Being in Rio was a huge turn on. It is a very sexy city. I loved the openness of the people and the city has a backdrop of spectacular mountains and stunning vegetation. The music is their special brand of sensual and it's easy to enjoy yourself in this atmosphere. Brazilians really do know how to enjoy themselves. At their beaches I had the opportunity to appreciate the wide variety of beautiful people. I became very interested in just how varied different cultures are in their concepts of ideal body types.
What is sexy in Rio is strong legs and butts; and what I think of as 'LA skinny' is not. Whereas breast augmentation has become a national obsession in our country, very few women in Brazil would consider doing it. My daughter, who is living there, said this was very freeing for her. The women in Rio consistently wore skimpy bikinis on the beach--young and old. Grandmothers with rounded stomachs, mothers with children and extra baby weight, and all sizes and shapes let it all hang out at the beach. No topless however.
More...
February 6, 2010
December 15, 2009
Meet The Lobbies: Carbon Traders (VIDEO)
By Kate Willson and Andrew Green of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for The Global Climate Change Lobby series:
Copenhagen - They started appearing at business and industry meetings in 2001 after Marrakesh - the UN climate meeting that established rules for a global market for trading greenhouse gases. Representatives for the emissions trading emissions trading industry became increasingly more visible and today compete with rich, well-connected carbon-emitters for international influence.
"You're seeing a new commodity emerging that has been 10 years in the making," says Doug Russell, a former UN delegate from Canada who now consults on climate for private corporations. The industry was worth $126 billion this year, but that market could mushroom depending on the decisions being made in Copenhagen and in the years after.
Governments are turning to traders for expertise in how to reduce global emissions without collapsing the global economy, Russell says. "All representatives are looking at the International Emissions Trading Association." For good reason: the IETA represents more than 160 companies worldwide, including many multinational heavyweights: top financial players (Citigroup, Deutsch Bank, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse), big oil (Shell, Gazprom, and Petrobas), large conglomerates (Mitsubishi , Dow Chemical, Rio Tinto) and others who smell big money in the new carbon economy (Deloitte and Touche, Lloyds Register, New York Mercantile Exchange).
Despite the impressive lineup, the traders are still an emerging force. "It's a bit premature to talk about carbon markets gaining power at the moment," says Henry Derwent, president of the IETA. "Power remains in the hands of companies that need to reduce their emissions." But IETA and related groups are rapidly gaining clout by providing industry with ways to reduce emissions by "trading" certificates that allow companies to release a given amount of carbon.
Sometimes called "cap and trade," the idea is simple enough: governments give out or sell "permits" that allow companies to emit a given amount of carbon dioxide. Those permits are tradable and can become quite valuable, bought up by firms having a tough time meeting new emissions targets. The system is already in place in Europe and is gaining traction around the world. The deals emerging around the world have already sparked controversy, as seen in Carbon Watch, a new series by our colleagues at the Center for Investigative Reporting and Frontline World.
With so much money at stake, the financial industry has set its sights on the carbon trading biz. And like any corporation with a stake in the outcome of a global treaty, emission traders are lobbying lawmakers to make sure their interests are kept in mind.
"We are a lobbying organization," says IETA's Derwent. "We say to governments, 'Hey, you should do it this way, not that way.'" Sometimes governments are receptive, and sometimes it's a tough sell, as in the United States right now. Before lobbying the U.S. Congress, he says, the traders have faced two major obstacles: first, challenging widely held beliefs that climate change isn't really happening, and second, convincing lawmakers that the perilous financial industry is part of the solution.
"It's our misfortune to be in a time when people aren't liking the words 'trader' and 'markets,' at a time when people associate trading and banks with all sorts of financial shenanigans," Derwent says. To help sway Congress, the carbon trading industry tripled the number of people it had lobbying in Washington during the first half of this year.
"We are in desperate need of low-cost solutions here," Derwent explains. "We're talking about the transformation of the world's economy over an incredibly short period of time if we are to do what scientists tell us is necessary..." And the answer to that is using the carbon market "as a means of insurance." Convincing the public to trust financial traders may be tough, he admits, but Derwent believes his industry knows the way forward: build your membership, increase your lobbyists, and apply pressure. In the end, he says, "the strategy is very simple."
WATCH:
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Copenhagen - They started appearing at business and industry meetings in 2001 after Marrakesh - the UN climate meeting that established rules for a global market for trading greenhouse gases. Representatives for the emissions trading emissions trading industry became increasingly more visible and today compete with rich, well-connected carbon-emitters for international influence.
"You're seeing a new commodity emerging that has been 10 years in the making," says Doug Russell, a former UN delegate from Canada who now consults on climate for private corporations. The industry was worth $126 billion this year, but that market could mushroom depending on the decisions being made in Copenhagen and in the years after.
Governments are turning to traders for expertise in how to reduce global emissions without collapsing the global economy, Russell says. "All representatives are looking at the International Emissions Trading Association." For good reason: the IETA represents more than 160 companies worldwide, including many multinational heavyweights: top financial players (Citigroup, Deutsch Bank, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse), big oil (Shell, Gazprom, and Petrobas), large conglomerates (Mitsubishi , Dow Chemical, Rio Tinto) and others who smell big money in the new carbon economy (Deloitte and Touche, Lloyds Register, New York Mercantile Exchange).
Despite the impressive lineup, the traders are still an emerging force. "It's a bit premature to talk about carbon markets gaining power at the moment," says Henry Derwent, president of the IETA. "Power remains in the hands of companies that need to reduce their emissions." But IETA and related groups are rapidly gaining clout by providing industry with ways to reduce emissions by "trading" certificates that allow companies to release a given amount of carbon.
Sometimes called "cap and trade," the idea is simple enough: governments give out or sell "permits" that allow companies to emit a given amount of carbon dioxide. Those permits are tradable and can become quite valuable, bought up by firms having a tough time meeting new emissions targets. The system is already in place in Europe and is gaining traction around the world. The deals emerging around the world have already sparked controversy, as seen in Carbon Watch, a new series by our colleagues at the Center for Investigative Reporting and Frontline World.
With so much money at stake, the financial industry has set its sights on the carbon trading biz. And like any corporation with a stake in the outcome of a global treaty, emission traders are lobbying lawmakers to make sure their interests are kept in mind.
"We are a lobbying organization," says IETA's Derwent. "We say to governments, 'Hey, you should do it this way, not that way.'" Sometimes governments are receptive, and sometimes it's a tough sell, as in the United States right now. Before lobbying the U.S. Congress, he says, the traders have faced two major obstacles: first, challenging widely held beliefs that climate change isn't really happening, and second, convincing lawmakers that the perilous financial industry is part of the solution.
"It's our misfortune to be in a time when people aren't liking the words 'trader' and 'markets,' at a time when people associate trading and banks with all sorts of financial shenanigans," Derwent says. To help sway Congress, the carbon trading industry tripled the number of people it had lobbying in Washington during the first half of this year.
"We are in desperate need of low-cost solutions here," Derwent explains. "We're talking about the transformation of the world's economy over an incredibly short period of time if we are to do what scientists tell us is necessary..." And the answer to that is using the carbon market "as a means of insurance." Convincing the public to trust financial traders may be tough, he admits, but Derwent believes his industry knows the way forward: build your membership, increase your lobbyists, and apply pressure. In the end, he says, "the strategy is very simple."
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December 8, 2009
Glamorize: Why Small Presses Should Accessorize
One of the books that shaped my perception of the publishing industry at large, and served as the inspiration and impetus for us to start our own press, was Andre Schiffrin's "The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read". In it, Schiffrin, the former publisher of Pantheon, chronicles the seismic shift in ideology from the post-World War II years -- when publishers considered themselves to be purveyors of culture -- to the corporate-driven, profits-minded present.
In the past, books were allowed to subsidize one another, which allowed for a broader swath of ideas and afforded new writers or challenging voices a greater window through which to discover an audience. The "new policy was that each book should make money on its own and that one title should no longer be allowed to subsidize another." Random House initially grew and built their reputation by subsidizing voices such as William Faulkner's with a book of jokes or puzzles. Today, that logic wouldn't fly.
Most small presses are inspired to continue in the tradition from the mid-twentieth century, to publish quality books with a discerning taste. When you publish two or ten books annually, you can't afford to deviate from your program without risk of soiling either your reputation or your credibility. So, generally speaking, maybe with the exception of non-profits, most small presses are functioning similar to their corporate counterparts but on a much more dramatic precipice, where the success or failure of each book can make or bankrupt a publisher.
At Two Dollar Radio, in order to keep our book line pure and generate some alternative revenue to help subsidize the adventurous voices we elect to publish, we sell tee shirts. We get the shirts from a local wholesale distributor where we drive to pick them up, and actually do print them ourselves. Usually this happens late at night on our kitchen table, our daughter Rio crowding at our elbows eager to watch. There are always slight imperfections, but that's what makes them unique. It's funky and it's cool, and they mesh well with the ethos we employ in our publishing program. We have over a handful of designs, mostly involving random animals. We have one with a pig that says "Read like a pig." Our top-seller sports a unicorn, with the tagline "Unicorn-level books," inspired by independent book publicist Lauren Cerand.
The idea is nowhere near original. When my wife Eliza and I conceived Two Dollar Radio, we were living in San Diego, where we met three young guys -- Josh Abramson, Jakob Lodwick, and Ricky Van Veen -- who made a living managing a website called CollegeHumor.com. At the time, they were drafting designs for a line of faux-vintage tee shirts. Later dubbed Busted Tees, the idea exploded and by 2005 accounted for half of their very significant monthly revenue.
While we aren't anywhere close to as successful with our shirts, at the recent Brooklyn Book Festival tees accounted for twenty percent of our total sales. Of sales made directly through our website since August, thirty-eight percent have been tee shirt orders.
We aren't the only press who sells clothing or accessories. For example, I have tee shirts from Small Beer Press and Featherproof Books. (The Featherproof logo -- an owl with a toy arrow on its head -- was a huge hit when I wore it on my parent-helper day at my daughter's pre-school.) Perhaps the publisher with the most diverse merchandise is McSweeney's. For sale through their website they have nearly two-dozen different tee shirts, a Believer Faces Poster, a tote bag, and Nick Hornby's Songbook CD.
As a small press, it is much easier to craft an identity. If you buy a book published by an independent press, then chances are good you really did intend to buy that book. Either it was recommended to you by a friend, you read a review, or you discovered it on the shelf of an independent bookstore: small presses deploy no marketing sleight of hand, no clever gimmicks or paid product placement in order to finagle someone into buying one of our books. As a result, I would wager that consumers of small press books are more aware of who published the work than those of corporate presses, which makes it easier for an independent publisher to sell brand merchandise. I doubt anyone would buy a shirt that says "Random House" on it; it just isn't cool. Nor would it stand for anything: one person might stop you in the street imagining you share an affinity for raising the perfect dog, while another might be a John Irving or Kurt Vonnegut fan. But I've seen students at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, rocking McSweeney's shirts and I know their taste.
If the task of a small press is to foster new talent, to serve as a platform for innovative ideas or challenging voices, in hopes of achieving a reasonable readership in the thousands, then it seems practical to look to additional sources of revenue in order to keep the ship afloat. At Two Dollar Radio, that means allowing us to publish the type of bold work we've built our reputation on without resorting to publishing the modern equivalent of the joke book.
While not every publisher has a wholesale shirt distributor close by, or the energy and willingness to screen-print shirts themselves, there are other means to accessorize affordably. And, following McSweeney's example, it doesn't necessarily have to just be tee shirts.
Richard Nash pointed out in his 'Don't Call it a Comeback' piece in Publishers Weekly that respondents to a poll in the U.K. on what book will most likely get you laid, stated "anything published by Soft Skull." Since it's not always comfortable to cart a book to the bar with you, imagine how much more convenient it would be to simply don a Soft Skull tee shirt.
In the past, books were allowed to subsidize one another, which allowed for a broader swath of ideas and afforded new writers or challenging voices a greater window through which to discover an audience. The "new policy was that each book should make money on its own and that one title should no longer be allowed to subsidize another." Random House initially grew and built their reputation by subsidizing voices such as William Faulkner's with a book of jokes or puzzles. Today, that logic wouldn't fly.
Most small presses are inspired to continue in the tradition from the mid-twentieth century, to publish quality books with a discerning taste. When you publish two or ten books annually, you can't afford to deviate from your program without risk of soiling either your reputation or your credibility. So, generally speaking, maybe with the exception of non-profits, most small presses are functioning similar to their corporate counterparts but on a much more dramatic precipice, where the success or failure of each book can make or bankrupt a publisher.
At Two Dollar Radio, in order to keep our book line pure and generate some alternative revenue to help subsidize the adventurous voices we elect to publish, we sell tee shirts. We get the shirts from a local wholesale distributor where we drive to pick them up, and actually do print them ourselves. Usually this happens late at night on our kitchen table, our daughter Rio crowding at our elbows eager to watch. There are always slight imperfections, but that's what makes them unique. It's funky and it's cool, and they mesh well with the ethos we employ in our publishing program. We have over a handful of designs, mostly involving random animals. We have one with a pig that says "Read like a pig." Our top-seller sports a unicorn, with the tagline "Unicorn-level books," inspired by independent book publicist Lauren Cerand.
The idea is nowhere near original. When my wife Eliza and I conceived Two Dollar Radio, we were living in San Diego, where we met three young guys -- Josh Abramson, Jakob Lodwick, and Ricky Van Veen -- who made a living managing a website called CollegeHumor.com. At the time, they were drafting designs for a line of faux-vintage tee shirts. Later dubbed Busted Tees, the idea exploded and by 2005 accounted for half of their very significant monthly revenue.
While we aren't anywhere close to as successful with our shirts, at the recent Brooklyn Book Festival tees accounted for twenty percent of our total sales. Of sales made directly through our website since August, thirty-eight percent have been tee shirt orders.
We aren't the only press who sells clothing or accessories. For example, I have tee shirts from Small Beer Press and Featherproof Books. (The Featherproof logo -- an owl with a toy arrow on its head -- was a huge hit when I wore it on my parent-helper day at my daughter's pre-school.) Perhaps the publisher with the most diverse merchandise is McSweeney's. For sale through their website they have nearly two-dozen different tee shirts, a Believer Faces Poster, a tote bag, and Nick Hornby's Songbook CD.
As a small press, it is much easier to craft an identity. If you buy a book published by an independent press, then chances are good you really did intend to buy that book. Either it was recommended to you by a friend, you read a review, or you discovered it on the shelf of an independent bookstore: small presses deploy no marketing sleight of hand, no clever gimmicks or paid product placement in order to finagle someone into buying one of our books. As a result, I would wager that consumers of small press books are more aware of who published the work than those of corporate presses, which makes it easier for an independent publisher to sell brand merchandise. I doubt anyone would buy a shirt that says "Random House" on it; it just isn't cool. Nor would it stand for anything: one person might stop you in the street imagining you share an affinity for raising the perfect dog, while another might be a John Irving or Kurt Vonnegut fan. But I've seen students at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, rocking McSweeney's shirts and I know their taste.
If the task of a small press is to foster new talent, to serve as a platform for innovative ideas or challenging voices, in hopes of achieving a reasonable readership in the thousands, then it seems practical to look to additional sources of revenue in order to keep the ship afloat. At Two Dollar Radio, that means allowing us to publish the type of bold work we've built our reputation on without resorting to publishing the modern equivalent of the joke book.
While not every publisher has a wholesale shirt distributor close by, or the energy and willingness to screen-print shirts themselves, there are other means to accessorize affordably. And, following McSweeney's example, it doesn't necessarily have to just be tee shirts.
Richard Nash pointed out in his 'Don't Call it a Comeback' piece in Publishers Weekly that respondents to a poll in the U.K. on what book will most likely get you laid, stated "anything published by Soft Skull." Since it's not always comfortable to cart a book to the bar with you, imagine how much more convenient it would be to simply don a Soft Skull tee shirt.
November 26, 2009
No Fair Election In Honduras Under Military Occupation
As the Honduran election approaches this Sunday, let's be clear about the conditions under which it is taking place. Human rights abuses are rampant, freedom of speech is under attack, and the election process is in the hands of the very people who perpetrated the coup. Clearly, no free and fair election is possible under the repressive thumb of the military coup that has been in place for five months.
While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results -- once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.
President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.
Imagine a "free and fair election" under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):
The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.
The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.
The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes--who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election--has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation's second largest city.
All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women's groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement--united in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat--have denounced the election as fraudulent.
The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.
Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.
The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.
The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.
No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place. By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn't change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation's politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.
The vast majority of Hondurans aren't fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.
President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.
While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results -- once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.
President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.
Imagine a "free and fair election" under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):
The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.
The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.
The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes--who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election--has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation's second largest city.
All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women's groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement--united in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat--have denounced the election as fraudulent.
The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.
Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.
The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.
The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.
No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place. By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn't change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation's politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.
The vast majority of Hondurans aren't fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.
President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.