Kathryn Gustafson's Lurie Garden in Chicago | Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra in Cuba

Kathryn Gustafson’s Lurie Garden in Chicago | Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra in Cuba AOC Style

Critics and curators say that Gustafson’s greatest contribution is the re-introduction of the human body to site design. She agrees: ‘For me, the form of the land and the form of the body come together somehow.” A former fashion student and 1970s design professional, critics maintain that the sensual draping of clothes has strongly influenced her landscape work.

Daily | Christine Lagarde Set for IMF Director | Top 20 TED Talks

Daily | Christine Lagarde Set for IMF Director | Top 20 TED Talks AOC FP

In this lunchtime interview with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman goes right to the big issues—the world economy, the fate of the euro, and the plight of women.

Daily | Mrs Obama in South Africa | Rob MacInnis Animal Portraits

Daily | Mrs Obama in South Africa | Rob MacInnis Animal Portraits AOC Daily

Rob MacInnis is clear about his mission.

“My photographs are inspired by photographers such as Annie Leibovitz and David Lachappelle except I use barn animals as my portrait subject. This allows me to draw parallels between the idealization of the human form in contemporary fashion photography and the subjugation of animals by humans.”

US Ranked 87 Behind Cuba & Afghanistan in Women in Congress

Charles Dharapak/ASSOCIATED PRESS - Huma Abedin, wife of now former Rep. Anthony Weiner, joins the likes of Hillary Clinton, Maria Shriver and Silda Spitzer as the latest to watch her husband go through a highly public scandal.

Daily | Green Jet Fuel | US Lags Cuba & Afghanistan in Women Politicians in Congress AOC FP

While less data exists on the fidelity of powerful women, we know that females don’t enter the political realm with the same goals as men. I talked to Siobhan “Sam” Bennett, president and CEO of the Women’s Campaign Fund and its affiliated program, The She Should Run Foundation, about these differences. Bennett explained, “Research shows that men run for office because they see it as a pathway to power, while women run because they want to help make change—in their communities, their cities, their states and the nation. This ego-driven, versus change-driven, difference predicts that men elected are far more likely to engage in behaviors destructive to them and to voters.” 

Despite studies that show voters perceive women as more trustworthy and that elected women are more productive than men, the U.S. is ranked 87^th in the world in the number of women serving in its national legislature, behind Cuba and Afghanistan.

In Hong Kong Alice Newstead Submits to Hooks of Shark Finning

Alice Newstead Submits to the Horrors of Shark Finning AOC Green Beings

Alice Newstead has taken her protest against shark fishing to Hong Kong, again back by Lush, the British cosmetics company. Instead of hanging in a store window as she did in Paris, Alice is hanging in an arts centre courtyard for 20 minutes at a time.

Her purpose is to protest the killing of 73 million sharks a year, threatening their extinction. The killing of the sharks is particularly inhumane. Their fins are sliced off to make the soup and they are thrown alive back into the water, unable to swim and sentenced to death.

Because Hong Kong serves as a key trend setting city among Asian communities, it’s only the people of Hong Kong who can lead the way to stopping this brutal luxury consumer practice of using shark fin soup as a display of wealth. Currently the fins are worth about $300 a pound.

Howard Buffett Gives $4 Million for Vitamin-Enriched Sorghum

Howard Buffett Gives $4 Million for Vitamin-Enriched Sorghum AOC Front Page

The Howard Buffett Foundation has donated $4 million on a project to develop sorghum that contains more Vitamin A, zinc and iron, and also has improved protein digestibility characteristics. Sorghum is a cereal similar to corn but more drought resistant and a staple part of the diet of Africans.

As an activist and philanthropist, Howard Buffett has expressed strong concerns that humanity may have moved beyond the tipping point, in terms of insuring future food supplies in Africa, India and other impoverished regions around the world. Climate change and over-fertilized soils threaten basic agricultural bounty and soil fertiity.

More reading:

Shakira & Howard Buffett: Attached at the Hip Philanthropy Bedfellows

Bill Gates Demands Cohesive Action on Global Hunger

Can Gates, Buffett, Obama, Clinton & Company Really Solve Global Hunger?