Aging pop star Morrissey has decided to pile on with the rest of the world, and engage in a little China bashing. With his recent remark he has taken the hate to a new level, by declaring Chinese people a “sub-species.”

If you’re young enough to fit into the limited sizes available at Aéropostale®, you might not even remember who Morrisey is: he was the front man for The Smiths, the band almost single-handedly responsible for the music now called “Alternative.“ The Smiths put out several gloomy pop albums in the late eighties and early nineties; before the band members hit a streak of sobriety, suddenly realized they couldn’t stand each other, and went their separate ways.

At the close of the century, Morrissey’s solo career fizzled. His gloomy songs were full of the self-importance and introspection that most Gen-X kids outgrew, by the time the millennium bug was all the rage. Today he frantically grasps for relevance, in a world that found his suicidal-girl tantrums tiresome a generation ago. He recently almost appeared at the Coachella music festival before the gross smell of cooked meat made him gag so hard he had to leave. Morrissey is now the darling of PETA, a group second only to Fundamentalist Islam for their ability to grab headlines and attract social misfit youths.

Morrissey declared the Chinese a sub-species for their mistreatment of animals. Which is kind of strange since China is home to Buddhism, the original vegetarian cult. China also invented soy and noodles and just about every other foodstuff that vegetarians require to keep themselves alive. They invented paper and were producing works of literature when Morrissey’s ancestors were living in caves and sharpening rocks for the hunt. (more…)

Natalie Portman is a vegetarian – a vegan, to be precise – and she thinks you should be one too. At least, that’s the impression I get from her article at the Huffington Post. In fact, she really goes so far as to infer that those of us who eat animals or animal products are inhumane beasts.

Apparently, reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals transformed her from a vegetarian to being a full-fledged vegan activist:

I’ve always been shy about being critical of others’ choices because I hate when people do that to me. I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., “What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?”).

I’ve also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else — a historically dangerous stance (I’m often reminded that “Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know”). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.

But she somehow managed to overcome those fears and tell you exactly why you should think the way she does. Well done, Natalie! (more…)

-”I take a three-minute shower,” [Jennifer Aniston] told Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen, authors of The Green Book. She even brushes her teeth while she’s in there.

-“Entourage” star Adrian Grenier has lived in an apartment insulated with old pants.

-Vegetarian and planetary crusader Tobey Maguire reportedly has banned all leather products from his house. He also “makes everyone take off their leather belts and shoes and leave them by the door!”

-Leonardo DiCaprio “stays green at home, too—with his $3,200 eco-friendly toilet!”

-Bob Dylan sells “renewable grocery bags” at his concerts. (more…)