As Luke mentioned yesterday, Madonna is currently in Malawi for the groundbreaking of her new Academy for Girls school. We’ve been following her efforts to bring a school to the Southern African country ever since she announced the ambitious plans back in May of last year. Today, the 51-year-old planted a Moringa tree, also known as the “miracle tree” for its cure of many diseases, at the construction site of the new academy for girls at Chinkhota village. Joining her was President Bingu wa Mutharika and many hundreds of kids from the various orphanages she supports. To learn more about her work in Malawi, visit her Raising Malawi site here.

Madonna is on Mother Earth’s naughty list.

The material girl recently placed an order for 110 pounds of kosher beef for the last two performances of her “Sticky and Sweet” tour in Tel Aviv. WHOA!

While some believe that Kosher beef is less cruel, the truth is far more grim. And environmentally? Well you can bet Mother Earth is crying her damn eyeballs out.  Let’s do a little math, shall we?

According to the Water Education Foundation – a non-profit organization that prides itself on being “the only impartial organization to develop and implement educational programs leading to a broader understanding of water issues and to resolution of water problems” – it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef.

That means Madonna’s one order is using 271,040 gallons of water!!!!

Now consider this: federal regulations mandate that new shower heads must exceed no more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute.

A little number crunch on the old calculator will show that you could take 10,840 showers with the same amount of water used to produce 110 pounds of beef. Assuming you take one shower a day, this means you could shower for more than 29 years with the amount of aqua Mo wasted on her beefed-up order.

For this stunt Ecorazzi gives Madonna 2 HUGE green thumbs down. Save some water for the rest of us, why don’t you?

Director Guy Ritchie has submitted plans to make his $13 million English country estate more self-sufficient — at least when it comes to food. The star used to share Ashcombe House in Wiltshire, England with his ex-wife Madonna but after their divorce earlier this year he wants to make some changes.

Ritchie intends to convert flower gardens into productive vegetable plots — but first must seek permission to carry out the improvements because of the historical significance of the 18th century building.

From StarPulse:

The planning application reads, “In the estate’s prime when it was painted in the 18th Century, it was surrounded by extensive gardens including major vegetable gardens. In recent years, all productive vegetable gardens have been lost. The gardens that remain are formal or semi-formal flower gardens.

“It is proposed to try to make Ashcombe House self-sufficient. The part-walled gardens leading from the back door to the staff building will be turned over to vegetables and given a row of greenhouses to produce vines, fruit, early vegetables and seedlings… Produce from the greenhouses will be used on the estate, all part of an effort to make the estate more self-sufficient and sustainable.”

How ironic that it’s Madonna who shows up in “Greenest Star” lists (something we’ve debunked time and time again) — but it’s her ex that really has the green thumb? We hope Ritchie gets the permission to go ahead with his “veggie” renovations — something that appears to be all the rage in the UK right now.

Building on news we heard last April

“Last week a judge turned down her bid to become the girl’s legal mother because Madge hadn’t lived in the country for 18 months. Nevertheless, the chart-topper has instructed her architects to draw up plans for a home in the African country, as she believes adopted son DAVID BANDA would benefit from a connection to his birthplace. I’m told: ‘Madonna has a big, beautiful plot of land over there already. She’s planning to build a girl’s school in the Chinkhota village and those designs are well under way. But she’s gone back to the designers and asked if they could accommodate a family home on the plot or on adjacent land.’”

As some have noted, such a move may mean that Madonna is not yet ready to give up the fight for Mercy James. Whatever the true motive, if the school is indeed built, no doubt there will be a great many girls that benefit from its creation.

More information and discussion via Cele|bitchy

While Hulu’s tagline may be “An evil plot to destroy the world”, the online video-streaming site is certainly helping to do a world of good by showing Madonna’s new I Am Because We Are film. The documentary, which explores the lives of children in Malawi who have been orphaned by the AIDS crisis, is now freely available with limited commercial interruption. Those ads you do see appear to be for non-profit orgs — the first one I spied was the creepy John Lennon PSA for the One Laptop Per Child initiative.

Madonna, who also narrates the film, said this about the experience: “To say that this film is a labor of love is trivial. It’s also the journey of a lifetime. I hope you all are as inspired watching it as I was making it.”

Running time is just over two hours. To have a look, jump here.

It’s time once again to visit FurIsDead.com and vote for the Worst-Dressed Celebrities of 2009!

Your options this year are vast, including stars like Madonna, Mary-Kate Olsen, Jessica Simpson and many, many more. Personally, I chose Maggie Gyllenhaal. I know it’s uncouth to tell people who you voted for, but I just had to vote for Magpie after last year’s big furry let down. You broke my heart Maggie, you broke my heart! 

Who do you think deserves the worst-dressed award? Kanye? Ashton? Lilo? Visit FurIsDead.com and speak your mind!

Just because Governor Sarah Palin is taking a brief respite from the spotlight (Sadly, she will probably be back) doesn’t mean PETA is keen to let her off the hook. The former Republican Vice-Presidential nominee is well known for her thin animal rights record — and PETA is giving everyone the chance to chuck a virtual snowball her way.

It’s all part of a new online game that also includes Madonna, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, and the Colonel from KFC. “Make the holidays safe by fighting back against notorious animal abusers,” the site says. Turns out not everyone in Palin-land is taking the dig quietly.

According to PETA, someone claiming to be a Palin rep called the organization and threatened to sue if the game wasn’t taken down. PETA’s Vice President Bruce Friedrich said, “Sarah Palin is a bully who never saw an animal she didn’t want to kill, so it’s not surprising that her staff would try to intimidate us anonymously and then backtrack when called out. Our game represents a fun way to focus attention on a very serious subject — cruelty to animals supported by Sarah Palin and other targets of the game — and we have no intention of taking it down in response to these pathetic attempts at intimidation.”

According to the LA Times, Palin’s Communications Director, Bill McAllister, says the whole thing is a lie. “We take all kinds of shots all the time,” he says.”We realize we’re a fair target. I could care less about the game.”

Care to throw a snowball? Check out the game here.

M-dog wants your help to build a girls school in Malawi and has recorded a short video message on her website all about it. In the video, Madonna says: “There are very few girls in Africa in general who are encouraged or allowed to go to secondary schools so, after spending a lot of time there, I realized that one of the ways I could help was to build a girls school.

“I would really be grateful if you would get involved and help me in any way you can with donations, spreading the word, visiting my website, reading about the progress we’ve made so far. Please visit our website. I would appreciate any help you could give us.”

We love the fact that Madonna is asking people to get involved in making the world a better place and think that even though she’s a little nutsy, sometimes a little nutsy ain’t such a bad thing! To watch the video for yourself, visit Madonna.com!

As Madonna and Guy Richie end their marriage and the child custody battle begins, we here at the Razz are entertained/impressed with Madonna’s “list of demands” that she’s requiring Guy Ritchie to follow while with the children. If this whole “list thing” sounds familiar, you might remember that Heather Mills made a similar 8-page set of rules for Sir Paul after their divorce.

Some of the rules Madge has dreamt up seem silly, like: Guy can’t introduce the kids to any “new friends” or be photographed with the kids. But other rules — like having the kids stick to a macrobiotic, vegetarian and organic diet —  seem pretty groovy. Madonna, however, does demand that the children only drink Kabbalah water – which we’ve already reported is super wasteful and super expensive.

The requests continue with things like: No reading of newspapers or magazines and no watching TV or DVDs. All clothes must be 100 percent natural. Toys must be spiritually and ethically sound. Madonna must be able to speak to her brood three times a day. Bedtime stories for David must be from Madge’s English Rose books. Guy must not discuss the break-up. And finally, when the children are out in public their hands must be cleaned with disinfectant spray.

What do you think about all these rules? Are they good for the kids or too restrictive? Chime in and share your thoughts!

via: smh.com

You might remember that PETA took the company on last spring for selling boots lined in seal fur (just typing that made my stomach churn…) and won. Gucci agreed to stop selling such a monstrous product.

Then, they became a sponsor of UNICEF. This sponsorship made activists very skeptical, as it seemed a frivolous gesture to tug a few public heartstrings from such an opulent company (not to mention its shady Madonna benefit), but I am a huge fan of UNICEF. So I still got excited when I saw that Gucci has a new line coming out with 25% of every purchase going to UNICEF. I don’t think that’s as much as the RED campaign, but damn, that IS a chunk of change for a large company to agree to give.

These products, featured in the “Tattoo Heart Campaign,” are being promoted by Rihanna. Hopefully she’ll do the cause a bit more justice than Madonna did… Gucci brought her on board after seeing the singer at a UNICEF benefit, so it sounds like her heart is in the right place.

Image via teendiariesonline.com