Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will.
Mainly, he’s talking about the environment, but his message can be applied universally. As I read, I found myself substituting “clothes” for “food”, and “what we wear” for “what we eat”.
Here’s a longer excerpt:
Whatever we can do as individuals to change the way we live at this suddenly very late date does seem utterly inadequate to the challenge. It’s hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: “Personal choices, no matter…
When I was in Cambodia and China I heard rumblings about a BBC reality show/documentary that followed young Brits as they worked in a sweatshop in India. The first episode of Blood, Sweat, and T-shirts aired last week.
“I don’t understand. Why don’t you just go to night school.”
“There’s like Poo on the floor” in the slums of Mumbai
Cotton: A fashion revelation or “I ain’t carrying that!” or “Do I look like an ork to you!”
Labor Day didn’t always end summer. Here’s an excerpt from WAIW? explaining:
Today is May 1st, Labor Day around the world for everyone except a few countries, including the United States. On this day in 1886, some 40,000 workers marched down Michigan Avenue in efforts to bring about an eight-hour work day. A few days later at a labor rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square a riot broke out complete with a bomb and police firing into a crowd. Seven police officers and two protestors were killed and many more were wounded. Four of the “anarchists” were rounded up and later hung. President Grover Cleveland didn’t want to celebrate the “socialist” movement so Labor Day in the United States was moved to the first Monday…
Not that lead singers are any more qualified to talk about human rights and globalization than, say, drummers or butchers, but here’s what Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke has to say on the subjects:
“(It’s) a video of two parallel stories running, one of a little boy in the West and one of a little boy in a sweatshop in the East, and the boy [in the West] ends up buying the shoes from the sweatshop. It’s actually quite powerful. It’s the sort of images I have in my head anyway. Sometimes when you’re walking down High Street and you’re looking at the incredibly cheap [sneakers], you sort of think, ‘Hmmm, well…
Welcome to the newest regular, irregular feature here at WAIW?. In each “Where I’m wearing today: Adventure of an engaged consumer” post, I will select an item of clothing that I’m wearing and see what I can learn about the brand and country that produce it with a few clicks of the mouse.
I’m sure the posts will evolve over time, but, for now, here’s the methodology.
1) Link to the brands corporate code of conduct, if they have one, and list what’s good about it and what’s not-so good about it.
2) Google “(brands name) + sweatshop” and see if any red flags popup.
3) Google “garment industry + (country of origin)” to see what the latest news is in industry.
4) Give basic country facts: per capita income, unemployment rate, etc.
The Washington Monthly has a great piece by editor and former social compliance inspector, T.A. Frank, titled Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector (first seen on CloneSix). Frank covers a lot of the issues surrounding international sourcing. Here’s a few excerpts:
On the job…
Unfortunately, we missed stuff. All inspections do. And sometimes it was embarrassing. At one follow-up inspection of a factory in Bangkok at which I’d noted some serious but common wage violations, the auditors who followed me found pregnant employees hiding on the roof and Burmese import workers earning criminally low wages. Whoops.
On ignorance is bliss sourcing…
Now, anyone in the business knows that when inspections uncover safety violations or wage underpayment more than once or twice—let alone five times—it’s a sign that bigger problems are…
Thousands of Tuscan factories that produce the region’s fabled leather goods are now operated and staffed by Chinese. Though located in one of Italy’s most picturesque and tourist-frequented regions, many of the factories are nothing more than sweatshops with deplorable conditions and virtually indentured workers.
Chinese laborers have become such an integral cog in the high-fashion wheel that large Chinatowns have sprung up here and in Florence. Signs in Chinese, Italian and sometimes English advertise prontomoda (ready-to-wear). At the main public hospital in Prato, the maternity ward on a recent morning was a cacophony of 40 squalling babies, 15 of them Chinese. “Mi chiamo Zhong Ti,” one of the crib tags said — “My name is Zhong Ti.”
The Scene: A son sits in a Laz-Boy next to his father who is watching the NBA Playoffs. The son’s first book is six months away from being published.
Son (holds up book on natural hormonal balance): This your book?
Father: Nope. I’m not much of a book guy.
Son: When my book comes out will you read it?
Father: Probably not all of it. Maybe a few parts.
End Scene
In the matter of full disclosure, I’m the son and my dad truly is NOT much of a book guy. The only book I know of that he’s read cover to cover is about a boy named Homer Price and his doughnut machine. If I caught him actually reading a book, I’m not sure what I would…
