Happy weekend

Ayutthaya, Thailand, from my trip in 2008. 

A reminder of the impermanence of all things

I hope you have some time to set aside for yourself this weekend. I'm trying to get outside to relax and enjoy the sun for at least an hour every.single.day. no matter how busy I might be, and it's been nice to indulge myself in the sunshine. Here's some interesting reads I found for your weekend:

Fashion

Cheap-clothing giant H&M warned they might raise prices to pay higher wages to its factory workers. "Might" being the operative word. I don't shop much at H&M but I might consider it; I'll gladly pay a little more if I know it means a worker is no longer living below the poverty line.


Feminism

A Virginia Republican Congressman suggested that access to abortion should be restricted because more children = more jobs. People actually think like this! I'm frightened by people in power who seem to have the mentality that women's value lies solely in their ability to create babies.


Some good news: Out of all that abortion legislation I talked about last week, a North Carolina law that required doctors to display and explain ultrasounds images to women seeking abortions was struck down yesterday.


A Rothstein Kass study showed that women-owned and managed hedge funds outperform the market. A few pension funds and institutional investors have even created mandates to invest into these women-run funds, but those mandates are not the norm. Overall, the it seems that most investors don't expect to allocate more to women-owned or managed funds, but it's comforting to know that this guy was wrong.


Food

Wal-Mart joined the CIW's the Fair Food program. This is a BIG DEAL for organized labor. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida's tomato fields have been dealing with food industry giants for an extra penny per pound to go directly, which goes directly to workers. Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, Chipotle, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's have all signed on, but this is certainly the largest private food buyer in the US. This is a great take on this historic moment.

Did you know the cashew shell is toxic? And cashews are never sold raw, since they contain an resin that can cause rashes and be toxic as well.


Random

An interesting article that questions the mantra "do what you love." I never really gave this idea a second thought - and in fact, felt encouraged my entire life to find something I'm passionate about to be the seeds of a career. I definitely look up to and envy those who have found their livelihood in a profession that they love. This article calls "Do What You Love" the ultimate anti-worker ideology - because maybe work should feel like work, so workers demand and receive fair compensation and benefits in exchange for what they do. So that work is not divided into that which is lovable (creative, intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (the cubicle drones, manual laborers). I have been encouraged to stop focusing on finding love for a career - and start finding love for life, for the pursuit of knowledge, for the happiness I can find outside of work - and I find it interesting how fully this idea of "do what you love" has penetrated my philosophies and my life. So this is something I have never before considered, that I need to think deeply about.

Have a happy weekend.

Here's some interesting reads for your weekend!

In yoga:

Yogadork.com shares how John Friend (formerly of Anusara, Inc.) is staging his comeback. I truly loved the practice of Anusara, and was disheartened to hear about JF's behavior (sleeping with married students, hiding questionable financial practices, sending goafers for his pot and abusing his power to intimidate anyone who tried to step outside the circle).  I was lucky enough to enjoy the benefits of the practice while I was stationed far, far outside of the JF circle - much like my relationship to Bikram.  

I laughed out loud at this slideshow from mindbodygreen.com but then couldn't figure out if it is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or if it's serious!! Um, yes, I will always warm up before attempting to take pictures of myself in forearm-stand-scorpion. Thanks.

In feminism:

The Guttmacher Institute put out this summary of their review of laws affecting reproductive health and rights. More state abortion restrictions were enacted in 2011-2013 than in the entire previous decade. Worth the read and very frightening to think how few people notice and care about these shifts - how quietly a lot of this legislation was passed. This reminds me of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian future where women's bodies are controlled by the state - except this is really happening. Shudder.

I definitely agree with this Flavorwire article from Michelle Dean about Lena Dunham's nudity in the HBO show Girls. Despite all my own reservations about the show, it is nice to have an in-your-face reminder of the beauty standards that we hold so near and dear, no matter how advanced our understanding of those standards may be.

In food:
Found this great site this week, where you can track what farm your food comes from in real time in your area. Not really a read, but a great tool.

NPR.org points us to Nathanael Johnson's summary of his question-everything series on GMOs, compiled over 6 months in 2013. Disclosure: I read the NPR article, but haven't been through Johnson's series yet. It's clear that the studies are conflicting about whether GMOs are harmful as food - but it is hard to ignore the other elements that are important in decision making about GMOs beyond food safety. Whether they actually make any difference in feeding the hungry. The problem of patents and big-ag corporations and the affects on farmers. Although the safety issues are where the priority may lie in studies, it's important for us to remember that the issue of GMOs goes well beyond our bodies - it goes into our soil quality, our world, and the sustainability of the farming methods that they require. Can you even grow GMOs organically? I'm not too sure about that and I'll probably be spending some time this weekend reading through this entire series to learn more.

Here's a fascinating article from Salon.com about when farming meets big data. The article targets Monsanto specifically, probably for name recognition of big-ag alone, but discusses an interesting trend where companies are developing and banking on analysis and data-driven mechanization of farming. The manipulation of farmers is no new news, and this article paints yet another frightening picture of the possibilities for large-scale control of the food industry.