Big changes...

Well. Not exactly big changes yet, but soon there will be, hopefully. I am negotiating with Mother Earth to see if she will switch to a longer rotational pattern around her axis, because it turns out I need more than 24 hours in each day in order to get done everything I need to get done. Not sure how she will respond to my request, but I will let you know.

In the meantime, I may just link from here to some other blogs I write, because I've got a couple others going on what with the classes I am taking and the internship I am doing. Eventually, I may phase out this blogspot and move myself over to Wordpress with a bigger focus on local food specifically. OK, this isn't really a "may" so much as I'm not sure when I will be done getting the site ready. But when I do, you betcha I'll direct you there.



ANYWAY. Go check out this ridiculous video from Nat Geo on what it takes to make plastic bottles that get "recycled" into polyester clothing over in China Food & Water Watch's's blog response to it.

My Yuppie Rant: Am I a yuppie-in-training?

I had a minor case of personality identity/stereotype crisis this morning. My roomie/bestie, Jen, told me I will one day make the great yuppie. This made me laugh, mostly because she said it in her typical “salty old man” voice. But then I got to thinking (not too hard, it’s still the first week of classes, mind you) and I thought, am I an aspiring yuppie? I mean, yeah, young, urban, professional—I qualify as two out of those three things. I shopped at Banana Republic the other day so maybe two and a half out of three on a good day. But otherwise, do I really fall into the soon-to-be-yuppie category?

Here’s me in a nutshell right now:
- I’m interning at Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that helps to ensure clean water and safe food.
- I do yoga and shop at farmers markets.
- I am taking the following classes: Environment & Development, PR Portfolio (we are working with the Arlington Academy of Hope this semester), Theories & Methods of Nonviolence, and an independent study focusing on sustainable agriculture.

There is a definition that maybe comes sort of close to me, but is it yuppie?

Now, let’s take a look at my favorite Urban Dictionary definition of “yuppie”…

Acronym for Young Urban Professional. Group whose culture blends the hippie/counterculture values of the 60s and the materialistic monetary-based values of the 80s. Usually congregate in Starbuck's, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and a wide variety of vintage clothing boutiques. Includes both moderate Liberals (Majority of yuppies), and moderate Conservatives (smaller group of yuppies), although both the far left and the far right enjoy dissing them.

Far left dude: I hate these damn yuppies! They claim to be "artists" and "bohemians", yet their materialistic pursuits embody the very antithesis of the counterculture, and price real "artists" like me out of the neighborhoods they move to!

Far right dude: I hate these damn yuppies. I can't stand they flaunt their metrosexuality with their designer labels, lattes, luxury cars, and globally conscious health food stores. It's european-wannabe wimps like them that corrupt America!

In my marketing classes at AU, we learned heaps about how to how to define your audience. I once had an assignment where I had to “brand” myself. We learned how marketers segment their audience with Web sites like this, with 67 different ‘types’ of people. But even now, as I go through these market segments, I still can’t find quite the “yuppie” definition that I strive to find.

But bear with my existentialism for a moment, when I ask, can you ever really “define” a person? I mean, no, clearly, is the answer to that. Which is good. I mean, there are definitely people out there that fit the mold of a yuppie as defined above, but then you have to consider that not everyone agrees to this definition of a yuppie, or any other stereotype on Urban Dictionary for that matter. This one word alone has 45 definitions.

Jen asserted that perhaps what we have here is a case of regional yuppiedom. So, for example maybe a yuppie in Orange County is a 30-something, fashion-conscious, Whole Foods-shopping, Starbucks-addict. He “cares about the environment” (duh—he only buys organic!) and drives a Lexus HS250h, because he can afford it and wants to have a hybrid so he remains cutting-edge.

Or, maybe in D.C., the yuppie is a 30-something-year-old woman who shops at Whole Foods because she likes their selection of organic, healthy food, she still enjoys her Starbucks and her shopping, though she tries to not go overboard, because she’s sort of anti-capitolism. She drives a Prius, because it isn’t too flashy and is environmentally friendly.

I think you see what I am getting at here. I mean, in the grand scheme of the universe, these people are the same.

However, in conclusion, and because this yuppie rant has gone on far too long, I can happily say, I am not a yuppie, and do not aspire to be one, and in fact could never be one if I wanted to (despite the fact that I plan to eventually own a hybrid and yes I wear a Northface jacket and yes I do yoga and yes I own an Apple computer and yes I shop at Whole Foods.)

Despite all of this, my one saving grace is that I do not like Starbucks. At all. I was born and raised on Cape Cod, and I am a Dunkin' Donuts girl for life.

So there you have it, folks.

Happy Twenty-Ten. Here's the obligatory New Year list.

Well, actually two lists. They sort of address a smattering of my interests, categorizing them into things I hope go away and things I hope come about. Some is serious, some is not so much.

These are things I hope go away in the next decade:

Tiger Woods. Please go away. And while we’re at it, let’s also do away with all the celebrity gossip about famous men cheating on their wives. Not that I don’t think they all deserve to be ridiculed and publicly humiliated, but I frankly just don’t care. Actually, just all celebrity gossip and news should go away. I don’t know what we are going to talk about on Friday nights at the bar, but we will figure something out.

Twilight. And vampire stuff in general. I mean, I sort of got into True Blood, but I hated myself for it a little.

All the H_N1 hype. And yes, I am making the assumption that there will be another flu next year. (Hmm…Feline flu?) Next year there will be some other strain, I just hope the hysteria dies down a bit as time goes on.

Ugg boots. UGH boots. I can’t even believe how long these have stayed popular.

College binge drinking. We all love a cocktail/cold beer/glass of wine. Or two, or three. But, at the risk of sounding like my mother, the binge-drinking problem in America has become absolutely insane over the past 10 years. The CDC estimates that 75% of the alcohol consumed by adults in the United States is consumed in the form of binge drinking. Vehicular homicide, unsafe sex, date rape situations, yuck. I don’t expect binge drinking to disappear entirely, but it would be great if it did, and wasn’t replaced instead by an alternative drug. Happy, social drinking is in. Puking and waking up next to strangers, not so much.

Excessive spending. People need to save more and spend less. Banks need to stop lending money out to people with bad credit. This irresponsibility put us in a recession. Everyone needs to grow up.

Facebook. Bane of my Internet existence. Takes up way too much of my time and ultimately serves no purpose that other more legitimate social networking Web sites don't already have to offer. That being said, unless everyone else stops using it, I probably won’t either. Therein lies the rub. I mean, going into the PR field, I should embrace Facebook, but I just can’t help but have a love-hate relationship.

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These are things I think and hope we’ll see over the next decade:


Better interactivity and involvement with personal health. Let me explain what I mean by this. So you go to the doctor, you get weighed and poked and prodded and then you are sent on your merry way, with nothing really tangible in hand, no record of your own so you can monitor your health. People need to have a better way of keeping tabs on things like their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, even things like birth marks on their body to make sure they don’t change too much over time. Doctors can easily miss things. Most of them are super busy, forgetful, or incompetent, and especially if you are going to multiple doctors, it would be fantastic if there was a more convenient way to just pop in all the information on your health into a central location online. Google is working on something like this, but it’s very difficult to work with and needs a lot more development. I would imagine that people would be nervous about this sort of transition, because you might think if all that information is out floating around in the interwebs, anyone will be able to get their filthy little hands on it. There would of course need to be proper security in place, this information would need to be protected just like our credit card information is all protected online. [Update: Yeah, this guy knows what I'm talkin' about.]

More widespread access to and knowledge of CSA’s and farmers’ markets. I actually dream about this kind of stuff.

Better pay for interns. Read: any pay for interns. And along with this, just more jobs in general. I’m a big believer in the economy turning around in the next few years. It’ll bounce back. I am fine with unpaid internships for college students just getting their feet wet in something, but it’s becoming a bit exploitative how much interns are being expected to do with no pay at many places.

Environmentally-friendly technology and products will become more affordable, available and mainstream. Hybrid cars will becomes the norm. Energy-efficient appliances will be the only kind you can get. Plastic forks will be replaced by bio-degradable forks made of corn—you get the idea.

Faster Internet connectivity, better battery power capacity (in all kinds of technologies), and advancements in data storage. Like, who would have thought five years ago that we would have a terabyte hard drive available for home use? Craziness I tell you. Maybe one day my Internet download speed at my apartment will surpass 3.32 Mbps. Sweet, can’t wait.

A renewed respect for journalism. Journalism has been going through a difficult transition as citizen journalism on the Internet has grown and newspapers have lost money and their workforce. But I see a transformation happening soon, where objective journalism will find a better place in society and people will realize its importance much more. Um, this is really vague. I'll blog about it later in more detail.

HDR high-dynamic range imaging photography will begin replacing traditional photography. I don’t even know how they would do this, but what if they made a camera that could? Oh boy. Can you imagine a world where HDR photos were everywhere? My head can’t even wrap around this concept. What a beautiful thing it would be.




Anyway, who wants to join me in this new decade? We can sit around sober, talk about our health and personal savings plans, and eat locally grown food with forks made of corn. No, but seriously.

Happy New Year, everyone.

More green gestures than green pastures in America

Not sure if an editor at The Washington Post screwed this up, or if it was the web team--I'm thinking web, because I just checked and there's no mistake in the print version--anyhow, this guy from Lancaster saw the pull quote and spoke up:

Lancaster Co., Pa.: I object to the statement, 'Green pastures we have in abundance in America.' I write for a farm newspaper. We don't have green pastures in abundance. That's nuts. We lose 2 acres of farm land EVERY MINUTE in the U.S. according to the American Farmland Trust. In six years, we lost an amount of farm land the size of Maryland. If that doesn't freak you out, consider that only 12 percent of the world's surface is farmable. We need all the farm land we can get.

So yes, environmental activism, of course. But I would not frame the debate that you should call your Congress person instead of buying "green" because every thing is fine with our land and pastures.

Mike Tidwell: Sorry. Did I write "pastures"? I meant green "gestures" are what we have in abundance in America. Instead we need green "statutes."

Anyway, I agree. There are very few green pastures left in America, unfortunately.

The day after this Outlook column came out, I had to write a letter to my senators and congressman urging them to take action with regards to Copenhagen. I am registered to vote in Florida, so I wrote to Rep. Vern Buchanan, and Senators Bill Nelson and George Lemieux. As you may have heard, Florida is in the greatest danger with regards to rising sea levels, probably more than any other state. I had never written a letter to Congress or a senator, so at first I was like, "Huh? I don't know how to do that." So, I lucked out when I stumbled on Mike Tidwell's column in the Sunday Post.

I came up with this letter, I'd encourage you to steal it in full (if you are from Florida) or in parts, and replace the names with your senator or representative. Send it in, give them a call, have a voice.

Dear _____,

Tomorrow, President Obama will take a trip to Copenhagen for what will hopefully prove to be a monumental summit on climate change. It is my hope that he will take a strong stance on the issue. But, Americans and citizens of the world need our Senate and Congress to step forward and back up his promises to enact policies that will cut our greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is my question, _____: what are you doing to support changes that will prevent Florida from being engulfed by the ocean?

If sea levels rise just one meter, the entire coast of Florida, from Jacksonville to Horseshoe Beach, will be covered in water. This includes nearly every major city in Florida from Tampa to Miami. Millions of people will be displaced from their homes. Once great cities will literally become cities for the ocean’s creatures. And of course, this effect would not be limited to Florida. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would engulf Boston, San Francisco, New York, and hundreds of other cities. And that is just here in the United States.

The good news is of course that we can stop this from happening. If we can stabilize the atmosphere at 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide, we can prevent the glacial melting that would inevitably bring about the end of life as we know it. How do we do this? We use the power of the government, which must take a strong, unwavering, and permanent stance on ending the burning of fossil fuels. Whatever it is that President Obama does or says at Copenhagen, none of it will matter if the Senate/House does not support a carbon-cap bill that mandates a limit of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Pockets of individuals scattered across the country can do their part to use energy-saving light bulbs or put solar panels on their roof—but no significant change is going to come out of this green movement unless the government is supporting the changes: offering rebates to those that use energy-efficient products like hybrid vehicles, enacting more strict carbon-cap legislation, mandating more energy-efficient measures be taken in buildings and homes, and funding renewable energy research and development.

_____, I am still young, but one day I hope to have a family of my own. Yet the thought of bringing more people into a world that is literally falling apart and into a society that is bringing about its own demise, is terrifying. We know what is happening, we can see the erratic weather patterns, intensifying hurricanes and flooding, and rising sea levels, and we know what needs to be done to prevent further damage.

I urge you, _____, to do your part in ensuring future generations have a stable planet to live in.