Letter from Brigitte Bardot to Vladimir Putin

Mr President,
 
Some months ago, I sent you a call for Victoria Pavlenko, wrongly imprisoned for helping a suffering dog. This protector is now free, and I am grateful to the judicial power for its kindness towards her.
 
Beyond this particular case, the situation of stray animals remains a concern in Russia, the lack of cooperation between local authorities and animal advocates prevents the implementation of sterilization programs for stray cats and dogs to limit their population, facilitate their acceptance and protect them.
 
Stray animal management is an important concern, preservation of endangered species as well. As such, Russia has a rare and fragile wildlife that it is imperative and urgent to protect.
 
Last September, your Minister of Ecology, Sergueï Donskoï, received Pamela Anderson to discuss the protection of Far Eastern leopards, Siberian tigers, polar bears, seals and whales ... Like me, Pamela now puts her fame to the benefit of animals, supports the actions of my Foundation and wishes to meet you in the hope that Russia commits to a greater protection of endangered species, a few months before the next CITES which will be held in South Africa.
 
The world is heading towards its own destruction by depleting its natural resources, looted by an ever greater exploitation, increasingly crazy ... Urgent actions are needed !
 
Mr President, you know how much I respect your authority and how appreciative I am of the sympathy you’ve shown me; I hope you'll hear my call and I assure you of my wholehearted friendship.
 
Brigitte Bardot

www.fondationbrigittebardot.fr

Ecuador // Earthquake Relief Initiative - Waves For Water

As many of you are probably aware by now, a 7.8 earthquake rocked Ecuador Saturday evening, buckling overpasses, causing houses to collapse, and knocking out power in Guayaquil, Ecuador's most populous city. As of now there are 300 fatalities and over 2500 injured. These numbers will no doubt rise as search and rescue teams are able to gain further access into some of the hardest hit areas cut off by road closures and landslides. 

We'd like to take this opportunity to formally announce that we are launching a full scale clean-water disaster relief initiative. Following our game plan from from similar previous emergency response programs, we are taking a two pronged approach: 

1 - Addressing the immediate suffering of quake victims in the hardest hit areas. 

2 - Creating a lasting local infrastructure that will work on long-term development and preparedness programs for years to come.

On behalf of the entire W4W team, thank you all for your ongoing support an encouragement of our work. It simply doesn’t happen with out you. 

See more at: http://www.wavesforwater.org/project/ecuador

Pamela Make-Up Bombshell Collections

Surround yourself with good people, create healthy boundaries, treat yourself, and all other living beings well. Make compassionate choices -

I wish you a joyful, sexy life. 

http://www.alexisvogel.com/kits-25/pamela-bombshell-collections.html

Letter from Captain Paul Watson

Painting by Sue Coe from 1983.

Canada’s Shame

By Captain Paul Watson

I was 10 years old when I saw my first baby seal clubbed to death before my eyes. It was 1960 and I was nine years old.

In the spring of 1960 my father and I went to visit my uncle Philip on Shippington Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, just north of Prince Edward Island. Some baby harp seals had come close to shore on some ice floes and local fishermen went out and began to club them as we were watching them. I was horrified, even more so when my father and my uncle cheered them. I felt very alone and very helpless and it was that sense of helplessness that I believe influenced me to become an activist.

For over a half a century that image of cruel men bashing in the skulls of seal pups has haunted me. and as a child I knew that someday I would do what I could to shut down this cruel and vicious slaughter.

I read every book on the seal hunt, studied their biology, wrote letters of protest to the government that were all ignored until 1975 when for the first time I was in a position as a Greenpeace director to do something about it.

In March 1975 David Garrick and I led the first Greenpeace campaign to protect seals, returning in 1977 with Brigitte Bardot. I returned again in 1979 with the first ship ever to enter the sealing area to defend seals and not to kill them. That was my ship SEA SHEPHERD. I led a campaign in 1982 with kayaks to intervene against the slaughter and returned with the SEA SHEPHERD II in 1983 in a campaign that blockaded the entire sealing fleet in the harbour of ST. John’s, Newfoundland to prevent them from leaving. From there we moved on to disrupt the slaughter in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We saved the lives of 76,000 seal pups that year and that was the year the market collapsed for whitecoats in Europe and the commercial slaughter was virtually shut down for a decade.

And thus I returned to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1995, 1998, 2005 and 2008. In 2008, the market crashed against because of the protests and interventions.

And now it is emerging once again as Canada lobbies to open up markets in China for seal products.

Today the slaughter begins anew. We had hoped that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would finally put an end to it but they gave him a sealskin vest and he has proclaimed his support for the slaughter to continue.

The seals are facing an uncertain future with global warming, diminishment of fish populations and now the resurgence of commercial sealing again.

Their plight is even more desperate because both Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund view the slaughter of seals as “sustainable.”

It’s not of course. And it remains as viciously cruel as ever.

Greenpeace even apologized for opposing the seal hunt in the Seventies and Eighties except those of us who were there at the time with Greenpeace. We have not apologized and we never will.

The sealers say they do not kill baby seals anymore. They are lying. They no longer kill whitecoats and the hunt used to begin around March 15th but now it begins on April 10th when the seal pups have shed their white-coats and are over four weeks of age.

When is a baby seal no longer a baby seal? When the Canadian government dictates that they are not, and any seal over four weeks of age is now classified officially as an adult.

They say they don’t kill baby seals. They do.

They say the seal slaughter is humane. It’s not.

They say that the seal populations are not threatened. They are – by climate change, by over-fishing, by hunting, and by pollution.

They say that the slaughter is subsistence, a tradition and a part of Inuit Culture. It is not, the commercial seal slaughter does not involve the Inuit of the North, it is done by non-native residents of Eastern Canada.

They say that those who oppose the seal slaughter are outsiders and foreigners. Not true, the primary opposition to the slaughter has come from Canadians like Brian Davies, Rebecca Aldworth, Pamela Anderson, and myself amongst many others.

They say that the seals are eating all “our” fish. The fact is that the fish have been diminished by human greed and not by the seals and a healthy fish population is actually dependent upon a healthy seal, whale, shark, and sea-bird population.

Next year Sea Shepherd will return to the East coast of Canada.

Now that I am back with Sea Shepherd I have already started to plan a seal campaign for 2017.

www.seashepherd.org/get-involved/

Missguided questions

·         What can you never have too much of? Inspiring friends and artsy conversation. - I’m best when… I'm looking you straight in the eye. it’s not easy for me- it’s not about honesty- - it’s about privacy- letting who I want in- shyness-

·         Style spirit animal?- A Golden Eagle I've been told.

·         What’s your biggest dream? -To help save the planet and all it's beings, protect endangered species, habitats and live together harmoniously. I don’t know, just do my part-

·         What turns you on? -Smart, brave, beautiful men-

·         What is beauty to you? -It's an internal heat, it's not skin deep- it is ageless, and mystifying...

·         When do you feel comfortable in your body? -When I'm lost in a lover's embrace.

·         When do you feel beautiful? -When I'm doing the right thing, and when people see that in me. I feel validated and content.

·         You mentioned in one interview that you cut your hair short but then you missed your long hair and grew it out again. what in your long hair makes you feel comfortable? -I've always hidden in my hair. It was a security blanket - I'm glad its grown back. It seems unimportant, but-short hair was a wake up call to me.

·         What makes you giggle? -Compliments- make me uncomfortable- and -marriage proposals?

 One rule I live by… to be myself, when everyone tells me differently-  

·         Tell us something about you that we wouldn’t expect… I’m not afraid of hard work - I take acting seriously now- and, have been drifting into acting classes - soaking it in - I think this may be something I took for granted early on—  I’m curious about it all - finally - maybe a bit too late-

·         Biggest guilty pleasure… I read voraciously - I’ve always been a fan of classics, but, am venturing into subtle art forms - ways of expression — honoring my intellect.

·         Craziest moment of your life… when I lost myself in love with someone who was yet to love me back- still yet.- or, so it seems.

·         Best advice anyone ever gave you… my mom says beauty comes from within, it never ends…

·         What makes you feel empowered as a woman? -We live in a time where women can do more than ever before- but still, so many suffer… I know I’ve been given this life- so that I can help others dream -

·         What’s your biggest dream…- to be an artist- melt things— lighted words, or be a docent - a museum guide- I love art-

·         What do you love about Missguided? I love that Missguided is Vegan— I have to laugh at the name of brand— it makes me feel a bit silly- and old.

·         My top 3 girl power commandments are.. enjoy your beauty, you mystery, no selfies,

·         If you gave your 18 year old herself any advice what would it be? when I was 18- I hadn’t been on a plane yet- I lived on Vancouver island- I had NO idea what layed ahead— I wanted to live a meaningful life- I loved fairy tales— my father and grandfather were poets— I wanted to write- everything has come full circle-  never stop loving… never lose yourself, your strength is in being vulnerable… remember where you came from—

I'm happy to be cured of Hep C- re - all Medicines.

 “I strongly support the doctors at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and PETA’s scientists who are working hard to change government testing regulations because we all know animals should not be used in 21st Century. I mean, we even have human DNA on the internet and high speed computers you can program with human data, so giving drugs to a mouse or monkey is totally obsolete.  You can’t turn back time, but all of us who take any medicines for anythingcan join in pushing federal agencies to make the switch.”  

www.pcrm.org

Missguided's campaign

From Pinup to Muse: Pamela Anderson’s Next Chapter

Pamela Anderson posed for a portrait at the photographer Luke Gilford’s home in the Hollywood Hills. Emily Berl for The New York Times

By SOPHIA KERCHER

March 8, 2016

LOS ANGELES — On a sun-soaked Southern California morning in the Hollywood Hills, the perennial pinup Pamela Anderson considered whether or not she had been afraid when she got breast implants. “I didn’t even have time to think about it,” she said in her breathy girlish voice. “It was done within a week, and that was that.”

Ms. Anderson wore black ballet flats and a Crest-white coatdress that, despite its modesty, didn’t mask her tan bombshell physique. “It was very ’80s,” she said as she fumbled with her top button. “A different time.”

It was a time when the standards of beauty were not soft Botticelli bodies, Twiggy-thin frames or the kind of androgynous looks that now rule the runways. When Ms. Anderson arrived in Los Angeles as a wide-eyed Canadian transplant of 22, the women who intrigued her were the buxom blondes in the music videos that permeated MTV, and airbrushed ’80s-era Playmates.

“I would look at all these girls on the walls of Playboy, and I would go: ‘Look at their breasts, look at their bodies. How’s that even possible?’”

Now 48, Ms. Anderson recently divorced her third husband and has recovered from a health struggle with hepatitis C. Her two boys are fully grown, 18 and 19. This year, she was the last nude cover model of Playboy, just before Hugh Hefner put his iconic mansion up for sale. The January/February double issue marked the last time the Playmates would be shown in all their naked glory — a sign of the times, the publication having fallen prey to the digital age and the onslaught of Internet pornography.

Ms. Anderson in the film “Connected.”Luke Gilford

Ms. Anderson said that Mr. Hefner called to ask her to appear on the final nude cover. “He says there’s nobody else from Marilyn to Pamela,” she said. Her eyes, deep pools of blue, shimmered. “How could I say no? We shot at the mansion. I got to roll down the grassy hill in the front for the last time — naked.”

It was bittersweet, she said, but as she pointed out, any woman with an iPhone can now cast herself as a pinup on Instagram and Snapchat. “Now girls are shooting pictures down their tops, retouching them and putting the images up to the world,” she said.

With her final frolic at the mansion, Ms. Anderson is poised to start what she calls “Chapter 2” of her life. For a decade or more, she has been taking steps toward that end.

A few years ago, she chopped her long platinum hair into a chic pixie cut and tucked away her cleavage in a stylish spread in Elle. The photograph nudged the public to recognize what many close to her have known all along: that perhaps there’s more to the actress than her inflated-doll image and her tangled relationships with bad boys — having sex on tape with Tommy Lee or wedding Kid Rock in a slinky white bikini.

In 2014, the Pamela Anderson Foundation, dedicated to human, animal and environmental rights, was introduced in Cannes, France. During the introductory event, Ms. Anderson revealed that she had suffered frequent sexual assault as a child. She shared that she had been molested by a female babysitter from age 6 to 10, raped by a man in his mid-20s when she was 12 and sexually assaulted again at 14 by her boyfriend and his six friends.

Her son Brandon was with her when she made the startling announcement. “I talked to him beforehand,” she said, “and he was a little rattled by it.” It was important to be honest with her sons, she said. “Then they can understand some of the decisions I’ve made and where I come from.”

Playboy, it’s often said, objectifies women, but Ms. Anderson asserts that it empowered her. Was it also a way to take charge of her own sexuality? The New York artist Marilyn Minter, who in 2007 covered Ms. Anderson with glitter and featured her in a series of dreamlike portraits, thinks so.

“It’s really stunning how people underestimate her,” said Ms. Minter, whose work explores culture’s contradictory and often complex emotions surrounding the female body and its imperfections. “I’ve always been intrigued by Pam, because I think she owns the agency of her own sexually. She makes a living being a pinup. She’s extremely beautiful, and she’s not some Svengali. She’s the opposite of Anna Nicole Smith or Marilyn Monroe.”

Ms. Minter is not the only artist is in the Anderson circle. When asked whom she considers friends in Hollywood, Ms. Anderson demurred and said she has more friends in the art world. She has been muse to Jeff Koons, who has featured several of her body parts in his work, and she is close to the photographer David LaChapelle, the British designer Vivienne Westwood and the Southern California pop artist Ed Ruscha.

“She leaves a room radioactive.” Mr. Ruscha said when asked about the star. He added that she knows her way around the art world and calls her a “diamond in the rough.”

Ms. Anderson and her sons, Brandon Lee, left, and Dylan Lee, right, at the Saint Laurent show in Los Angeles in February. Emily Berl for The New York Times

Ms. Anderson’s attraction to the arts has rubbed off on her younger son, Dylan. Hedi Slimane recently chose him to front the current Saint Laurent fashion campaign. In a short black-and-white film, Mr. Slimane created a love letter to the California coast starring a surfboard-toting, guitar-strumming Dylan.

“I think he’s going to be an artist one day,” Ms. Anderson said.

Her inimitable dazzle recently caught the attention of James Franco, who wrote a profile of her for the Playboy issue, and the two hope to collaborate on a project. She has also been approached by the director Werner Herzog. As Ms. Anderson tells it: “He wrote me a letter and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to work with you, and I’m watching your career, and I really feel like I see something in you, and something you’re capable of that maybe you don’t even know.’”

It is the same feeling that attracted the young filmmaker and photographer Luke Gilford, who calls Ms. Anderson the sex symbol of his generation. He approached her after he saw images of her with newly cropped hair.

“I pursued her, and I still do,” Mr. Gilford said with a laugh. The two have been co-conspirators in photography and film projects ever since. They are together so often that the tabloids have taken notice, referring to Mr. Gilford as a “mystery man.”

Last month, Milk Studios in Los Angeles had the premiere of Mr. Gilford’s short narrative film “Connected,” which stars an unvarnished Ms. Anderson looking powerful and chic and, in other scenes, vulnerable. At the center of the film is her character, who is grappling with the shifting standards of beauty and getting older.

“It was so refreshing to do this role, and play somewhere where I’m at in my life,” she said.

Ms. Anderson is thoughtful and open, and full of humor on this bright morning in Mr. Gilford’s sleekly designed home, which she jokes is outfitted with “sexy, phallic plants.” For a woman who made her mark on the world with her body — her curvaceous figure in a red “Baywatch” bathing suit sprinting along the beach is etched in popular culture’s subconscious — it’s not difficult to believe there is more to come from her.

“All these young indie film people seem to be looking at me from a different perspective from my peers because they are younger and they have seen me, kind of, grow up,” Ms. Anderson said. “They are doing their own art, and they look and realize: ‘Wow, maybe she would have been an artist. Maybe this was performance art all along.’”