(RED)™

This morning I read a headline suggesting that there was some conflict between those fighting against breast cancer and those who were commercializing the fight -- CIBC, for example, with their major promotions of the Run for the Cure, which by their nature are also ads for CIBC. [Are We Getting Pinkwashed?]

I had never thought about that, mostly because I've had the extraordinary luck to not be directly involved in a fight against a disease yet. Responses to the article seem to agree, but I don't know how widespread these feelings are.

This made me consider the (RED) campaign a bit more than I might have. While many, including me, have concerns about commercialization of the world, the simple (too simple?) argument below really resonated with me.



I've written them to ask for LJ-size usericons, but until then you can use the little AIM-size icons here.

Dream

I had a friend who was friends with "someone brown" as our friend Ashif would say. Then one day something changed and I saw them walking, and one was wearing a purple scarf or shawl, which I took to mean something significant. When I asked, they said it meant they were dating.

Later I was speaking to this person, who was now Claire from Six Feet Under. I was a photographer, and had given some pictures to her and her new lover. She wanted some replaced or something, and she said that I should give some photos now because "he's planning to sex it up three nights a week" due to his schedule. I realized that I took some sexy photos as well, nudes and partial nudes. She asked if I was going to use some of them -- I think for a separate project -- and I said no, probably not, because the explicit photos weren't really doing it for me any more.

Next, I bought a video game for cheap, but then gave it away and it reappeared at home. When it reappeared the price tag was full price ($109.95) and I was scared that Vinny would think I wasted so much money on it. When I picked it up it wasn't a game, but rather a controller or possibly just action figure type toy, except it was a gun or device, not a person. It came from Michael Ignatieff's campaign and there was a radio on saying encouragingly that it was a very different idea. Then I found the competing thing from Bob Rae's campaign. Except the name on it didn't match -- in one spot it said John Gerald Bobrae, and in another it said Bob Barney. I was convinced that Bob Rae's real name isn't Bpb Rae, but the disparity confused me.

Later Vin and I are in a different condo, and a cleaning lady comes to the door. Vin says "Mexico!" then slightly embarrassed says "Mexican." *weak smile* She just smiled in a rolling-her-eyes kind of way. She asked us to move our giant sectional sofa so she could see if there were stains in the carpet underneath, and when there were a couple she took an entire section of the carpet away -- it was already in the right shape to just remove the two stains and the carpet in between.

I started to look closer at the wooden section of the floor that was beside the carpet, and then my alarm woke me up.