Vegan COW CON Conference (June 2-3)

WTH Cow Con (wth-cow-con.com); Amber Larson, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

Meat is murder. The first of Buddhism's Five Precepts says, Abstain from causing death.

Cow Con: Cowspiracy (What the Health)

Save the animals!

The goal here is to bring together environmental experts, health professionals, and community activists in an effort to engage, educate, encourage, and empower!

Dead with red bug dye and embalming fluids

Inspired by the films Cowspiracy and What the Health, this conference is designed to gather concerned and compassionate folks in a space that serves as a springboard for insight and action!

This year's event is packed with activists who speak to the crucial needs of our oceans, the health and environmental degradation caused by animal slaughter-agriculture. Moreover, it looks at the health benefits of a plant-based diet and being an agent of change.

All revenue from ticket sales goes back into the nonprofit A.U.M. Films (Animals United Movement), to continue to create films and literature that champion the environment, human health, social justice, and animal rights. Let's protect the planet from those trying to destroy it. 

• WTH-Cow-Con TICKETS
• Saturday, June 2, 2018 @ 9:00 am
• SOMArts Cultural Center
• 934 Brannan St., San Francisco, CA
• Facebook: WTH-Cow-Con

Alicia Silverstone: Attend COW CON!

Actor and vegan advocate, Alicia Silverstone, is encouraging her followers to attend a new vegan conference in San Francisco.

The two-day conference, inspired by films Cowspiracy and What the Health, will focus on wellness, sustainability, and activism.

The organizers note the event is intended to “bring together environmental experts, health professionals, and community activists in an effort to engage, educate, encourage, and empower.”
 
Writing on her blog, The Kind Life, Silverstone asks, “Are you attending WTH+Cowspiracy Conference??” She adds... More

(livekindly.co) Actor and vegan advocate Alicia Silverstone encourages her followers to attend a new vegan conference, the What the Health and Cowspiracy Conference. #wthcowcon #wthfilm #cowspiracy #activism #health 

• Vegan What the Health Conference (vegan-insight.com) 
• Cow-Con: Cowspiracy, sustainability, and activism (funcrunch.org, 2016) Yesterday I attended Cow-Con, a conference devoted to sustainability...from outside of the already vegan-friendly San Francisco Bay Area. 
• Events and Programs Calendar: Listing of Vegan and Animal... (all-creatures.org, 2018) May 23-29 DxE Animal Liberation Conference Berkeley, California.

Eat Drink Vegan @ Rose Bowl, Pasadena

Events — Climate Healers (climatehealers.org) The Vegan May Fest is a day filled with vegan speakers...WTH-Cow-Con brings together environmental experts, health professionals... Plant-Stock heads south in 2018 to Black Mountain, North Carolina (just outside Asheville)...

• Facts and Sources: COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret (cowspiracy.com) "Cow Farts Have 'Larger Greenhouse Gas Impact' Than Previously Thought; Methane...Animals produce Enough waste to cover SF, NYC, Tokyo, etc.

Dharma Meditation Initiative: Eat Drink Vegan Meetup, Saturday, May 26, 2018

Syrian refugees? I can't do NOTHING! (video)

Milana Vayntrub (CantDoNothing.org); PRI; Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Actress is bringing attention to the refugee crisis. And she has a refugee story of her own.

This is the full-length documentary, but I have a short 3-minute version of the video HERE

Go HERE to start making a positive change!

Millions of refugees seek one thing we all take for granted: a home.

 

While many of us are aware of the plight of the refugees, there has been very little focus on what can be done to help.

[What can YOU do? I don't know!] What you do know is that you #CantDoNothing. Choose to share your voice, money, or time to make a massive change in the world.

• Step 1: Take a photo with your #CantDoNothing sign or film a video to share how you are choosing to help.
• Step 2: Post photo or video to a social outlet; tell us why you #CantDoNothing.
• Step 3: Tag 3 friends to do the same, and join the movement!

DOAM

(DOAM: Documenting Oppression Against Muslims) Greek Coast Guard deliberately sinking refugee boats: A Coast Guard vessel sank an inflatable boat full of refugees, including women and children, that was trying to reach safety by landing on the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, video footage released by a Turkish Coast Guard officer shows. Turkish security sources say the Greek Coast Guard punctured the inflatable rubber dinghy with some sort of “lance.” The Turkish Coast Guard unit rescued 58 refugees and took them back to Didim Port.

(Channel 4 News) Boats arrive on Lesbos everyday. Krishnan Guru-Murthy reports.

U.S. war on Afghanistan ended! (video)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; activist Kathy Kelly (facebook.com), Amy Goodman (DemocracyNow.org, Dec. 29, 2014)

Rural children of Afghanistan look on as they are invaded and stripped of autonomy (AP).

Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence

.

13 is lucky

(Paul Fitzgerald and Liz Gould)

Lucky 13, we all know it. Or do we? Before 14 years of formal war, the third Bush White House (called the Obama administration) is changing the name of things. It is a semantic shift. We are no longer at "war" formally. Now it's an "informal conflict" and "peacekeeping mission," a "low-level kinetic dispute," a crossing the t's and dotting the i's "cleanup" and imperial escapade involving lots of the empire's invading military troops and more being sent.

Warlords Obama, Pannetta, Tenet, Gates, Hagel, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Biden, Ashcroft, Bush, and others have failed in disgrace after squandering one trillion dollars and still planning to spend 54 billion in the coming year and more in the future.

Money is the root of all war.

But not all is lost. While taxpayers and official coffers have been stripped of funds, private corporations have been enriched. Contractors had a boon. The CIA made out well. The effort was, after all, a product of the U.S. military-industrial complex, which means the union of the Pentagon (public government) and industry (private corporations). Many multimillionaires were minted by our foreign exploits. U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler said it long ago, "War is a Racket" (published 1935), and it always has been in modern times.

The Afghan War is NOT over but we will be pretending as if it is: U.S. officially ends 13-year formal combat mission, but 11,000+ troops to informally continue the illegal imperial invasion and offensive fight

When peace is a crime
Peace activist Kathy Kelly sent to prison for PROTESTING our drone war
[What CODE PINK's Medea Benjamin calls "war by remote control" peace activist Kathy Kelly protests: Our illegal assassinations, which kill many more innocent civilians ("collateral damage") than "targets," use killer drones. Why?] "At its core, war is impoverishment [impoverishing the needy to enrich the greedy].

"War’s genesis and ultimate end is in the poverty of our hearts.

"If we can realize that the world’s liberation begins within those troubled hearts, then we may yet find peace…What good has ever come from the slaughter of the innocents?" (Americans Who Tell The Truth)

Kathy Kelly is thinking about the U.S. military's insatiable appetite for war in Afghanistan and the stark facts about children near death from starvation (vcnv.org).

Salt and Terror in Afghanistan

(Voices for Creative Nonviolence) Two weeks ago in a room in Kabul, Afghanistan, I joined several dozen people, working seamstresses, some college students, socially engaged teenagers... (vcnv.org)

 

Fire and Ice in Afghanistan

Little Shuba, 3-y.o., Afghan survivor

(HuffingtonPost.com) Shuba, 3 1/2 years old, survived a terrible fire. Her uncle found her and her twin sisters inside a hut that was blossoming into flames. Such relief in the refugee camp that no one was killed. Locked in Winter: As many as 35,000 displaced persons are now living in the slum areas in the capital of Kabul alone. The fire in the Chaman e Babrak camp extended to adjacent homes, swiftly rendering nine families homeless in the midst of already astounding poverty.

The worst narco-state in history? After 13-year war, U.S.-administered Afghanistan’s opium trade floods the globe [and the CIA pockets the profits to fund its illegal missions]

(Democracy Now! FULL episode, Monday, December 29, 2014)

NYPD officer speaks out on fellow racist cops who turned backs to NY mayor and why people of color FEAR police

• U.S.-led NATO occupation formally ends combat role, but war continues
• Racist LAPD officers mock murder of Michael Brown in song parody
• Anti-police brutality protests continue across U.S. 
• NSA discloses trove of violations in Christmas Eve document dump
• Indonesian officials say missing plane likely at bottom of the sea
• U.S. drone strike kills 7 as Pakistani forces expand offensive
• U.S. continues Iraq, Syria bombing; group says ISIS has killed nearly 2,000
• Thousands attend funeral for slain NYPD officer
• Police Commissioner: "Inappropriate" for officers to turn backs on mayor
• Ferguson police spokesperson suspended for calling roadside memorial "a pile of trash"
• Mexican protesters mark 3 months since student disappearances
• Al Jazeera journalists mark 365 days of imprisonment in Egypt
• Egyptian appeals court upholds convictions, reduces jail terms of pro-democracy protesters
• Cuba rejects calls to extradite Assata Shakur to U.S.
• Oregon doctor freed in East Timor, but still can’t return home

Note strategic importance of formerly Buddhist Afghanistan, home of the Buddha (ranajitpal.com) next to Iran, former Soviet Central Asia, Pakistan, India, and China/Tibet. Greek, British, and Russian empires came here to die, now the USA has. China is next.

Climate Action Week (Livestream video)

CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; ThisChangesEverything.org; new.livestream.com

• DETAILS: Comedy, CLIMATE, and Capitalism

Climate Action Week: This Changes Everything

This Changes Everything

Naomi Klein speaks about This Changes Everything, her first new book in seven years, followed by a discussion with special guests about the call to engage fundamentally with the issue of climate change. A booksigning will follow the event.

It is sponsored by The Nation Magazine, The Nation Institute, and The New School for Public Engagement as a part of the 10th Anniversary partnership celebration and Climate Action Week at The New School in association with The Working World and 350.org.

The New School demonstrates a commitment to climate action and a solidarity with people converging on New York City for the historic People’s Climate March on Sunday, September 21, 2014 with a week-long series of events focused on climate change. As a leader and official endorser of the March, The New School’s Climate Action Week includes a diverse set of programming directed towards the university and wider community for enriched learning and engagement opportunities, scholarship, innovation and creativity, solidarity and collective action, and highlighting New School’s values around climate justice and action.

• The New School for Public Engagement (newschool.edu)
• THE NEW SCHOOL (newschool.edu)
• The Nation Magazine (thenation.com)
• The Nation Institue (nationinstitute.org)
• The Working World (theworkingworld.org)
• 350.org (350.org)

“Protect Net freedom. Defend Net neutrality.”

Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; BattleForTheNet.com; Sonali Kolhatkar (uprisingradio.org) THE GREAT INTERNET SLOWDOWN (Wed., Sept. 10, 2014)

This is the battle for the Net: Team Cable is spending millions to destroy our freedom by taking away the open and equal Internet. Let's stop them! (battleforthenet.com)

Maybe it's time we get our head out of the sand. We're not ostriches, are we? (WQ)

You'll have as much freedom as I give you! Got it? Here's some carcinogenic fire in your face to help remind you, you st-pid hippie f-ck! (Battle of Seattle/Occupy.com)

Get icons and apps for the Great Internet Slowdown (battleforthenet.com)

Reset the Net protests back encryption, privacy

Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Fightforthefuture.org, Resetthenet

(FFTF) June 5: "Reset the Net" campaign from the group Fight for the Future calls for increased Website encryption and privacy tools for users. Today marks the one-year anniversary of the publication of the first Guardian story based on the leaks of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Activist Evangeline Lilly

(FFTF) Narrated and executive-produced by Evangeline Lilly. Produced by Mata Wata. Don't just watch, DO something: The U.S. government has turned the Internet into a systematic way of spying on us in our most private moments. Out of control government surveillance is a dangerous form of censorship. We are emboldened as we Fight for the Future and Demand Progress. Share this video. More

Net Neutrality? Gone. NDAA indefinite detention? Passed. NSA spying? (demanprogress.org)

VIDEO: "There were no good options": Bergdahl should get honorable discharge, says lawyer for deserter
 
Is Bowe Bergdahl a "deserter"? If freed POW left his post, he joins ranks of soldiers moved by conscience to object to US imperial wars of greed, hatred, and delusion

"Net Neutrality" going down the drain (video)

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman (DemocracyNow.org, May 15, 2014); Sarah Jaffe, Joel Serino (occupy.com); OccupytheFCC

Net: it's a utility, the "People's Platform," not a portable TV for corporate media (occupy)

 

Not until a fair accounting of votes does anything happen in a democracy. (It sure would be nice to live in a democracy). All those who say otherwise are stirring up anarchy. Destroy the deviants, troublemakers, and perverts! Corporate profits depend on it. That should keep the police state busy. In the meantime, what about our Internet?

 

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is voting today on new rules that may effectively abandon "Net neutrality," the concept of a free and open Internet. (Watch this).

(CGP Grey/cgpgrey.com) Let's tell the FCC to reclassify broadband Internet as a public utility, a Title II common carrier telecommunications service. (Discuss). Music: Broke for Free.

The FCC proposal would let Internet providers charge corporate media companies extra fees to receive preferential treatment, such as faster speeds for their products and content.

Under previous regulations struck down earlier this year, providers were forced to provide ALL content at equal speeds, including Wisdom Quarterly, Democracy Now!, Occupy.com, FEMEN, CodePink, and other outlets.

The encampment begins with activists from popularresistance.org and Fight for the Future

 

Just steps from the vote, demonstrators have set up an "Occupy the FCC" (occupythefcc.com) encampment calling for federal regulators to reclassify broadband service as a public utility.

"Trust me; I'm a banker!"

This will allow for the requirement of "Net neutrality" rules.

The CEOs of 28 U.S. broadband providers and trade groups told their FCC not to classify broadband as a utility, explaining that regulating broadband would "impose great costs [to our private corporations], allowing unprecedented government micromanagement of all aspects of the Internet economy."

Save the Internet (freepress.net)

This debate on Net neutrality features guests Timothy Karr of the media reform group Free Press, who want corporations to be regulated for the good of everyone who uses the Net, and Joshua Steimle, a tech entrepreneur who argues that the government should not be entrusted with regulating the Internet. More

• VIDEO: Today I help free the Internet

Colbert skyrockets to Letterman's "Late Show"!

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Stephen Colbert (colbertnation.com); David Letterman

Eat it! Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon (scpr.org)

[Thank you, Suey Park, for tipping the scales. They're cancelling Colbert! ;-) But...]

CBS's announcement this morning (Thursday, April 10, 2014) that Stephen Colbert is taking over from David Letterman as the host of "The Late Show" in 2015 trumps all rivals -- including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy O'Brien, and all the Jameses, like the head of the now shuttered and very controversial CCDD Foundation.
  

Fallon is funny but not funny enough (DM)

But now it seems the likelihood the show will move to Los Angeles is dim, despite lobbying from L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. Reasons likely include everything from trying to retain "The Colbert Report" staff on his new show, family, and more.
  

But here's Southern California Public Radio's Top 10 reasons "The Late Show" is probably staying in New York:

1. He doesn't want "Saturday Night Live" to make fun of him the next time they do "The Californians"
2. He can't remember which Kardashian is which
3. He's already got a great deal living in Jon Stewart's pool house
4. The L.A. sun is a problem for his delicately pale skin... More

• Buddhist Jokes! Do Dalai Lamas Laugh?
• "Veronica Mars" takes over "This American Life"
• Tina Fey, "The Office" alum Ellie Kemper get new show
• VIDEO: More sexist white male garbage: Superman at 75

C, don't kill my vibe! Fallon, Anne Hathaway can keep rapping

Suey Park vs. The Colbert Report (video)

I. Rony, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; NPR "#CancelColbert Let Asian-Americans Call Out The Real Ding-Dongs"; Colbert Report (colbertnation.com)

I won't stand for that white hipster ironical racism; people might misunderstand it.

.

Stephen Colbert responded to criticism about a tweet about his show from his TV network last week, saying he would dismantle the imaginary foundation that created the stir.

 

It surely says something about our culture that a single tweet (when the twit hit the fan) can turn into a major racial incident: Colbert's send-up of Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder's new foundation to help Native Americans.

 

The controversy erupted when a Twitter account associated with Colbert's Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report, took the joke too far -- away from its original context.

 

"I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever," read the tweet from @ColbertReport.

 

Hipster (ironic) racism? It's not Colbert's Twitter handle, and Colbert himself had nothing to do with the tweet, but a lot of people -- specifically Asian-Americans -- didn't think it was funny. They thought it was racist.

 

But not everyone thinks so, not, for example, Jay Caspian Kang, an Asian-American who wrote a piece about the controversy for newyorker.com. Where some saw racism, he tells NPR's Rachel Martin, he saw a big misunderstanding.

 

"When the tweet came out, without the sort of context of the first part of the joke, then it does seem a little bit shocking," he says.

One of those offended was activist Suey Park, 23. Park re-tweeted in outrage, and the #CancelColbert social media campaign began. Kang understands where the anger comes from.

 

Seeing Red

Colbert responded on his show by saying he would "shut down" the imaginary foundation that sparked fury among select critics. The most vocal has been Suey Park (Twitter nickname Angry Asian Woman). She began the #CancelColbert campaign.

#CancelColbert's Suey Park, activist

In an article for Time, Park wrote last week: "The problem isn't that we can't take a joke. The problem is that white comedians and their fans believe they are above reproach." She also discussed her motivations in a video interview with Huff Po. In another tweet she stated: "White people -- please keep #CancelColbert trending until there's an apology."

Rachel Stark has the right idea: "Calm, reasoned debate among comics about which jokes should be off limits doesn’t exist"!

We love you, Suey Park, but be an activist about something more serious than satire. For if we lose our hero and white-ally Colbert because of your humorless campaign, we will not be amused, not amused in the slightest, and we'll start our own offensive imaginary foundation to continue the mission of calling attention to a racist #Redskins owner Dan Snyder by mocking Asians in the blogosphere. (Please send all complaint letters in response to our rant to "Attention: I. Rony, Features Editor, Wisdom Quarterly" via EFF.org).

 

"Some of what Suey Park was saying [was about] Asian-Americans who are second-generation: It's sort of ingrained in our heads to always protect that idea of assimilation and upward mobility," Kang says.

 

"One of the things that upsets us," he says, "is when somebody comes and agitates in a way that would reflect badly upon us."

 

But Kang defends Colbert. It's also upsetting to "reflect badly upon the people who[m] we would consider our allies, who are trying to help us have this sort of assimilation, post-racial dream," he says.

 

In his article, Kang writes, "There's a long tradition in American comedy of dumping tasteless jokes at the feet of Asians and Asian-Americans -- [which] follows the perception that we will silently weather the ridicule."

 

"I think the writers in Hollywood know that it's just not going to be an issue the way that it would be if the joke was on another minority group," he says. LISTEN
 

All jokes and satire aside, there are discomfit ting conversations to be had.

• Someone else's tweet stirs up accusations of racism
• In #CancelColbert firestorm an opportunity is lost
• On being a black woman who writes (Kima Jones)
• Demi Lovato and (distraction) Hollywood sex scandals
• Appalachia is not (only) full of white morons (reverse racism?)