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	<title>Thought Catalog &#187; Viagra</title>
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		<title>A Letter To My Boner</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/a-letter-to-my-boner/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/a-letter-to-my-boner/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 02:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ryan O'Connell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Humor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bugaboo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Embarassment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Erections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shame]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viagra]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=91467</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Yeah, that&#8217;s right. I started to get a boner while talking to my GRANDMA. Were you just trying to punk me? I don&#8217;t get it. Your behavior was super hurtful. Hey Boner, Where U at? JK, don&#8217;t come out. I&#8217;m at work and I really can&#8217;t deal with your presence in front of my co-workers. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="teaser">Yeah, that&#8217;s right. I started to get a boner while talking to my GRANDMA. Were you just trying to punk me? I don&#8217;t get it. Your behavior was super hurtful. </div>
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<p>Hey Boner,</p>
<p>Where U at? JK, don&#8217;t come out. I&#8217;m at work and I really can&#8217;t deal with your presence in front of my co-workers. Sometimes you like to stop by at 2:30 in the afternoon when I&#8217;m in the middle of writing and it&#8217;s so freaking rude. Do you see me showing up to YOUR work at The Boner Factory and being like, &#8220;Peek-a-boo! I&#8217;m here!&#8221;? No, you don&#8217;t. Because I&#8217;m a good owner!</p>
<p>Oops, sorry to get all aggro at you. I love you, boner! You make it possible for me to have sex and receive blowjays and stuff. And sometimes, when you&#8217;re really excelling at your job, you make my penis look GREAT. Seriously, A+ work, boner beb. I get so sad when you leave me sometimes.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll be honest with you though. There are some things I&#8217;ve had to get off my chest and my therapist suggests I deal with the issues I have with you in a letter. So here it goes. Remember that I love you always and forever. DON&#8217;T EVER LEAVE ME, YA HEAR? I don&#8217;t want to have to take Viagra.</p>
<p>Sometimes I feel like you show up at the most inopportune moments (when I&#8217;m working or trying to get my pee on) and it&#8217;s really frustrating. Like this one time I was wearing tight black shorts at my grandmother&#8217;s house and my hand kept rubbing up against your little brother, Flaccid, on accident. Then, all of a sudden, you just kick Flaccid out and move on in! Yeah, that&#8217;s right. I started to get a boner while talking to my GRANDMA. Were you just trying to punk me? I don&#8217;t get it. Your behavior was super hurtful. You knew I was with my grandma and you were just like, &#8220;whatevs, playas gon&#8217; play.&#8221; WHAT ABOUT MY FEELINGS?</p>
<p>Then, when I&#8217;m hooking up with a boy and really need you to be the best boner you can be, you don&#8217;t show up! Okay, fine, you&#8217;ve only not shown up twice, and it was sort of my fault because I was drunk. But imagine the shame I felt trying to explain to my partner why you weren&#8217;t coming when his boner showed up for him and he was just as drunk, if not more, so what&#8217;s the deal? Were you slacking? Were you playing the XBox when I was hooking up? I swear, in that moment, I really just wanted to fire your lazy ass and get a new boner. I understand that&#8217;s not physically possible to receive a new erection but if it was, I would&#8217;ve done it. You show up for my grandma but not for some hot French dude with a huge dick? Your priorities are screwed!</p>
<p>Okay, deep breaths. I&#8217;m trying to get to a place of Yes with you, dear boner, and not dwell on the negatives. You ARE good to me, baby. I know that. You just make loving you hard sometimes.</p>
<p>I feel like we need to re-connect and do some healing together. I&#8217;m at work right now but with the proper finagling, I think I can meet you on my lunch break. See you in five? <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
<h3 style="padding-left: 60px;">You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/thoughtcatalog">here</a>.</h3>
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		<title>The Top Ten Worst Tweets By Courtney Stodden</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/the-top-ten-worst-tweets-by-courtney-stodden/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/the-top-ten-worst-tweets-by-courtney-stodden/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:30:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tessah Schoenrock</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Digital Age]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Courtney Stodden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Doug Hutchison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hiking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oral sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pills]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teenagers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Green Mile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tweets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viagra]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=66912</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you guys know who this is? Her name is Courtney Stodden, and she rose (stumbled? Flailed?) to semi-fame after she married her 51 year old half-man, half-reptile husband (also known as the creepy prison guard from The Green Mile, also known as Doug Hutchison) at 16 years old. Do you guys know who this [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="teaser"> Do you guys know who this is? Her name is Courtney Stodden, and she rose (stumbled? Flailed?) to semi-fame after she married her 51 year old half-man, half-reptile husband (also known as the creepy prison guard from <em>The Green Mile</em>, also known as Doug Hutchison) at 16 years old. </div>
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<p>Do you guys know who this is? Her name is Courtney Stodden, and she rose (stumbled? Flailed?) to semi-fame after she married her 51 year old half-man, half-reptile husband (also known as the creepy prison guard from <em>The Green Mile</em>, also known as Doug Hutchison) at 16 years old. She’s an aspiring singer and model, and if any of you have seen her music video “Don’t Put It On Me, Girl”, you know she is the epitome of class, style, and Bai Ling-level insanity. This girl is clearly A) 30 years old, B) hooked on prescription drugs, and/or C) the next Maya Angelou, as the following list of her ten best Tweets of all time is about to prove:</p>
<h3>10. Back in from a hot hike up the back inclines of LA. Boy, conquering THAT in 7 in. stilettos makes for an AMAZING workout! Feeling energized!</h3>
<p>Yeah right. If by “hike” you mean helping Granddad Hutchinson onto the toilet, then maybe.</p>
<h3>9. Throwin on a white string bikini, fluffy light up bunny ears, 7in heels, &amp; a rhinestone bow tie while bakin cookies. Don&#8217;t Put It On Me Girl</h3>
<p>A white string bikini and fluffy light up bunny ears? Are you for real? “Don’t Put It On Me Girl” + “What In the Hell Kind of Drugs Are You On And Please Get Your Lips Off My Goddamn Cookies” + “Aren’t You Supposed to Be In Like, High School Right Now”? would be my response if I came home to that tomfoolery. Even I wasn’t that screwed up/slutty when I was 17.</p>
<h3>8. Had a bodily breakfast in bed this morning; It was so tasteful&#8230; Just like sweet syrupy pancakes completed with a lush creamy filling. Yum!</h3>
<p>“Tasteful?” Slurping on PeePaw Hutchinson’s wrinkled pickle is less “tasteful” and more “ohmygodI’mgonnathrowup.” NOTE: I’m surprised she even got to the “lush creamy filling.” That probably took some serious manual labor. NOTE #2: Me and everyone else out there who’s ever given a blow job knows there’s nothing sweet, syrupy, or lush about it. Salty, sticky, and regretful? Maybe. Stop playin’, girl.</p>
<h3>7. Woke up to a perfect morning; Romantic melodies softly playing, my favorite breakfast all prepared, &amp; my pups licking me up &amp; down&#8230; Mmm!</h3>
<p>Bad, Courtney- BAD!! I know Granddad Hutchinson’s tongue feels like a piece of dry sandpaper, but that’s what you get for marrying a D-list Komodo dragon, and besides- the dogs are INNOCENT!</p>
<h3>6. Celebrating the last night of being sweet-n-sexy 16 by wearing NOTHING but my tasty bday-suit! Mmm; Yummy! ;-)</h3>
<p>First of all, your 35-year-old birthday suit looks like one of Ed Gein’s old human skin onesies, and I bet it tastes even worse. Second of all…gross.</p>
<h3>5. Stepped my paws into a sexy wet cat-suit; Prowling mysteriously around the house while lickin&#8217; my lips searchin&#8217; for some nip! MEEEOWWW! ;-)</h3>
<p>I know you think licking your lips is sexy, but it’s really not when your version of “prowling mysteriously” actually means crawling around on your hands and knees in an old wetsuit of Granddad Hutchison’s frantically searching for a lost Oxycontin (oops, I mean “nip”) and then hiding behind the drapes when he starts ringing the bell that means, “baby oil and vinyl facemask time.”</p>
<h3>4. Gratifying our glorious Lord for all of the beauty that He continuously blesses each and every one of us with. Thank you, Jesus! XO&#8217;s ;-x</h3>
<p>Wait…WHAT?? You’ve been vomiting out over-alliterated Tweets about your “sweetly sensual body” and the “erotic enchanting kiss of the sun’s sweet nectar” or WHATTHEHELLEVER, and now you’re going to thank JESUS? Don’t thank him, babygirl- thank your parents for allowing your sweet, sensual, nonsensical, pill-popping grace and foolery to shine through the sheer sexuality of your natural beauty. And P.S.-You can’t “XO” Jesus. You just can’t.</p>
<h3>3. Returned from a late night walk through these angelic alleys of the Hollywood hills w/ my love. I taste God&#8217;s beauty with great gratitude&#8230;</h3>
<p>HA! I don’t know what PeePaw Hutchison is teaching you about sex, but that is NOT “God’s beauty” you’re tasting.</p>
<h3>2. Experiencing such a wet &#8216;n wild afternoon by turning on a water hose and squirting it all over my heated flesh! Mmm feeling rejuvenated! XOs</h3>
<p>No. No no no. That “rejuvenating” water you felt was actually your next door neighbor spraying the hose on you when she found you passed out in her hydrangeas in your “cheeky string bikini.” Don’t worry &#8211; they’ll explain everything at the Charlie Sheen Institute for Delusional Hot Messes.</p>
<h3>1. Had such a Thirsty-Thursday; I just might have Doug moisten my mouth tonight with his delectable drink? Mmm&#8230; Now that&#8217;s tempting&#8230; ;-)</h3>
<p>IS THIS FOR REAL??????? (NOTE: Granddad Hutchison is clearly past his prime, and Viagra only works on human beings, so I’m going to go ahead and assume she is talking about golden showers. As in watersports, as in drinking piss. Cue me realizing that my writing career thus far amounts to  writing articles for free about 17 year olds hypothetically drinking old man piss. This just got real. I gotta go.) <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/thoughtcatalog">here</a>.</h3>
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Image &#8211; <a href="http://www.courtneystodden.com/Videos.html">Courtney Stodden</a>
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		<title>Five Instances In Which You Must Trust People</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/five-instances-in-which-you-must-trust-people/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/five-instances-in-which-you-must-trust-people/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:35:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stephanie Georgopulos</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blackberry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drinking Alone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drunk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Honesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Things]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Macbook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mobil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Modern Living]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Respect]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Risk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trust]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trusting People]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viagra]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Virus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WiFi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=50721</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When taking a cab. Beyond trusting that your cab driver knows where he’s going and isn’t ripping you off, you have to actually trust that this person is indeed, a cab driver. I sound like a Paranoid Polly, but my mom was actually kidnapped by a fake cab driver when she was my age. All [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="large-thumb"><img src="http://thoughtcatalog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cabdrivertrust.jpg" alt="" title="" width="298" height="188" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-50724" /></p>
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<div class="long-thumb"><img src="http://thoughtcatalog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/whototruswhendrinkingalone.jpg" alt="" title="" width="298" height="65" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-50725" /></p>
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<div class="teaser">
When taking a cab. Beyond trusting that your cab driver knows where he’s going and isn’t ripping you off, you have to actually trust that this person is indeed, a cab driver. I sound like a Paranoid Polly, but my mom was actually kidnapped by a fake cab driver when she was my age. All you need is a Crown Victoria and a smile &#8211; boom. Cab driver.
</div>
<h3>While using <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/most-depressing-wifi-hotspots-in-baltimore-md/">WiFi</a> at a public place</h3>
<p>While working at home certainly has its perks (familiar bathroom, free sandwiches), I prefer to hole up in a coffee shop during working hours. I need judgmental eyes on me in order to complete my work. Feeling someone glare at me while thinking, “Bitch! Get off of Facebook and finish your work. I need your outlet, greedy asshole,” is my version of having a boss. But working in a coffee shop isn’t a cakewalk. Every time I have to use the bathroom, I struggle to leave my stuff unattended. “Just running to the bathroom, don’t mind me while I leave my MacBook, my BlackBerry, my wallet, and my entire livelihood here at this table! Totally unattended!” You don’t want to ask someone to watch your stuff for you, because it makes you appear unreasonable and unaware of the Coffee Shop Golden Rule (which is, don’t steal people’s shit while they’re in the bathroom). Alas, nature calls and you can either trust your fellow patrons, or pack up all of your belongings every time you need to use the phone, go to the bathroom, or refill your iced coffee.</p>
<h3>When taking a cab</h3>
<p>Beyond trusting that your cab driver knows where he’s going and isn’t ripping you off, you have to actually trust that this person is indeed, a cab driver. I sound like a Paranoid Polly, but my mom was actually kidnapped by a fake cab driver when she was my age. All you need is a Crown Victoria and a smile &#8211; boom. Cab driver. It’s also entirely possible that your cab driver is intoxicated or otherwise “under the influence.” Think about it – under any other circumstance, you’d probably be acutely aware of the risk in accepting a ride from a stranger. We don’t just trust cab drivers, we pay them to put our lives in their hands – “Here’s ten bucks in exchange for you making sure I make it to my destination alive, hehe!” Seems risky, but necessary.</p>
<h3>When someone else makes your coffee</h3>
<p>I’m really not a coffee snob. My favorite coffee used to be that machine-made “cappuccino” powder crap that you find at Mobil On-the-Run. But I don’t process milk all that well these days, and I don’t trust machines anymore. Instead, I have to trust that my drinks are made with soy. I also need decaf on occasion – otherwise, my pulse starts racing and I have to stop whatever I’m doing to pen a quick Microsoft Word explanation to the barista – “Heart. Beating out of chest. Can’t breathe. Needed decaf, you fu—“ Hopefully, I complete that sentence before I keel over on my keyboard and die at The West Café. Trusting that someone will bring you the right order when you have food allergies is major. If your barista respects your order on a regular basis, you should probably propose right then and there. That’s love.</p>
<h3>When you must give someone your email password</h3>
<p>I was at a bar one night when my phone started rapid fire emailing people. Seemingly out of nowhere, my phone had contracted a Viagra spam virus. I’d delete one “sent mail” notification, and forty more would pop up. It was like my phone had just snorted its last line of coke. “I know it’s 3 AM and no one is answering my phone calls, but I’m just going to email everyone in this address book, just to see if any of these people have a connect. If no one answers, <strong>then</strong> we call it a night. One of these people has to have a connect, though. Do you have an extra cigarette?” I was faced with an interesting problem – who do you call to change your password under these circumstances? I was already out with my roommate, who would’ve been an ideal prospect. We settled on the person that she would’ve trusted to change her password (since my emergency contacts were unreachable for a variety of reasons). The anxiety caused by someone, no matter how trustworthy, having control over my inbox was crippling. Is she reading my <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/on-gchat/">G-Chats</a>? My bank statements? Embarrassing emails I’d sent to guys who’d vanished into the ether? In the end, I either had to submit to sending my grandparents Viagra coupons every ten minutes, or give someone my email password. I chose the latter.</p>
<h3>When drinking alone at the bar</h3>
<p>When drinking alone at a bar, whether it’s the beginning, middle, or end of a night – you need the bartender on your side. Their tasks as your one and only confidant can be trivial (watching your barstool) or life saving (watching your drink). You need the bartender to hold you down as you drunkenly wander outside to smoke a cig. You need them to keep the secrets you spill when you’re belligerent. You need them to care that you’re about to leave your favorite jacket behind when it’s snowing outside. Do not piss them off. Tip them well. If you have to forget everything you know when you’re wasted, forget your name or the words to a song – but always remember that a bartender can be your best friend or your worst enemy. We don’t trust our worst enemies with our drinks, do we? <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
<h3 style="padding-left: 60px;">You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/thoughtcatalog">here</a>.</h3>
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image &#8211; <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jekkone/5174754213/sizes/l/in/photostream/">Jekkone</a>
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		<title>Contents of bin Laden&#8217;s Medicine Cabinet Revealed</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/contents-of-bin-ladens-medicine-cabinet-revealed/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/contents-of-bin-ladens-medicine-cabinet-revealed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2011 20:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan Hoffman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Avena syrup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fungus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kidney Failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine Cabinet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Osama Bin Laden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Osama Bin Laden Dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seinfeld]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shingles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viagra]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[One’s medicine cabinet can be extremely telling. As Seinfeld covered in “The Conversion” episode, its contents are like a private look into the owner’s life. This is just what we got when NBC released a list of all the medications found in Osama bin Laden’s medicine cabinet last week. One’s medicine cabinet can be extremely [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="large-thumb"><img src="http://thoughtcatalog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/File-Osama-bin-Laden-portrait.jpg" alt="" title="" width="298" height="188" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46658" /></p>
</div>
<div class="long-thumb"><img src="http://thoughtcatalog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/File-Osama-bin-Laden-portraitsmall.jpg" alt="" title="" width="298" height="65" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46659" /></p>
</div>
<div class="teaser">
One’s medicine cabinet can be extremely telling. As <em>Seinfeld</em> covered in “The Conversion” episode, its contents are like a private look into the owner’s life. This is just what we got when NBC released a list of all the medications found in Osama bin Laden’s medicine cabinet last week.
</div>
<p>One’s medicine cabinet can be extremely telling. As <em>Seinfeld</em> covered in “The Conversion” episode, its contents are like a private look into the owner’s life. </p>
<p>This is just what we got when <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42934673/ns/world_news-death_of_bin_laden/">NBC</a> released a list of all the medications found in Osama bin Laden’s medicine cabinet last week. Of note is that the drugs used by bin Laden and others in the compound reveal that, contrary to what was believed prior to the discovery, bin Laden was not taking anything for kidney failure. Although an attempt to poison him in 1999 left him with damaged kidneys, he managed to recover by eating lots of watermelons, according to his youngest widow, Amal. </p>
<p>This new information might refute <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383429/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-Marijuana-grew-near-luxury-compound-Abbottabad.html?ito=feeds-newsxml">speculations</a> that bin Laden was a regular marijuana smoker because it helped him with the pain caused by his kidneys. Maybe he just liked marijuana because it made him feel good?</p>
<p>Also of more scandalous note, an herbal form of Viagra called Avena syrup was found in the cabinet. The syrup is an extract of wild oats and is commonly marketed as an aphrodiasic and a cure for impotence, although it also can be used for sour stomach. </p>
<p>Gabapentin, a drug used for nerve pain, seizures, and shingles (an ailment of the skin) was also found in the cabinet. These afflictions are not life threatening, but they’re not the kind of thing you necessarily want someone snooping around in your bathroom to discover. </p>
<p>The trouble with the discoveries is that we can’t have too much fun speculating about their significance; the medicine cabinet stored drugs for multiple individuals. Further, many of the drugs can be used to treat conditions for which they&#8217;re not approved. As Jerry realizes in <em>Seinfeld</em>, the anti-fungal cream he discovers in his date’s bathroom is actually for a dog, and his worries that his date had a fungus problem were unfounded. </p>
<p>The general consensus of the look at the different medicines is that bin Laden was in pretty good health for a 54-year-old, and there was no evidence of any serious, chronic conditions. This information, coupled with the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383429/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-Marijuana-grew-near-luxury-compound-Abbottabad.html?ito=feeds-newsxml">reports</a> that an abundance of food, including Coke and Pepsi, was delivered to bin Laden&#8217;s compound regularly (not the mention the ganja), is suggestive of what the terrorist&#8217;s quality of life was like. <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
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<div class="credit">
via <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8502363/Osama-bin-Laden-was-a-user-of-herbal-viagra.html   ">The Telegraph</a>/ image &#8211; Hamid Mir</div>
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		<title>What Body Are We Breeding?</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/what-body-are-we-breeding/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/what-body-are-we-breeding/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:53:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Daniel Coffeen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alarm Clock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bodies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Body]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Demands]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exercise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Impotent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Information Body]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Information Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[living]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obligations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pixels]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viagra]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[What Do You Do With Your Body All Day]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Words]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=44562</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The obligations of the day blind us. We focus on waking up and getting ready, getting where we need to go, negotiating work and family and love and bills and traffic and taxes. It&#8217;s not often that we afford ourselves the opportunity to survey the world, its mechanics and mode of operation. I know I&#8217;ve [...]]]></description>
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The obligations of the day blind us. We focus on waking up and getting ready, getting where we need to go, negotiating work and family and love and bills and traffic and taxes. It&#8217;s not often that we afford ourselves the opportunity to survey the world, its mechanics and mode of operation.
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<div class="intro">
I know I&#8217;ve written and ranted about this before, but it surfaced in my mind and in my fingertips so here it is again, in a different form&#8230;.
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<p>The obligations of the day blind us. We focus on waking up and getting ready, getting where we need to go, negotiating work and family and love and bills and traffic and taxes. It&#8217;s not often that we afford ourselves the opportunity to survey the world, its mechanics and mode of operation. You&#8217;d think the media would help us with that but the opposite is true: the media focuses on current affairs, rarely stepping back to critique the system.</p>
<p>Step back for a moment now and look at the mechanics of the world around you. Look at what&#8217;s demanded of the body, how its movement is choreographed throughout the day. It&#8217;s quite odd.</p>
<p>Our jobs not only don&#8217;t ask us to move — they demand that we don&#8217;t move. We sit at desks for hours upon hours, staring at a screen occasionally getting up to drink some coffee or chat with a co-worker. A body that moves, that flexes its muscles, an active body: this goes against the very basis of the information economy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we feed this still body poorly. Obviously, not all of us: some of us take the time to pack a nice lunch, to eat well, to treat this stationary, withering frame of ours. But, on the whole, I think it&#8217;s safe to say that Americans at their jobs are not only not moving, they&#8217;re eating absolutely terrible food, gut wrenching food, soul killing food.</p>
<p>And drinking loads of lattes — antibiotic infused, hormone drenched milk fat with some shitty coffee in it.</p>
<p>This world is breeding a body that does not want to move, a body that is not physically vital. Sure, there are gyms, these ghettos of movement. But I&#8217;m not sure mindless, concerted movement breeds a healthy body. Watching tv while working an exercise bike ensures that we remain locked into the information economy, to the exchange of the new capital: images.</p>
<p>And so, as a culture, we are being bred to manipulate pixels and words, images and icons. Capital demands a new kind of body, one that doesn&#8217;t need to lift or heave — and one that doesn&#8217;t want to run about, fuck, frolic. The industrial age is truly over; the informational body is being born.</p>
<p>And it is not pretty, this birth, this metamorphosis, this breeding. It demands a disciplining of our days that is unsavory — waking to the shrill cry of the alarm clock, slouching through maniacal traffic, being forced to sit at a desk staring at a screen for hours upon hours.</p>
<p>Marcuse calls this the body of labor. But that&#8217;s not quite right because the very nature of labor has changed — and this new labor doesn&#8217;t want a body at all. It wants a brain that can fill in the gaps between machines, between computers. I want to say: it&#8217;s the antibody of non-labor labor. But that&#8217;s a supremely ugly phrase.</p>
<p>The body of pleasure is being bred out of existence, leaving us literally impotent, popping Viagra just to continue the species.</p>
<p>And the shitty things is, this whole thing is gonna come crashing down and we&#8217;ll need to be strong, really fucking strong, to survive. But by then we&#8217;ll be shriveled, mere husks left to be blown away by the mighty winds that come.<span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
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		<title>New Limited Edition Beer Contains Viagra</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/new-limited-edition-beer-contains-viagra/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/new-limited-edition-beer-contains-viagra/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:10:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan Hoffman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Love & Sex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alcohol]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[beer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[British Royalty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Viagra]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weddings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=42742</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new, limited edition beer made with Viagra is being released at the end of this month in the United Kingdom to celebrate the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. According to the label on the bottle, BrewDog&#8217;s “Royal Virility Performance,” a 7.5% ABV IPA, contains Viagra, chocolate, and Horny Goat Weed. “It [...]]]></description>
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<div class="teaser">
A new, limited edition beer made with Viagra is being released at the end of this month in the United Kingdom to celebrate the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. According to the label on the bottle, BrewDog&#8217;s “Royal Virility Performance,” a 7.5% ABV IPA, contains Viagra, chocolate, and Horny Goat Weed.
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<div class="intro">“It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance; therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to” &#8211; <em>Macbeth</em>, Act II Scene III</div>
<p>A new, limited edition beer made with Viagra is being released at the end of this month in the United Kingdom to celebrate the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. According to the label on the bottle, BrewDog&#8217;s “Royal Virility Performance,” a 7.5% ABV IPA, contains Viagra, chocolate, and Horny Goat Weed. The label reads:</p>
<blockquote><p>
&#8216;Arise Prince Willy.&#8217; A beer to stir the loins of newlywed princes, summon the ghost of long lost princesses and cure the stammer of stuttering kings. </p></blockquote>
<p>According to <em><a href="http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/861296-arise-prince-willy-viagra-beer-launched-to-mark-royal-wedding">Metro UK</a></em>, drinking three of these beers is the equivalent of taking one Viagra. </p>
<p>The BrewDog blog explains the reasoning behind the beer:</p>
<blockquote><p>With this beer we want to take the wheels off the royal wedding bandwagon being jumped on by dozens of breweries; The Royal Virility Performance is the perfect antidote to all the hype. A beer should be brewed with a purpose, not just because some toffs are getting married, so we created something at our brewery that will undermine those special edition beers and other assorted seaside tat, whilst at the same time actually give the happy couple something extra on their big day.</p></blockquote>
<p>The beers are available to pre-order for £10 each (about $16). 20% of the proceeds will go to Centrepoint, a charity for homeless people that Prince William Supports. </p>
<p>James Watt, “Head of Stuff” at BrewDog, commented on the BrewDog blog that “We put a bottle in a jiffy bag marked ‘Prince Willy, Buckingham Palace.&#8217; We sent it by Royal Mail as we presume they are most likely to know where he lives. As the bottle says, this is about consummation, not commemoration, so we hope he gets it.” <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
<h3 style="padding-left: 60px;">You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/thoughtcatalog">here</a>.</h3>
<div class="credit">
via <a href="http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/861296-arise-prince-willy-viagra-beer-launched-to-mark-royal-wedding ">Metro UK</a>/ image &#8211; iStockPhoto </div>
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		<title>All I Want is Time to Enjoy this Life&#8230; (I)</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/critique-capitalism-daniel-coffeen-enjoy-life/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/critique-capitalism-daniel-coffeen-enjoy-life/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Daniel Coffeen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Daniel Coffeen]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=6271</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Series of Personal and Pissed Off Critiques of Capitalism (Part 1) Comments enabled. To me, it was like everyone around me suddenly went totally nuts.  Here were all these people going to absurd jobs for 50, 60, 70 hours a week — just to make their rent.  Nobody looked very happy.  But they did [...]]]></description>
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A Series of Personal and Pissed Off Critiques of Capitalism (Part 1)<br />
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To me, it was like everyone around me suddenly went totally nuts.  Here were all these people going to absurd jobs for 50, 60, 70 hours a week — just to make their rent.  Nobody looked very happy.  But they did look, well, <em>possesed</em>.  I mean here, in San Francisco, everybody went from being a psychedelic artist slacker to all of a sudden talking about brand engagement, apps and back ends, driving traffic and conversion rates; everyone had a goddamn business plan and a crackberry.
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<p>I have to admit something from the get go: I love saying the word, “capitalism.”  Every time it leaves my mouth, I feel transformed into an earnest, young Jewish man from 1927 Lower East Side (pre-raddichio).  A man who has passionate but considered opinions about Trotsky, unions, the international labor movement.    A man who wears a Greek fisherman’s hat, drab wool baggy pants, sports some quasi-rabbinical facial hair and, more often than not, is a little sweaty.  Try it for yourself: “Capitalism eats at the human heart just as it eats at the earth.”  Or, more simply, “Damn capitalism!” Or even something more reflective: “Ah, such are the symptoms of capitalism.”</p>
<p>Feel free to try fun variations: “That’s just <em>last stage</em> capitalism.” Or: “These are the conditions of <em>contemporary </em>capitalism.”</p>
<p>Not feeling it?  No problem, because I have a creeping suspicion what I call capitalism and what my poorly caricaturized early mid 20<sup>th</sup> century yid called capitalism are not quite the same thing.  Or, more likely, they are the same thing but we come to this place from radically different places and draw radically different conclusions.</p>
<p>And that is a good thing.  Because this is what lies at the heart of my critique of capitalism: that it wills the one when the key to good living is difference.  The other heart of my critique of capitalism is it makes me really, really tired and makes getting laid more difficult than it should be — not to mention doing simple things like taking a walk, pissing, picking my nose, being sick, parenting, even watching a movie.</p>
<p>You see, I am no Marxist scholar.  I am no economist.  I am not learned in these matters, at least not in any academic sense.  Yes, I have a PhD — in rhetoric.  And while many of my fellow rhetors from Berkeley are learned in such things — they wrote dissertations that cited Adorno and Horkheimer, Marcuse and Benjamin, Marx, Gramsci, even Habermas — not me.  I wrote about language as a sensual, creative, physiologic force, about how to view language so as to maximize joy — for oneself and for the world.  My critique of what I call capitalism emerges from my day-to-day experiences, my struggles, to lead a life that is not just sustainable — although sustainable would be good — but a life that is <em>enjoyable</em>.</p>
<p>Oh, all I ever wanted to talk about was emerging systems of complexity, great teeming worlds of delight, Walt Whitman <em>sans</em> the poetic facilility.  All I ever wanted was to take walks, read books, teach, write, think, screw, wallow in ideas and flesh and food and love and language. Whenever anybody mentioned anything that remotely smacked of politics, I’d brazenly — some might say obnoxiously — dismiss it.  “Tend to your own delight.  See the world as an endless, beautiful becoming. Politics are a way to distract us from ourselves.”</p>
<p>And you know what? I still stand by that, now more than ever.</p>
<p>But something changed along the way, something big, something that changed how I feel when I say that, when I think that: I spawned, I bred, I begat.  And so unleashed a fury of personal angst but, more importantly, of forces and circumstances that drove me directly into the churning heart of contemporary capitalism.</p>
<p>Said spawn coincided with a dramatic shift in the financial make up of the country and, rather conspicuously, the city in which I live, San Francisco. In other words, I bred just as shit got really, really fucking expensive.  And that meant making a meagre living — but living like a king as I had all the time in the world to actually <em>enjoy </em>living — was no longer sustainable.</p>
<p>To me, it was like everyone around me suddenly went totally nuts.  Here were all these people going to absurd jobs for 50, 60, 70 hours a week — just to make their rent.  Nobody looked very happy.  But they did look, well, <em>possesed</em>.  I mean here, in San Francisco, everybody went from being a psychedelic artist slacker to all of a sudden talking about brand engagement, apps and back ends, driving traffic and conversion rates; everyone had a goddamn business plan and a crackberry.  And they were yammering non-stop — on line buying coffee, at the park with their kids — to whom they paid no attention, and then too much attention — and, of course, while driving a Jetta.</p>
<p>I know, I know.  It’s not just that everyone changed.  I was older. I had a kid.  I needed to work.  But that’s not all it is.  Life changed.  And shit got nuts.  I mean, shit was always nuts but then it got really, <em>really</em> nuts.</p>
<p>And all I ever wanted to do is wake up at a decent hour, have a nice morning fuck — oh, I wake up at full mast and love that sleepy, dreamy booty — and then enjoy my breakfast, occasionally see a matinee or play with my kid.</p>
<p>I’ll work.  I will. Truly. But not <em>all</em> the goddamn time. All I ask is for some time, please, to enjoy this life. Is that so wrong?  And yet, somehow, <em>I’m</em> the one who comes off as a lunatic.</p>
<p>All I know is I began to find life increasingly difficult to live, that my time became more and more accounted for by people who were a lot richer than me, that it became more and more difficult just to talk about things like movies and ideas in ways that were not prescribed, that it became harder and harder to wallow in the beauty life affords.</p>
<p>It was around this time that I began noticing other things, the way seemingly disparate things were tied together— prime time Viagra ads (we live in impotent times), the dementia of 40 year old white middle class parents (guilt and fear and loathing), the ubiquity of the open office space (give me some privacy, please), fusball (let me play outside the office), the near-elimination of LSD (and now the kids pop Adderall), the exponential rise of Tantra and Buddhism (nihlism in the face of demise), café lattes (antiobiotic drenched milk fat).  There are forces at work here that are aggressively changing the human body, trying to rid it of its vitality, its pleasure, turning it from a body of enjoyment to a body of labor.  No one person, no devious plan, no conspiracy but forces the more powerful for it — forces that would rather have me not fucking than fucking.</p>
<p>And so I began my exploration: Why, for god’s sake, won’t they let me fuck — not to mention digest my food? <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
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<h3>Read the second installment in this series: <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/capitalism-critique-pleasure-herbert-marcuse-big-gulp/">All I Want is Time to Enjoy this Life… (II)</a>.
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		<title>Rethinking Environmentalism</title>
		<link>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/rethinking-environmentalism/</link>
		<comments>http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/rethinking-environmentalism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:25:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Daniel Coffeen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alternative Thinking]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[food industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[serious shit]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=395</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The problem is not with how we treat the Earth. It&#8217;s with how we treat ourselves. We work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week. And thanks to microcomputing, we work all the time. All the time. There is no leisure, there is no pleasure. Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been thinking: To suggest that we are [...]]]></description>
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<p><a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmentalism.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-474" src="http://thoughtcatalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmentalism.jpg" alt="" width="298" height="188" /></a></p>
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<p>The problem is not with how we treat the Earth.  It&#8217;s with how we treat ourselves. We work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week. And thanks to microcomputing, we work all the time. <em>All the time</em>. There is no leisure, there is no pleasure.</p>
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<p>Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve been thinking:</p>
<p>To suggest that we are somehow harming the Earth, that we have a responsibility to the planet as we are its stewards, is really the same thing as saying: We are privileged on this planet, distinct from it, and hence are free to exhaust and consume all of its many splendored bounty. These are two sides of the same coin.</p>
<p>I&#8217;d like to change the coin, if I may.</p>
<p>The Earth, I believe, is indifferent. Absolutely, mercilessly indifferent. The Earth doesn&#8217;t care what the ozone is, whether there&#8217;s more or less carbon dioxide or plastic. Certain plants and animals might, of course, but the Earth per se? Nope. It doesn&#8217;t give a flying fuck.</p>
<p>To imagine that humans are somehow special, and distinct, is (partially) what breeds our contempt for our environs.</p>
<p>What if we shift the very terms of how we think about ourselves, collectively, on this planet? What if we no longer express a concern for this or that species or for this thing we call the environment and, instead, focus on our own living?</p>
<p>The problems I, for one, have with our food industry is not that it pillages the planet. It&#8217;s that it makes my life sucky: shitty food that makes me feel shitty is shitty.</p>
<p>The problems I have with rampant global capitalism is multifold and has nothing whatsoever to do with my concern over the spotted owl or the dolphin. My problem is that I hate being served by some bored, indifferent 18 year old making minimum wage. I want to exchange money and services with my neighbors; I want to feel I&#8217;m giving to someone good who, in turn, is giving me something good. The anonymity of the global market translated into the anonymity of the so-called local Sears is bone chilling.</p>
<p>The problem, then, is not with how we treat the Earth. It&#8217;s with how we treat ourselves. We work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week. And thanks to microcomputing, we work all the time. <em>All the time</em>. There is no leisure, there is no pleasure.</p>
<p>And rage — and, of course, impotence (why are there ads for Viagra during prime time?) — runs rampant. Every time I&#8217;m out driving — every time — I have to negotiate a plethora of deranged assholes rushing here and there, speeding up to tailgate me, honking, running lights. This is not a sign of a healthy life.</p>
<p>And this — these day to day exchanges for coffee, groceries, driving — is the environment. Literally. I don&#8217;t want to give my money to save the Amazon rain forest. I want to not have to work 70 hours a week just to break even.</p>
<p>And if everyone were just to slow down, well then, perhaps we&#8217;d stop raping the trees and the ground. Perhaps then we would have less need for the oil we are so concerned about.</p>
<p>But as is, the very terms of environmentalism are constitutive of the precise problem said movement nominally serves. To focus on oil is to focus on the wrong thing; it is to focus on what the oil companies focus on, what the car companies focus on, what Amazon and UPS and Boeing focus on.</p>
<p>The environmental drive to conserve and preserve resources is misguided. It is to be duped by the CEOs and Wall Street.</p>
<p>The focus should not be oil or plants or dolphins but the day to day pleasure of human beings. And then everything else will fall into place.</p>
<p>Imagine all the money and resources and policy that are dumped into the so-called environmental movement all of sudden going to making day to day life for human beings more pleasurable. Imagine that rather than saving the whales, we save computer programmers, marketers, sales people from having their lives exhausted by the inane, insane, demands to work all the time. Imagine that we make medicine actually driven by concern for health and not how Pfizer&#8217;s stock performs.</p>
<p>Imagine that we put all our collective resources — our architects and economists, our do-gooders and our legislators — towards making life a pleasurable undertaking ripe with delicious, fresh food; with slow sex; with happy children who are not stressed out by standardized tests; with doctors who take the time to listen and heal; with roads filled with courteous, safe drivers; with movie theaters where popcorn eating is verboten.</p>
<p>Now that&#8217;s an environmental movement I could get behind. <span class="tc_mark"><img src="http://d1judxawj8bkp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/themes/thought_catalog/images/tc_mark.gif" alt="TC mark" /></span></p>
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<p>Credits: Teaser Photo by Susanne Riber Christensen (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sus/44063381" target="_blank">Grassy Green</a>); <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons License</a>.</p>
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