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Good to the Last Drop

Manufacturing Peace

Yes means No

Good to the Last Drop

Good to the Last Drop of Blood

"America is addicted to oil." President Bush finally owned up to that one in his 2006 State of the Union speech. But there another "black gold" Americans are addicted to and, like oil, it costs lives.

The United States consumes more coffee than any other nation on the planet. It's our second-largest import in fact, second only to, you guessed it, oil. But how and why does coffee cost lives? To start, in 1989 the United States succeeded in abolishing the International Coffee Agreement, which stabilized prices, in favor of free trade policies. Prices quickly plummeted from $1.20 per pound in the 1980s to 41 cents per pound today.

This was a boon for the giant coffee corporations, who used their control of the market to force farmers to accept the lower prices while not passing on the savings to consumers. In countries like Mexico and El Salvador, tens of thousands of coffee farmers have lost their livelihoods and even face starvation because of the deregulated coffee market. In West Africa, farmers must use slave labor in order to function. Meanwhile, the coffee giants have soaked up huge profits.

You can opt out of this dirty business by searching for cafes and grocery stores that carry coffee produced under fair and legal labor conditions. Look for the Free Trade Certified label to ensure your caffeine comes without strings attached. Plus, more of your coffee money will go to the growers and laborers as opposed to the corporate middlemen.

If your local area hasn't caught on yet, fair trade coffee is available online at www.globalexchange.org.

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Manufacturing Peace

Know how to meditate? For ten minutes, sit still, close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing while allowing intrusive thoughts to float by like fluffy little clouds. The first few times may not be completely effortless, but it pays to persevere, since the health benefits are incredible. People who meditate regularly experience lowered heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol; a reduction in stress, anxiety and depression; fewer headaches; better sleep; and a nice, peaceful feeling that David Lynch likes to call "bliss."

And he should know. Our favorite surreal director has been meditating daily for thirty-two years and has big plans to establish seven peace factories where fifty thousand advanced meditators can promote peace in the world by producing a state totally lacking in negativity, affecting the environment around them. The transcendental meditation movement has documented a reduced crime rate in areas where groups of meditators are concentrated-including Washington, D.C., in the early 1990s, so it looks very possible that doing nothing at all may well be the best road to global harmony. At the very least, your own little dominion will flourish as your serenity spreads outward to those you love.

Yes Means No

Is playing dress-up enough to get you noticed? It is if you accessorize with fake IDs and thrift-store business suits and have the cajones to take the media and global business by the horns and ride them silly. Such is the story of the Yes Men-Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno.

The Yes Men became famous pranksters in 1999, when they helped put www.gwbush.com, a parody Web site of the real Bush election site, online. Encouraged by a public rebuke from Bush himself, the Yes Men aimed their satirical eyes on the WTO through a new Web site, www.gatt.org. Many people mistook www.gatt.org for the real McCoy and invited the Yes Men to deliver speeches. They gladly accepted, mercilessly implicating the WTO in outrageous statements in the process.

Their career highlights include: announcing a WTO scheme to take human waste from the first world and turn it into third world fast food; declaring the U.S. Civil War a waste of time, since globalization has brought slavery back anyway; being interviewed on TV by CNBC and the BBC (as WTO spokesmen); and even declaring a mea culpa to a business audience for all the wrong the WTO has done, and then announcing the WTO would be closing up shop in disgrace.

It's been a wild party. And you're invited to join. For a free lesson on how to be a Yes Man or Woman, visit www.theyesmen.org.