Comments lah has made

  • Unrestrained consumerism

    My husband and I were married for $10 in the city's marriage license office. We followed the ceremony with a nice lunch. We married this way in part because we wanted to avoid the seemingly inevitable materialism and excessive consumerism that accompanies planning a wedding.

    I have never been interested in wearing diamonds, particularly after learning about conflict diamonds several years ago. I wear a titanium wedding band, which helped stem some of the guilt and shame I felt watching "Blood Diamond" this weekend. However, I realize that while some of us have not personally contributed to the suffering associated with conflict diamonds, most of us contribute to the suffering of others (war, human rights abuses, environmental destruction, etc.) through our all-American super-consumerism, largely regardless of the specific products we're consuming.

    The film was decently entertaining and I think will be effective at educating a main-stream (probably already diamond-bedecked) audience about conflict diamonds. On Movie, music bring awareness to conflict gems posted 2 years, 11 months ago 25 Responses

  • Enviros vs. animal rights groups

    Perhaps Scorse should dig a little deeper. PETA has in the recent past given very poor ratings to environmental organizations such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for their positions on animal experimentation/testing. I think Scorse would agree that animal experimentation/testing, particularly when alternative research methods that don't involve animals are just as effective, is cruel and unneccessary. Scorse's conclusion that "[p]rotecting animals from abusive exploitation is implicitly a part of [environmental organizations'] core mission" is unfounded and naive, at least as far as organizations like WWF are concerned.

    Scorse oddly goes on to opine that the public should look to respected environmental organizations for guidance on animal welfare issues instead of groups like PETA, even though he acknowledges that "much of what PETA does is entirely reasonable." He offers no explanation for this opinion other than saying that "this would be good for both people and the animals." It appears that Scorse underestimates PETA's influence; for instance, it has been instrumental in persuading McDonald's and Denny's to agree to implement humane chicken slaughtering practices. PETA is seen by many as "fringe" simply because it advocates veganism and focuses exclusively on animal rights.  On They don't ignore it posted 2 years, 12 months ago 90 Responses

  • Dingell all the way

    Oops--I'm referring to fuel economy standards for cars.On Dingell and other Democrats plan oversight hearings on environmental issues posted 2 years, 12 months ago 5 Responses

  • Dingell all the way

    What about this Detroiter's resistance to increasing fuel economy standards?On Dingell and other Democrats plan oversight hearings on environmental issues posted 2 years, 12 months ago 5 Responses