Where Have I Been?

I decided to get a full time job and such, but only if it was for something, meant something. That way I have money of my own and do good, a win-win situation.  I am blessed to have insurance, so I have a luxury that most do not, to work basically wherever I want. Shout out to 30 Rock, you know who you are. :]

Anyway, I applied to the ASPCA and ACORN. I found both on Idealist. I knew all about the ASPCA, as my pets’ veterinarian is at Bergh Memorial. ACORN, I didn’t know much about. I remember when I was younger, working at Whole Foods in Chicago, a bunch of people wearing red shirts with ACORN signs and voices filled up the parking lot. They were protesting that Whole Foods needed to join the union and they were super serious about it. They were cool, you know after we blocked the door to the store and said they had to walk through us to get in…then people ended up talking, etc., etc. The thing is back then Whole Foods was not a publicly traded company, so it was cool, none of us ever thought we needed a union, we made bank, awesome benefits, you don’t know. We kids were living the high life. I know some people who still work there or did not too long ago and man they hate it now. I think a lot of Whole Foods employees may think differently now then back when it was about something. I won’t go on, but feel free to learn more here.

The point is I am way behind on my writing after starting the job at ACORN last Monday and having a life that needs to be handled. That is what has been up. I do recognize that I need to do this and not fall behind. Like I said from the beginning, this time I am serious. :]

You’ll see…

-Cara

Greenwashing Index Dot Com

I discovered Greenwashingindex.com in an email I received today. What people seem to do is upload “green” ads, rate them, and then others comment. It is not too hostile an environment so far, and a cool concept, if done right. The rating system is from 1 to 6, 1 being a “Good Ad”, 3 being “Pushing It” and 6 being “Total Greenwashing”.

They say they are promoted by EnviroMedia Social Marketing, who say they are, ““…not tree huggers, but we can put you in touch with some.” Here is a link to learn more about them. Not too sure what to say after watching a painful MSNBC segment with EnviroMedia’s Valerie Davis, Ann Curry, Janice Liberman and some angry, anti-everything woman. You can find said video on their homepage if you so choose to watch the Honda Accord or Cascade ad (you must watch the advertisement before this segment begins), or whoever the non-green NBC advertiser of the day is.

Have fun.

-Cara

Today I’m Going To Be Negative

That’s right…negative! I don’t know why but I am super not into Earth Day. It puts me in a bad mood. I get that rhetoric that people say…it is a time where non-“green” people get into it, but I feel like it is a way for people to make up for sucking all year long. Like confession, but only annually.

For example, places like GE/NBC having a “star-studded” tree planting party on Earth Day. A tree planting day will not make up for the tons and tons of paper they print a day in visitor passes, millions of pieces of paper for a 30 minutes meeting, instead of just have people bring in their laptops to review the documents,  or the zillions of pieces of paper they use on new hire brainwashing propaganda.

If people related to how they are a part of the problem when they did these types of things, that would be awesome, but most don’t. They pat themselves on the back, which then gets them through another year of printing pages of documents they don’t really need to print.

I was negative today, but now I’m done.

-Cara
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Reason 68 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:
To choose industrial meat is to support a system that has long ago put family farmers out of business. Essentially, it is only the big players–those who bought into factory systems–who are feeding America. We do have lower prices at the retail level. But ultimately, what is the real cost of cheap meat? You need to factor in the $20 billion per year in government subsidies to commodity farmers, higher medical costs attributable to excessive diets, antibiotic resistance in common bacterial strains, a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, the inordinate need for oil for petrochemical fertilizers, and dwindling aquifers–the list goes on.