It cost $6,160 to bring me to the US

I've worked in or around fashion journalism for essentially my entire career. But something I've never understood is exactly how an item of clothing goes from being unremarkable to all of a sudden being everywhere. (Apart from, you know, like this.)   I've also never been able to name my suspicion that many of the trends we read about and even participate in aren't … real? Like maybe they're just the purview of the fantastically rich and beautiful, or planted in our collective subconscious by increasingly speedy fast-fashion companies. How else to explain the dominance of all those upsetting shirts?   Rebecca Jennings captures these gnawing feelings deftly, in her breakdown of how the "Amazon coat" — a relatively affordable winter jacket that every publication you can name has touted as an absolutely viral trend in the past month — rose to such prominence. It's not what you'd expect, or maybe it's exactly what you expect, but suffice it to say it has to do with affiliate links, our culture of breathless, endlessly repetitive news coverage, and one single teacher in Upper Manhattan. I can't promise it'll make you want to buy the jacket, but I also can't promise that it won't.   —Alanna Okun, deputy editor at The Goods   The world of consumer culture is changing faster than ever. We're here to help you understand it. To make sure we're delivering on that mission with this newsletter, we want to hear from you. If you have a minute, we'd appreciate you taking this short survey. How a coat on Amazon took over a neighborhood — and then the internet Sarah Lawrence for Vox All winter long, in addition to crappy weather and increasingly weird news cycles, I have been terrorized by a coat.   "People are going absolutely wild over this jacket on Amazon," AOL yelled at me. "'The Amazon Coat is taking the internet by storm," shouted Yahoo. "Everyone you know is buying this Amazon coat," echoed Glamour, which sounded somehow like a threat.   These increasingly sinister warnings came from more unexpected places, too. CNBC wanted to tell me all about why this Chinese-made coat was a must-have for US consumers. Business Insider suggested that the affordable cost of the viral down parka by Orolay should terrify Canada Goose. Even the Daily Caller — the Daily Caller! — was trying to get me to buy this one particular coat.   Mind you, I tried very, very hard to avoid it. I did not click on any article or fave any tweet that told me how viral the coat is or how great it is or how affordable it is or how, actually, it's ugly and whoever is buying it is a big idiot.   This was not because I thought that the coat was overall pretty boring and looked like every other coat, which it kind of does. It wasn't just that I hadn't actually noticed anyone wearing it, which I hadn't. It was because I deeply, truly, did not want to participate in one of my least favorite forms of journalism, specifically fashion journalism: fabricating a trend from very little actual evidence.   The Amazon coat wasn't an entirely made-up fashion trend, but it certainly was the sort of trend that exists primarily because we were told it was trending. Whether it actually was is more complicated. Read the rest of the story >> The best $6,160 I ever spent: a US work visa Dana Rodriguez for Vox It's one thing to feel like a fraud when you tell people what you do for a living. It's another thing to pay $6,160 to ask the United States government to judge if you're a genius at it.   I didn't know applying for a work visa would involve reassessing my entire career and its impact, and repeatedly explaining how badly I wanted to return to a country whose leader kept telling the world immigrants weren't wanted. A few of my American friends half-jokingly asked, "How can I move to Canada?" Relatives asked me if it was worth giving up my government-funded health care.   For years, I had struggled to develop a media career north of the border. Despite several internships, diligent networking, and some good clips, I constantly worried I wasn't good enough to break out of low-paying entry-level gigs, no matter how hard I tried. At my first Asian American Journalists Association conference in New York, I learned there were lots of job opportunities in the US, but I needed a work visa to get any of them. Read the rest of the story >> More good stuff to read today The knitting community is reckoning with racism A scientist on the myth of ugly produce and food waste An interview with a guy who wears the same thing every day The Oscars red carpet is actually fun for once This clothing brand proudly uses prison labor. Critics say it's exploiting workers. Southwest Airlines has had to ground an unusually high number of flights

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Promise to protect!

Lorelei -- Next month, 350 Seattle is partnering with indigenous leaders on a historic training tour to prepare thousands to take mass action to stop the Keystone XL pipeline—and every other fossil fuel project that comes our way. TransCanada, the company behind Keystone, recently announced that it plans to begin construction as early as this year, making it an immediate threat to communities and the climate. It's time to skill up, build the movement, and deepen our ability to fight Big Oil at every level. Over 20,000 people like you have already joined a historic call to action through the Promise to Protect – a commitment to take peaceful action along the KXL pipeline route – and now we're calling on you to join a training so we can be prepared to resist. Sign up for one of our Promise to Protect Trainings in Seattle on April 27 and 28 to get prepared for future action against Keystone XL, as well as all the local infrastructure fights essential to our holding the Thin Green Line. Since day one, Trump has tried to build the Keystone XL pipeline and promote the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. is currently the top producer of oil and natural gas in the world. He has no interest in backing down, so it's up to us to fight back. The Promise to Protect Tour will be a historic moment for indigenous communities and their allies to come together in the fight for climate justice. Trainings will take place along the pipeline route and in nine cities across the country, preparing thousands of activists to be good relatives and stand up against this project.   At the training, you'll learn about nonviolent direct action and support roles, protocols for mobilizing in Lakota territory, and how to apply these lessons to local campaigns. As an essential part of the Thin Green Line, we have delayed or stopped all new or expanded fossil fuel infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest—but much remains to be done. From the Tacoma LNG facility to the increase of tanker traffic in the Salish Sea from the proposed TransMountain pipeline expansion, we need to be ready to partner with allies up and down the coast and mobilize against all threats to our future. Together we can grow our skills and our movement to create the change we need. Space is limited. RSVP now for one of the Promise to Protect Trainings on April 27 and 28, and help stop KXL and fossil fuel expansion here in the Northwest! Only confirmed participants will receive the location information for the training in the weeks before the training. Let us know if you have any questions! Because it's time to do this, Kara P.S. Watch and share this video explaining the vision for the training tour and why we must prepare now -=-=- 350Seattle.org · 1919 E Prospect St, Seattle, WA 98112, United States This email was sent to loriwantsrss@gmail.com. To stop receiving emails or to update your email preferences, click here. You can also keep up with 350 Seattle on Twitter or Facebook. Donations always appreciated and put to good use.

Re: Protect the Arctic from Trump

There's still time to submit a public comment to the Bureau of Land Management to protect the Arctic from oil and gas drilling.

Lorelei,

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is under threat from the Trump administration and Big Oil. They want to open the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling as early as this summer at the expense of Arctic wildlife and the Gwich'in people who have called these sacred lands home for centuries.

Help protect the Arctic Refuge. Submit a public comment to the Bureau of Land Management now urging them to stop the land grab for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic.

This is Trump's latest effort to use regulatory rollbacks to gain access to federal lands for oil. He wants to open the largest protected wilderness in the country, and the Gwich'in's homeland, so his fossil fuel friends can profit off of what is believed to be the largest untapped onshore oil reserve in the country. This would spell disaster for this fragile ecosystem and for the climate as burning the oil in the Refuge would be the carbon equivalent of adding 776 million vehicles to the road.

But it's not too late  — the Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comments until March 13th. Now is the time to speak out in support of the Gwich'in people and in opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Oil companies and banks interested in financing drilling in the Arctic are paying close attention to gauge public opposition to this endeavor.

Submit a public comment to the BLM before March 13th to help stop the land grab for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge.

The greed of Big Oil knows no bounds. If given the chance, they'll drill every inch of precious, protected lands for their profit. We cannot let them destroy the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge with their endless extraction. Join me in speaking out today.

Avery

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More information:

In the Blink of an Eye, a Hunt for Oil Threatens Pristine Alaska - New York Times

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It's our best last hope

Lorelei -- Mitch McConnell thinks he can quash the Sunrise Movement by rushing the Green New Deal Resolution to a Senate vote this week. We think he's overplayed his hand - and we're taking on this vote as a chance to show powerful bipartisan support for real climate action. Right now, hundreds of youth are descending on DC with a single question to pose to our Senators: Will you support our generation's best and last hope at avoiding climate catastrophe in our lifetimes, or will you cave to Mitch McConnell and the fossil fuel lobbyists? Can you help make sure Sen. Murray and Sen. Cantwell make the right choice? Momentum is building: Over the weekend, Kentucky youth camped out in front of Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office demanding that he "look them in the eyes" and explain why he's putting fossil fuel profits over their climate future. Today, hundreds of Sunrise youth leaders are joining them; and tomorrow, thousands of people across the country will be rallying outside their Senators' offices in support of good green jobs and a healthy climate for all. Let's keep the pressure on - call Sen. Murray and Cantwell and ask them to support a Green New Deal! In solidarity, Jess -=-=- 350Seattle.org · 1919 E Prospect St, Seattle, WA 98112, United States This email was sent to loriwantsrss@gmail.com. To stop receiving emails or to update your email preferences, click here. You can also keep up with 350 Seattle on Twitter or Facebook. Donations always appreciated and put to good use.

Help us get our new office!

Lorelei -- For the last two and a half years, we've been generously hosted by Prospect Church, which rented us a bright little office for a modest price. But these days, we need a big office.  We love to work together—and with you! But we haven't really been able to, because our old office only comfortably fit 2 or 3 people. So we've taken the plunge and signed a lease for a brand spanking new office—a beautiful space with two big rooms and lots of light that gives us room to grow, and a place where we can work together and welcome volunteers. But this is a leap of faith for us; our rent is going up $1100/month.  Please Donate! When we win, we grow. After our Fossil Free King County win last month, we're taking on similar campaigns in multiple cities. After our success in pushing Amazon, we're quadrupling down to make sure the shareholder resolution is as successful as it can be. Having a place where groups can meet comfortably in a central hub near to transit will be...transformative. And that's just what we need, right? Please help us do this! In solidarity & spaciousness, 350 Seattle   -=-=- 350Seattle.org · 1919 E Prospect St, Seattle, WA 98112, United States This email was sent to loriwantsrss@gmail.com. To stop receiving emails or to update your email preferences, click here. You can also keep up with 350 Seattle on Twitter or Facebook. Donations always appreciated and put to good use.

Our People Gonna Rise!

Lorelei -- If you haven't yet had a chance to partake of this amazing opportunity, 350 Seattle is again hosting the popular series of Undoing Racism workshops facilitated by the Mangrove Collective (women of color trainers from Bellingham and Seattle). You're invited to attend the whole training series of three workshops (encouraged), or any of them that you can!   Register now!  WHEN: Sundays, 2 pm to 8 pm (a light dinner will be served) on March 3, April 7 and May 12. WHERE: Centilia Cultural Center, 1660 S Roberto Maestas Festival St., Seattle 98144. It's accessible and right next to bus and link light rail! Carpool sites can be found on the individual registration pages.  WHAT: These 6-hour workshops will create a safe space for difficult conversations as we come together and commit to ending racism in our climate justice work. The format will be a mix of short presentations of how oppressions (specifically racism) work and how individual experiences can intersect along axes of different oppressions; small group storytelling (longer times with opportunities for deeper sharing and deep listening); large group sharing (shorter and mostly of highlights from small group discussions); and time for individual creative reflection. Attending these workshops will help us have a deeper understanding of racism and climate justice and put that understanding into practice. Join us! March 3: Undoing Anti-Blackness. We'll look at how racism shows up in our lives and community spaces, the history of anti-black racism and how our economy benefits from it, how our differences are used to drive wedges between us, and strategies for working in solidarity with black people and ending racism in our own community. April 7: Allies to Immigrants. We'll explore how our economy benefits from displacement and migration; the impact of displacement policies, war, colonization, and global poverty policies; and the current fronts of struggle for immigrants/migrants/refugees today. May 12: Solidarity with Natives. We'll examine the idea of indigenous sovereignty and the history of the U.S. and tribal governments; concepts of settler colonialism and genocide; removal policies; and environmental justice as part of de-colonization and restoring sovereignty. You may sign up for any one, and are encouraged to attend all three.   Read more and find registration links here. Questions: contact Diane In solidarity, Lisa, Diane, and Frontline Allies -=-=- 350Seattle.org · 1919 E Prospect St, Seattle, WA 98112, United States This email was sent to loriwantsrss@gmail.com. To stop receiving emails or to update your email preferences, click here. You can also keep up with 350 Seattle on Twitter or Facebook. Donations always appreciated and put to good use.

Buttery Goodness

hey tucker, pass the ranch

View this email in your browser Dear Newsliterature,  By now you've likely heard of Rutger Bregman, the Dutch historian who went to this year's Davos summit to dunk on a bunch of billionaires for tax avoidance and climate hypocrisy. Well, the internet was treated to a second round of Bregman-style catharsis yesterday when his confrontational, un-aired interview with Fox's Tucker Carlson finally saw the light of day. No summary can do it justice so you'll just have to watch it for yourself. It's also hard to describe just how intently and joyfully that video was consumed at OTM HQ. That's why we posted this pup to Twitter: And we should add: This isn't the first you've seen of Bob and Brooke in GIF form.........  Onward. Listen To The Latest Show: Bad Reputation [ In Case You Missed It ] Lorena, Revisited The 90s imprinted certain perceptions about ambitious, raging women on our collective imaginations. Some of those women — Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding — have been "revisited" over the past few years, reinterpreted with a contemporary lens showing what we all missed in the moment. Last week we examined what we misunderstood about Lorena Bobbitt, with the help of documentarian Joshua Rofé and Lorena herself. Listen here.  [ Do With This What You Will ] [ Listen To This ] 23 Weeks, 6 Days The President recently said some very wrong things about abortion. He was talking about later abortions, those after the first trimester, and there's already a lot of misleading rhetoric around those procedures. This week, The Cut On Tuesdays podcast features the story of a woman, Laura, who learned there was a serious complication when she was five months pregnant. Her story is specific and heartbreaking, but she's not alone. Research suggests that women who get an abortion later in their pregnancy don't just change their mind on a whim, they usually find out that there's something wrong with the fetus or that carrying the pregnancy to term would compromise their lives. And when you hear Laura's story, you'll get a sense of how difficult that decision is and how limits on legal abortion can make it even more difficult. Listen here.  [ Check This Out ] Rewriting the West There's a lot of discussion about the US-Mexico border these days. But how do we understand that border? And what border is it? And who is the "we" doing all this "understanding"? The magazine Guernica has a poignant collection of essays in a series called "Rewriting the West," all by Latino writers. As guest editor Michelle García puts it: "We write the West by relocating it at the center of its own history, looking at the people who live in this region as the protagonists instead of the 'others,' revealing a far more expansive image of this place." There's a lot to read and process here, including Fernanda Santos' piece on citizenship and a rethinking of the state of Arizona. Don't miss it.  [ Podcast Extra ] When 20,000 Nazis Gathered in New York While the Nazis were building concentration camps, the German-American Bund held pro-Hitler retreats and summer camps across the United States. Yesterday, February 20th, marks the 80th anniversary of the Bund's most notorious event. 20,000 of its members gathered at Madison Square Garden for a "Pro-American Rally" featuring speeches and performances, staged in front of a 30-foot-high portrait of George Washington. The rally is the subject of a new, Oscar-nominated documentary short "A Night at The Garden" by filmmaker Marshall Curry. In this OTM podcast extra, Brooke talks with Curry about how the film's themes resonate today and how a 30-second broadcast spot has had a media moment of its own. Listen here. [ From the Archives ] The Messaging War on Single-Payer Healthcare Bernie is in, and so the battle to say the scariest possible thing about socialism is on. About two years ago, when one such boogeyman, the notion of "Medicare for All," was gaining prominence in policy discussions, Bob spoke with Jill Quadagno — author of One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance — about the past hundred years of scorched-earth lobbying against expansive healthcare programs. It's a conversation worth revisiting! [ Coming Up... ] The future of media is live, interactive, and twitchy weird.  Thanks for listening, and for reading. We love feedback, so please contact us with any questions or comments. We're busy, but we read them all, promise.  DONATE TO OTM

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