Disclaimer - still won’t buy her music. It’s not good.

If Goop was pushing fruit smoothies, I don’t think anyone would raise an eyebrow. Anyone with a blender can make a fruit smoothie, though, so it’s not a profitable way to scam people.

Damn doctors, with their years of training and education...wait, what?

AS I said on another thread, mainstreaming of alt-med is my nightmare, because it fits so nicely with the Trumpist agenda of reducing health care costs by any means. Medicare 2024: “Oh you have cancer? Here’s your baggie of herbs, because medicine isn’t a privileged narrative any more!”

Brilliant, and snarky - which is entirely appropriate.

As a fellow Angeleno, I don’t share this worry. Beth’s point about “autonomy” is dead on. Everyone wants to feel in control of their health and make choices about how they treat their body. This is a good thing.

I think that the photographer has truly mastered aura photography. She knew why you were there and was supporting the publication of this piece.

Is it just me that finds the very word “goop” kind of gross and off-putting? And that’s before everything else she touts that I find gross and off-putting.

Well who does? It’s a struggle as old as history itself.

People in a culture aren’t a monolith. There was an article a year or two ago about some Japanese American college students protesting a museum which, as part of an informational exhibit, let people try on a kimono. However a bunch of elderly Japanese and Japanese American people were pissed at the college students…

Agreed. As much as I am against disrespectful cultural appropriation, I’m not sold on the idea of backing it by law. There are respectful ways for creative types to borrow from other cultures with respect and awareness — creators should be able to take those risks to increase the diversity of their work without…

“Aside from that, I feel like the whole “That was me then, this is me now” is also what Miley Cyrus is trying to pull these days”

Sure. In my tribe, clans own certain dances or songs. Many dance groups do perform publicly and generally ask for permission for other clans to perform songs not owned by them. The clan of ownership decides whether or not the songs can be performed; they are able to make that choice. If someone watches the dance…

I could swear that haircut is called the “I need to speak to your manager” suburban white woman hair cut.

If you pass a law, you need to think about how it is going to affect things. I’m sorry if that seems theoretical to you, but there are plenty of terrible laws that have been passed with the best of intentions. Attempts to stop drug use have lead to the spread of HIV among addicts and mass incarceration. Those also…

What the fuck are you on about? For one, inspiration isn’t often a choice. I fell in love with the art of the PNW First Americans. And why look them up? I don’t need their permission to be inspired.

And how is making art inspired by and in homage of their own art hurting anyone? Hint: It fucking doesn’t.

Eh, I feel like the Spice Girls, as manufactured as they are to be a girl-group, has a wonderful charm about them that literally resonated world-wide. And they still have it, considering their reunion concerts are well reviewed and received. I also don’t remember them doing anything particularly offensive or being…

Right? RIGHT? Study the art history of any two neighbouring peoples and you’ll notice how much they’ve taken from each other - sometimes under pretty violent conditions - but in the end overall outcome for art is positive. Always.

As a Lebanese-American person, the lyrics of this song really make my head hurt. 

I’m pretty sure everyone agrees with you that this feels wrong. The problem is, when you are talking about passing laws, you have to think about more than how it feels, and how it will actually affect people. If we say that one culture owns all of their traditional imagery, won’t more and more cultures try to control…