Sex and the City Saves Elephants

Actress Kristin Davis, co-star of the show Sex and the City, traveled to Kenya a few years ago for a safari. A ranger approached her vehicle and asked if they'd seen a baby elephant, so the whole truck stayed with the rangers for two days helping look for the baby. They finally found her among lava rocks, scared and angry, and had to cover her eyes and practically tackle her to get her safe. They gave her water, moistened her skin and transported her back to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, where she'd be cared for.

The rangers who approached Kristin's truck did so not because they thought approaching a celebrity would help, but because they simply needed more eyes. In fact, they didn't know she was a celebrity. It took DSWT a few weeks to realize who she was. Kristin Davis adopted the baby elephant she helped find, who was named for the area they found her, for $50, getting her email updates as to the elephant's health.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust takes in orphaned elephants, most of whom are orphans because their mothers were slaughtered for their ivory tusks, and raises them to be released back into the wild. Some of the adult elephants actually come back to the reserve on occasion for a visit.

Oh, and Kristin Davis is also an advocate of women's rights. While her character in the TV series would get into the gritty details of her sex life, the actress laments that there are so few shows on TV that star women that each one still gets compared to Sex and the City, which ended 8 years ago. She does Broadway now, has adopted a baby girl, and has become the public face of the Wildlife Trust. She feels strongly about women's health issues and women's rights; she wants to raise her daughter to grow up in a world where there are not only elephants but complete freedom for women. Surely having played such a liberal, confident woman for so many years has helped shape her own beliefs and ideals (or did her beliefs and ideals shape the character?), but to have a show that starred and focused almost entirely on women be as popular as it was encouraged the teens and young women watching it to pursue their dreams.

Kristin Davis has done a lot to educate herself on the plight of elephants over the last few years and has compared buying ivory to buying blood diamonds, bringing something people widely regard as into the spotlight, using terms they recognize and understand. She's trying to bring attention to the severity of the problem (elephants could be gone in less than 10 years), describing the scenes she herself has witnessed (an elephant's head hacked off after it had been chained to a tree and left to die, with another not a half mile away).

"You want gritty details?" She asks, fully prepared to give journalists the shock they're looking for.

Oh yeah, and she's also passionate about women's issues and laments that there aren't enough shows about women. I don't think I could like a celebrity any more.

Why Interracial Marriage Should Be Legal

 This is what my Facebook looks like.

Oh wait, I mean gay marriage. You were probably thinking something along the lines of, "Whaaaaaat? But interracial marriage is perfectly legal! Why would anyone argue otherwise?"

Which is exactly my point. Why would anyone argue otherwise? Why wouldn't interracial marriage be legal?

So, what's the difference with gay marriage? Why would anyone argue that gay people can't marry one another? Why wouldn't gay marriage be legal?

As WTF as this seems now, it's the same thing.

Interracial marriage has been legal since the late 1960s. My parents were alive then. Alive and old enough to know what that meant. That's really not that long ago.

Maybe I'm spoiled having lived my whole life in relatively liberal Southern California, or maybe I'm just a young, flaming liberal who was ruined in college and now likes going against tradition for the sake of being rebellious. But I'm going to be able to marry my boyfriend, who is of a different race/ethnicity/color/whatever feature you want to focus on, and it'll be OK because he's also a different sex than I am. No one will bat an eye at our colors because it won't matter to anyone. 

Interracial marriage has been legal for 45 years; long enough for most people to accept that it is a little ridiculous to prevent two people who love each other from getting married just because they have different skin colors.

Beyonce is awesome.

Here are the most ridiculous arguments against gay marriage:

• Gay marriage is icky! (Gay people don't think so. Actually, a lot of people don't think so.)
• The Bible says gays shouldn't marry! (That's nice, but it has nothing to do with the law or my beliefs.)
• Once gays can marry, pedophiles can marry children! (Children are not consenting adults and therefore cannot make those kinds of decisions about their lives.)
• Once gays can marry, anyone can marry anything! (Dogs, inanimate objects, and anything outside of a consenting adult is, again, not a consenting adult and therefore cannot make those kinds of decisions about their lives/shelf lives.)
• Gays can't have kids! (Some straight couples can't have kids. Or don't want kids. That doesn't affect their ability to marry. Or adopt.)

Stunningly, our Supreme Court is dedicating an extraordinary amount of time debating whether or not laws that bar same sex couples from marrying is constitutional. Which seems really silly, doesn't it?

When the United States of America was in its infancy, all sorts of people came here from all over the world looking for freedom (in fact, they still do). They come here because the laws say "all people," "created equal," "liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and no where in any law, any proposition, any part of the Constitution say "except for." Nothing that says "except for gays." Or "except for [insert qualifier here]." It's equality this, and equality that, and freedom and liberty and opportunity and unalienable rights and blah blah blah.

So... since when is it OK to discriminate against gay people? When did that suddenly change? And why is this something that needs debate?

Have a gay day!

Kill All Humans

Bender really does have it right. Humans are the most destructive force on the planet. And some are just downright stupid.

Take Elle Macpherson. Actress, model, designer, producer. Speaks 4 languages, lives in the UK, 2 kids, fucking rich. And she eats rhinoceros horn.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! What the fuck is an quasi-educated white woman doing buying BLACK MARKET ENDANGERED ANIMAL KERATIN? Thanks to you, Elle, rhinos are still endangered. They're still being killed for compressed hair. That's right, hair. Save the stray hairs from your brush until you've got a nice handful, then grate them on your salad. Or use your fingernail clippings. I'm sure for a lot less than $100 grand you can go to a nail salon and ask them to save their clippings for you.

What is it she thinks she gets out of rhino horn that she's willing to pay out the ass for it? She's nearing 50... maybe rhino horn is the fountain of youth? What gets me even more is she's the producer for Britain's Next Top Model, which means all those aspiring young models, who might look up to her, might see that she takes rhino horn and might want to take it, too. Seriously guys, not only is it ridiculously silly, it's illegal. She should have some sort of repercussion for admitting it (and then lying about it: "Oh, it's bad? I mean, I didn't know it was rhino horn, I just thought I was paying thousands for a vial of Chinese herb powder that helps me... um, I dunno, be pretty.") Fucking dumb. She should die like this poor girl:

See that, Elle? She had a 9 month old baby. And you killed her.

That rhino was the last female in Krugersdorp Park in South Africa. Her baby watched the killing and was then moved to an area with other rhino orphans. There are at best 18,000 rhinos in all of Africa right now. Most of them are Southern White rhinos, like 4 are Northern White, and a few thousand are Black rhinos. Rhinos are most protected on reserves, but guess what? This picture was taken on a reserve. Not very protected. This pisses me off so fucking much. It's 100% pointless. I can almost understand ignorant families relying on ancient remedies because they have no other option. But Elle Macpherson has no excuse and this makes her a horrible person.

I have to give a shout out of thanks to Us Weekly. It was in their magazine I learned of Elle Macpherson and her horrific actions. I have a newfound respect for the gossip magazine and am glad they've exposed a model, knowing how many people read it. Thanks, Us Weekly.

*EDIT: Here's another source.