Surely I'm not This Competitive?

toothpastefordinner

Made of Win

Earlier in the year, my roommate and I had decorated our door with a CSI theme. Now that it's close to the holiday season, I added some colorful snowflakes. Now it's rather morbidly cheerful!

I particularly like this purple snowflake, so here's a closeup shot. No pun intended ;)

...and my British-points gold stars!

Flee

"Crawl to your Mother Earth. She will save you from the void."

My Horoscope

"...Strange and unsettling dreams might plague your sleep tonight, but don't get too agitated. They are not prophetic in any way. The symbols probably represent nothing more than psychic detritus released through sleep."

I shudder to think what psychic detritus will have be released tonight.

Updating

Silly blog won't let me upload pictures anymore :(

Food

Thanksgiving food blog entry coming soon. That is, when I get back to Uni on Sunday and am taking a break from frantically researching and simultaneously writing a 10-page paper on pagan influences on Old English homilies. It sounded interesting at the time, I swear.

Thanksgiving

"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."
~Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Nevertheless, I will be glad for the break. Plus, I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving in a very non-traditional, vegetarian way, and thus I will subvert the existing oppressive idealogical superstructure. Yay!

Did you understand what that meant?

This is Bad News.

PA bars hormone-free milk labels

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania is stopping dairies from stamping milk containers with hormone-free labels in a precedent-setting decision being closely watched by the industry.

Synthetic hormones have been used to improve milk production in cows for more than a decade. The chemical has not been detected in milk, so there is no way to test for its use, but a growing number of retailers have been selling and promoting hormone-free products in response to consumer demand.

State Agriculture Secretary Dennis C. Wolff said advertising one brand of milk as free from artificial hormones implies that competitors' milk is not safe, and it often comes with what he said is an unjustified higher price.

"It's kind of like a nuclear arms race," Wolff said. "One dairy does it and the next tries to outdo them. It's absolutely crazy."

Agricultural regulators in New Jersey and Ohio are considering following suit, the latest battle in a long-standing dispute over whether injecting cows with bovine growth hormone affects milk.

Effective Jan. 1, dairies selling milk in Pennsylvania, the nation's fifth-largest dairy state, will be banned from advertising that their product comes from cows that have never been treated with rBST, or recombinant bovine somatotropin.

The product, sold by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. under the brand name Posilac, is the country's largest-selling dairy pharmaceutical. It is also known as recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH.

It has been approved for use in the U.S. since 1994, although safety concerns have spurred an increase in rBST-free product sales. The hormone is banned in the European Union, Canada, Australia and Japan, largely out of concern that it may be harmful to herd health.

Monsanto spokesman Michael Doane said the hormone-free label "implies to consumers, who may or may not be informed on these issues, that there's a health-and-safety difference between these two milks, that there's 'good' milk and 'bad' milk, and we know that's not the case."

Rick North of the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, a leading critic of the artificial growth hormone, said the Pennsylvania rules amounted to censorship.

"This is a clear example of Monsanto's influence," he said. "They're getting clobbered in the marketplace by consumers everywhere wanting rBGH-free products."

Acting on a recommendation of an advisory panel, the Pennsylvania Agriculture Department has notified 16 dairies in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts that their labels were false or misleading and had to be changed by the end of December.

"There's absolutely no way to certify whether the milk is from cattle treated or not treated" with rBST, Wolff said. "Some of the dairies that have enforced this, it's absolutely the honor system."

Rutter's Dairy Inc., a central Pennsylvania company that sells about 300,000 gallons a week, began promoting its milk as free of artificial hormones this summer. It has fired back at the state decision with full-page newspaper ads and a lobbying campaign. It is also urging customers to protest.

"We just think the consumers are more keenly aware in today's world about where their food comes from and how their food is manufactured or handled," said Rutter's President Todd Rutter.

Rutter's sells its milk at the state's minimum price, but a national spot check of prices by the American Farm Bureau last month found "rBST-free" milk typically costs about 25% more.

Jasmine

Still off wandering the neighborhood somewhere... hopefully.

Sure, she looks like a badass

But she's really a sweetie.

Tomorrow...

This photo-essay has been brought to you by lolcats.

Geography 101

You gotta love US foreign policy...

Romance Sonambulo

My current poetic obsession <3

Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea and the horse on the mountain. With the shade around her waist she dreams on her balcony, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. Green, how I want you green. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her and she cannot see them. Green, how I want you green. Big hoarfrost stars come with the fish of shadow that opens the road of dawn. The fig tree rubs its wind with the sandpaper of its branches, and the forest, cunning cat, bristles its brittle fibers. But who will come? And from where? She is still on her balcony green flesh, her hair green, dreaming in the bitter sea. --My friend, I want to trade my horse for her house, my saddle for her mirror, my knife for her blanket. My friend, I come bleeding from the gates of Cabra. --If it were possible, my boy, I'd help you fix that trade. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house. --My friend, I want to die decently in my bed. Of iron, if that's possible, with blankets of fine chambray. Don't you see the wound I have from my chest up to my throat? --Your white shirt has grown thirsy dark brown roses. Your blood oozes and flees a round the corners of your sash. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house. --Let me climb up, at least, up to the high balconies; Let me climb up! Let me, up to the green balconies. Railings of the moon through which the water rumbles. Now the two friends climb up, up to the high balconies. Leaving a trail of blood. Leaving a trail of teardrops. Tin bell vines were trembling on the roofs. A thousand crystal tambourines struck at the dawn light. Green, how I want you green, green wind, green branches. The two friends climbed up. The stiff wind left in their mouths, a strange taste of bile, of mint, and of basil My friend, where is she--tell me-- where is your bitter girl? How many times she waited for you! How many times would she wait for you, cool face, black hair, on this green balcony! Over the mouth of the cistern the gypsy girl was swinging, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. An icicle of moon holds her up above the water. The night became intimate like a little plaza. Drunken "Guardias Civiles" were pounding on the door. Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea. And the horse on the mountain. Federico García Lorca

The Carceral

If you haven't yet heard of The Stanford Prison Experiment, I recommend watching this video.

"They were taught the art of power relations."
~Foucault