>> Fair trade spirits — made from quinoa. Qino One Vodka wants you to take a survey to let ‘em know how you feel about fair trade quinoa spirit.

>> Write about “How selling goods under the Fair Trade label has improved the lives of people who produce goods such as coffee, tea, chocolate, rice, and flowers” to win a OneWorld’s Citizen Journalism Award, aka $125. I’m guessing it’ll help if you either 1) sell fair trade goodies, or 2) have visited people who produce fair trade goodies. That excludes me.

>> The United Farm Workers have wine: Black Eagle Wines, “a vintage of Napa Valley wines that celebrate justice and help organize people to earn a better living without having to rely on government assistance,” according to UFW’s press release. You must commit to at least half a case — that’s 6 bottles for $150 — to support the cause. (thanks for the tip, Genise)

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No, it’s not easy being green. Watch Sad Kermit shoot up, say “fucking,” and strum madly in NIN’s Hurt, Radiohead’s Creep, and Elliot Smith’s Needle in the Hay, respectively. (via kottke)

My header used to read “It’s not easy being green,” followed by some stuff about fair trade and environmentalism, back when green LA girl first started. At some point, I decided that was a too “sincere” and narrow filter for this blog.

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>> Why smart people die young. Okay, the study’s really about why smart flies die young. “Forming neuron connections may cause harmful side effects. It is also possible that genes that allow learning to develop faster and last longer may cause other changes.” The study could have ramifications for humans though: ‘Dr. Kawecki says it is worth investigating whether humans also pay hidden costs for extreme learning. “We could speculate that some diseases are a byproduct of intelligence,” he said.” Depression and suicide come to mind.

>> How the human sense of balance killed pilots. “Crashes, injuries, and deaths in aviation’s first 40 years were sometimes caused by faulty or ill-designed equipment, but a large portion were the result of pilot error: poor judgment, bad physical coordination, and, sometimes, the brain being deceived by its own senses.”

>> 50 best cult books of all time. I’ve only read 14. You? (via Utne)

>> Have people really started calling Culver City C-squared?

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>> Nerve put together its list of 50 Greatest Commercial parodies of all time. A couple of my faves:

Annuale, a birth control pill that limits your periods to once a year. “And when it is time for your period, hold on to your **** hat.” Relatedly — Has anyone seen Baby Mama yet? How was it?

Steve Martin hawks Penis Beauty Cream. “Just take a small amount and rub gently on the penis for several minutes up to a half hour. You’ll notice a difference right away.”

>> And completely unrelatedly — Did you know that 11 is the largest known multiplicative persistence? Find out what that means, and what’s special about other numbers too. (via Fimoculous)

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>> Absinthe drinkers: You’re not tripping — you’re just drunk. “German scientists put old bottles of the substance to the test and found that the liquid is 70 percent alcohol (140 proof) and 0 percent hallucination.” Still, “Today it seems a substantial minority of consumers want these myths to be true, even if there is no empirical evidence that they are.”

>> Alcohol impairs your ability to detect threats. “This may help explain why drunkenness makes people both more outgoing and more aggressive.” And in case you didn’t know this, drinking alcohol also results “in pleasurable feelings.”

>> Computer-shrinking doesn’t work, at least not for Slate’s Daniel B. Smith, who tried out a computer program called FearFighter to deal with his generalized anxiety issues.

>> The problem of Facebook “favorite” lists, aka “product signifiers.” “The “I like this = I’m like this” cultural moment … has turned us into self-handicapping snobs: Since we’ve taken so much care to craft our own perfect list, we feel more entitled to shrug off anyone whose list doesn’t similarly impress. Would you be interested in someone who identifies with “The Secret”? ”

Photo by Rob via Flickr

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>> John Stewart on abstinence only education. “The federal government has spent $1.3 billion on abstinence only education in US schools. But apparently, teenagers still wanna do it.” (via Blog for Choice)

>> Let them drink already. “Seven US states are exploring lowering the drinking age - partly for under-age Iraq war vets and more broadly in recognition that teenagers are going to drink anyway.” (via Freakonomics)

>> Where’s Waldo for the Google Earth age. “22-year-old, Vancouver-based artist Melanie Coles has constructed a 2,300-square-foot Waldo, which is now secured on a rooftop in her hometown, waiting to be detected by Google Earth’s satellites.”

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>> A case for more barefooted walking. “North Americans have the most advanced shoes in the world, yet 90 percent of us still develop problems? We’ve long assumed this means we need better shoes. Maybe it means we don’t need shoes at all.” In addition to simulating barefootedness, the VivoBarefoot shoes are eco-friendly too, BTW.

>> One Day Poem Pavilion. A tent-like structure as a page of sorts, mixing traditional Korean poetry with solar-powered experiential typography. “The time-based nature of the poem–and the visitor’s time-based encounters with it–allow viewers to have different experiences either seeing a stanza of the poem or getting the whole poem. All of these possible experiences are equally valuable and have meanings unique to the individual.”

>> If smurfs are 3 apples tall, how do the live in ’shrooms? A smurftastic post with equally smurftastic comments: “my first thought was perhaps they meant crab apples? they’re much smaller.” (via kottke)

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>> I am not a walrus, but a colon. However, I dream great…. Are you a semicolon? (via to do)

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren’t concerned much with theories or dreams… only what’s true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren’t subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

>> Look forward to getting old. “In general, the odds of being happy increased 5 percent with every 10 years of age.”

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>> A timelapse video of man trapped in an elevator for 41 hours back in 1999, and an accompanying article about elevators, and the man’s life post entrapment, in the New Yorker. (via kottke)

He never learned why the elevator stopped; there was talk of a power dip, but nothing definite. Meanwhile, White no longer had his job, which he’d held for fifteen years, and lost all contact with his former colleagues. He lost his apartment, spent all his money, and searched, mostly in vain, for paying work. He is currently unemployed.

>> How to avoid getting married for 40 years. “I’ve met plenty of The Ones, so many that my sister took to calling my boyfriends The Two, The Three, etc. Counting the last boyfriend, we left off at The Eight.”

>> The game theory explanation of why there aren’t any cute, interesting, single boys around. “Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.” (via 3qd)

Photo by Mioi

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>> Death by blogging. “They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.” Don’t worry — I don’t work that hard. (via fimoculous)

>> “If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.” That’s the title of a self help book that was voted the oddest book title of the year in the Bookseller magazine. (via Utne)

>> Embrace your fears — or don’t. Here’s a list of fears from childhood to parenthood — despite the fact that I don’t consider parenthood a necessary or even desirable step in one’s life chronology. Lucky number 13 is “Fear of selling out: Deserting dreams, Embracing capitalism.” Most of you’ve done that already! Hope it’s been fun. (via kottke)

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