Oooh teh scandalous

Alright, I'm amused. The publicity agents for Equinox, an upmarket chain of gyms, email over, breathlessly, as follows:

It's been politics, politics, and more politics lately (with a little NY Giants thrown in) [Ed. note: Yes, that's what we do], so I thought you and your readers might be interested in a very different type of NY event: Equinox's scandalous - almost pornographic - nuns ad is coming to the city this week for 3 days only.

Have you seen the controversial print yet? It features a group of sexy nuns sketching a nude male model in a figure drawing class, a la Michelangelo's David. Some people are in an uproar - I personally think the whole thing amusing (but hey, I'm a liberal New Yorker)

Now, speaking merely for myself, I'm a big believer in the idea that the world needs more sculpted, naked flesh adorning the public space. What's amusing to me is that what is obviously, transparently, a ploy to garner free media - and what better way is there to do that than mixing religion and sex? - has seemingly aroused the ire of the usual suspects.

Memo to Bill Donohue: The reason people run campaigns like this is precisely to cause the reaction you infallibly deliver.

Memo to advertisers: Want press? Hire some models, dress them in ecclesiastical garb and leave one of them naked - no nipples or genitalia, please, since you're not nearly daring enough to risk condemnation from the Four As. Proceed to write steamy press release congratulating yourself on being all edgy, daring and shit, while all the prudes - in New York City, sure, whatever - supposedly froth. Bingo, get press.


Michael Bouldin's picture

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Words to live by

Intellectual Property Rights block technology transfer and TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) promote monopolies on seeds and medicines and piracy of Third World biodiversity and indigenous knowledge.

That is why we had to fight WR Grace and USDA to revoke the Neem Patent, we had to fight Ricetec to prevent them claiming our basmati as their invention. And we have successfully fought

The rules of The World Trade Organization were designed to impoverish poor people and poor countries, transform their biodiversity and water commons into corporate property so that seed multi-national corporations like Monsanto could sell us our seeds for $1 tr. per year and water giants like Suez and Bechtel could sell us our water for another trillion. And the free trade rules of agriculture are robbing Indian peasants of $1 trillion per year through falling prices because of $400 billion subsidies in rich countries distorting trade by distorting prices.

This is not just a recipe for poverty, it is a recipe for genocide. In the free trade world that Bhagwati upholds, peasants sell kidneys to pay debt for poisons, displaced rural women sell their bodies to feed their children, hospitals become centers of organ theft, and India which sold the finest fabrics and tastiest spices to the world becomes the dumping ground for the toxic wste of 9/11 and the exploded and unexploded shells from the war in Afganistan and Iraq.

Free trade is becoming a mechanism to take our wealth, our biodiversity, our minerals, our brains and give us trash and toxic in exchange. It is an exchange of "bads" for "goods". This is not comparative advantage, it is loot. Which is why we say, "Our World is not for sale".


— Vandana Shiva, ecofeminist activist
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