Chambray with Black Stripes?

Or Chambray with White Stripes?

dress: Guess, shirt: gift, bag: Deux Lux, shoes: Target, shades: Target

50 Days of Egbert

I was planning to introduce Egbert to the world on Easter Sunday.
He was shy, unfortunately.

However, as there are 50 days of Easter, I think it is high time I introduce you all.

Egbert was born last week, when I set the kitchen timer and proceeded to leave the house, returning a mere 15 minutes after the timer kindly requested... Oops.

Buttoned Up

Shirt: Ralph Lauren, Tank: Express, Skirt: Tommy Hilfiger, Shoes: Wanted

Oxford Comma, 4.0

Cartwheels

It's no secret that college requires a lot of carrying things.
Toward the end of the semester, fashionable college book bags start to look like this:

Oatmeal Easter Cookies

Color Knocking

Because color blocking is apparently all the rage and I'm constantly trying to style these orange shorts from Banana Republic without looking like a tangerine,
I decided to dabble in some Pre-Easter color blocking, with a dash of Elliott Smith for balance.

Black Friday

When I was younger, I always confused Black Friday with Good Friday.

Though it seems like the names should be switched,

it reminds us on even the blackest of days,

there is beauty, there is love, and there is good.

Our grape vines- and future grapes- because it is also Earth Day

Cotton Cacti

This dress helps me remember it's still Spring,
even though lately it feels just like Summer.

Thanks, dress!

Golden Girl

Good morning, Sunshine!

I am a proud scarf-belter thanks to Academichic, 

and this outfit will ensure ultimate library practicality.

Which is to say,

it's a little boring.

Sorry!

If you need me, I'll be in a study cubicle,

pretending finals aren't approaching- I just do this for fun!

Midi of the road and new beginnings.

Today is my first attempt at an outfit post.

I didn't realize my camera was so inept at taking pictures without human assistance,
so my artful Anthro staging just ended up looking like... this.

The shot is actually really cool looking, sans human,
but I am excited and nervous to get started, so,
I will enlist help tomorrow, and learn from my mistakes.

Good night!

Blue me away!

I don't normally like to have my fingernails painted.

I get an uncomfortable feeling that my hands look like candle sticks.

However,

I don't like to take no for an answer, so I keep trying.

...and investing in professional quality polish remover.

This is my first experiment with a non-traditional polish color, so I went with Sally Hansen's "Blue Me Away!". I didn't want to invest in something I might hate, and I didn't want to have weird streaks from an unknown brand. So, there! 

It truly blew me away- I actually kind of like it!

Furrious! Absolutely Furrious!

When the weekend comes around, I am generally grumpy and beyond ready for a break, so we try to get away to Out of Africa as much as possible, and utilize our yearly passes that come highly recommended for anyone remotely near the park. It's the birthday gift that keeps giving.

They are famous for Tiger Splash, but I prefer the bear show (Saturday only) because they have so much personality, it's easy to forget that they could kill you.

Safari:

New addition to the Safari Tour- Water Buffalo!

Wait, wrong one.

Water buffalo:

Baby water buffalo! (water calves?)

These water buffalo are a relatively new addition to the park from a zoo in Arkansas. According to our guide, they wouldn't eat anything when they came to the park, so they called the zoo and asked what they used to eat. The zoo was next door to a Twinkie factory, and the factory workers thought it was hilarious to feed the water buffalo out-dated Twinkies. They finally became hungry enough to eat, after a few months and losing a considerable amount of weight. They were not available for comment, and refused to face the vehicle... they're cooler than me.

Waves of Grain: Illegal Immigration and Food Sovereignty

This is a much-reduced essay I wrote for school. I would not have considered posting it had it not been for the various food-aid commercials I kept seeing on Hulu. I have donated in the past, as I am sure many (if not all) of you have. After reading Enrique's Journey, we were encouraged to research the issues presented. Though it was not abjectly seen as an issue, hunger seemed the strongest undercurrent. I want to help. Many want to help. We must be informed, however, about how to help, and how not to help.

The industrialization and subsidization of the United States Farming Industry has contributed to unrest in the markets of developing countries, thus increasing illegal immigration to the United States and preventing developing countries from attaining food sovereignty. American subsidies ensure that international farmers do not make money unless their governments are able to compete with more subsidization's. American Agribusiness holds an additional advantage by exploiting desperate workers with rock-bottom wages that cannot be matched by their developing country counter-parts, thus perpetuating the cycle of third-world hunger and the detrimental food-aid that comes along with it. 

Farmers in developing countries cannot compete economically with the deadly combination of the government funded subsidization of crops and rock-bottom immigrant labor wages of more firmly established countries. According to Per Pinstrup-Andersen  in “Hunger Report 2005: Strengthening Rural Communities”,“when farmers do not make money, neither does anybody else in rural communities” (86). This issue is sustaining American Agribusiness at the expense of developing countries. Farmers who cannot prosper in a developing country immigrate to find work if given the opportunity. When workers who flee to America find that things do not go as planned, due to poverty and lack of safety-unions, illegal immigrants end up on some form of welfare. In an article published by University of California Davis entitled “Farm Workers and Immigration”, it is said that “[f]arm workers are one of only three US occupations with one million or more workers in which the majority of workers are immigrants...a typical California farm worker earns about $5 hourly for about 1,000 hours of work, for $5,000 in annual farm earnings” (Workers). They simply do not have the funds to support themselves as hoped, at home or abroad. This flawed system ensures that “[w]hether the consumer or the taxpayer pays, the consequences for poor countries and poor people within are severe. They depend directly or indirectly on agriculture” (88). This dependency on agriculture provides motivation for many illegal immigrants. They cannot find jobs (or food) at home, and believe that the answer lies in coming to the United States, no matter what it takes.

By attaining a level of food sovereignty, developing countries could significantly decrease the need of valuable workers to leave their homes for sub-par living conditions in the United States that only strengthens the economic power of the very companies that left them destitute in their homeland. Food sovereignty, also known as La Via Campesina, is a movement that began as an “international peasant’s voice” who, according to their website, “defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity [and] strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature” (Campesina).  This sustainable agriculture would radically change the living conditions of developing countries. Food sovereignty is possible, despite claims that world hunger cannot be fixed, due to population increases.

Food-aid is not the answer. Peter Rosset, for the NACLA article “Food Sovereignty in Latin America: Confronting the 'New' Crisis”, states that food aid is known to “harm local farm economies. Cheap, subsidized, or free U.S. grains undercut the prices of locally produced food, driving small farmers out of business and into cities”(Rosset). This food aid that is thought by those donating at the individual level to be lifesaving sustenance is actually causing the very evil that they are wishing to prevent. The marketing has been misleading. While it is natural to desire helping fellow-man, we cannot be mislead into believing that these corporations have humanitarian goals. Rosset explains that “[f]ood aid sales generate the same profits for the big U.S. grain companies as does any other commercial export. The only difference is that the U.S. government immediately pays the bill... The recipient countries, meanwhile, come to depend on these foreign food supplies. When the aid stops, governments are pressured to keep importing the commodities on commercial terms” (Rosset). One can see how this vicious cycle of importing food would harm the local economy and directly impact the ability of a low-income family in a low-income nation to purchase food at higher premiums.

Food sovereignty is not in the best interest of certain corporations, but it is in the best interest of the poorest of the poor. Through small-scale, local farming, families such as Enrique’s could have had nourishment to fall back on, instead of being threatened by the thought of farming the landfills for barely recognizable scraps of food. Movements such as La Via Campesina are paving the way by gaining audiences at the FAO and the UN Human Rights Council (Campesina). They are making these issues known. Truly humanitarian aims are difficult to come by, but being able to sleep well at night is hardly the greatest benefit of assisting countries such as Honduras in attaining food sovereignty. By reclaiming the basic ability to provide adequate nutrition for their peoples, developing countries would be able to finally make some headway and develop into viable world-powers capable of competing in a free market system, rather than being crushed in the wake of development. Great strides could be made scientifically, with more minds being trained into their fullest potential. Technology would advance in many sectors. Illegal immigration could become a thing of the past. Borders would be safe and attention could be focused on other matters, with waves of grain, from sea to shining sea.

Peace,
C.