Fedex Offers Discounts of 18-26% To NRA Members and My GlamTribal Business Pays For It

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As a small biz owner of GlamTribal Jewelry & Gifts, I've been shell-shocked over the cost of using Fedex or UPS, rather than 2-day USPS, if the shipment comes over the weekend.

Amazon expects me to absorb a $20 shipping cost on a $48 pair of earrings for a Prime order, and that's w/o an additional charge of about $11 for Fedex to come and get it from me. It's cheaper to just pay the USPS overnight cost of about $20. Note that I must ship 50 orders with only one blip, and I cannot use my own USPS account, even when I know an order will arrive on time. Amazon freezes my ability to use 2-day Priority Mail, which would cost me $12 and no pickup charge. Understandably, as a prime shipment, they want to be able to track all the facts around the shipment. But vendors pay the premium price.

Now I'm reading that if only I was a member of the NRA, I would get discounts of 18-26%. So FedEx is prioritizing gun rights over the success of small entrepreneurs like myself.

I know that FedEx president David L. Cunningham Jr. is a huge contributor to the NRA. But how is it that his personal values support discounts to those who demand unfettered restrictions on military assault rifles, rather than small business owners like myself? Sorry, but that sounds unAmerican and hardly supporting free enterprise.

Why must I underwrite the cost of Fedex shipping military assault weapons, when I'm dedicated to prohibiting assault weapons? Oh, and I also support girls education in Africa and elephant conservation with business revenues. I doubt Fedex is committed to limiting the rights of assault weapons owners to kill elephants and other endangered species. I wonder if Fedex ships trophy hunters' prizes. I'll have to check that policy as most responsible airlines are saying "no go". They give up the revenue.

The majority of small business owners are women. Fedex would rather support military assault weapons murdering men -- 90% of mass killers are men -- than women business owners.

As you can imagine, FedEx and I are now in permanent divorce court, because the company's values are not my values.

I support the second amendment, but it doesn't include military assault rifles, as SC Justice Scalia explained. FedEx doesn't even agree with Scalia, which makes the company's policies ULTRA. ULTRA conservative, far more conservative than the Americans of all political parties who use Fedex for business and personal shipping.

I urge everyone to rethink your relationship with FedEx and whether you believe it's fair that small business owners like myself should be forced to underwrite their support for military assault rifles in our schools. The company says they refuse to bow to the pressure of liberals who are trying to take away gun rights. That's their choice, but we have a choice, too. ~ Anne

Related: Calls to divest from NRA fall on deaf ears at FedEx New York Daily News

Genesis 2.0 Documentary Inspires New GlamTribal Woolly Mammoth Pendants

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Genesis 2.0 Documentary Inspires New GLAMTRIBAL Woolly Mammoth Pendants

Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei will premiere his documentary Genesis 2.0 in Sundance's World Documentary section. Frei co-directs the film focused on the efforts to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life with Maxim Arbugaev. The co-directors embed with a group of tusk hunters on the remote New Siberian Islands for an entire season, and the first trailer introduces these hunters who search for the ivory tusks of the animals that have been fully extinct for 10,000 years.

Noted geneticist George Church, whose team at Harvard successfully modified elephant cells with DNA retrieved from a preserved mammoth, also assumes an important role in the documentary. While many ethicists are opposed to "playing God" with cloning, many scientists and conservationists see cloning the woolly mammoth as an important step in insuring that elephants -- considered to be descendants of the woolly mammoth -- do not become extinct. 

GlamTribal Design has a strong commitment to elephant conservation, earmarking 5% of our revenues to support elephants, as well as 5% of revenues for the Kibera School for Girls in Nairobi. 

GlamTribal Design uses both woolly mammoth bone beads and featherweight, balsa wood beads decoupaged with woolly mammoth images printed on vellum as key components in our collections. These new silk cord pendants with and without leaf and ladybug earrings are ready with FREE SHIPPING in North America. 

Hollywood Launches Time's Up With Powerhouse Message To Working Class Women

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Hollywood Launches Time's Up With Powerhouse Message To Working Class Women

Driven by disgust, disenchantment and disbelief that sexual harassment and gender inequality run rampant in America, 300 prominent and not-so-well-known Hollywood women have launched a sprawling initiative to fight the Hollywood power structure and blue-collar workplaces nationwide.

Born with a name that resonates deeply with women fighting this gender inequality battle for 60 years in the case of women like Jane Fonda, Time's Up has 1) a legal defense fund, backed now by $13 million in donations earmarked to help less privileged women protect themselves from sexual misconduct and threats of job loss among janitors, nurses and workers at farms, factories, restaurants and hotels. Articles like the New York Times' How Tough Is It to Change a Culture of Harassment? Ask Women at Ford astonished many professional women in and out of Hollywood. 

Milena Mira Is Brazilian Goddess In 'Rito de Passagem' By Rafael Pavarotti For Vogue Brazil December 2017

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Model Milena Mira is styled by Pedro Sales in the self-explanatory 'Rito de Passagem', lensed by Rafael Pavarotti for Vogue Brazil December 2017./ Hair and makeup by Renata Brazil

Eye: As Phoebe Philo Prepares To Leave Céline, Will She Sink Deeply Into Her British Roots?

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Eye: As Phoebe Philo Prepares To Leave Céline, Will She Sink Deeply Into Her British Roots?

Phoebe Philo is officially leaving Céline, after a decade spent restoring and reinvigorating the LVMH label as a favorite of powerful, working women. WWD reports that Philo's last collection for the label will debut at Paris Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2018, with succeeding collections crafted by various Céline employees until a new creative director is appointed. 

In a brief statement announcing the news, Ms. Philo thanked her team, and Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the luxury group that owns Céline, said: “What Phoebe has accomplished over the past 10 years represents a key chapter in the history of Céline. We are very grateful to Phoebe for having contributed to the great momentum of this Maison. A new era of development for Céline will now start, and I am extremely confident in the future success of this iconic Maison.”

Eye: Juergen Teller Captures Adwoa Aboah, Family & Friends For Burberry's Zeitgeist Images

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Juergen Teller Captures Adwoa Aboah, Family & Friends For Burberry's Zeitgeist Images

British model Adwoa Aboah skyrockets into another rung of fashion industry achievement, teaming up with photographer Juergen Teller in a new photo collaboration for Burberry. The images will drop throughout 2018 and feature Aboah together with her friends and family. In almost USA southern tradition, we meet Adwoa's including her cousins Alfie Husband, George Husband, Richard Theodore-Aboah and Kwame N’Dow, as well as Montell Martin and Mae Muller. The group occupies a park bench along Regent’s Canal in North London, wearing pieces from the brand's new collection, which will be available to buy from January.

Juergen Teller's work is popping up everywhere right now, with his trademark vision of scraping off glossy fashion veneer. Last night AOC featured The Cut's luxury jewelry and accessory baubles arranged in a first cousin of flower-arranging style Ikebana -- a look writer Stella Bugbee calls 'Freakebana'. 

Perhaps I'm spending way too much time watching 'The Crown' in the age of Trump -- against the backdrop of Charlottesville and Harvey Weinstein. Writing for T Magazine, Deborah Needleman spoke of Ikebana's contemporary appeal to “its direct and personal connection to nature, its awareness of and emphasis on decay in an era in which our own ecological and environmental ruin feels more vivid than ever.”

There is something quite deep going on here, in these new Burberry images, in the shakeup at British Vogue and the rise of Edward Enninful as editor-in-chief.

 

Eye: Bobby Doherty Captures The Cut's Freakebana Ugly Cool With Floral Design By Brittany Asch

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Eye: Bobby Doherty Captures The Cut's Freakebana Ugly Cool With Floral Design By Brittany Asch

I'm lovin' New York Magazine's new The Cut, and here's another example of why. Recently, The Cut introduced us to Freakebana: The New, Ugly-Cool Style of Arranging Flowers.

Ikebana is the Japanese art of arranging flowers, writes Stella Bugbee. The centuries-old discipline features spare, off-center compositions of local and seasonal foliage, positioned to emphasize form, line, and color. The practice evolved with Buddhist philosophy, rooted in minimalism and precision, with plants chosen carefully for their symbolism. And it’s an object of renewed interest of late: Deborah Needleman, writing for T Magazine, attributed Ikebana’s contemporary appeal to “its direct and personal connection to nature, its awareness of and emphasis on decay in an era in which our own ecological and environmental ruin feels more vivid than ever.”

"True," says Bugbee. "But there’s also something else happening that has less to do with nature and more to do with attitude."

Freakebana (pronounced free-ke-ba-na) is what I am calling it. The turnt cousin of Ikebana, Freakebana is the art of arranging whatever-the-hell, in a way that nods at the traditional Japanese art form, but subs out years of study for a naive, new-wave naturalism. In Freakebana, the components are more likely foraged from the corner deli, as opposed to a Shinto garden. Good Freakebana mixes sparse, eccentric elements for maximum surprise. Say: pink carnations, cubes of jello, an air plant, and Maldon salt crystals.

Enough romantic, farm-to-vase florists like Floret and Saipua. Yes, the allure of peonies and roses is intoxicating, but how about this more hallucinogenic trend?  In this followup visual extravagance for The Cut, Stella Bugbee unleashes floral designer Brittany Asch with styling by Diana Tsui and photography by Bobby Doherty in a freakin' uptown freakebana tour de force.

Martha Stewart In Dubai Sets A Standard For Friendly Photos With No Groping Worries

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Martha Stewart In Dubai Sets A Standard For Friendly Photos With No Groping Worries

This photo of Martha Stewart in Dubai caught my eye, reading W Magazine's short on why everyone is going to Dubai. Martha spent Thanksgiving in Dubai, enjoying a visually stunning meal here at Dubai's Arabian Tea House. 

I note the placement of the gentleman's hand on Martha's shoulder -- at a time when men are nearly weeping that the #MeToo movement is leaving them clueless of even touching a female colleague. Anything sets us off these days. 

Dustin Hoffman Groper?

The acclaimed Dustin Hoffman has been in a total state of denial over allegations that has has a wandering hand. It just didn't happen says Hoffman, regarding Anna Graham Hunter's assertion that Hoffman sexually harassed her at age 17.

Kathryn Rossetter weighed in over the weekend, saying that her dream job of performing eight times a week with Hoffman in 'Death of a Salesman' became "a horrific, demoralizing and abusive experience at the hands (literally) of one of my acting idols."

Rossetter wrote that Hoffman would take photos with her and "grab my breast just before they snapped the picture and then remove it." She often didn't notice in time, which she says made it seem like she was "complicit with the gesture. I was not. Not ever."

This sense of her own complicity in Hoffman's actions haunted her, especially in view of her total experience with one of the most acclaimed actors in America. 

In the past weeks, countless men have damned women for not speaking out sooner. Shamed in our own humiliation, we feel that somehow we have caused the groping. Where did we go wrong? Read on in In-Depth.

Eye: South African Artist Tony Gum's 'Ode to She' Wins 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

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South African Artist Tony Gum's 'Ode to She' Wins 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize

South African artist Tony Gum is the recipient of the 2017 Miami Beach Pulse Prize. Gum's gallery Christopher Moller Gallery mounted a solo show for Gum, who is barely 22 years old. 

Gum's presentation 'Ode to She' is inspired by her own experiences and reflections as a Xhosa woman. Her work is rooted in the tradition of 'intonjane', an Xhosa rite of passage into womanhood practiced in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The ritual in which a girl is secluded at her homestead after her first period, is symbolic of her sexual maturity and ability to bear children.

AOC has previously written about the talented Tony Gum. See end of article. 

Eye: Stella McCartney Joins Forces With Ellen MacArthur Foundation In Global Fashion Impact On Environment Study

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Eye: Stella McCartney Joins Forces With Ellen MacArthur Foundation In Global Fashion Impact On Environment Study

The fashion industry turns towards London for Monday night's The Fashion Awards 2017 in partnership with Swarovski. To build excitement, several honorees have been announced in advance.

Stella McCartney Environmental Fashion Warrior

Designer Stella McCartney will be honored with a Special Recognition Award for Innovation, reflecting her commitment to innovation and for utilizing her influence to promote environmental responsibility.  

Stella will use her platform to back the Ellen MacArthur foundation campaign to stop the global fashion industry consuming a quarter of the world's annual carbon budget by 2050.

In a report published this week, round-the-world sailor and environmental campaigner Dame Ellen MacArthur exposes the vast scale of waste, and how the throwaway nature of fashion has propelled the fashion industry into a new reality of creating greenhouse emission of 1.2 billion tons a year -- larger than the combined total of international flights and shipping combined.

Other important factoids in the report reveal that:

Eye: The Wing's New Women's Club In Soho Opens Its Pop-Up Doors To Chanel's CoCo Club

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Eye: The Wing's New Women's Club In Soho Opens Its Pop-Up Doors To Chanel's CoCo Club

Women's clubs are on the move, and the timing may be perfect. I'm reluctant to write that American women are at some kind of watershed moment in our understanding of just how difficult it is to succeed in the boys club world. Watching our fundamental, hard-fought rights being rolled back in Trumplandia while Margaret Atwood's dystopian 'The Handmaid's Tale' won eight Emmys, American women are primed for some serious female business bonding. This sister act was in play well before the Harvey Weinstein scandal dropped, launching the massive #MeToo campaign spilling out of our misogyny-overloaded brains. 

If The Wing is a home base for women on their way, the space's first pop-up CoCo Club is perhaps better for women who have arrived. How clever of The Wing to plan for pop-up spaces and other events on the premises. It seems that Chanel took over the entire Soho location as a money-generating, member-acquiring drive for the permanent landlord of this women's club -- The Wing. In not so subtle fashion, Chanel celebrated the launch of the brand's new BOY∙FRIEND watch. 

From a branding and messaging to women perspective, the permanent decor at The Wing evokes a dramatically different vibe than the temporary tenant CoCo Club. 

Founders Audrey Gelman and Lauren Kassan anticipated a huge win for women with a Hillary Clinton presidency.

"This was going to be the golden age of women in power, so women could have rooms like this. It was sort of a triumphant concept." No more running around Manhattan changing outfits for events and meetings in "random bathrooms around the city."

"Obviously that's not what happened," Kassan said.

Fanny Latour-Lambert Flashes Masha Skokova For Vogue Russia November 2017

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Fanny Latour-Lambert Flashes Masha Skokova For Vogue Russia November 2017

Model Masha Skokova is styled by Katerina Zolototrubova in fur-effects elegance. Photographer Fanny Latour-Lambert captures Masha in elegant casual tints for Vogue Russia November 2017./  Makeup by Laure Dansou; hair by Rimi Ura

Eye: Steven Meisel Goes Erotic Surreal With Vittoria Ceretti's Mouth Full of Fruits For Loewe S/S 2018

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Steven Meisel Goes Erotic Surreal With Vittoria Ceretti's Mouth Full of Fruits For Loewe S/S 2018

Italian top model Vittoria Ceretti is flashed by the legendary Steven Meisel in Loewe's Spring/Summer 2018 'Fruits' ad campaign.  Benjamin Bruno styles the brilliantly creative, surreal images with makeup by Pat McGrath and hair by Guido Palau. This is pure brand DNA, an appeal to mindset and not the clothes. It's old-school with a super-fresh 21st century update.

LMVH-backed for his J.W.Anderson brand, Loewe's Creative Director Anderson brought a sense of chill to his own J.W.Anderson Spring 2018 Ready-to-Wear Collection. (See Sarah Mower's review.) His S/S 2018 Loewe show in Paris is Friday, Sept. 29.

Smiling with the erotic, rebellious creative brilliance of Meisel's Vittoria Ceretti images, I see that Anderson is in a nesting frame of mind. Home. Sanctuary. Serenity. Reviewing Anderson's London show, Mower writes: 

Elephant Love: Doutzen Kroes Launches Phase 2 Of Tiffany's #KnotOnMyPlanet

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In 2016 supermodel Doutzen Kroes launched her #KnotOnMyPlanet campaign, created to support elephant conservation. Tiffany & Co came on board as a major sponsor and collaborator.

“We tie a knot when we don’t want to forget,” Doutzen said in the 2016 launch, explaining the campaign’s slogan. “We’ve been forgetting the elephants, and if we don’t do something now, they will disappear.”

The 2017 #KnotOnMyPlanet campaign launched in August with Tiffany & Co. developing key pieces to support elephant conservation. The New York jeweler has committed at least $1 million of sales to the Elephant Crisis Fund

“In the face of political uncertainty, those of us in the business community have a responsibility to keep moving forward,” Anisa Costa, chief sustainability officer and president of the Tiffany & Co. Foundation, explains. “From taking bold action on climate change to supporting organizations working to protect biodiversity and precious land and seascapes, Tiffany will continue to use the full power of its brand to bring attention to these critical issues.”

“Socially conscious consumers are demanding higher levels of sustainability and activism from companies today," Costa adds, "and the Save the Wild collection is an exciting opportunity for us to both increase awareness and financially support an issue we care deeply about."

Shop the Tiffany Save the Wild Collection

Eye: Absolut's Big Bang Ad, Copper NYFW Caddy Cab & Water For People Philanthropy

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Eye: Absolut's Big Bang Ad, Copper NYFW Caddy Cab & Water For People Philanthropy

Epic' is an overused word in modern vocabs, but Absolut's new commercial from BBH London delivers an epic, about 14 billion years of Earth and humanity history lesson in 60-seconds flat. AdWeek writes:

Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (who won three straight Oscars for cinematography between 2013 and 2015, for Gravity, Birdman and The Revenant), directed the spot, which opens in black space, except for a pulsating white dot, primed to explode and set the universe—and everything it would encompass—in motion.

“It all started one night,” says a woman’s voiceover at the outset. “A night that felt like it had been night for eternity. When, right out of the darkness, BOOM! An idea. The mother of all ideas.”

Mica Arganaraz Is The Goddess of Grapes In Luigi & Iango Images For Vogue Italy September 2017

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Mica Arganaraz Is The Goddess of Grapes In Luigi & Iango Images For Vogue Italy September 2017

Model Mica Arganaraz is styled by Paul Cavaco in 'La Vendemmia', a bacchanalian grape harvest, lensed by Luigi & Iango for Vogue Italia September 2017.

EYE: A Bold Calvin Klein Reboot Goes For American Brand Gold In The Shadow Of Charlotte's White Nationalism

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EYE: A Bold Calvin Klein Reboot Goes For American Brand Gold In The Shadow Of Charlotte's White Nationalism

Without a doubt, this is the most dramatic 180-degree turn in the history of a great luxury brand. Ironically, in deciding to stock a collection of home wares, displayed in the context of Ruby's celebration of the American vintage quilts, Homer Laughlin coffee mugs and Rose Cabat's ceramic "Feelies" sold alongside Calvin Klein bedding, Simons enters Ralph Lauren territory.

Raf Simons assumed creative control of Calvin Klein in 2016, the number of retailers stocking the brand has increased tenfold, as stressed-out retailers strive for enticing relevance in the age of Amazon. It's interesting to watch the evolution of Calvin Klein in the age of Trump.

It's good that people of intelligence and vision are trying to understand America at the very moment America is trying to understand itself. In a country blinded with the golden glow of torches held high by white nationalists in Charlottesville last week, the color of optimism is under assault. Still, an estimated 40,000 people showed up in Boston Saturday to protest white nationalism and the resurgence of a bold racism under Trump. As Trump follows unlimited gold for his family financial coffers, we will follow the future of bold yellow optimism. America is doing much soul-searching at this moment.  ~ Anne

Faye Cuevas Brings Higher Intelligence To Africa's War On Elephant Poaching

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Faye Cuevas Brings Higher Intelligence To Africa's War On Elephant Poaching

Calling herself "the accidental conservationist," (Faye) Cuevas can pinpoint the moment she realized that she wanted to fight poaching.

"The first time that I saw an elephant in the wild was in Amboseli National Park here in Kenya two years ago," she said in Feb. 2016. "It was life-changing."

"At the current rate of elephant decline, my 6-year-old daughter won't have an opportunity to see an elephant in the wild before she's old enough to vote," she said. "Which just is unacceptable to me, because if that is the case then we have nothing to blame that on but human apathy and greed."

"The Kenya Wildlife Service and other many conservation groups are doing fantastic conservation work," Cuevas said. "However, the reality is that there are other challenges — from a cyber perspective, from a global criminal network perspective — that really necessitate security approaches integrated into conservation strategies."

Enter tenBoma -- or '10 homesteads' -- which uses technology to pull together diverse sources of information, from rangers to conservation groups. She analyzes the data to "create value in information in ways that it rises to the level of intelligence."

Sergi Pons Captures Lou Schoof In Rough Elegance For El Pais Semanal July 2017

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Wild Elephant Matriarchs Slept Just Two Hours A Day Or Less In 35-Day Study

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Wild Elephant Matriarchs Slept Just Two Hours A Day Or Less In 35-Day Study

Two elephant matriarchs have shocked scientists worldwide with their sleeping patterns. The two supermoms in Botswana's Chobe National Park qualify as insomniacs, sleeping about two hours a day and not in an interrupted slumber.

One would expect the elephants to be exhausted after traveling nearly 19 miles in 10 hours without rest. Not so for these high-stamina creatures who also stayed up for a record 46 straight hours, based on the small study conducted by the UCLA Center for Sleep Research and the nonprofit research group Elephants Without Borders. 

"The elephants were studied for continuous 35 day periods [from a distance]," Jerry Siegel, director of the Center for Sleep Research, told NBC News. "Elephants move with their herd and move very frequently, so animals sleeping a lot would be left behind."

GLAMTRIBAL shares three new enameled pendants with earrings sets for our expanding jewelry collection. 10% of all revenues support The Kibera School for Girls in Nairobi, Kenya and elephant conservation. FREE Shipping in North America. 

Shop ALL our new Necklaces w/Earrings Sets.