Please Happy

Two things:

1. I am a vegetarian.
2. My favorite food used to be bacon.

I can understand the love for bacon, the familial gatherings around burgers, the comfort of pork chops at Granny’s house.

But.

Well, for one, industrial farming is not good for you (stuff they inject into the animals, meat mixed together from different farms, meat cleaned with ammonia), not good for workers (bad conditions, poisonous substances) and obviously not good for the cooped up, injected animals.

But, that’s not the point of this story. The point is the cute and creepy art painted on the outside of a pork packing plant in Vernon (near South Central L.A.).

I made an audio story about it last semester – one of my first radio pieces ever  – that was recently posted on Southern California NPR station KPCC.

Photos by me and Jake de Grazia.

Profile of the Farmer John pork packing plant in Vernon, Calif. from 89.3 KPCC on Vimeo.

Posted this pic earlier this morning. Then, it disappeared. Conspiracy?

Anyway, snapped this with my favorite camera (iPhone) the other day at a local café.

For more thoughts on our culture of consumers, please see Michael Maniates. He blew my mind when I read his work last semester.

Next time, I’ll get the flag lit up.

I once wrote about Under Armour’s atrocious packaging for its trendy undies. I naively thought that a company that seemed to care would use recyclable packaging.

Tonight, on my homemaking rampage, I bought a bunch of GE’s Energy Smart “cool natural light” Energy Star approved light bulbs. An environmental bulb’s packaging would be recyclable, right?

Nope.

But, I’m putting it in the recycling bin anyway. Or letting the cats play with it until it’s in shreds. Which is almost as good as melting it down and making it into hot jackets.

Next time, I’ll buy the ones in cardboard, I guess. But, at Vons, those mini boxes only contained broken bulbs that clinked and jingled.

We can do better than this.

In the spirit of this week’s news, here’s Wayne.

While I often protest the hip-ifying of films, photographers, revolutionary figures, I have nothing but praise for Urban Outfitters and their aptly graphic display of these classics. Had I owned this version of the Scarlet Letter in 10th grade, perhaps I would have been more excited by the required reading. Regarding books’ covers, I say, do whatever gets kids excited.

The Trojan Knights, self-assigned guardians of school mascot Tommy Trojan, keep a vigil to protect the warrior statue from any hooligans that could deface him before the big football game Saturday against UCLA. The Knights, a “brotherhood” that keeps spirit and tradition alive at USC, have set up mattresses and chairs, and covered the statue helmet to boot, in order to protect him 24/7 in the days leading up to the game. Snapped this with the iPhone before class this morning. May interview the boys later. Fight on (as they say)!