Tipping the Sacred Cow: The Best of LiP: Informed Revolt, 1996__2007

by Brian Awehali

Book Overview

Tipping the Sacred Cow is a flabbergastingly refreshing smarty-pants collection of iconoclastic politics, culture, sex, and humor culled from the uncompromising, eclectic, and frequently laugh-out-loud pages of LiP Magazine. Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz describes LiP as "Marvelous . . . Witty, but substantial . . . there's simply nothing that comes close to it in the culture today."

Gleefully skewering shibboleths across...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1904859739
• ISBN13: 9781904859734
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: AK Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.2" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing

This book was both thought provoking and entertaining. It is full of quirky articles and stories, impassioned and intelligent writing and interesting interviews. I enjoyed that it dares to be more radical than a lot of what I read and yet for the most part is also very informed and well written. I agreed with many of the articles, disagreed with a few, but was delighted regardless to find authors not afraid to voice controversial views that shook up my beliefs, confirmed what I myself feel, or shed light on a new way of looking at things. My only complaint is that for being called "The Sacred Cow" I sometimes felt like their was a tinge of a "little holier than thou" in that I at times felt like if I met a few of these authors they would scorn me for not being radical enough. (Maybe that is just my own insecurity talking, though.) Regardless, books with alternative views are much needed and this one has the additional bonus of being very fun to read.

A joyful celebration of left libertarian discourse!

Smart, funny, deeply imaginative, and highly informative, "Tipping the Sacred Cow" is a brilliant anthology of radical essays exploring a broad range of political topics like queer liberation, Native American rights, feminism, ecology, hip hop, the Zapatistas, and much, much more. While I loved all the excellent articles and interviews in this book, I especially enjoyed the essay by Lisa Jervis on the need for the mainstream feminist movement to overcome its gender essentialism and biological determinism and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's fabulous essay about gay assimilation and gay marriage being forms of "participatory patriarchy". I also really appreciated Jennifer Whitney's insightful essay on the problems with Indymedia, the interview with Vandana Shiva about biotechnology, democracy, and the privatization of water, the fascinating interview with the feminist Jessica Giordani about the health risks associated with the carcinogenic toxins used in the manufacture of sex toys, and the interview with the activist film-maker Heather Rogers about the politics of garbage. This book also includes a truly profound essay by the American Indian/Green Party activist Winona LaDuke. Thought-provoking, humorous, refreshing, and subversive, this is yet again another wonderful book from the folks of AK Press. Besides, how can one help but fall in love with a book that includes both genderqueer erotica and anti-capitalist analysis?!!