REVIEW: Reed’s Culture Club Kombucha

Originally published by Ladybud Magazine A few years ago, drinking kombucha was something of a “crunchy” hippy practice. Creating it involves fermenting cultures in barrels, and looks a little funny with all the stringy cultures swimming around. The bottles would often explode because of the natural effervescence that comes in the fermentation process. But then…

REVIEW: Orange Is The New Black On Netflix

Originally published by Ladybud Magazine   On July 11, Netflix debuted the entire first season of “Orange Is The New Black,” a series about an upper-crust Connecticut woman who finds herself spending 15 months behind bars are the Litchfield, NY Federal Women’s Correctional Institution. The series is a groundbreaking look at prison that hints at…

REVIEW: Fruitvale Station

Originally published by Ladybud Magazine Before sitting down to see Fruitvale Station at Oakland’s historic Grand Lake Theater, I had heard that for Oakland residents the experience would be more like reliving memories than seeing a Hollywood film. The movie opens with one of the infamous cell-phone recordings of 22-year-old Oscar Grant’s shooting at the Fruitvale BART Station that went…

The Economy is a Non-Issue

Originally published at TheTippingPoint.tv In three presidential debates there were three major issues notably absent: the environment, the War on Drugs and getting out (and staying out) of military conflict around the world. Instead both President Obama and Mitt Romney redirected all three debates, even the one supposedly dedicated to foreign policy, to the domestic…