After a Burger King commercial starring Mary J. Blige made headlines due to the chanteuse singing soulfully about crispy chicken, many of the "Mr. Wrong" performer's supporters felt she let them down by falling victim to stereotypes. However, one fan put all of that aside during a recent trip to Hollywood, where the singer gifted her with a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive.
Candis Linen of Cleveland, Ohio, an avid listener of hometown station 93.1 WZAK, won an all expenses paid trip to Hollywood thanks to the station, in addition to a $2,500 shopping spree and lunch with the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul last week.
Blige and Linen sat down for a meal of lobster, shrimp and filet mignon at Mr. Chow's in Beverly Hills. As they ate, both engaged in a discussion centered on faith, removing negative energy and allowing good things to come into one's life -- all hot topics that the R&B singer proudly details in her lyrics.
Food for thought that was, but hitting the strip was the highlight. Blige suggested stopping at the Gucci store on Rodeo Drive to take full advantage of her 50 percent off friends and family discount. The Grammy-winning artist chose a tan Gucci bag for Linen, who was floored she was able to walk out of the designer hot spot with that, two huge shopping bags and an unforgettable experience.
2012年4月11日星期三
Featured: Carry that style
Don't let a dowdy travel bag interfere with your vibrant summer travel style. Sheetal Anand gets experts to help you pick up a travel bag as pretty and unique as the outfits you wear
Travel hassle-free
Jayesh Mehta, CEO, Esbeda says, "Travelling light is the key to comfortable and stress-free travel because lugging less weight means you move with more comfort and freedom." Esbeda offers its summer collection of fashionable striped bags, colourful satchels and totes. Trendy, light and convenient, with different compartments and segregators, these bags fit almost all the requirements for your summer sojourn. "Perfect for travelling in style." adds Jayesh.
Travel colour-plus
Fun, funky and on trend with this season's latest styles, the bags should be a jaunty salute to the holiday mood. Malini Agarwalla of Malaga says, "Keeping in mind the fun element, I have added bright blocks of colour to this new collection of bags." The classic shapes and leather trimmings add sophistication; make her bags perfect for various activities. Designed using resilient materials, these will keep you perennially stylish and your belongings blissfully dry.
Travel hands-free
When on a trip, you have so many activities lined up and so many things to carry, including cash and valuables. That's why a safe, hands-free storage option is one that you just cannot "forget in a taxi ride." Backpacks, cross-bodies, hip-bags are just what you need to maximise your holiday enjoyment. Not only are they loaded with numerous compartments, pockets, and zippers, these bags offer complete comfort to adventure enthusiasts and long distance travellers.
Travel well-wheeled
Today, even a small luggage accessory such as a tote or duffel bag can be found in a wheeled version, making travel and business a breeze. Now, just wheel your possessions along in style and comfort.
Travel hassle-free
Jayesh Mehta, CEO, Esbeda says, "Travelling light is the key to comfortable and stress-free travel because lugging less weight means you move with more comfort and freedom." Esbeda offers its summer collection of fashionable striped bags, colourful satchels and totes. Trendy, light and convenient, with different compartments and segregators, these bags fit almost all the requirements for your summer sojourn. "Perfect for travelling in style." adds Jayesh.
Travel colour-plus
Fun, funky and on trend with this season's latest styles, the bags should be a jaunty salute to the holiday mood. Malini Agarwalla of Malaga says, "Keeping in mind the fun element, I have added bright blocks of colour to this new collection of bags." The classic shapes and leather trimmings add sophistication; make her bags perfect for various activities. Designed using resilient materials, these will keep you perennially stylish and your belongings blissfully dry.
Travel hands-free
When on a trip, you have so many activities lined up and so many things to carry, including cash and valuables. That's why a safe, hands-free storage option is one that you just cannot "forget in a taxi ride." Backpacks, cross-bodies, hip-bags are just what you need to maximise your holiday enjoyment. Not only are they loaded with numerous compartments, pockets, and zippers, these bags offer complete comfort to adventure enthusiasts and long distance travellers.
Travel well-wheeled
Today, even a small luggage accessory such as a tote or duffel bag can be found in a wheeled version, making travel and business a breeze. Now, just wheel your possessions along in style and comfort.
2012年4月10日星期二
Rhino horn more expensive than coke
Nguyen Huong Giang loves to party but loathes hangovers, so she ends her whiskey benders by tossing back shots of rhino horn ground with water on a special ceramic plate.
Her father gave her the 4-inch (10-centimetre) brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance it now sells for more than cocaine.
"I don't know how much it costs," said Giang, 24, after showing off the horn in her high-rise apartment overlooking the capital, Hanoi. "I only know it's expensive."
Experts say Vietnam's surging demand is threatening to wipe out the world's remaining rhinoceros populations, which recovered from the brink of extinction after the 1970s thanks to conservation campaigns. Illegal killings in Africa hit the highest recorded level in 2011 and are expected to worsen this year.
This week South Africa called for renewed cooperation with Vietnam after a "shocking number" of rhinos have already been reported dead this year.
China has long valued rhino horn for its purported - though unproven -medicinal properties, but US officials and international wildlife experts now say Vietnam's recent intense craving, blamed partly on a widespread rumour that rhino horn cures cancer, is putting unprecedented pressure on the world's estimated 28,000 remaining animals, mainly in South Africa.
"It's a very dire situation," US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said by telephone. "We have very little cushion for these populations in the wild."
Although data on the global rhino horn trade is scarce, poaching in Africa has soared in the past two years, with American officials saying China and Vietnam are driving the trade that has no "significant" end market in the United States.
Wildlife advocates say that over the last decade, rhino horn has become a must-have luxury item for some Vietnamese nouveau riche, alongside Gucci bags and expensive Maybach cars.
Between 2006 and 2008, three diplomats at the Vietnamese Embassy in Pretoria were linked to embarrassing rhino trafficking scandals -including one caught on tape. In February, US agents busted an alleged interstate rhino horn trafficking syndicate with Vietnamese-American ringleaders.
According to a court affidavit obtained by The Associated Press, Felix Kha, one of the alleged traffickers arrested in the recent US bust, allegedly travelled to China 12 times between 2004 and 2011 and to Vietnam five times last year.
"There are still horns going into China but Vietnam is driving the increase in poaching for horns," said Chris R. Shepherd, deputy regional director for Southeast Asia at the wildlife advocacy group TRAFFIC. "Vietnamese authorities really need to step up their efforts to find out who is behind horn trafficking ... and put them out of business."
The rhino horn craze offers bigger payoffs than other exotic wildlife products such as bear bile or tiger bone paste. American officials say the crushed powder fetches up to $55,000 per kilogram in Asia ($25,000 per pound) - a price that can top the US street value of cocaine, making the hoof-like substance literally as valuable as gold.
The drive is so great, thieves are now pinching rhino horns from European museums and taxidermy shops, sometimes smashing them off with sledgehammers before fleeing. According to Europol, the European law enforcement agency, 72 rhino horns were stolen from 15 European countries in 2011, the first year such data was recorded.
Her father gave her the 4-inch (10-centimetre) brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance it now sells for more than cocaine.
"I don't know how much it costs," said Giang, 24, after showing off the horn in her high-rise apartment overlooking the capital, Hanoi. "I only know it's expensive."
Experts say Vietnam's surging demand is threatening to wipe out the world's remaining rhinoceros populations, which recovered from the brink of extinction after the 1970s thanks to conservation campaigns. Illegal killings in Africa hit the highest recorded level in 2011 and are expected to worsen this year.
This week South Africa called for renewed cooperation with Vietnam after a "shocking number" of rhinos have already been reported dead this year.
China has long valued rhino horn for its purported - though unproven -medicinal properties, but US officials and international wildlife experts now say Vietnam's recent intense craving, blamed partly on a widespread rumour that rhino horn cures cancer, is putting unprecedented pressure on the world's estimated 28,000 remaining animals, mainly in South Africa.
"It's a very dire situation," US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said by telephone. "We have very little cushion for these populations in the wild."
Although data on the global rhino horn trade is scarce, poaching in Africa has soared in the past two years, with American officials saying China and Vietnam are driving the trade that has no "significant" end market in the United States.
Wildlife advocates say that over the last decade, rhino horn has become a must-have luxury item for some Vietnamese nouveau riche, alongside Gucci bags and expensive Maybach cars.
Between 2006 and 2008, three diplomats at the Vietnamese Embassy in Pretoria were linked to embarrassing rhino trafficking scandals -including one caught on tape. In February, US agents busted an alleged interstate rhino horn trafficking syndicate with Vietnamese-American ringleaders.
According to a court affidavit obtained by The Associated Press, Felix Kha, one of the alleged traffickers arrested in the recent US bust, allegedly travelled to China 12 times between 2004 and 2011 and to Vietnam five times last year.
"There are still horns going into China but Vietnam is driving the increase in poaching for horns," said Chris R. Shepherd, deputy regional director for Southeast Asia at the wildlife advocacy group TRAFFIC. "Vietnamese authorities really need to step up their efforts to find out who is behind horn trafficking ... and put them out of business."
The rhino horn craze offers bigger payoffs than other exotic wildlife products such as bear bile or tiger bone paste. American officials say the crushed powder fetches up to $55,000 per kilogram in Asia ($25,000 per pound) - a price that can top the US street value of cocaine, making the hoof-like substance literally as valuable as gold.
The drive is so great, thieves are now pinching rhino horns from European museums and taxidermy shops, sometimes smashing them off with sledgehammers before fleeing. According to Europol, the European law enforcement agency, 72 rhino horns were stolen from 15 European countries in 2011, the first year such data was recorded.
2012年4月9日星期一
Living the DREAM: Undocumented Youth Build Lives in America
The story of Raul Garcia, a good-looking young man who's quick to smile and extraordinarily easy to talk to, is much more typical. When he was two years old, Raul's mother carried him over the U.S. border on her back. Unlike Lorella, Raul grew up in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Hartford and got caught up with the wrong crew. In middle school, he started dealing drugs, carrying a freezer bag of cocaine and ecstasy wherever he went.
After graduating from high school, Raul stopped dealing and enrolled at a local community college using a fake social security number and much of the family's savings. He graduated with honors in communications in May of 2010, but the most meaningful part of his college experience was co-founding a program dedicated to tutoring high schoolers from Hartford's poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Raul's face lights up when he talks about this -- in an ideal world, he would devote his time to tutoring and mentoring at-risk teenagers.
Instead of turning his passion for mentoring teenagers into a career, Raul stands by himself in front of a 12-foot long printing machine for nine hours each day. A giant roll of paper spans the length of the machine, and onto it, Raul prints applications for things he can't apply for. "I have a lot of time to daydream," he says in a matter-of-fact tone. "In my head, I plan all these things I want to do. These fundraisers, these programs I want to start."
The printing factory was the only employer Raul could find willing to risk breaking a federal law by overlooking his status. Raul is slowly working towards a BA at the University of Connecticut, but because he can't apply for financial aid, he can only take one class at a time. He's wanted to marry Andrea, an American citizen and the mother of his two-year-old son, for years, but because he didn't come to the country with a visa to begin with, he would have to leave the country first and then prove that Andrea faces "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" without him there.
Perhaps more depressing than all this is the fact that Raul may be paying for his mistakes for a long time. Because he didn't know to leave the social security number blank on his community college application, for example, he may have unknowingly created legal barriers to his eligibility for the DREAM Act if the act ever passes. Because his parents have no savings, and because he spent his high school years befriending drug dealers and not, like some C4Ders, befriending Americans who could help him pay for college, he pays for his college education alone. And because he now works, takes classes, and cares for his family, Raul hasn't made time to inform himself about opportunities for undocumented students.
When I ask Raul how he manages to stay positive while living with so many barriers to his success, his usual charismatic smile gives way to a tired, dejected look. "I have to put up a front," he says quietly, "But it's like a psychological prison."
Realistically, Raul may already be a lost cause -- in fact, he is seriously considering leaving Andrea and his son to make a life for himself in South America. But his situation is still better than it was 10 years ago because he is part of a community of students who are getting sick, as Lorella puts it, of "viviendo en las sombras" -- of living in the shadows. The budding movement's literature circulates among friends, and every two weeks, new people crowd into C4D's office for meetings. Its members drive long distances without licenses to speak at workshops in the hopes of motivating just a few high schoolers to envision lives beyond rock-bottom wages and the overbearing fear of deportation.
After graduating from high school, Raul stopped dealing and enrolled at a local community college using a fake social security number and much of the family's savings. He graduated with honors in communications in May of 2010, but the most meaningful part of his college experience was co-founding a program dedicated to tutoring high schoolers from Hartford's poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Raul's face lights up when he talks about this -- in an ideal world, he would devote his time to tutoring and mentoring at-risk teenagers.
Instead of turning his passion for mentoring teenagers into a career, Raul stands by himself in front of a 12-foot long printing machine for nine hours each day. A giant roll of paper spans the length of the machine, and onto it, Raul prints applications for things he can't apply for. "I have a lot of time to daydream," he says in a matter-of-fact tone. "In my head, I plan all these things I want to do. These fundraisers, these programs I want to start."
The printing factory was the only employer Raul could find willing to risk breaking a federal law by overlooking his status. Raul is slowly working towards a BA at the University of Connecticut, but because he can't apply for financial aid, he can only take one class at a time. He's wanted to marry Andrea, an American citizen and the mother of his two-year-old son, for years, but because he didn't come to the country with a visa to begin with, he would have to leave the country first and then prove that Andrea faces "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" without him there.
Perhaps more depressing than all this is the fact that Raul may be paying for his mistakes for a long time. Because he didn't know to leave the social security number blank on his community college application, for example, he may have unknowingly created legal barriers to his eligibility for the DREAM Act if the act ever passes. Because his parents have no savings, and because he spent his high school years befriending drug dealers and not, like some C4Ders, befriending Americans who could help him pay for college, he pays for his college education alone. And because he now works, takes classes, and cares for his family, Raul hasn't made time to inform himself about opportunities for undocumented students.
When I ask Raul how he manages to stay positive while living with so many barriers to his success, his usual charismatic smile gives way to a tired, dejected look. "I have to put up a front," he says quietly, "But it's like a psychological prison."
Realistically, Raul may already be a lost cause -- in fact, he is seriously considering leaving Andrea and his son to make a life for himself in South America. But his situation is still better than it was 10 years ago because he is part of a community of students who are getting sick, as Lorella puts it, of "viviendo en las sombras" -- of living in the shadows. The budding movement's literature circulates among friends, and every two weeks, new people crowd into C4D's office for meetings. Its members drive long distances without licenses to speak at workshops in the hopes of motivating just a few high schoolers to envision lives beyond rock-bottom wages and the overbearing fear of deportation.
2012年4月8日星期日
Say No to Plastic Bags in the Produce Aisle!
More and more of us make sure to bring reusable shopping bags to pack up our groceries at the supermarket. But what about when you're in the produce aisle and buying a dozen apples, a bunch of asparagus or kale — how many single use grocery bags do you pull out, only to discard them once home?
Writing on Good, Sarah Lawkow notes that a movement to stop using single-use plastic bags for produce is in its infancy. But all those filmy plastic bags add to the more than 31 million tons of plastic waste the U.S. produces in a year, according to the EPA. In 2010, only 12 percent of plastic bags, sacks and wraps was recycled: We can do better.
Brooklyn's Park Slope Food Co-op has called on customers to stop using the bags while some farmers' markets offer biodegradable single-use bags. In most places, customers are on their own to forego produce-aisle plastics. There are many options: Laskow lists quite a few (many via Etsy including several made from mesh), as well as some retailers that offer produce bags. Some bags are made from cotton and others from starch from plant sources so they can be composted (noted by Green-Mary). Rodale also suggests turning “retired bed linens, thin tea towels, and mismatched cloth napkins” as well as old t-shirts into reusable produce bags.
There is also the simple option of just putting produce into your reusable grocery bag. After all, the produce needs to be washed once you've unpacked it in your kitchen (as does the reusable grocery bag itself).
Plastic bags were only introduced in the 1970s. In 2008, Americans used some 102 billion according to the United States International Trade Commission (a small improvement: in 2006, some 109.8 billion bags were used). But I still remember a time when no store clerk ever asked “paper or plastic” in the checkout lane because paper was the only option. In just about three decades, we've gone from using just a few plastic bags to billions. Surely we can find other ways to bring the vegetables home, as generations before us once did.
Writing on Good, Sarah Lawkow notes that a movement to stop using single-use plastic bags for produce is in its infancy. But all those filmy plastic bags add to the more than 31 million tons of plastic waste the U.S. produces in a year, according to the EPA. In 2010, only 12 percent of plastic bags, sacks and wraps was recycled: We can do better.
Brooklyn's Park Slope Food Co-op has called on customers to stop using the bags while some farmers' markets offer biodegradable single-use bags. In most places, customers are on their own to forego produce-aisle plastics. There are many options: Laskow lists quite a few (many via Etsy including several made from mesh), as well as some retailers that offer produce bags. Some bags are made from cotton and others from starch from plant sources so they can be composted (noted by Green-Mary). Rodale also suggests turning “retired bed linens, thin tea towels, and mismatched cloth napkins” as well as old t-shirts into reusable produce bags.
There is also the simple option of just putting produce into your reusable grocery bag. After all, the produce needs to be washed once you've unpacked it in your kitchen (as does the reusable grocery bag itself).
Plastic bags were only introduced in the 1970s. In 2008, Americans used some 102 billion according to the United States International Trade Commission (a small improvement: in 2006, some 109.8 billion bags were used). But I still remember a time when no store clerk ever asked “paper or plastic” in the checkout lane because paper was the only option. In just about three decades, we've gone from using just a few plastic bags to billions. Surely we can find other ways to bring the vegetables home, as generations before us once did.
2012年4月5日星期四
Coccinelle bags Spring / Summer 2012
The Coccinelle handbags are beautiful and affordable , perfect accessories for all girls who love to take care of your look without necessarily to focus on brands that "cost" as an entire month's salary. The Coccinelle bags are stylish, trendy and are made ??with quality materials, they last for many years and will accompany you in your most special moments. Let's find out all the news of the new collection.
The Celeste bag now we know all too well , is the new it bag of the brand Coccinelle, bright sun and a bag perfect for all women. The Celeste bag is available in both the maxi clutch handbag that is declined in several colors so that each can find the perfect one for your style .
Coccinelle Bags: Esprit bag
The Esprit bag is a very nice model that Coccinelle offers us for our life every day, a tote simple and minimal made ??of metallic leather and available in various colors.
Coccinelle Bags: perforated patterns and logoed
Coccinelle offers us many models made ??of perforated leather , laser, a very nice style and refined in the summer is always very popular and every year always comes to the fore, the brand offers us both whites and blacks that other models colored in orange and green. Even back in the spring logoed bags , bags in which the logo acts as a pattern, just as they have Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Coccinelle presents various logoed bags, we have those classic tones but also models in sparkling yellow, red and turquoise.
After admiring the capsule collection by Barbara Hulanicki (Biba designer of the famous brand), and one designed with German Kostas Murkudis , now it's up to the Russian designer Alexander Terekhov create a collection for the brand Coccinelle. "It is a brilliant and talented designer, who has already achieved a great success but at the same time has a great future ahead of him," say the leaders of Ladybugs and we can not but agree. The collection was created for the Russian market but is distributed throughout the world, is inspired by an imaginary trip to Morocco . The bags are made ??of nappa leather inserts in the canvas and prints are inspired by the culture of African folk music and are in orange and turquoise , the collection includes a tote, a clutch and a shoulder bag.
The Celeste bag now we know all too well , is the new it bag of the brand Coccinelle, bright sun and a bag perfect for all women. The Celeste bag is available in both the maxi clutch handbag that is declined in several colors so that each can find the perfect one for your style .
Coccinelle Bags: Esprit bag
The Esprit bag is a very nice model that Coccinelle offers us for our life every day, a tote simple and minimal made ??of metallic leather and available in various colors.
Coccinelle Bags: perforated patterns and logoed
Coccinelle offers us many models made ??of perforated leather , laser, a very nice style and refined in the summer is always very popular and every year always comes to the fore, the brand offers us both whites and blacks that other models colored in orange and green. Even back in the spring logoed bags , bags in which the logo acts as a pattern, just as they have Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Coccinelle presents various logoed bags, we have those classic tones but also models in sparkling yellow, red and turquoise.
After admiring the capsule collection by Barbara Hulanicki (Biba designer of the famous brand), and one designed with German Kostas Murkudis , now it's up to the Russian designer Alexander Terekhov create a collection for the brand Coccinelle. "It is a brilliant and talented designer, who has already achieved a great success but at the same time has a great future ahead of him," say the leaders of Ladybugs and we can not but agree. The collection was created for the Russian market but is distributed throughout the world, is inspired by an imaginary trip to Morocco . The bags are made ??of nappa leather inserts in the canvas and prints are inspired by the culture of African folk music and are in orange and turquoise , the collection includes a tote, a clutch and a shoulder bag.
2012年4月4日星期三
Designer Creates A Bag That Charges Your Mobile Devices On-The-Go
As part of London Fashion Week's Autumn/Winter 2012 Showcase, Vodafone has teamed up with British designer Richard Nicoll—who freelanced for Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton before starting his eponymous label—to create a bag that is capable of charging mobile devices.
For tech-savvy fashionistas, the revolutionary handbag allows its users to plug in and power up their Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and Android phones on the go, via a cable on the inner pocket of the purse.
According to The Telegraph, this solves one's "nomophobic woes"—which stands for "no-mobile-phone-phobia".
The recharging tote bag itself must be first charged, via a magnetic induction cable that magnetically attaches to the outside of the bag.
But once the handbag's battery is fully charged, it can charge handheld devices for at least two full days.
Additionally, when its users receive a call or message, a Bluetooth-activated LED 'accessory' on the outside of the bag illuminates to notify you.
"This is the second season that we've partnered with Vodafone and we wanted to create a collaborative product that fused technology and fashion, and that was relevant for both of us—so we came up with the idea of doing a charging bag that charges your mobile device on the go, which is especially relevant for my collection this season, because it's all about the notion of work and all its facets in modern times," Nicoll told The Telegraph.
The tote bag was created as part of Nicoll's 'Modern Times' line, and was developed in association with leather goods company Tusting.
And because we live in a technologically-advanced world, where everyone is always on their phones, such a bag is in demand—and it will be on sale by the end of spring. In anticipation…
For tech-savvy fashionistas, the revolutionary handbag allows its users to plug in and power up their Blackberries, iPhones, iPads and Android phones on the go, via a cable on the inner pocket of the purse.
According to The Telegraph, this solves one's "nomophobic woes"—which stands for "no-mobile-phone-phobia".
The recharging tote bag itself must be first charged, via a magnetic induction cable that magnetically attaches to the outside of the bag.
But once the handbag's battery is fully charged, it can charge handheld devices for at least two full days.
Additionally, when its users receive a call or message, a Bluetooth-activated LED 'accessory' on the outside of the bag illuminates to notify you.
"This is the second season that we've partnered with Vodafone and we wanted to create a collaborative product that fused technology and fashion, and that was relevant for both of us—so we came up with the idea of doing a charging bag that charges your mobile device on the go, which is especially relevant for my collection this season, because it's all about the notion of work and all its facets in modern times," Nicoll told The Telegraph.
The tote bag was created as part of Nicoll's 'Modern Times' line, and was developed in association with leather goods company Tusting.
And because we live in a technologically-advanced world, where everyone is always on their phones, such a bag is in demand—and it will be on sale by the end of spring. In anticipation…
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