i would add to this video with my own commentary, but RAN says it all for me... especially with my previous post on food shortages, and the riots that are happening because of it. We need to boycott fuel companies which are using Ethanol and taking food away from hungry people to power our cars. What we need is an electric car.

Take it away!

Ecoholic

So, this week I started working at Starbucks! Which, can I mention, is just amazing because they are such an awesome company.

I had "coffee school" today, which was a workshop where we learned about the "Starbucks Experience" and we learned about everything that the company does with regards to Corporate Social Responsibility.

One of the most amazing things that I learned today about Starbucks was the relationship they have with the farmers who grow their coffee. Starbucks actually goes into countries frequently and works together with farmers to help them develop sustainable growing practices, helping the farmers learn how to grow the finest coffee beans, and then, because of the quality of the beans being produced, pays the farmers premium prices for their coffee beans.

What is most remarkable though, is the way which Starbucks will help out the farmers if there is a time of need. We watched a video today about a farm that was struck by a catastrophic natural disaster, and so, within 24 hours Starbucks has freed up one million dollars within the company in order to help the farmers rebuild. Just when they thought they had lost everything, Starbucks, came and went to the farms and helped the farmers get back on their feet.

I love starbucks mission statement, and I love starbucks. They want to be the largest purveyor of fine coffee, with unprecedented quality, and they are doing it without screwing anyone. They are doing it while ensuring that their partners are all valued, and that their farmers are not exploited.

Which brings me to the title of this post: Ecoholic.

Ecoholic is a book I bought recently, and so far I've really enjoyed it. Essentially, it's a consumer's manifesto, a good handbook for anyone who is looking to lessen their environmental impact, providing alternatives to modern products used daily which generally avoid the cancer-causing earth-destroying poisons and chemicals.

Now I say, so far I've enjoyed it, however, I feel that Adria Vasil has overlooked some key principles when discussing Starbucks.

On page 99: "NGOs have been pressuring major coffee companies to start selling fair-trade coffee for years now, saying the industry is making mountains off the backs of underpaid farm workers. Starbucks gave in (somewhat) and started selling fair trade coffee in 2002, and these beans now account for 1.6% of its sales (about 2.2 million kilograms). Starbucks also buys about 30% of its coffee direct from farmers, giving growers a bigger slice of the pie by cutting out the middleman. Fair- trade activists want to see that number cimb, and they also want to see the coffee shop start brewing pots of fair-trade java more than just once a month. FYI, three of the Starbucks I stopped in didn't even have fair trade beans on shelves."

I have problems with this statement for a number of reasons:

Starbucks did not give in to anything. The guiding principles of the mission statement, help Starbucks measure the appropriateness of their decisions, and selling fair trade and fairly traded coffee and refusing to be a part of exploitation is the core of the Starbucks culture. Many people seem to recognize Starbucks as another "greenwashed" corporation, however, the goal is to become the "premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow," and this includes treating each other with respect and dignity, as well as considering the environment and communities in decision-making

By extension this obviously includes the farmers, and as is illustrated in the Corporate Social Responsibility report, Starbucks takes their mission statement very seriously.

Vasil also fails to mention the ways in which Starbucks gives back to the communities, such as through the sale of Ethos water, in which 10cents from the sale of every bottle goes towards sustainable water programs around the world. Starbucks has set a goal of donating $10 million by 2010 toward helping children around the world get clean water and raise awareness of the world water crisis.

There's still more that Vasil conveniently ignored: Starbucks uses 20% renewable energy (although, why not bullfrog power??) and their cups are made from 10% (or something like that) of post-consumer material.

Of course, the best choice is to not consume coffee at all considering the fossil fuels etc, but Vasil definitely gives a biased and minimally researched account of the efforts that Starbucks makes. What Vasil should note, is that not only does Starbucks have such a wonderful mission statement, but, unlike many other companies, they are constantly revisiting the mission statement in order to ensure that in being a profitable company, they do not lose sight of the goals, ethics and responsibilities that they have set before them... The mission statement ensures that we don't lose sight of our resposibility as global citizens, while at the same time acknowledging that profitability is undeniably key to everyone's success.

Not to mention that Starbucks has an Environmental Mission Statement too which should have distinguished the company to Vasil as an obvious choice for the consumption of fine coffee which is fairly traded, if not all Fair Trade Certified... that would also be another middleman... woe is me

A quick look at a Starbucks Timeline will clearly show the company's swift expansion, along with their community contributions... i am quite dissapointed indeed.

"A Green Veneer on Business as Usual"

Remember this post??

Checking out my Youtube subscriptions I found this video, and I am eternally grateful.


Go RAN.

Peace, Love and Clean Air

Ok, I've done enough blogging for a while now...time for a nap :)

fuck yeah stephane dion

I heard on the news this week that everyone in Alberta is flipping out because Stephan Dion is implementing a carbon tax and it is going to be a "massive blow" to the economy.

Ok. News flash world: all environmentally responsible changes are not going to be profitable. This is a time where ethics has to come out on top of the almighty dollar, which I know will be difficult for Alberta to swallow because they thrive on oil sales.

So fucking right Stephane Dion. You implement that carbon tax and you stand your ground.
An excerpt from the article:

The Grit boss, in the city for Stampede festivities, argued neither the Harper government nor the government of Premier Ed Stelmach are doing enough to fight climate change, and that it's his job, as a federal leader, to forge ahead with aggressive policies that ensure a healthy environment for future generations.

and I agree 100% with Dion... Harper is definitely dropping the ball on the environment, and Alberta seems to have little to no interest in environmental responsibility given the circumstances.

While out in Southampton, I heard this on the news and rejoiced inside! I am so happy that Stephane is taking this initiate! Happy Planet!

A Culture of Life

So I just finished reading Jennifer Block’s book “Pushed,” and I have to say that I loved it! The only thing about the book that is a little annoying is that it is written specifically within the context of the American Healthcare System. Block did make reference to Canadian Studies, and I’ve finished this book with a lot of direction with regards to bibliography and my future research.

What is the most disturbing to me is the fact that so many women are being forced into the operating room for unwanted C-Sections. In fact, some women in the states actually receive court orders to undergo C-Sections. The C-Section rate in the US is incredibly high, sometimes as high as 40%... why are so many women undergoing C-Sections? Block tells us that it has to do with Liability. For example, Doctor’s Malpractice Insurance will not cover Vaginal Birth after a Cesarean (VBAC) which forces women who have one C-Section to have C-Sections for all subsequent births.

Block really provides an eye-opening and through discussion of childbirth practices in the western world, however, my favorite part of the book was the last chapter entitled “Rights” which actually discussed the way in which birthing women’s needs are continually circumvented by insurance policies. This was interesting because Block actually ended up focusing an entire chapter on what I consider to be the main issue with modern maternity care: the issue of reproductive rights. Women are daily forced into surgery and procedures (think: episiotomy) that they do not consent to, but that doctors consider to be “necessary.” Women are continuously finding themselves in abusive situations, often characterizing their birth experience in the hospital as rape, or feeling like a piece of meat. This should not be the way any woman feels after her birth experience. I’ve written about this in a paper I submitted for one of my women’s studies classes this year, but I framed the problem within ethics and did not consider the issue of rights. I think that Block does an excellent job of questioning the ways in which women’s rights are being violated time and time again within a hospital birthing setting. She discusses a problem which I have been noticing lately, particularly with the discussion of Bill C-484 which would essentially give fetuses rights. Bill C-484 is called The Unborn Victims of Crime Act and would protect fetuses if a woman is killed and is pregnant at the time. The problem is however, that by giving unborn fetuses rights, we will be getting into issues of re-criminalizing abortions, and now as we broaden our spectrum a bit, we’ll see that women’s rights will be circumvented in the delivery room, disregarding women’s autonomy and doing only what is best for the baby.

Doctors always say “We want a healthy baby,” essentially trying to justify the intervention through guilt and fear. The goal should be happy healthy mothers- if we don’t take care of the mother then how is the baby going to be cared for? How can we allow major abdominal surgery to happen over and over again, sending traumatized mothers home to care for new babies with huge wounds that can take months to heal? What is going on? Women have “…the right to bodily integrity, to self-determination, to liberty, and to privacy” (Block 253) and yet we find these rights repeatedly violated and women going home traumatized.

Why are we as women allowing this to happen to us? Why are women standing for this? I certainly am not. Luckly, I am privileged enough to live in Ontario, where I have a “choice” for my birth experience. Namely, OHIP covers midwives as an option for birth, whereas in the US midwives are illegal in many states. Why a midwife would be illegal is beyond me. A midwife provides everything a woman in labour could need: comfort, advise, strength, coaching, and most importantly, allows the labouring woman’s body to guide the labour, rather than stats and charts discussing risks. The midwife has patience and compassion in a way that the hospital does not, and in the end, allows a labouring woman to have the birth experience at the end which she is so entitled to after such hard work! Every woman should get to experience that orgasm after their baby is born, where they just hold him and the love hormones are released and bonding can occur.

It is said that this release of hormones is crucial to mother-baby bonding. That it is crucial for breastfeeding, and that clamping of the umbilical cord should be delayed a few minutes once mother and baby have bonded and the rest of the blood in the umbilical cord (which is full of important nutrients) has entered the baby’s body. Not to mention that labour is so smart, that the pain is important to help women to know what angles and what positions to use to push, and when the baby is crowning, there is a special sequence of contractions which help the baby be ejected! Why would anyone want to be so meddlesome in such a perfectly designed event? This is what women’s bodies are designed for, and it is being taken away from us, snatched right out from under our noses.

We cannot stand for this, and need to make it an issue of reproductive rights. Block actually mentions her surprise that this issue has not garnered more of a response from bioethicists and reproductive rights organizations, however, as with the discussion of Bill C-484 in Toronto, the focus remains on abortion and birth control, not rights to actually reproduce the way we desire.

So, I would just like to end with some quotes from Block’s book which I thought were particularly compelling with regards to this question of rights:

“Adults seeking medical care have both the right to receive treatment ande right to refuse treatment, and they have the right to know the risks and benefits of each treatment option, including the option of no treatment at all. The legal term is informed consent.” (253)

“You can’t have a ‘culture of life’ if you don’t value the women who give that life.” (256)

“Autonomy is an unlimited, unimpeded negative right. A pregnant woman, any woman, has the right to refuse anything.” (258)

“You have the right to decide on abortion, you have a right to decide on contraception. Don’t you also have the right to decide where you have a baby, where you have your birth experience?” (263)

This last quote, to me, is the most profound. Why is it that feminists seem so hell-bent on making sure that abortion is legal and that contraception is easy to find and yet there is little to no feminist discourse with regards to the abusive treatment of women in labour? This book is definitely a call to action for me; right now I’m blogging in Southampton at the beach, with a very weak internet signal and no land line, however, when I return to Kitchener, I will be spending a significant amount of time doing some Canadian research on the topic- according to Block there is a Canadian Report on Maternal death due out this year, so I’ll have to see if it’s already been published, as well as call hospitals and ask them about their stats for particular interventions. Either way I will be blogging about Childbirth again… to me, it seems considerably more important than access to birth control or abortion… maybe it’s the stage I’m at in my life, but how can we really expect to have abortion access and birth control when women who actually want to give birth are unable to do so the way we want to? Millions of women give birth every day and leave hospitals traumatized and broken down, and still, our main focus of reproductive rights remains invested in abortion… this book is 100% a call to action, a call for revolution and time for women to make demands and demand access to alternatives, and their bodily integrity in childbirth to be respected, or rather, revered. It is a time to reevaluate what falls under the spectrum of reproductive rights, and quickly, maternity care needs to be saved!

Either way, if you’re interested in sources re: bibliography, or a more in depth conversation on this topic, let me know!

The Business of Being Born

This article reenforces my continued skepticism of Western Medical practices. It reminds me why I so passionately continue to research pregnancy and birth in North America. I actually have already watched The Business of Being Born, but I haven't had a chance to blog about it. However, since the American Medical Association is posting that women should pay no attention to Ricki Lake's home birth, expect a post about the documentary shortly. Unfortunately I'm at work right now otherwise I would post the paper I wrote about it this year for one of my women's studies classes.

I am very upset our medical systems are so corrupt that even after conclusive evidence illustrates that 95% of women with low-risk pregnancies who give birth at home do so with little to no intervention, that the hospital is still the ideal setting for birth.

The hospital is not the ideal place to have a baby. First of all, name a mammal who gives birth on their back. I cannot. Mammals all give birth on their sides, standing up, squatting, any position which will facilitate the shape of the pelvis, and make it easier for them to give birth. Yet here we are, at the hospitals, lying on our backs trying to push a baby out. How is that even supposed to work? Who decided this? Who decided that the environment you bring your baby into the world in should be the cold metal sterile world of the hospital? The hospital where you are no longer treated like an ethical subject, and rather, like an object, with pressure for unneccesary interventions to take place... I am just so disturbed that Ricki Lake's documentary is being discredited in this way, when it has been proven time and time again that a midwife home birth is safe, if not safer than a hospital birth.

I personally will not have my baby in a hospital if I have a normal birth with no complications. I would rather let my body do its thing at its own pace, and not have some asshole standing over me with a ticking clock: "you're only dilated 8cm... only 20 minutes left and then you'll have to be rushed into an emergency C-Section!" Oh yes, I would LOVE that. I would LOVE to have an emergency C-Section just because I'm not dilating fast enough... I will post my paper up here when I get home, but I just had to comment on how furious it makes me to see that women are still being deterred from home births when the results are almost always better. You are treated like an ethical subject in your own right, you can play an active decision-making role, you will not be rushed, you can do it the way you want, you can have friends and family around, you can lay in your own glorious bed... why would you want it any other way when you're about to do something so important as give birth? Giving birth is beautiful and amazing and hospitals disregard its significance in women's lives. It's heartbreaking really.

Following up on the York U Sexual Assault

I was just reviewing previous posts, and seeing that i had written about the York University Sexual Assaults, I did a "blackle" search and came up with some info:

a 45 year old man has been arrested and charged.

An article from York University

And the National Post's Coverage on these incidents.

I am a little dissapointed that since this a-hole was scheduled to appear in court on June 3rd, I wasn't able to find any information about the trial and whether or not he has actually been found guilty of his crimes and what his punishment will be...

First post in a series on the Environment

After reading that Newspaper article in the National Post I talked about a couple days ago, I just finished reading the 100-Mile Diet written by Alisa Smith, and J.B. Mackinnon in order to begin to put into perspective considerations for the future when it comes to our environment and food. Considering the riots around rice, there's no time like the present to begin a foray into local eating. The book was an extremely well written, thought-provoking chronicle of the experiment of eating locally and I throughly enjoyed it.

Now the question is, how does one go about writing about everything in a book within the scope of this medium??It certainly is agood question and I'm not really sure of what the answer is, so I'll do my best to cover the main points in some coherent fashion.

What I thought was of significant note was the author's acknowledgement and understanding that the efforts of two people to eat locally are not meant to save the world, nor would they ever be successful in doing so, but rather, reveal some very important facts about today's consumption habits and, more importantly, the missing factor of traceability of where our foods come from. What I truly hope will happen, is that by many people reading The 100-Mile Diet, not only will the earth become healthier, but this book will inspire thoughts of sustainability and the manner in which it is becoming less and less apparent, particularly from a Canadian perspective.

What I found myself thinking about constantly was the fact that Canada was once a self-sustained country, and now, so much product is imported and exported daily, that we are slowly losing our independance as a country. We are very quickly becoming more and more dependant on other countries to provide us with even simple things such as our produce, when Canada is so abundant with food!!

I once knew someone (who ironically was working towards an enivronmental studies degree) who bought three individual slices of watermelon in February and said "I like me a slice of Watermelon any time of the year!"

Each and every time I think about local eating, I think about this particular example. This person had no idea or consideration for how far those three slices of watermelon had travelled to end up on her plate, which is the scary part. The implications of the likely underpaid labour, and the emissions alone should be enough to force someone to stick to seasonal, local vegetables. Moreso, I would think that the lower quality of product would also play a part. Since the move towards globalization has become so rapid, it is the traceability of our food that has become so distant, as well as the quality. Mackinnon talks about traceability, and said some things that I think are worth quoting:

It's no secret, that we, as a society, have been losing the traceability not only of our food, but of every aspect of our lives. On any given day, chances are high I will have no idea what phase the moon is in. I cannot reliably list my brothers' birthdates, and I regularly use products that work according to principles that I cannot explain... Fifty years aglo, there was still widespread connection to food and the places that it comes from. In the United States, 40 million people lived in the countryside. Many people kept kitchen gardens, raised chickens, or knew a beekeeper... now...legions of modern children have never seen a cow. (55)

How can kids never have seen a cow? How has the cow become the absent referent to the production of milk? The meat on our plates? How have we lost so much connection and understanding of our food?? How have all the things we eat become so disembodied or disconnected? The answer of course is our desire to have everything when we want it, not when it is in season or available. But rather, on demand. It is this "on demand" attitude that is causing us to deplete the earth's resourses at astounding rates...

The average Canadian's food has about 2, 500 kms of travel total. This is truly atrocious. Tomatoes are picked off the vine while they are still green even though the peak time to pick tomatoes in order to ensure the freshest nutrient rich product, is, like other produce, when the fruit or veggie is at its peak ripeness. So, in the effort to have whichever fruit/vegetable whenever we want it, we compromise our earth, which is highly unethical, and we compromise the nutritional value of the food we are consuming, which is just plain stuid.

In fact, a line from Ani difranco's Song Half-Assed says it all:

"Spring is super in the supermarkets/and the strawberries prance and glow/nevermind that they're all kinda tart and tasteless/as strawberries go/meanwhile wild things are not for sale/anymore than they are for show"

Now, at any time of the year, one can find any type of produce in the supermarket, and it is so normalized, that consumers would never even consider how much these purchases damage the earth, and themselves. There is truly a difference between fresh picked strawberries and strawberries shipped from California, but the sad part is that we are beginning to forget that tangible and important difference: Ontario strawberries are infinitely juicier and sweeter than California strawberries. They are a brighter red, they are strawberries the way strawberries were when we were kids and we went with our moms to pick them. The lesson of The 100-mile diet is this tangible difference that we cannot forget, or we will lose our local farmers, and produce, we will lose our self-sustainability.

However, part of the problem is that not everyone even recognizes the problem with eating imported foods and, specifically "non-foods" which have become the dominant discourse of our eating habits. The fact is that these eating habits, (ie: being able to access watermelon in the winter with little to no effort) are becoming normalized, and it doesn't even occur to the average consumer to consider how a product made its way into the store. The 100-mile diet provokes me to consider how every item I eat ended up on my plate, which causes me to make better choices for my health and for the earth. Essentially, because the supermarkets and corporations are taking over everything, we are losing a sense of the possible, and this is very sad indeed.

Mackinnon again:
The garden is a constant reminder that our depleted global environment is linked to the gap we have constructed between our food and ourselves, but a deeper truth is rooted in paleoecology. The science bears witness to changes enormous in scale, the fact that even the continents are work in progress. It can make a person's brief existence seem meaningless; more than that, though, it staggers the mind with the duty of care in our everyday lives. The universe seethed a billion years to give us a row of cabbages, or a quail's egg, or a broken heart. (pp146-146, emphasis mine)

So, I will conclude this post because it is getting excessively long, but not before I say just a couple more things:

• Alisa and J.B. wrote often in their book how 100-mile eating was like adding another part-time job to their life- it's actually sad that it has become so difficult to purchase locally, and so they don't maintain that everyone should strive completely to eat locally because it is a lot of extra work, but to make a conscious effort to make wise consumer choices
• In all of our consumer choices we need to make a concerted effort to choose foods that are good for ourselves and the earth- which I have begun to do in everything I purchase, particularly with all these "non-foods" disguised very sneakily as food
• For anyone in the K-W area, I have found a "Year-round guide to local food" which provides a link in order to help everyone purchase locally: Foodlink Waterloo Region
• Read the book. It's an "easy" read, but makes very important points about the state of the earth and self-sustaining countries. Eating locally with preserve the self-sustainability of Canada as well as help save our local farming, and in the end save farm country world-wide- a real eye opener that I reccommend 100%

Coming up:

• In Defense of Food- I'll take a look at "food" today (think: Oreo Cakesters, which only have 4 real food ingredients out of about 20 on the list, McDonalds, MSG in just about everything)
• The Sexual Politics of Meat- Animals and Women as an absent referent, the connection between the abuse and slaughter of animals and the abuse and butchering of women... an argument as to why every feminist should be a vegetarian. (I've read a couple chapters already, it's pretty convincing)

Research on Pregnancy

In my continued research on the Ethics of Western Childbirth practices, I have on the way:

The Business of Being Born

Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth

along with some literature from the Government of Canada Website...

So Excited!

Who Killed the Electric Car: General Motors Crime Against Humanity and Mother Earth

Between watching Who Killed the Electric Car and The Corporation, I have gotten really riled up about branding and consumerism all over again. (and of course, ethics)

I am particularly pissed off at GM, and will never purchase a car made by them. Basically a brief synopsis of the documentary is that The California Air Resource Board (CARB) passed a law stating that a certain percentage of vehicles sold in California had to be zero emissions. This of course gave car companies two options: to comply, or to fight it.

In the beginning they complied, and GM came up with an electric car which as it turned out, everybody wanted. The car was sytlish, "sexy" and fast, with a excellent milage, something like 120 miles per charge. This car could meet the needs of 90% of the population and have zero emissions. This is exactly the type of car that the world needs, but of course, the almighty dollar and the oil companies got in the way. The cars were all leased out, but the contracts were not those with an option to buy out at the end of the lease.

So, what happens is a ton of complicated and corrupt stuff which I'll try to summarize as best as I can, though it may be incoherent:

- the car companies, not just general motors decided to sue CARB. They argued that there was not a market for the electric cars. (even though there were huge waiting lists for a product that wasn't even available) GM took the waiting list of 4000 people and managed to whittle it down to 50 people who were willing to actually sign on the dotted line. They said (paraphrased): "Once we explained all the limitations of the product, no one wanted to sign." Well of course no one wanted to sign, the company began with the limitations of the product. No company ever does that with a product they genuinely want to sell. As Naomi Klein illustrates in "No Logo," it's not hard to plant desire or want for a product in the mind of a consumer, particularly with advertising technologies available today.

- right around the same time that the car companies were suing CARB, the federal government in the US starts to push fuel cell technology. There are video clips of George Bush talking about how fuel cells are the way to the future etc. Well, this is so stupid, and has so many problems. First of all, hydrogen fuel cells are still a finite resource, second is that the infrastructure would be impossible to create to a level at which it wasn't inconvenient for commuters to fill up. There are gas stations everywhere, the infrastructure is there. Hydrogen cars will never become popular enough because the infrastructure isn't there and is prohibitively expensive to set up. So, the cars will never sell, so the industry will never have the resources to create the needed infrastructure. Further, a fuel cell car does not have very good mileage, and requires frequent re-fuelling, which, is prohibitive because of a lack of infrastructure. Hydrogen fuel cells are destined to fail. Even if the electricity comes from a carbon plant, it is still the best option with the lowest emissions. (If one had Bullfrog Power, then everything would be completely emissions free.)

- CARB ruled in favour of the car companies, and struck down it's clean air act, essentially "giving it away" by not forcing car companies to comply. The car and oil companies would end up losing profit through the electric car.

What happened with the electric car was that as soon as CARB ruled, GM started going around and collecting the cars (EV1). No one's lease had the possibility of the buy-out, and though the car owners begged and pleaded to keep the cars, GM reclaimed all of them, and took them to a junk yard to have the crushed and shredded.

The irony of all this is that now, there are a plethora of hybrid cars available. Japanese brands began to make hybrids because they feared a loss of profit if they didn't offer something comparable to the EV1, and GM and American car companies destroyed all their electric cars. After all of this, the Japanese and other imports began to outsell the American companies. So what do we have today? Nissan, Toyota, and (most annoyingly) GM, all with hybrid or electric models available. Car companies are touting the technology of the future when we had the exact car to solve our problems of global warming, and they took it away and destroyed it. That is so morally, and ethically corrupt, it just makes me want to scream. I don't want a hybrid car. I want the zero emission car that we had and then saw snatched away from us and literally destroyed.

It really does come down to the almighty dollar for the car companies. GM committed a crime against humanity and the environment by destroying a car with zero emissions, and now American car companies play the hero with their new technologies of "hybrid" vehicles. It really goes to show how corrupt the oil industry has made everyone. We digging ourselves a huge carbon grave, and yet, GM and all the others are still getting away with their facade of actually caring about the future of the earth. How can a company which claims to care about the future of the earth and climate change try to pass off the hybrid as the technology of "today" when, as was illustrated in the documentary, it is really the technology of "yesterday"?

Now, what really gets me and my hatred for GM, is the most recent issue of Green Living grabbed the last time I was at the Big Carrot on the Danforth. Here is a screen shot of one of the ads in the magazine, and please observe the irony. This is an ad for GM. Of course it is. Touting
their innovative technology for making environmentally friendly vehicles. In fact, I'm surprised that they actually advertise an electric car in this ad (also infuriated as well because they have literally come full circle, at the expense of tax payers money and purely motivated by greed). The amount of advertising that GM does in this issue of Green Living is vomit inducing. The facade that they actually care about the environment is overshadowed by their complete disregard for it about 4 years ago. I cannot view GM as a credible company at all, and do not trust that they *actually* care in any way shape or form about climate change or ethics.
I am reminded right now of Emmanuel Kant, who maintains in his essay "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals" that no action has moral worth at all if not driven by the intention to bring about a morally positive outcome. GM's marketing of electric/hybrid/fuel cell technology is nothing but an attempt to ensure that they do not lose any profit to the imports and nothing to do with an environmental conscience.

It was also infuriating for me to continue to flip through the magazine and find an article called "Giving cars the Green Light: Auto Makers are listening to consumers" which, ironically enough, featured GM; they were talked about first, and also had the largest picture of their car. (The page can be found here on page 19) This makes me question the politics behind putting together the magazine itself. How much of a role did GM pay in order to have this feature presented as independant of corporate influence? I wonder actually, how much of Green Living was funded by GM through these endorsements, and the amount of advertising they have in the magazine. Is Green Living a credible source for living a green lifestyle? Of course, all solutions in the magazine are figured through purchases and consumption. Is this magazine really just one gigantic product endorsement? Because that's the impression I get now that I analyze further. The prominence of GM advertising in Green Living is what set off the alarm bells, and now, as I "read" the magazine, I find it's a ton of ads intersparced with articles about the products advertised. It's advertising disguised as literature. This ad really helps to illustrate the illusion of "caring" that GM wishes to convey to the general product, about their values as a company. The representation of "car heaven" as something that actually does resemble the dominant understanding of what heaven is like devalues the notion of heaven along with deceiving the consumer into believing that GM is a company to be trusted. A company who truly does want to "improve air quality" and "protect the climate" would not create and market an electric car, and then take the car off the market and send it to "car heaven" when the oil companies put the pressure on to keep the money in the industry. A company that truly cared about the environment and a moral duty to do what they could to protect our environment would have done everything they could to sell as many of those cars as they could. Unfortunately, as I learned in the The Corporation today, corporations are literally by definition, forced to only consider the bottom line. The money. Apparently ethics has been sacrificed at the hands of the the corporation, and then, when the trends show that an electric car will indeed be profitable, then the marketing and branding frenzy begins again. It seems that this sudden availability of hybrid/electric cars has been driven by expedience. However, this is not to say that I don't think that Hybrid cars are exciting! However, it is just really annoying that corporations deceive the public like this. They have betrayed all of humanity and all of life by selfishly halting production of the electric car, and now that profits are there, the cars are available, marketed as "fresh" ideas, a conscious effort to save the environment. The CARB let down the world when they revoked the clean air act by essentially allowing GM and other American Auto industries to abandon work on electric cars, and redirect focus to carbon and oil.


I believe that I will end it here. But seriously, the documentary is amazing and I recommend that you watch it. It will truly open your eyes to the deceit that exists all around us, particularly with the perception that the technology for the electric car does not exist yet and is far off in the future.

A final note: The documentary shows us "car heaven." the reality is a lot less fluffy and feel good than the ad. It is a god-forsaken landfill essentially, where cars are crushed and then shredded into a million tiny pieces. It is dingy and it is sad to know that all those electric cars were just crushed and destroyed like that, when we had the answer to our problems at our finger tips.

Coming up next: A closer look at "The Corporation," revisit Naomi Klein's "No Logo," with a particular focus on the concept of sponsored individuals on university campuses.

As if I didn't just blog enough...

I just finalized a long post about branding and advertising, however, I feel the need to post this immediately. It is 100% related to the previous post yet is local and tangible and I want to blog this while everything is accurate in my mind.

Ok. So, Tim Hortons has come to be a household name in many Canadian homes. They continue to be a household name despite the fact that their coffee is not Fairly Traded, despite the fact that they still have not made any move to introduce a biodegradable sleeve to their repertoire (rather then the double- cupping method), considering that their cups are not biodegradable and Tim Hortons comprises over 60% of the coffee market. Ok. So, that aside Tim Hortons for the most part, even after turning out to be any other corporate giant out to make a name for themselves, is of course, selling a brand, not a product. Consumers don't buy the product, they buy the brand and all its associations of being a Canadian Tradition.

Anyhow, all this aside, they have at least done environmentally conscious consumers one favour by offering a discount if you bring in a travel mug or reuse your previous cup. A ten cent discount- that's how much we are willing to spend to help save the earth. Now we've put a price on it. Anyhow, I digress.

This in fact is just a consequence of Tim Horton's being a stupid crappy corporation.

So, we go through the drive through tonight, and I place the order, ordering mine in a travel mug that is "about the size of a large." We pull up to the window, we hand over the mug, and they pour the contents of one of their large disposable cups into my travel mug.

I honestly could not believe that I witnessed that. Now, this has happened to me three times at three different locations. This is NOT a coincidence. Tim Hortons is creating the illusion that they care about the environment at least a little to give you a ten cent discount off of your coffee to bring in travel mugs, but they really just pour your coffee into a paper cup for efficiency's sake at the drive -thru, and throw it out. They literally trick you into thinking that you are decreasing your environmental footprint! That is so unethical on so many levels! Individuals are working hard to try be responsible, and places like Tim Hortons, "institutions" are deceiving us by having us believe that they would not be so damn stupid and disrepectful- BUT, they are. These corporations also don't give us and our values much credit do they? If we are going to seriously change the world are we going to resist "brands" entirely? Will we be able to find some way to reconcile with them? I am seriously going to be contacting head office about this. You should too. I am so outraged that this is happening- I will definitely be boycotting Tim Hortons.

**Just a side note** Even if for some reason Tim Hortons tries to say that they reuse the cups or some crap then they've got some bigger problems re: Food Safety

**Update** As i re-think this experience i have considered that the drive-thru itself is an issue. In an effort to be eco-friendly the drive-thru's gotta go. You know, emissions.

The OB/GYN

So, I'm back now to discuss my appointment experience:

The process for getting in to see an OB/GYN is that I have to have a referral from Health Services to the doctor of their choice. If I chose to pursue my own care and choose my own doctor I would most certainly find myself waiting one to two years merely to get my first appointment.

So, due to this doctor shortage i find myself literally at the mercy of the choice that Health Services and the OB/GYN that they choose for me. (And of course, I am foolish and trust the choice of WLU health services- foolish indeed.)

It might have to do with the research I've been doing on childbirth and Western Childbirth Practices, but I really had high expectations of my first visit to the OB/GYN. However when I finally left I felt like less of a person, and it was clear/obvious that I wasn't an individual or a woman to be listened to, but an object to be directed. I had no say in what was happening, no outlet to ask any questions and didn't leave feeling like a free agent better equipped to help me make a decision about my birth control options. In short, I expected to leave feeling empowered and instead i left feeling violated and depressed.

So, I'll just start from the beginning of my day (because it certainly was a whole day):

When I stepped off the elevator onto the second floor, I walked around looking for the suite, and found it very quickly because the office was so full that one woman was actually sitting outside of the waiting room! Anyhow, she immediately informed me that her appointment was scheduled for 11am, yet here she was at 12:30pm still waiting to be seen. So, I'm thinking, this is going to be a long afternoon...

The waiting room was possibly the smallest room i could have ever been, there wasn't even space for me to fill out the paperwork required for a first visit. I felt like all eyes were on me and everyone was watching me fill out incredibly personal and revealing information. Watching me list off like it has no meaning the ins and outs of my cycle.

How often do you bleed?
How much do you bleed?
When was the last time you had your period?
etc etc
Like I was cataloging the habits of my uterus.
Not to mention that it was the first day of my period and the OB/GYN obviously didn't even take the time to read the degrading questions I was required to answer because she did not know that it was the first day of my period.

After I filled out these questions, I went and sat in the hall outside of the office because there was simply no more room in the waiting room for patients to sit.

So anyhow, as it turns out, even though my appointment was scheduled for 1pm I had time to leave and go to class from 2:30-4 and come back for my appointment (which is an indication right away that OB/GYNs are overworked, underpaid and are being bombarded with more patients than they can possibly handle.)

So, before i discuss the circumstances of my actual appointment, I feel the need to comment on the circumstances of the waiting room, which is not the fault of the doctor herself, but more the fault, I think, of Daulton McGuinty and our own health care system.

Many of the women waiting there at 2pm had scheduled appointments at 11am- some of these women were obviously pregnant and found themselves due to the shortage of OB/GYNs obligated to give up their entire day in order to submit to a 15 minute appointment which did nothing to preserve dignity or individual subjectivity. I have never seen so many pregnant women in one room before, it was intensely overwhelming and I certainly felt my anxiety level go up (I attribute this to the fact that I seriously thought I was pregnant last month and this was th first day of my period- I was still recovering from the prospect of housing and raising a child) However, anxiety aside, the overwhelming number of pregnant women just waiting to be called for their turn with this woman seriously gave me the impression of "baby mill"

As I sat in the waiting room I started to become very anxious because the "woman friendly environment" i had anticipated was quickly being overshadowed by the obvious clinical ideals of our Western medical system. I honestly don't know why I would have expected less, because the OB/GYN is still a division of traditional Western Medicine, however, I had high hopes considering that the practice is woman-centered.

Oh, how my feelings of "baby mill", "vagina mill" and woman as object were confirmed once I returned after class.

I'm not going to get into too many details of the actual appointment, but really I think question some of the principles behind what happened in that office.

In particular, I spoke to a nurse before i left for class and told her that my PAP was up to date, and yet, I was told I had to have another one. Why wouldn't Health Services have just forwarded a copy of my record over? If I had to sign a release I would have done so rather than endure my second one of the year. It almost served as a measure of power and control rather than something that done for my own wellbeing, in the way that it was performed and the way that it was treated. It seemed as though this doctor didn't see me as a person seeking educated information on contraceptives, but viewed me as someone to be lectured (and in the end she not only did that, but almost seemed to play some ridiculous mind game with me).

The part about this entire visit is that is seems as though she was intent on making me doubt what i wanted without really offering me options. She didn't seem interested in discussing what was best for me, or giving me an opportunity to ask questions. What really confused me was that she told me that I needed to have a pelvic ultrasound (which makes perfect sense to me) in order to make sure that the IUD would be ideal for me, and really i think, trying to send a moral message home by saying something to the nature of "Now, you may be in a monogamous relationship now, but this is really meant for the married woman" and the tone in which she said this to me really led me to feel that she was implying something, though I can't quite put my finger on it.

So anyhow, after this appointment, and she's really done her job to make me more doubtful and unsure of the choice I'm about to make, I go over to the counter to wait for the form that would refer me to get an Ultrasound, and what does she give me?... a prescription for an IUD.

I feel that my care has been compromised because of the culture behind Western medical practices in combination with the doctor shortage we are currently facing. Unforunately I am blogging from a friend's house so I am unable to cite literature re: the culture behind Western medical practices, but for immediate reference you can consult Foucault's "The Birth of the Clinic." and "Panopticism."

Anyhow, as a result of this dehumanizing experience, I went home feeling like some of my power had been taken away from me. The system is meant to disempower women and (intentionally or unintentionally?) makes women feel like less of a person.(I Personally lean towards intentionally considering the power structures are present in the hospital and clinical setting. It was a very odd experience and a far cry from the woman friendly/woman centered type of environment I had hoped and expected to enter. I think that the whole notion that I would be going to a doctor who specialized in gynecological related issues caused me have high hopes. It is unfortunate that I failed to consider sooner the context of the OB/GYN- it still remains within the one of Western medical care. Essentially, I failed to consider that OB/GYN is not necessarily synonymous with "pro-feminist, pro-woman perspective."

Really, how could it any different than any other clinical setting? It is difficult to find a traditional clinical setting that is empowering to anyone, never mind women within the context of an OB/GYN. It's getting late now, but I'm going to have to do my research on whether there is a different available option in the department of gynecological care.

In the meantime, since I'm toying in my head with the ethics of everything that I experienced at my doctor's appointment, here is an interesting link to a documentary coming out in the states called "At Your Cervix" which critically addresses the teaching methods and then ethics behind them currently used to train OB/GYNs in med school.

Another point I must make about what this doctor told me is that the IUD is typically meant for women who have had at least one child and who are done having children. For this reason (since its being marketed for the presumably hetersexual upper middle class white woman who is 'finished' procreating) they are only available in one size which may not be the right size for my uterus (which is why I am extremely confused as to why I was given a prescription if this is a possibility. Did she determine in my exam that my uterus was a suitable size? If the risk is so low that its not worth checking out? Was she just tired and thought she should just give me what I wanted? Then as if that wasn't enough, this woman just refers me off to another male OB/GYN because he's doing a clinical trial on the IUD, but a smaller size developed for women in my target demographic who have not yet had their first child and are currently waiting at least 5 more years to have children. This clinical trial would require me to submit to a third PAP for the year, blood work, and probably many follow ups for documentation of the IUD. This IUD is identical to the other one except that it is physically a smaller size. I don't know how I feel about all of this. As a result I have a doctor's appointment with my family doctor on Wednesday morning. More to come...