Ten women who are role models for perseverance, courage, creativity and leadership.

We live in a time where there are many women who are achieving amazing goals and impacting the lives of women and girls around the world. Here are 10 who have impacted and inspired more than they can count.

Judy Blume
She scandalized parents with Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret and other forthright novels about teenage sexuality. For teenagers in the 1970s, Blume’s books were a validation of all that young women felt and questioned. Girls could instantly identify with Margaret and Deenie, characters that alleviated feelings of personal alienation in a time when sex was not as openly discussed and dissected.

Madonna
Who wasn’t captivated by her Borderline video? When Madonna came out gyrating in ruffled ankle socks on the MTV scene, she was flamboyant and expressive and larger than life. She was the original Lady Gaga who pushed sexual, fashion as well as personal boundaries, and offered (to a young generation of women) freedom of expression that many ran with – neon, mini skirts, lace and all.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah was the first woman to show us that you didn’t have to be white, thin or generically beautiful to be successful in front of the camera. Oprah’s personality, perseverance and business-savvy garnered her a multimedia empire and proved to girls and women everywhere that heart and smarts are what’s important.

Hillary Clinton
After Hillary Clinton spent eight years serving as First Lady, she went on to serve in the U.S. Senate, ran for president, and then became the U.S. Secretary of State. In no matter what capacity she was serving, the former first lady used her political platform and global presence to champion women’s rights. In 1995, she stood up at the World Conference on Women in Beijing and denounced the mistreatment of women around the world, from female infanticide, to forced abortion, to rape used as a military tactic. She famously proclaimed, “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

JK Rowling
JK Rowling created the most well-known trio in young adult literary history and enchanted children around the globe, all the while living a real life rags-to-incredible-riches story. With the Harry Potter series, Rowling made reading a fantastic journey that no one wanted to miss so even kids that had no interest in reading were spellbound. Watching children gobble up these giant 600+ page tomes is truly amazing. From the midnight bookstore parties to unprecedented numbers of first print runs, it was a publishing phenomenon that we will probably never see again in our lifetime.

Mia Hamm
When Mia Hamm and the other players on the U.S. Women’s World Cup team came onto the scene, they made girl’s soccer popular and cool. Their World Cup triumph made the world notice female athletes. Mia Hamm posters graced millions of girl’s bedroom walls, and girls saw that sports equal teamwork, friendship and solidarity.

Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg is an engaging speaker and her passion for women in business is infectious. She is known for telling women to “lean in” to their careers and keep climbing the ladder, no matter what, because it is possible for women to lead and have a family. As COO of Facebook, the most popular and well-known company on the planet, we have to wonder how much higher her star can rise. Perhaps she’ll show us that the sky really isn’t the limit.

Kirsten Gillibrand
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand replaced Hillary Clinton as the junior democratic senator for New York in 2009 – a good fit since Gillibrand also has a passion for women’s rights and leadership, and tirelessly campaigns for more women to get involved in politics. A mother of two small children, she makes balancing a family and helping to run the country look easy. She represents women in a forum where there aren’t many women’s voices or perspective, reminding those in government what challenges half the workers in the U.S. and the majority of consumer decision makers face. Gillibrand, and the small number of other women in government, show girls that women can have an impact on how our country is run.

Annie Leonard
EcoSalon just interviewed Annie Leonard a month ago, and anyone who spends twenty years trotting the globe to find out where our trash goes earns the label of saint. In her Story of Stuff videos, Leonard boils complex topics down into simple examples using straightforward language that everyone can understand. Leonard also wants people to understand how empty materialism is and how much it harms the planet and walks the talk wherever she goes.

Melissa McCarthy
Finally the best friend character - the underdog - gets the glory. For once, it’s not the glamour girl, but the girl next door who is being recognized for her talent, her humor and her hard work. McCarthy, who stars on the sitcom Mike and Molly, spent years as the Gilmore Girls sidekick and broke out recently because of her show and women-centered comedy hit, Bridesmaids. Humor and personality should always win.

image credits: NJ State Library, David Shankbone, Alan Light, Marc Nozell, Beacon Radio, Global Sports Forum, JD Lasica, Freedom to Marry, The Story of Stuff, Audi USA, Kara Allyson

Does it take a celebrity to speak for the majority of Americans?

Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon has been in the news quite a bit lately, and it’s not because he’s promoting a new movie. Damon, who is low-key about his personal life, comes on strong when he’s passionate about a political issue or a philanthropic cause. He has lit up the blogosphere, YouTube, print media and even late night television with his recent, high profile interviews on his philanthropy, Water.org, and his opinions on the state of education in the U.S. today and the recent U.S. debt agreement.

How much weight should we give celebrity opinions? People (and especially children and teens) are often swayed by celebrity endorsements and strive to emulate them, so when celebrities talk, many people listen. As a society, we eat up what they are wearing, what they are doing and who they are doing it with. Sometimes that means we are treated to diatribes about tiger’s blood, an episode of couch-jumping, or homophobic jokes during a stand up comedy act.

Celebrities don’t have to worry about being re-elected; they can simply say what they believe, whatever that may be. Damon’s opinions have gotten so much attention that outspoken Democrat Michael Moore has commented that he should run for president.

The July/August issue of Fast Company profiled Damon and the nonprofit organization Water.org that he co-founded with Gary White. Water.org is working towards providing safe drinking water to people in developing countries. Ellen McGirt described Damon’s immersive involvement in the organization as far and above the level of normal celebrity cause spokesperson. Damon has turned himself into a “development expert.” McGirt explains that, among other things, Damon can talk knowledgeably about microfinance with rural bankers, give reports from the field at the annual Clinton Global Initiative, and has personally thanked donors like Pepsi’s Indira Nooyi. Damon has also put in the time researching, studying and listening to experts in the field and visiting the very people it affects. This has garnered him a level of quiet respect.

Damon has been in the spotlight before for his opinion. A staunch Democrat, he supported President Obama during his campaign, but recently professed his disappointment in Obama’s handling of some key issues, including education, the Afghanistan exit strategy, and the Wall Street crisis. “I no longer hope for audacity,” he told Piers Morgan in a March 2011 appearance on his show.

On July 30, Damon gave an inspiring speech during the Save Our Schools march in Washington D.C. referencing his mother, a professor of early childhood education, and his public school education growing up. He described how he learned because he wasn’t taught to perform well on a standardized test, but was taught by teachers who were “empowered to teach.”

“This has been a horrible decade for teachers. I can’t imagine how demoralized you must feel. But I came here today to deliver an important message to you: As I get older, I appreciate more and more the teachers that I had growing up. And I’m not alone. There are millions of people just like me.

So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “overpaid;” the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything, please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you and we will always have your back.”

Following this speech, a journalist and cameraman baited Damon and his mother, saying that teachers needed incentive to put in effort and that ten percent of all teachers were probably bad. Damon shot back, “Ok, but maybe you’re a shitty cameraman.”

Soon afterward, Damon was back in the news after the debt crisis was resolved, voicing his disappointment with the result.

“The wealthy are paying less than they paid at any time else, certainly in my lifetime, and probably in the last century,” he said. “I don’t know what we were paying in the roaring 20′s; it’s criminal that so little is asked of people who are getting so much. I don’t mind paying more. I really don’t mind paying more taxes. I’d rather pay for taxes than cut ‘Reading is Fundamental’ or Head Start or some of these programs that are really helping kids. This is the greatest country in the world; is it really that much worse if you pay 6% more in taxes? Give me a break. Look at what you get for it: you get to be American.”

Is Damon a rich celebrity? Yes. Should his opinion mean more because he has a high profile? Maybe not, but in a time when people who aren’t lobbyists or wealthy donors have a hard time being heard by those in government who are supposed to represent their interests, it’s what we’ve got.

Image: JustJared

Add some diversity to your color range.

With the Presidential race heating up and candidates like Michele Bachmann showing her true colors, I thought it would be refreshing to reflect on a pallet that champions the marvelous diversity that is integral to our national character.

Rainbows might not be for everyone. I get it. Some people prefer monochromatic color schemes; others don’t like color at all. But I think we can all agree that every time we stop and gaze at the kaleidoscope of a rainbow, we recall that tiny remembrance within: there is a pot of gold, a treasure, on the other side.

The wooden rainbow shown above is made from sustainably harvested wood, and finished with non-toxic paint and a homemade natural wood polish of beeswax, jojoba oil, and essential oils. From Imagination Kids.

Below is what it would be like if My Little Pony or Speed Racer moved in. The Rainbow House (well, 830-square-foot apartment) was created by Hong Kong designer Max Lam of Moderne.

It features a rainbow that runs continuously from the living room to the bedroom, streaking through the kitchen all the way to the golden commode.

San Franciscans know the Rainbow House on Clipper Street, seen here. If only some other people we know would embrace the same spirit of diversity and inclusion. Just saying…the world would be a much prettier place.

What is a Free Printable? Here’s one…

It’s a curious crowd-sourced phenomenon of circulating inspirational quotes or vintage images. It’s also an efficient way to print, frame and decorate your home or cube with messages that inspire you, like the one above sourced from Simple As That. Another printable maven worth checking out is The Graphics Fairy.

Also worth a gander are these crayon-drip paintings by JK Create’s Jessica Kerbawy. No two pieces are ever alike and the color combinations are endless.

Jen Stark’s construction paper sculptures, meanwhile, have me aching for a less complicated time and place: art class, where we all mused on rainbows – Michele, too – because we believed in that pot of gold.

Images: The Art of Intuition; FreshHome; Moderne.hk; Imagination Kids; We Heart It; PJLighthouse, Vendoluzes;

American culture circa 2011: Land of the partisans, home of the tribes.

We are a nation divided – by religion, by politics, by sexual mores, by attitudes toward food, climate change, science, land ownership and business, and so much more. We gravitate toward those who share most, if not all, of our views and opinions, and away from those who are different from us. Our nation really began as a collection of tribes (the basis of our federal system), and we have returned to this state ideologically.

On its face, finding like-minded people is a good thing. It allows us to feel like we belong. Being with people who share our taste in books, agree with us on health care legislation, go to the same church, live in our neighborhood, or work in our profession is comforting. People unite for causes and rally together for change. But, they also band together to inflict harm and dispense hate.

Seth Godin says that people thought the internet would be a great homogenizing influence, yet it has done more to help people form silos and band together with others of similar thinking than any other technology or tool in recent memory.

When we can understand opposing beliefs, even if we don’t embrace them, we can still function as a group, while our tribes form supportive, yet minor, internal cliques. Managing this balance is what makes a tolerant and unified society, but on many significant topics, our beliefs are so unyielding, so far from the middle, that our tribes clash furiously. As warring tribes, we can’t function as a group to solve our society’s problems and move forward.

In the Name of God…

Religion permeates everyday life in a multitude of ways, causing tension and strife between those who embrace its influence in every aspect of their lives, and those who believe it doesn’t belong in schools, government or the workplace. Religious and political lines divide us over many issues, including abortion rights and birth control, gay rights and same sex marriage, education, science, medicine and even climate change.

Although legislation has kept them separate for years, religion is creeping into public schools. Religious student groups are forming on campuses and handing out Bibles. The law says that students can express religious beliefs as long as they do not disrupt class or school activities, however schools must remain neutral, neither endorsing nor interfering with religious practices.

Religion can be deeply embedded in family culture. The range of religious involvement spans the spectrum from students spearheading religious groups on campus, to students who have faith, but keep it out of school, to students who simply don’t believe and just want to attend school without religious undertones.

One tribe believes in an entity that is all-knowing and all-forgiving, while the other believes that there is no heaven, everyone is accountable for their own actions and no deity will confer forgiveness. Children brought up to have faith often can’t comprehend children whose families do not, and ostracize those children due to their nonbelief. At the same time, students who are devoutly religious can also experience ridicule.

An extreme example of religious intolerance is the recent mass shooting in Oslo, Norway, where Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik bombed a federal building in Oslo, killing seven people, before traveling to a youth camp that espoused multiculturalism principles and shooting 86 adults and teenagers, resulting in 93 dead and 96 injured. Breivik wrote a 1,500 page manifesto about his Christian views and values, and viciously denounced multiculturalism in Europe. He also traversed the internet raging against Muslims and Islam. Breivik has confessed to carrying out the bombing and shooting, but maintains that he was absolutely justified in his actions to save Europe from encroaching Islam. Although European leaders condemned his actions, The New York Times reports that there has been a steady increase in extreme right-wing groups and sentiment in Europe. Here at home, media outlets like Fox News and conservative radio foment further resentment and division.

No, You Are Not Allowed to Make Decisions About Your Body

Abortion and birth control have been two of the most divisive issues in our culture for several decades, with the tide turning against abortion rights with the recent wave of state legislation limiting, abusing and nearly abolishing them in many states. This might be the most precarious time for Roe v. Wade since it was passed in 1973, and the battles are heating up.

Recently legislation has been proposed that requires women to wait three days and submit to counseling from a biased, unlicensed counselor before getting an abortion, prove that her miscarriage was organic vs. induced, and get abortion insurance in case she is impregnated during a rape, to name a few bills on the landscape attacking a woman’s right to have an abortion. The divide goes nearly straight down the political aisle, pitting Democrats against Republicans in an ongoing feud.

The battle doesn’t stop at abortion. Birth control is under fire, too. Recently, in the context of talking about climate change, Al Gore said,

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children. You have to lift child-survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families. And most important, you have to educate girls and empower women. And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.” (h/t Grist)

Conservative writers immediately characterized Gore’s speech as instructing families to have fewer children to help the environment, and used it to underline extreme conservative agendas against birth control. In a video clip in Grist’s article, Texas State Rep. Wayne Christian states, “Well of course it’s a war on birth control.”

This is an issue that clashing tribes will never come to a consensus on. Whichever viewpoint is currently legally right will always be hammered on by the opposing one. The fight will go on indefinitely.

Same Sex Marriages are Not Real

The battle over same sex marriage and gay rights, including health benefits, medical power of attorney, and equal treatment with heterosexual unions has been ongoing. Individual states have granted legality to same sex marriages and then taken it away, while the measure comes to ballot in other states and is voted down. Some corporations offer same sex benefits, while state and federal governments take it away.

The very definition of marriage is at stake, and until recently, neither side wanted to concede. However, New York passed a same-sex marriage law in 2011 (which was previously voted down), becoming the largest state to do so, to date.  Republican Senator Mark J. Grisanti, who campaigned on the promise to oppose same sex marriages, made a surprising about-face, admitted he had been wrong and changed his vote to support the same-sex marriage legislation.

Grisanti told The New York Times, “I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.” Although only five states currently allow same-sex marriages, perhaps this marks a shift toward the middle on this issue.

There is No Such Thing as Climate Change

Scientists have been cautioning us for years that our current state of energy consumption and carbon emissions were irreparably damaging our environment. Climate deniers have long scoffed at this idea on little more than ideological grounds, but recently several have changed their viewpoints and admitted that climate change is a real danger.

However, members of the Republican party have denounced climate concerns, reigniting fierce debate. In March 2011, the GOP voted down an amendment to legislation they were attempting to pass that overruled the EPA’s assertion that global temperatures were rising and humans were the likely reason. Democrats suggested putting in language that simply explained climate change, but Republicans quashed it. Three times.

The Kyoto Protocol spurred countries to cut their carbon emissions, but the 2009 Copenhagen summit failed to continue the momentum, leaving the issue more up in the air than before with no set guidelines or penalties.

Will We Ever Be One Nation? Indivisible? With Liberty and Justice for All?

As a nation, are we moving forward, or back? Some days, it’s hard to tell. We’ve drawn lines crisscrossing our nation, our society, our towns, our friends and families. As members of many tribes, we are fractured, facing opposition on many fronts.

Our tribes have again become isolating and divisive, as they were at the start of our country and our culture, bringing us full circle. Religion and politics have driven wedges between people that are so divisive that it’s hard to see where we could come together as a society again. Lawrence Brown believes that tribal politics “threaten to roll back the hard-won progress of centuries.” Political gridlock in recent months – from holding up federal budget passage over Planned Parenthood funding to the current Congressional impasse over the debt ceiling – makes the depth of the division all too clear.

As we stay within our tribes, many times, so does the next generation. Although in many ways, we need the comfort of our tribes, our society can only move forward if we can see past our own small groups and their mindsets. Perhaps our fitful social landscape is a sign of a breakthrough pending – but perhaps we are headed straight for a wall.

Brown said, “We can’t depend on catastrophes and terrorists to bring us together. Love is a better social adhesive than grief. No one can claim to love their country if they hate half the people in it.”

Images: ginnerobot, szeke, andi.vs.zf, jonmatthew photography, Balaji.b, ^riza^

ColumnWhere celebrity goes conscious.

We are one nation, under God (for some), indivisible (but don’t mention politics), with liberty and justice for all (we hope). But there’s one issue that seems to send Americans into a united clutching of pearls and shaking of heads – and that’s nudity in the media. On film. On cell phones. On the airwaves. A slip of a nipple on live television has the FCC scrambling. A late-night interview where a guest mentions an expletive has parents crying for blood. A congressional representative’s nether regions call for resignation. It seems that Americans are deathly afraid of nudity in film and television – and in life. But are we really?

The answer depends on who is speaking. Talk to some, and we’re Puritanical prudes afraid of our own sexual shadows. Case in point? How we handle our political scandals. Take Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, famous for his Bunga Bunga parties and sexual exploits. Berlusconi, though certainly the receiver of disapproving eyebrows everywhere, is still in office. In fact, he recently received a vote of confidence from Italy’s lower house of Parliament. All this, despite the fact that the Prime Minister was rumored to have slept with 33 women in two months, some of whom he paid. But Berlusconi, 74, has brushed this off, admitting to making payments to the women, but pointing out they were altruistic gifts, not payments for sex. As The Daily Mail reports, “Do you really think I am going to pay for sex with bank transfers? I am like a charity. I pay for surgery, dentist bills, university fees and anything else needed. Some of those bank transfers were to pay the mortgages of the parents of one of the girls. They were in dire straits.”

Now take the exploits of Prime Minister Berlusconi and place them in the hallowed halls of our own government. Let’s look at our political scandal du jour, Representative Anthony Weiner’s downfall via sexting. The married congressional representative admitted to sending sexually-charged pictures and texts to several women. Weiner has now resigned and is seeking mental health treatment – of course, after a three-week scandal that had united both Democrats and Republicans in a united frenzy of disapproval. While his behavior was undeniably questionable, it’s worth noting that Rep. Weiner didn’t break any laws but yet still felt compelled to resign since he’d become a “distraction” from the issues.

Tweet by Former Rep. Anthony Weiner

Now if you were to raise a Berlusconi to a Weiner, you’d notice a definite “European versus American” handling of sexuality, deviances and all. This isn’t an earth-shattering revelation. As Msnbc.com reports, “In the south of France, sunbathing grandmothers have no tan lines. In Norway, young children play naked in fountains. On summer days, accountants in Munich head to the park on their lunch break to grin and bare it, trading corporate suits for birthday suits.” But what happens here in America? In life, naked people are attacked. In politics, a government official resigns.

And in entertainment, all bets are off. A film trailer, such as the latest for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, gets re-cut to show less nudity. Janet Jackson flashes a nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show and the controversy spends years (and tax dollars) traveling the court of appeals debating fines. Blue Valentine, a film depicting explicit consensual sex between a married couple, receives an NC-17 rating because of an oral sex scene. To which star Ryan Gosling replied, “The MPAA is ok supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex – it’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self.” (We’ve also already addressed violence against women on film. We agree with you, Ryan. It is stupid.)

However, nary a conversation can be had about sex in the media in the United States without the screams of the public drowning out any relevant discourse. It would seem that Americans are hopelessly out of tune with their own sexuality, unable to bear the sight of an uncovered genital or worse, a simulated sexual act. Right?

The truth is a bit more ambiguous. Alexander Martin, PhD, is a therapist in Los Angeles. I asked him to weigh in on how Americans perceive sexuality. “We’re not nearly as Puritanical as some might think,” he told me. “It’s really the government, as the FCC, who likes to pretend to be the watch dogs of morality. The Puritanical streak we’re talking about comes from the FCC and certain interest groups who live in a dream world. Think about it, there’s sex all over premium cable. Trust me, Californication [on Showtime] is a hit for a reason.”

Research supports this. Americans are getting their sexual groove on by having a lot of sex and in many different combinations. Experts at Indiana University recently conducted one of the most significant surveys of American sex ever compiled. Logan Levkoff is a sexologist at New York University. As he spoke of the study to The Guardian, anal and oral sex are more popular than ever. Further, “There is enormous variability in the sexual repertoires of US adults, with more than 40 combinations of sexual activity described at adults’ most recent sexual event.”

So really, who are these Americans that are so up in arms about sex in both politics and film, and why is it that the two seem so intertwined? Is it the proverbial squeaky wheel/interest groups creating all the fuss? Or is it that our government simply likes to pretend we’re much more prudish than we really are? Ultimately, Americans seem to be okay with sexuality. The real question might be, why doesn’t anyone have a problem with vulgarity on television? (See: Reality television.)

Image: cordon.alejandro

ColumnYou care because you’re awake.

When it comes to Big Issues and Serious Problems and Matters of Cultural Import, I’m more what you’d call crust than cupcake. So in sitting down to bang out a fresh column, the opportunities for righteous ranting were everywhere I looked. For example, last Thursday I learned there’s a whole happy movement around a woman whose contribution to food culture is Semi-Homemade recipe products made from processed and packaged ingredients that are, apparently, fabulous. And that she’s being hailed as the next Martha Stewart (not to mention the next first lady of New York). Friday morning I learned of a woman, Barbara Reich, who makes $150 per hour – and she’s booked – to help affluent families organize their stuff into stuff boxes with stuff labeled instead of stuff piles just lying around on top of stuff. We learn that she’s helped her own family sort their Crazy Bands into the appropriately orderly clusters, e.g. “Animals”, “Sports”, “Rare”. Crazy Bands commentary alone could fill an iPad app.

And then Saturday happened. A deeply disturbed young man opened fire on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and dozens of others at a political gathering in Tuscon, Arizona. Six are dead, 14 are wounded and Giffords is in stable but critical condition after being shot at near-point blank range with a semiautomatic weapon. The media frenzy and Twitter stream since have exploded in everything from grief to fresh debate about issues such as terrorism and gun control and bigotry – to Sarah Palin caught in her own crosshairs, so to speak. The incident is tragic, yet for many, it was inevitable. There’s blame, and counter-blame, and accusations of politicizing, and whining about accusations, too. What if the shooter had been Muslim? What if the political affiliations were reversed?

About those issues. Gun control, mental illness, violent rhetoric in politics, the environment, immigration, bigotry and above all an unconscious rage: it’s all before us, encapsulated in one sickening, surreal and yet unsurprising event in a grocery store parking lot. Dismayed as I was over the all-but-instant – with a side of gleeful – Palin slamming on Twitter over the weekend, the heaping of attitude doesn’t undermine the valid and painful point. We have steeped ourselves in a culture of violence so that we’ve almost forgotten the bitterness of the taste.

It’s not just political jargon or the fact that parents will take children to see an action flick but dither over a nipple. It’s not just pain porn and casual misogyny. It’s not just police abuse and the highest industrialized rate of adult incarceration. It’s that our leadership believes, wholeheartedly, that violence can solve problems – that it can solve anything at all. It’s that so much of our leadership is terrified to confront what we may dread in a conscious way. So many quaking cocks of the walk.

And of course, we react to pain in predictable ways: inflicting pain right back, numbing ourselves, erecting vast and expensive theaters to aggression and security with 24/7 ticker tape showtimes.

We all have a library of pop wisdom picked up as impressionable children. I remember watching the ’94 Olympics where Dan Jansen finally won his gold. In the obligatory fawning profile piece, he recounted his struggles with anger and how he finally learned, with the help of his therapist, not to sweat the small stuff. He gave his favorite practical example: not getting so worked up at other drivers, even when they cut you off. I wasn’t anywhere near driving age but somehow that stuck in my mind. So, thanks Dan, I’m not a road rage babe. Rush Limbaugh, of all people, drove one thing into my young mind that sticks to this day (yes, I grew up in a Republican home, and no, Mr. Limbaugh didn’t succeed with much else): “Words mean things.” Well. Rush is right. Words mean things. And I hope we’ll take a long look at our words and what they’re saying about us.

Despite all of this, I don’t share the bleak views of some. I don’t think our culture is jumping the proverbial shark, in spite of the success of The Jersey Shore and the excitement about only partly homemade foods and wacky rubber bands. We have terrifying problems, yes. We’re standing at the crumbling edge of global warming devastation, still unsure if we should turn back. We’re involved in expensive, protracted, ugly exploits and wars around the globe. Economic uncertainty and basic security still tease us through the fog. And yet: You care. You care because you are awake, and your heart aches.

There is a beautiful line from the African music group Tinariwen’s song, Assouf: “What can I do with this eternal longing?”

You can do a lot.

This is the second in your editor’s new column for 2011, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and style. If she’s got the strength for it, there will be more to come. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: lil_miss_wit

The White House is going solar (again). Two weeks ago, Nancy Sutley, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced at a “GreenGov” symposium plans to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the executive residence next spring. This, they say, is “a project that demonstrates American solar technologies are available, reliable, and ready for installation in homes throughout the country.” Nice. But while the Obama administration’s promotion and support of alternative energy is encouraging, if not exactly aggressive, I’m reading these greening of the White House stories and am not sure whether to be encouraged or depressed. To be sure, this solar panel installation is a good thing. Likewise, it was a good thing four presidencies and three decades ago – when we did it the first time.

Maybe it’s because we’re staring down the barrel, so to speak, of a 1994 redo; a tragic, almost identical backslide to the one that took place on the Hill in the midterms of 15-plus years ago. With this history repeating itself right now, the idea of traction on issues like solar power seems so fleeting. To wit, I bring you Jimmy Carter, who installed similar panels on the mansion to much fanfare in 1979.

It was a move supporting his energy policy, which he discussed in a famous televised speech a few years prior: “Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.” he told us. “It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.”

Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy put an end to that nonsense – immediately and completely. “The budget for the [Solar Energy Research] Institute – which President Jimmy Carter had created to spearhead solar innovation – was slashed [under Reagan] from $124 million in 1980 to $59 million in 1982. Scientists who had left tenured university jobs to work [on the project] were given two weeks’ notice and no severance pay,” Arthur Allen wrote in Mother Jones back in 2000, just months before another Big Oil president would take office. “By the end of 1985, when Congress and the administration allowed tax credits for solar homes to lapse, the dream of a solar era had faded”¦ Solar water heating went from a billion-dollar industry to peanuts overnight; thousands of sun-minded businesses went bankrupt.”

In 1986, when work was done to fix a leaky roof, President Reagan took down the panels. “By ripping the solar thermal (aka solar hot water) panels off the White House roof in the mid 80s to make a “˜statement’ against alternative energy – and for oil – Reagan was instrumental in killing the U.S. solar thermal industry,” says Lisa Margonelli, Director of the Energy Productivity Initiative at the New America Foundation. Sadly, she also informs us that the Virginia company that made the White House panels was out of business by 1991.

So here we are again, more than a quarter of century later, and Obama’s repeat of Carter’s gesture leaves us to wonder where we would be today “if only.” Think about 30 years of intensive, subsidized investment in solar power – or wind, for that matter. How different would our world be today? I’m not just talking about global warming and environmental issues here. I’m talking about jobs. I’m talking about geopolitics. I’m talking about war and peace.

Ironically, as recent as last month, in an effort to avoid comparison to the ill-fated, one-term Carter administration, the Obama White House looked like it was about to balk at installing the panels. So the turnaround (albeit symbolic) this close to election time does indeed show some alternative energy chops.

I hope they’ll still be there in 2015.

Image: Beverly & Pack

A 2002 application of soil fumigant metam-sodium sickened over 260 residents in Arvin, California. Initial reports by country officials indicated that only one person was affected, but door-to-door community surveys found that residents had suffered a variety of symptoms including eye irritation, nausea, vomiting, and breathing difficulties. Metam-sodium is an acutely toxic chemical linked to cancer and reproductive disorders.

These are just two of the many incidents of pesticide exposure endured by workers and residents in the Central Valley.

When most of us think about pesticides, it’s often in the context of buying organic food to avoid ingesting chemicals or exposing our children.

If we’re a little further along in our awareness of the dangers of pesticides, we might go so far as to think about how pesticides harm the ecosystem, and pollute air and water.

But because agricultural workers live in areas invisible to most of us, we may not be aware that the people who harvest our food live and work immersed in a toxic stew of chemicals like methyl iodide (a pesticide linked to cancer and miscarriages), chlorpyrifos (an insecticide linked to endocrine disruption, asthmas, and nervous system disorders), and atrazine (an herbicide associated with hormone disruptions that is banned in Europe).

California, being the produce basket of the country, accounts for 20-25% of all pesticide use in the country. About one-third of total pesticide use in the state is known to be toxic to humans. Children are particularly vulnerable because their smaller, developing bodies can’t take the toxic load. Add to that the fact that many are exposed in the womb and you can see why shorter, unhealthier lives are not unusual in farmworker communities.

This injustice is directly linked to race, class, and poverty. According to a 2003 paper, Farmworker Women and Pesticides in California’s Central Valley, published by The Pesticide Action Network, farm workers in California who harvest our food number over 700,000 and are mainly people of color. Not only do they work in pesticide-soaked fields but they also live adjacent to these fields and are exposed to contaminated dust, air, and water 24-7. Their children go to schools that are located near farms where chemicals are used regularly. Farm workers rarely have health insurance and access to medical care is limited due to language and transportation barriers.

Updated with additional information as of 11-14-2011: From the same paper, due to lack of cheap health insurance or medical assistance to aid California Farm workers to get access to health care, 20% of those surveyed have never been to a doctor. Farmworkers are not able to leave their work to visit clinics, which are only available from 9am-5pm. Leaving their work equals no payment.

Though California worker safety laws require training on handling pesticides, the farm workers interviewed for the paper reported rarely receiving any training or safety gear. Most workers don’t report exposure incidents to their employers or officials out of fear they will lose their jobs. Compensation for medical bills is practically unheard of. The four California counties with the highest pesticide use are also the four poorest counties in California. Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties have an average per capita income of $19,733 as compared to $29,856 for the state. This is not surprising as the people with the least economic power have historically been the people most exposed to contaminated workplaces and neighborhoods.

But the people most affected by pesticides are fighting for environmental justice in farm worker communities, and women are leading the charge. Through community organizing, female leaders and residents of these communities are fighting for cleaner air and water, medical care and reimbursement for victims, and regulatory phase out of some of the most dangerous chemicals.

A slide show, 25 Stories from the Central Valley, by UC Santa Cruz graduate student Tracy Perkins, is part of a larger public art project that documents the daily lives of the people who live in the Central Valley, and shows first-hand what they are up against. It features women like Irma Medellin and Teresa DeAnda, who are working to make the Central Valley safer for residents and workers.

Irma Medellin has also been instrumental in working for stronger regulations regarding buffer zones around areas where pesticides are applied.

In addition to her own non-profit organization, El Quinto Sol, dedicated to ensuring the community has a voice in matters of health and environmental justice, Medellin was an organizer with the BioDrift Project- a joint effort by El Quinto Sol, Californians for Pesticide Reform, Commonweal, and Pesticide Action Network.

The project trains local residents to use a device called a Drift Catcher to monitor the pesticides in the air around their homes and workplaces and use the data to push for stronger regulation.

Over three years, residents of the Central Valley town of Lindsay collected data on airborne pesticides. Combined with urine tests of residents, the project determined that at least one of the pesticides drifting over their neighborhood was also in their bodies. More than 91% of those tested had above-average levels of breakdown products of the pesticide chlorpyrifos in their urine. The proof resulted in the creation of buffer zones around schools and residential areas.

Teresa DeAnda has lived across from heavily sprayed fields of grapes and then almonds in Earlimart, CA all of her life. “I’ve always been here. Taking it my whole life,” she said. Finally, she wasn’t going to take it anymore. Her work was instrumental in the passage of SB 391, the Pesticide Drift Exposure Response Act that was passed in 2004.

A pesticide cloud over Earlimart in 1999 inspired Teresa to began attending county meetings to learn more about pesticides and their health risks. But it was a series of pesticide accidents in 2002 in Arvin, and again October 3, 2003 in Weedpatch, and the following night in Lamont, that made Teresa an activist.

In the last two incidents, opposite sides of the same field were sprayed on consecutive nights with chloropicrin, a teargas-like chemical used during World War I. Residents living nearby had immediate reactions ranging from vomiting, to difficulty breathing. In the first incident, 24 residents were affected. Firefighters responding to 911 calls gave a cursory sniff of gas stoves and water heaters, saying they detected nothing. Residents were ignored when they told firefighters that the problem was pesticides from an adjacent field.

The next night, October 4, an apartment complex on the other side of the field in Lamont, housing over 100 residents, was enveloped in the same chemical. Terrified parents called 911 asking for help for sick children. They were told to stay in their homes and apartments and calm down. No help was sent. Finally a small caravan of residents left the complex, only to encounter a roadblock preventing them from leaving. One man, desperate with worry for his three sick daughters, simply drove around the roadblock to a nearby parking lot. Others followed and gathered in the parking lot to wait for medical help.

When emergency crews arrived, the people were quarantined on tarps on the ground for several hours with no food and little water. They were given one chance to go to the hospital, but those that weren’t in acute breathing distress declined, as most had no money or medical insurance. No other medical care was offered that night, though later, due to public pressure, local clinics offered help whether or not residents could pay.

Through her community work over the years, Teresa had developed a relationship with Senator Dean Florez. After she heard about the last two incidents, she called him to set up a hearing. She then organized the victims of the incidents to attend and testify.

Describing the day of the hearing as “the best day of my life,” she recounted how victims described their experiences in honest detail, many breaking down in tears.

The hearing led directly to the passage of the Pesticide Drift Exposure Response Act, SB 391, barely a year later, and the bill was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Act ensures that people who are exposed to pesticide drift receive immediate and proper treatment. It stipulates that people will be reimbursed for medical bills incurred from the exposure. It also requires the California Environmental Protection Agency to establish minimum standard protocols for pesticide application and to incorporate a pesticide drift component in their area plans.

“There has to be an awakening for everybody who buys fresh fruits and vegetables. When they are enjoying those grapes, or that apple, they have to think, “˜at whose expense was this grown? Who was made sick by the pesticides used to grow this crop?’,” said Teresa.

Learn more about pesticides and the specific pesticides found on your everyday produce. Check out Pesticide Action Network’s searchable database and mobile ap, What’s on my food? to find out what’s on your food.

HT: Erik Vance, Tracy Perkins

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: de Harris via Flickr

I’ve been watching the growing condemnation of BP from all sides of the political spectrum and it’s making me mad as hell!

Now, don’t get me wrong – BP is no friend of mine. Some days I can’t bear to read the news coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, let alone look at the heart-wrenching images of oil-coated wildlife. It’s about to get worse with Tropical Storm Bonnie likely to spread the oil and migratory birds starting to fly south for winter, many of them via the Gulf.

There is no doubt that BP’s behavior has been appalling. It was evidently lax in its safety standards, it repeatedly attempted to play down the amount of oil gushing from the well, some of the comments by senior executives have been downright thoughtless, and its eagerness to find new places to drill before it’s fixed this problem is nothing short of obscene.

But here’s the truth: BP is no better or worse in its environmental or ethical practices than any other big oil company. Right now, BP is being made a scape-goat and that suits all the other oil companies just fine.

Right-wing darling Sarah Palin of “drill baby, drill” fame has bashed BP as a “foreign company”. Meanwhile President Obama and other government officials insist on calling it British Petroleum, when the company’s official name is BP and has been for more than a decade. Last I checked Britain and the United States were allies and being based in Britain wasn’t a corporate crime. Anyway, BP is a multinational and 39 percent of it is owned by Americans, with six Americans on the board of directors. It’s a slick trick.

Then there’s the whole brouhaha over BP’s latest deal in Libya and whether BP is responsible for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. It’s a fact that the U.S. and Europe don’t see eye to eye over Libya – I’m not about to defend the regime, but public perception of Libya is a whole lot worse in the US than it is across the pond. I don’t think BP has a particularly moral stance vis-à-vis Libya, but then oil companies are not usually known for their moral stances, are they? The Libya affair pales into insignificance next to Shell’s crimes in the Niger Delta. Or should we call it Royal Dutch Shell? Nor is it as dangerous for the world as U.S.-based Exxon Mobil pumping millions of dollars into spurious climate denial research.

Now I don’t really care if people want to say bad things about BP. The public anger is more than justified. What I do care about is that demonizing BP makes it easier for the other oil giants to get away with their evil-doing. They don’t even need to throw their hands up and say “don’t blame us, it’s all BP’s fault,” because we’re doing it for them.

Already, the Obama Administration has been unable to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, after an appeals court judge branded the decision “arbitrary.” Arbitrary? Really? Does the judge truly think the decision was random or capricious? I would call it “sensible” myself. But then Obama did rather back himself into a corner by announcing an expansion to offshore oil drilling right before the BP disaster struck.

As difficult as it may be, we need to remember that Big Oil is the true enemy, not just BP. It’s the oil industry at large that is responsible for the mess in the Niger Delta, the oil pipeline explosion in China earlier last week, and the leaky oil tanker that ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in April.

Off-shore drilling is inherently risky. It’s a miracle of modern engineering and human ingenuity that we’re able to do it at all. And when things go wrong, we’re at the mercy of natural forces and there’s not a whole lot we can do. It’s lunacy to even consider doing it somewhere remote, cold and pristine like the Alaskan wilderness, even if the waters are shallower. I don’t care if it’s not BP at the rig – I don’t trust Shell any more.

Public support for offshore drilling has eroded since the BP oil disaster. No wonder, after seeing shocking evidence of just how badly things can go wrong. What’s astonishing is that it’s still supported by the majority of those polled. And there’s a good chance that allowing BP to take all the blame while other oil companies go scot-free, could mean this trend is reversed and public support for offshore drilling once again continues to rise.

We need to end off-shore drilling for all oil companies, not just point fingers at BP. And if we don’t want to be dependent on foreign oil, well then that seems a good reason to wean ourselves off it altogether. How about we build windmills, invest in electric cars, move to sustainable farming methods and ditch the plastic addiction? Can we do it? Yes, we can!

Image: Fibonacci Blue

A decade ago, I spent a year living in Sweden. Despite what mass media might have you believe, the country is in fact more than just bombshell blonds and smorgasbords. While there, I befriended several Iranians, their families having fled during the reign of the Shah and taken refuge in Scandinavia. I was quickly taken in as an extra daughter by these hospitable and warm families, the mothers ready to please and ensure that I was taken care of. I grew to love Persian rice pilaf and the masses of yogurt and dill ever present at meals.

This was several years before words like “axis of evil” and “uranium” became associated with the country, so for me, when someone mentions Iran I immediately envision large family parties with rhythmic Persian dance music, tables overflowing with delicious food, and older Iranian women explaining to me just who had made what and which family recipe was used. To me, Iran means warmth, generosity and, above all, a culinary tradition that deserves respect; a good reminder that food really can bridge cultural gaps.

In the foodie world we’ve seen this happen with places like Thailand and India, countries known for their culinary traditions that have become almost as deeply ingrained in American food culture as hamburgers and hot dogs. Although I don’t have any hard statistics on the link between enjoying food from a certain country and our relations toward it, it’s logical to assume the more we love the food from a certain place, the more we’re inclined to learn about it and discover the country’s culture – and we all know that cultural understanding is a key component in promoting a more peaceful world.

There are some new tastes on the block trying to do just that, and they’re from places you might only have seen referenced in news headlines. Conflict Kitchen, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is making a name for itself by serving up takeout food only from countries that the United States is in conflict with. North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan; these might be household names when it comes to the nightly news, but with a focus on their culinary prowess, more emphasis is being put on the cultural forces of the country and less on their current standing in global affairs.

The food served at Conflict Kitchen will rotate every four months to feature another country. The takeout storefront is currently decked out in a colorful Iranian exterior and serves up the country’s traditional kubideh in freshly baked barbari bread with onion, mint, and basil. Beyond providing delicious and unique food, the ultimate goal is to encourage discussion. According to the website, “Each Conflict Kitchen iteration will be augmented by events, performances, and discussion about the the culture, politics, and issues at stake with each county we focus on.”

How the food is served is also a key component in educating the general public on cultural issues. “Developed in collaboration with members of the Pittsburgh Iranian community, the sandwich is packaged in a custom-designed wrapper that includes interviews with Iranians both in Pittsburgh and Iran on subjects ranging from Iranian food and poetry to the current political turmoil.”

Recently, the grant-funded Conflict Kitchen held a simultaneously meal between Pittsburgh and Teheran, where dinners in both cities were joined together by Skype. Free and open to the public, this is an excellent example of how food can bring people, who normally are worlds apart, together and inspire long lasting conversations that tackle difficult questions like tradition and culture and in turn change our perceptions.

You can keep up with the Conflict Kitchen and what food they’ll be featuring next on their website.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Images: Conflict Kitchen