other parts of the world.

Plus, you can watch the 4 episodes for free...
Go to Abc.com and click on "Free Episodes" at the top
(Click HERE for the first episode.)


Denmont, the main diamond company depicted in 'Diamonds,' presumably refers to the real company De Beers: the overarching antagonist in Blood Diamond as well.

After looking on the World Diamond Council and UN Websites, as well as Wikipedia (here and here), my burning, perhaps trite (and probably unanswerable) question remains of why advertising (as it appears) has created such a high demand for diamonds in Western culture.

Forget governments, forget rebel groups...are we really just buying into a grand marketing scheme with ugly, unseen colonialist implications?

Or perhaps Hollywood is blowing this issue out of proportion: In 2003, George W. Bush passed the Clean Diamonds Trade Act (click on "US Legislation) and the WDC alleges that conflict diamond trade has been reduced from 4% to 1% of the total diamond trade.

Hmm.

Maybe you have an answer or an explanation?
Or perhaps you have read a well-researched book that further brings this issue to light?
Please share your thoughts!