Exhibit: Cleaning Up With Cancer

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Cleaning Up With Cancer

Cleanin Up With Cancer

High up on the list of soccer-mom fears are getting breast cancer and failing to properly juggle work and home. Now Eureka has found a way to link—and some would say exploit—both these concerns in its “Clean for the Cure” campaign. Buy a WhirlWind Litespeed vacuum—$200-$300 retail—

and the company will donate a dollar to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, up to an annual cap of $250,000. And, because “vacuuming is sometimes part of the problem for individuals recovering from breast cancer,” Eureka will provide six women a year’s worth of cleaning services—and a Litespeed, presumably for their new maids.

Popularized by Avon, American Express, Yoplait, and others, such corporate “pinkwashing” campaigns, in the words of Breast Cancer Action, “exploit the most conventional stereotypes of women—cooking, cleaning, shopping, wearing makeup—suggesting that women are more suited for consumerism than political action.”

BCAurges women to “think before they pink.” For example: Should a woman recovering from surgery or chemo be made to give a damn about dust bunnies?

Clara Jeffery

Guerrilla Meter Maids

Fake parking tickets are being left under the wipers of SUVs across the country, raising both drivers’ blood pressure and consciousness. In Brooklyn, the NYPD, a.k.a. the New York Pranks Division, is citing drivers for violations such as “Increasing U.S. reliance on foreign oil,” “Contributing to childhood asthma,” “Holing self up in two-ton metal fortress,” and “Compensating for lack of manhood.” The penalties range from a slap on the wrist—”SUV must be used for carpools only”—to the draconian “Blow yourself up (please).”

NYPD

The downloadable tickets are the brainchild of Carrie McLaren, who was outraged at seeing SUVs covered with patriotic flags and slogans. “I felt that I needed to make a connection for people between our reliance on oil and our wasteful living, especially after September 11,” she says. Other pranksters and activist groups have joined the effort, creating a nationwide protest movement that is ticketing the streets, one SUV at a time.

Justine Sharrock

 

Thinking Outside The Box

Death be not proud, but maybe a little vain is okay. That seems to be the impulse behind WhiteLight’s art caskets, customized coffins adorned with scenes such as “Fairway to Heaven,” “Gone Fishing,” and, for the devoted hair-metal fan, the “Kiss Kasket.”

Coffins

Using the same technology that enables advertisers to shrink-wrap photolaminate ads on buses, the 18-gauge plain steel coffins almost appear hand painted. WhiteLight began manufacturing the caskets in 1999 and now offers 37 different designs; the Dallas-based company reports selling 2,500 a year, at approximately $3,000 each.

Some critics see art caskets as classic expressions of Me Generation self-absorption and baby boomer narcissism and feel that a funeral focusing on the personality of the deceased is somehow unseemly. But though not everyone would choose to make the journey to the great beyond in a checkered-flag “The Race Is Over” coffin, an art casket can be a meaningful way to have the last word.

Alastair Paulin

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate