After Warren Kanders Resignation From Whitney, Museum Boards Ponder Their Futures

After Warren Kanders Resignation From Whitney, Museum Boards Ponder Their Futures

Last week ended on a positive note for protesters and artists committed to forcing the resignation of Warren B. Kanders as vice chair of the board of New York’s Whitney Museum.

Protesters were adamant that his ownership of Safariland, a defense-manufacturing company that supplied state-of-the-art tear gas to quell protesters everywhere in the world disqualified him as any kind of representative of artists opposed to global militarization. Evidence mounted that Kanders’ stake in Sierra Bullets,linked him directly to high-velocity ammunition allegedly used by Israeli soldiers in Gaza against Palestinian civilian protesters.

With Kanders out at the Whitney and no specified game plan on how to move forward, all parties involved from artists to activists, patrons and buyers of art are asking what happens next. ARTnews writes that the Kanders’ resignation is a sign “of the shifting balance between museum boards and their critics, with protesters believing that they have won the day.

Don’t overthink the situation, say many of the critics, who have generally taken a stand against defense contractors and fortunes made from armaments worldwide. The Sackler family also has been the target of protests as they are tied deeply — if not exclusively — as profiteers tied to America’s epidemic drug crisis launched by OxyContin.

Teen Vogue Introduces 9 Teen Climate Activists Fighting For The Planet's Future

No one takes the reality of climate change more seriously than members of Generation Z, as climate change and the Green New Deal, advanced by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , take center stage in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary.

Days after her election to the House, then Congresswoman-elect Ocasio-Cortez joined 150 youth activists associated the Sunrise movement in a sit-in at then House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's Capitol Hill office, where the group called for congressional action on climate change.

Teen Vogue introduces us to 9 Teen Climate Activists Fighting for the Future of the Planet. Heading the list is Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 16. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Thunberg will be speaking at the UN Climate Summit in New York in September. She is among the 15 Forces for Change featured in the September 2019 issue of British Vogue.

Other climate activists profiled by Teen Vogue include: Katie Eder, 19 executive director of Future Coalition; Jamie Margolin, 17 cofounder and co-executive director of Zero Hour; Nadia Nazar, 17 Cofounder, co-executive, and art director of Zero Hour; Isra Hirsi, 16 cofounder and co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike; Alexandria Villasenor, 14 founder of Earth Uprising; Haven Coleman, 13 cofounder and co-executive director the U.S. Youth Climate Strike; Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, 19 youth director of Earth Guardians and author of the book We Rise; and Jayden Foytlin, 15 member of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 class of 2018.

CNN will host a climate change debate in New York on September 4 for candidates qualifying for the September Democratic debates. Presently, only eight candidates meet that criteria: former Vice President Joe Biden; New Jersey Senator Cory Booker; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; California Senator Kamala Harris; Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar; former Representative Beto O’Rourke; Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders; and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

MSNBC will host a two-day event in Washington, DC on September 19 and 20. All presidential candidates are invited from both parties.

How the Conservative Right Hijacks Religion and Why Democrats Must Challenge Them

How the Conservative Right Hijacks Religion and Why Democrats Must Challenge Them

Democrats are beginning to challenge the Republican grip on the language of religion and faith in the United States. Democrat Sen. Chris Coons, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, recently wrote an essay for The Atlantic, “Democrats Need to Talk About Their Faith.”

This is a bold and necessary move. However, it may come up against scientific and progressive resistance. This resistance is based on the claim that science and religion, or religion and progressive politics, are incompatible.

Scorn for religion can be seen both among some learned atheists or in popular culture. Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins dismissively discusses religion in The God Delusion; comedian, political commentator and talk show host Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous also took a smug and barbed approach and has faced criticisms of liberal Islamophobia.

Bauhaus-Inspired Nike Air Max 270 Sneakers Inspired Toilet Paper Magazine Posters

Bauhaus-Inspired Nike Air Max 270 Sneakers Inspired Toilet Paper Magazine Posters

Nike’s first lifestyle Air Max marries the softest, smoothest and resilient foam, Nike React before landing on design studio inspo boards paying tribute to art movements over the last 100+ years. First up is the Air Max 270 React paying tribute to the Bauhaus, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

How Smells Reconnect Us To Nature: Breathing Well In Urban Spaces

How Smells Reconnect Us To Nature: Breathing Well In Urban Spaces

We live in a society focused on vision. The technology, the media, the article you are reading, all of these things are mostly perceived and analyzed through our eyes. But it is to our five senses that we owe most of our daily experiences, without always always being aware of it ...

The experience of nature is a perfect example. Our relationship with the natural environment indeed responds to a complex process involving our organs from head to toe: we enjoy a forest walk on a spring morning for the bright colors and the harsh light that runs through the foliage; for the songs of birds, for the cool wind that caresses our skin.

If this moment gives us well-being, it is the fact of multiple sensory stimuli which, by mingling, define together the same experience. Thus the experience of nature is in essence a multisensory experience. But if we enjoy a walk in the forest on a spring morning, it is also for the smells that it exhales  : here the resinous perfume of a pine, there that of the humus or the hyacinths of the woods.

How Fireflies Glow -- And What Signals They're Sending

How Fireflies Glow -- And What Signals They're Sending

You might not really be sure you saw what you think you saw when the first one shows up. But you stare in the direction of the flicker of light and there it is again – the first firefly of the evening. If you are in good firefly habitat, soon there are dozens, or even hundreds, of the insects flying about, flashing their mysterious signals.

Fireflies – alternatively known as lightning bugs in much of the United States – are neither flies nor bugs. They’re soft-winged beetles, related to click beetles and others. The most dramatic aspect of their biology is that they can produce light; this ability in a living organism, called bioluminescence, is relatively rare.

I’m an entomologist who does research on, and teaches about, the ecology and biology of insects. Recently, I’ve been trying to understand the diversity and ecology of fireflies in my home state of North Carolina. Fireflies are found widely across North America, including many places in the west, but they are most abundant and diverse in the eastern half of the continent, from Florida to southern Canada.

Bernie Sanders Campaign Should Stop The White Women's Privilege Lectures

Bernie Sanders Campaign Should Stop The White Women's Privilege Lectures

Last February Jennifer Wright addressed Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders’ problem with women, writing Bernie Sanders’ Sexism Problem for Harper’s Bazaar.

“We have got to look at candidates, you know, not by the color of their skin, not by their sexual orientation or their gender and not by their age. I mean, I think we have got to try to move us toward a non-discriminatory society which looks at people based on their abilities, based on what they stand for.” Vermont Public Radio, Feb. 2019

Many women and people of color view that statement as a reaffirmation of the “let white men rule, we’re better at it” theory of political governance. Wright perfects her roast of Sanders, and I encourage to read her piece, while I pull out a few highlights that still simmer in my conscious as a super active person in the Hillary Clinton campaign.

There was a bit of poetic justice when women who worked for Bernie in his 2016 primary campaign came forward to discuss how they were paid less and experienced sexual harassment. You see, with rare exceptions — finally hiring Symone Sanders who served as his national press secretary until late June 2016 — Bernie couldn’t really find many good women of any skin color to hire at a high level. His campaign was run by white men — a feature that he has fixed in his current 2020 run for the Democratic nomination.

Still, when women working in the field and as organizers complained about both wages and fending off sexual advances from male staffers, Bernie grabbed his mop of white hair and defended his inaction saying initially “I was a little bit busy running around the country”. After all, Bernie Sanders said that “women’s issues were a distraction” and Planned Parenthood — who is getting the crap kicked out of them by the Trump administration — is “the establishment”.

Artist Dewey Crumpler Opposes Destroying 'Life of Washington' Mural For Very Good Reasons

Artist Dewey Crumpler Opposes Destroying 'Life of Washington' Mural For Very Good Reasons

The firestorm over destroying the California New Deal-era George Washington Mural by Victor Arnautoff has hit Politico today. I've shared 2-3 earlier updates on AOC. For a refresher, Politico summarized the situation:

"The San Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously last month to paint over all 13 panels of the 1600 sq. ft. mural “Life of Washington,’’ a historic work commissioned during the New Deal that depicts George Washington as a slave owner. The move came after several vocal protesters demanded the move at a public meeting, saying their children were “traumatized” by depictions of the nation’s first president standing over the images of dead Native Americans."

Well, California Dems are so angry at the San Francisco school board that they sent out an emergency email alert seeking support for an effort to back a voter’s ballot measure to save the murals.

Dubbed the Coalition to Protect Public Art, the initiative aims to protect this art, “and perhaps other New Deal art in San Francisco’’ which may also be targeted.

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D) Introduces Bill To Standardize Health Care Screenings At US Border

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D) Introduces Bill To Standardize Health Care Screenings At US Border

In the cage match between Trump and the Squad, it's easy to miss enlightened comments about the Mexico border migrant crisis like the one Democratic Congresswoman Lauren Underwood just delivered on 'Morning Joe'.

Congresswoman Underwood introduced The U.S. Border Patrol Medical Screening and Standards Act, which would standardized processes and training to ensure consistent medical screenings for migrants in US custody at the Mexico border, according to a news release.

"We progressive women aren't going anywhere," was her final statement. Underwood never embraced all of the Squad's positions or style; not did she try to separate herself from them. But as a Democratic woman of color who defeated a Republican in Illinois’s 14th congressional district in 2018, she's in that camp derided by our most left-wing voices. As if 'she' is the problem in executing the Democratic agenda and not Republicans!

Diet Prada Takes Victoria's Secret To Task For Ripping Off Fleur du Mal Lingerie

In May 2019, Fast Company profiled the highly-influential Diet Prada’s work calling out copycat fashion designers and championing new ones. Diet Prada cofounders Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler are among Fast Company’s Most Creative People of 2019.

Victoria’s Secret can’t seem to stay out of the news. Not only has VS landed on Diet Prada’s front page Instagram for knocking off their former design director, but the post gave Diet Prada the opportunity to slice a bit of VS flesh over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

First, the VS knockoff of Fleur du Mal’s “appliquéd Lily bras and panties, dupes of which unsurprisingly showed up for sale on VS’ website and Instagram two days ago (at half the price),” writes Diet Prada. The Columbus, Ohio-based lingerie company placed a $12,656 web order from Fleur du Mal online. As a former design and fashion director head at VS,

I agree that brand knocked off Fleur du Mal. In fact, with a knock off that literal, who needs a design staff?

I agree that brand knocked off Fleur du Mal. In fact, with a knock off that literal, who needs a design staff?

Having been the VS Design Director from 2008-2011. Jennifer Zuccarini, Fleur du Mal’s founder, who previously co-founded the lingerie brand Kiki de Montparnasse in 2005, perhaps wondered what was happening with an order that size. I’m assuming that multiples were ordered — perhaps even enough for a test in a store or two.

Not only does Victoria’s Secret not need more bad publicity of any kind right now, but Diet Prada took the opportunity to discuss the Victoria’s Secret - Jeffrey Epstein connection.

But their troubles don’t stop there (The Fleur du Mal accusation). The recently exposed ties between L Brands’ CEO Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein Epstein, sent stock shares of VS’ parent company tumbling to the lowest they’ve been in nearly a decade. Epstein, a close friend and former financial advisor to Wexner, has of course been making headlines after being indicted on child sex trafficking charges. The day of his arrest last weekend, a trove of naked photos of underage girls was uncovered in his Upper East Side mansion, a home that was formerly owned by Wexner and reportedly transferred over to Epstein for $1. Hella shady and creepy, if we’ve ever seen it. Supermodels, it might be time to really rethink your contracts with Victoria’s Secret. Here’s to L Brands’ shares and VS’ profits tumbling even deeper lol.

I covered the latest Victoria’s Secret Epstein problems on July 12 as well. It’s difficult to process all the negative publicity VS has gotten in the last year. My in-depth comments were attached to the newest VS ad campaign. I just checked one VS Angel’s Instagram and she still hasn’t posted her campaign shots. She’s been out of the country but I say it’s no accident. On the 12th, two of the five models didn’t post the new campaign.

Artists Activism Escalates in Full Throttle Stance Against Whitney Vice Chair Warren Kanders

Artists Activism Escalates in Full Throttle Stance Against Whitney Vice Chair Warren Kanders

Eight artists have now withdrawn from the Whitney Biennial over companies linked to Whitney Museum vice chairman Warren Kanders. New evidence this week links Sierra Bullets — a weapons manufacturer partially owned by Kanders -- to violence on the Israeli-Palestinian border in Gaza, reports Hyperallergic.

Safariland, a Jacksonville, Florida–based defense manufacturing company that produces triple chasers, is run by Warren Kanders. Hyperallergic has been active in detailing instances of Safariland products being used in politically fractious situations all over the globe, including the current border conflict running along America’s southern border with Mexico. Safariland specializes in “professional and protective equipment focused on the law enforcement, public safety, military, and recreational markets.”

In 2018, Forbes covered Kanders in a story Meet The Safariland Multimillionaire Getting Rich Off Tear Gas and More in the Defense Industry. Kanders’ involvement in producing tear gas, the chemical weapon of crowd control, is the most important focus on controversy between Kanders and activists worldwide. Kanders describes his company’s offerings as benign, rejecting activism against him personally and Swaziland’s tear gas production. “Whether it’s under Obama—he was fond of using these products very frequently—or under Bush or Clinton or whomever, we are there to make nonlethal products and to provide those products to friends of our government through very prescribed channels,” Kanders told Forbes.

The newest withdrawals from the biennial include the University of London-based research group Forensic Architecture , and their Whitney Biennial submission “Triple-Chaser” (2019). Now Forensic Architecture believes that they MAY — or its highly-likely — have found an unexploded open-tip bullet in the sand in Gaza.

In this link, Forensic Architecture details their investigation into the facts behind “Triple Chaser”, which includes events on the Tijuana-San Diego border.

Greenville, NC Trump Voters Brand Me A Socialist; As Workers They Loved My Money In The 80s

Greenville, NC Trump Voters Brand Me A Socialist; As Workers They Loved My Money In The 80s

Greenville Wasn’t Always Prosperous

Unlike most progressives, I've been to Greenville, NC. In fact, I've been there at least 25 times. As a small business owner, I pumped a minimum of $25 million into the Greenville, NC manuf economy.

Older Trump supporters in Greenville can brand me as an elite socialist, but I'll bet large numbers of these same Trump voters were happy to have my $$$ support back in the 80s.

The behavior I witnessed by Trump supporters in Greenville this week was horrifying and unAmerican from my perspective. This Politico article says Trump supporters wanted to go much further in Greenville with their chants. See their t-shirts in this Politico article.

All I can tell you, Greenville, is that this capitalist (tomatoes fly stage left from the Bernie crowd) stood with you when Greenville wasn't so prosperous. There was no BMW plant in those days. I could have taken my business off-shore, but did not. My principles dictated that I pay higher prices and support American workers.

Forest Elephants Are Our Allies in the Fight Against Climate Change, Say Researchers

Forest Elephants Are Our Allies in the Fight Against Climate Change, Say Researchers

Forest elephant extinction would exacerbate climate change. That’s according to a new study in Nature Geoscience which links feeding by elephants with an increase in the amount of carbon that forests are able to store.

The bad news is that African forest elephants – smaller and more vulnerable relatives of the better known African bush elephant – are fast going extinct. If we allow their ongoing extermination to continue, we will be also worsening climate change. The good news is that if we protect and conserve these elephants, we will simultaneously fight climate change.

Stella McCartney's 'All Together Now' Collections Honor Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' Mindset

Stella McCartney's 'All Together Now' Collections Honor Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' Mindset

Stella McCartney is on a genius blitz these days and none of us can keep up with her. At the end of June Stella launched a celebration of her new ‘All Together Now’ collection, inspired by the iconic 1968 Beatles film. A collection of Stella luvs joined hands at the Electric Cinema in London’s Notting Hill to watch the film together.

“The beauty of the lyrics blows me away,” McCartney said in a statement. “I found that I was removing myself from the fact that it was family, and just finding myself as a fashion designer watching a piece of material that was massively and emotionally effective to me.”

Digitally remastered for its 50th anniversary last year, Yellow Submarine is a psychedelic adventure through a colorful world that brings people together with love and music, sending a message of togetherness that is as important in today’s political climate as it was when it was originally released. Stella’s personal connection to the film’s legacy with her father Paul McCartney inspired her to celebrate this message through the collection and its upcoming campaign, spreading this statement of unity to a modern audience and encouraging them to be agents for change.

LVMH Takes Minority Position In Stella McCartney | Makes Stella Sustainability Adviser To Arnault

Stella McCartney is making front page news with the announcement that the designer, who abandoned her relationship with Kerring in 2018, has now joined forces with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group.

McCartney will remain in her role as her brand’s creative director and also as majority stockholder in the Stella McCartney business. Her additional responsibilities include becoming a special adviser to Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s chairman, and also to the LVMH board, on the topic of sustainability.

The fashion industry has an enormously negative and earth-harming footprint on the environment, and no one in fashion world is better prepared to fill this role of LVMH adviser on sustainability than Stella McCartney.

The addition of Stella McCartney’s voice and brand to the LVMH creative and leadership stable underscores the company’s commitment to gender equity. Since 2017, LVMH has named Maria Grazia Chiuri to head Dior and Claire Waight Keller to lead Givenchy. Arnaut has taken a minority position in the also sustainability-focused Gabriela Hearst, while creating a blockbuster disruption of the entire luxury industry with the creation of a new fashion house Fenty, created with Rihanna.

In talking about her new partnership, Stella McCartney said that since ending her partnership with LVMH rival Kerring, she had been pursued by many potential partners and investors wanting to help expand her business.

In the end, McCartney made a seemingly wise decision, one that gives her an opportunity to have heavy influence on issues that matter to her a great deal, while tapping into funding and a professional contacts base that will give her enormous flexibility. The importance of Stella’s access to Arnault and the LVMH board of directors can’t be understated.

“The chance to realize and accelerate the full potential of the brand alongside Mr. Arnault and as part of the LVMH family, while still holding the majority ownership in the business, was an opportunity that hugely excited me,” she said.

Is Tennis Champ Naomi Osaka A 'Baby-Faced Assasin'? Allure August 2019 Skims the Surface

Is Tennis Champ Naomi Osaka A 'Baby-Faced Assasin'? Allure August 2019 Skims the Surface

Abdul Sillah is hardly a household name in the sports world. At a time when Donald Trump is telling people of color to go back where they came from, it’s noteworthy that Sillah arrived in the United States from Sierra Leone.

AOC discovered Sillah reading Allure Magazine’s August 2019 cover story featuring rising tennis star Naomi Osaka. Lensed for Allure by Wai Lin Tse, Naomi Osaka didn’t know that she would be eliminated at July 2019 Wimbledon in her first round, losing to Yulia Putlintseva.

Unlike Serena Williams, whose powerful muscles dominate the pages of fashion shoots, Osaka’s do not. Sillah has trained both women, giving him a comparative lens into the superb two athletes.

Reflections on Minnesota + The Somali Community, As Trump Tells The Quartet To Leave America

Nawal Noor was named one of 24 Bush Foundation fellows this year. She plans to expand her business and pursue national leadership opportunities.

I just popped into the Minneapolis Tribune to get a read on their Quartet reporting -- and Trump's racist rants. It's factual and neutral w/o commentary.

I'll take the opportunity to share a totally separate article about another Somali-American citizen in the Twin Cities: Nawal Noor.

She is the rare woman in construction at the developer level. And definitely the rare woman of color. Noor is hiring more immigrants and ex-offenders.

Minnesota is my original home, and Minneapolis the place of my closest, loved very much relatives. I was not fortunate enough to grow up there.

This story of Nawal Noor is Minnesota at its best, with the Twin Cities welcoming countless Somali immigrants and surely standing by them in these difficult times -- in principles of free speech and democracy. Racism is racism, and Minnesotans know it when they see it.

Is Minnesota a perfectly just place? Or course not. We all remember the horrible death of Philando Castile and the not guilty verdict against the officer who killed him.

Minnesota voters will decide how to handle all these controversies and how they make their state better or worse. But I know for certain that in Minneapolis, these days are very painful on every front. They have been for months now. And Minneapolis-St. Paul in particular, will treat Trump, his racism, Ilhan Omar, and the impact of all this conflict on their Somali and Jewish communities -- in particular -- in a reasonable, fair and humane way.

One of the Largest Subspecies of Giraffes Is Declared Endangered: the Masai

One of the Largest Subspecies of Giraffes Is Declared Endangered: the Masai

Conservationists have been sounding the alarm bells on giraffes for several years. In 2016, the IUCN listed giraffes as a whole as vulnerable, the status just above endangered after finding that over three decades giraffes suffered up to a 40 percent population drop, plummeting from an estimated 157,000 individuals to 97,500.

Currently, two of the nine giraffe subspecies—the Kordofan and Nubian—are critically endangered, while the Reticulated is endangered. Now, after a recent assessment, the Masai subspecies has also been listed as endangered. It’s the first time the population has been analyzed on its own, and the status is a big deal since there are an estimated 35,000 individual Masai left, making it one of the largest-remaining subspecies of the gentle giants and, therefore, a key population for keeping the species numbers up.

Previously, the Masai subspecies was the most-populous group of giraffes, with an estimated 71,000 individuals. That drop of 49 to 51 percent of the subspecies in the last 30 years was what prompted the listing, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

Valora Stroganoff's Threat Of Wild Women, Lensed By Luca Meneghe For Numéro France

Valora Stroganoff's Threat Of Wild Women, Lensed By Luca Meneghe For Numéro France

Model Vaiora Stroganoff is styled by Clement Lomellini as a wild, forest woman — she who has a long, metaphorical and anthropological history of always subverting patriarchy. Clearly, the wild woman cannot be trusted, and her irrational state of being represents a constant threat to western civilization.

Photographer Luca Meneghel captures Vaiora in ‘En Créature de la Forêt’ for Numéro France July 2019./ Hair by Paul Duchemin; makeup by Laetitia Sireix

Irina Shayk Talks Being Always Real In Zoey Grossman Images For Harper's Bazaar Online Summer 2019

Irina Shayk Talks Being Always Real In Zoey Grossman Images For Harper's Bazaar Online Summer 2019

Top model Irina Shayk covers HarpersBazaar.com’s Summer 2019 digital cover. Charles Varenne styles Irina in Burberry, Carolina Herrera, Saint Lauren and more for images by Zoey Grossman.

Irina Shayk On Pursuing Perfection

“I’m not perfect,” she educates readers. “I have bad-skin days and bad-hair days. Sometimes I don’t look like a model. I’m just a real human being.

“If somebody wants to inject their lips because they feel bad, God bless them. I don’t judge anyone,” Shayk continues. “But I always promote natural beauty because I think we live in this perfect world where everyone wants to be perfect. But I’m not perfect. Sometimes I have a double chin. Perfection doesn’t exist. I’m going to have wrinkles and I have wrinkles.”