Thursday, August 21, 2008

50 years of... peace?


It's the anniversary of the peace sign! It was created by British artist Gerald Holtom for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958, and paraded around in a London peace march, and then on everything else since. Says its creator:
"I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it."
Isn't that beautiful? Cut to 50 years later: we know the planet is messed up, we want to spread love and peace, and that's why we express our deep emotions with 4.8 carats of round-cut diamonds set into platinum, in the form of the Tiffany pendant for $6,650 NZD! Hmmmm... now something about that just ain't right. Blood Diamond, anyone?? Why not throw in a gold wedding ring produced with environmentally unsound practices - nothing says love like water pollution and slave labour!

This is exactly the kind of consumerist nonsense that I have come to expect from humans today. Other examples include: really flash yoga gear (to make the other people in your yoga class jealous while you reach a Zen state and look HOT and RICH all at the same time!) and antioxidant-rich organically grown acai berries from the Brazilian rainforest, flown directly to you, the consumer for the benefit of your valuable self. (Hypocritical, much?)

Is it a skirt? Is it a flower?

I'm not gonna be one of those bloggers who says boring things like "Sorry I have not blogged much lately, blah blah blah". People are probably glad that I've shut the hell up for a month. There are 50 million other blogs on the Internets, read something else! A selection of cool blogs and websites is on your right there. Meanwhile, look at this lovely picture of a skirt-flower. Thanks, Anyways.