Category: intersections of ethics and politics

reviews: some experimental failures

OK, a first one would of course be the Viagra Paradigm. Today is the 1st of May. A good day on which to reflect on alternatives, and maybe do more than sit around doing so at home in an armchair. If it’s a nice sunny day, why not go and do something actively and proactively about it? Might involve some singing too, and that’s very good for you.

may day

Preamble and/or irreelevent digression over, back to folly-praising business and beauty products. Continue reading →

Éminence Organics (3)

eminence vs. ilike

See for previous discussion:

From the latter, here’s some stuff of possible interest. Blind believers in The Cult Of Eminence, either throw off your blinkers now and keep reading, or do not click … Continue reading →

3rd Annual Earth Day Special (2013)

In previous years, I’ve put together Green-ish Lists. Laboriously hand-crafted. By my own fair hand. Researched and all and all.

But here’s a thing. Or a couple of things, really.

THING #1

Such lists might entice or incite someone, somewhere people to buy stuff. Amongst that stuff there might be stuff they don’t need. And stuff of which they already have a version or equivalent, albeit maybe less green or green-ish.

So this year, in a break with tradition, there will be no list.

THING #2

Earth Day should be every day damn it!

And part of normal everyday life for everybody!!!

I mean, this tosh about making a big ritual/~ised/~istic deal of planting one single tree in some random and probably irrelevant place? Fuck’s sake, if you’re that keen on planting trees, get thee to the Amazon and start beating up the bulldozers. Pillocks.

THING #3

OK, there might be a list, at some point in the future. But there’s a sound practical reason for no list: cruelty-free-ness is up in the air.

Following the cosmetic-testing ban in the EU, it will be some time before every single product on the shelf and in warehouses is new cruelty-free stock. And even longer before we start seeing which companies put their money where their mouth is, on research & development. I.e., if you’ll allow me to belabour a grammatical point, I’m waiting to see a “cosmetic testing ban” become a “cosmetic-testing ban.”

For testing to be seriously well-funded non-animal alternative testing, of a sort that becomes not only acceptable worldwide (inc. places like the USA and its bizarre antiquated insistence on animal testing)—rather than freakish and marginal—but normal and standard.

Add to that the whole “who’s doing what in China” complications.

So: no list. Well, no list of “good” and “bad” companies. Just a rough list of Points To Ponder.

THE 2013 ALTERNATIVE GREEN LIST Continue reading →

LOL

There may well be more serious comments to be made, and repercussions and implications. Along the lines of the classic statement: it’s not guns that shoot people and bombs that blow them up, it’s (usually, most often) men. Combined of course with the fear, ignorance, territorialism (on which, see this recent post), and idiocy, that result in individuals (again, usually men) acting in hunting packs with unthinking lunatic mob mentality.

Yes, I mean “men” in the specific not generic/species sense. And no, of course I don’t mean all men are psychotic bastards with delusions, or even just skewed perspective. That would not be logical.

But.

Still.

It’s interesting that throughout intellectual history, in most traditions/cultures it’s men who have been associated with reason, reasoning, rationality; and rational, free, self-aware, conscious and conscientious, understanding and intelligent thought has been percevied as the central human attribute, distinguishing them from other sentient being (let alone any life-forms and other things in existence). With women occupying a, well, other place in such orders of things.

Hmmm.

PETA news(ish) to repost

Nathan J. Winograd (Director, No Kill Center), “Shocking Photos: PETA’s Secret Slaughter of Kittens, Puppies.“ Huffington Post (2013-04-02)
With thanks to MUAer JoshuaP for bringing this to my and other Green Boarders’ attention.

Warning: contains graphic images.

Warning: kinda sorta not news. I’m sorry if this is news to you, but PETA’s been clear for aaages that they “euthanize” un-adoptable rescued animals. For all the time I’ve known of PETA’s existence. What is news to me is the extent to which killing isn’t the exception but the rule. And the cynical manipulation of kind, good-hearted, well-meaning people to get their money. Which said people might think is going towards the maintenance of shelters and their inhabitants. And running fleets of mobile spaying vans. Not to killing animals off as cheaply as possible, spending lavishly on advertising campaigns, those vans having a quite different and darker purpose, and… um… wherever else the money goes…

As my grandad used to say: “where there’s brass, there’s muck / where there’s muck, there’s brass.” I was often perplexed as to which was which, and when to use one version of the phrase rather than the other. He would nod, wink, and say I’d got the point.

Caveat: it remains to be seen Continue reading →

oh lordy, Part Deux

Or, bringing the phrase “it gets better” into disrepute.

See, the real root problem in what follows is one of individual limits, a lack of contact with reality, and their combination with historical ignorance.

The first of those is a big problem: an individual who is not of the most blessèd in the brain department, who makes do the best they can with what they’ve got, but who is a fundamentally simple creature (like all trolls) with simple appetites, comprehension of their surroundings, and capacity for meaningful interaction and activity. I was always taught that one should pity the afflicted, and help them as best one can, as much as they can take too (because these are still sentient beings with feelings and will, albeit of limited judgement). Now, a simple creature thinks in terms of survival and territory. At least defending what territory one has (vs. diminution and extinction), at best expanding territory. The latter counts as “success.” One all-too-prevalent version of which is the Viagra Paradigm. Also, all Ayn Rand idiocies.

We’ve seen—heck, even Darwin saw this, and certainly Malthus before him—that how evolution and The World work is a bit more complicated. But here’s where the unhappy, nay verily tragic, conjunction of individual limits and interaction with reality intersect. For the simple creature does two things:  Continue reading →

link of the day

Thinking of buying a new phone or smartphone?

Wondering how good/bad/indifferent/thoroughly evil your current one is?

Two points to ponder:

  1. South Korea has labour / union rights but there may be ways to wiggle around them
  2. Re. Foxconn (Apple) and Samsung, and indeed many others: China Labor Watch is one place to keep an eye on. Obviously, of many. And as ever, don’t trust me or any other single source of information, on anything, ever ever ever: do your own research, read stuff for yourself, make up your own mind.

China Labor Watch views Chinese workers’ rights as inalienable human rights and is dedicated to promoting workers’ fair redistribution of wealth under globalization

Founded in 2000, China Labor Watch is an independent not-for-profit organization. In the past ten years, CLW has collaborated with unions, labor organizations and the media to conduct a series of in-depth assessments of factories in China that produce toys, bikes, shoes, furniture, clothing, and electronics for some of the largest U.S. companies. CLW’s New York office creates reports from these investigations, educates the international community on supply chain labor issues, and pressures corporations to improve conditions for workers.

Meanwhile, CLW’s Shenzhen office works closely with local factories and services migrant workers in Guangdong through free Legal Consulting Hotline Program, Community Training in collective bargaining, and Train the Trainer Prgram to enhance the local capacity in labor movements.

start the week with a chocolatey quickie

And no, this is not a reference to the fact that we’re in that period in between St Valentine’s Day and Easter. (And for those of a religious persuasion and who know what both these occasions are really about: my apologies, you must get as sick of this as Irish people like me get about yesterday being called “Patty’s”…).

My MakeupAlleying chum nadi1010 has posted up a rather good article on her blog; it’s on the darker side of chocolate:

A subject close to my heart. For the obvious reasons—and why any decent human being, anyone who considers themselves to be a human being, and basically anyone—for which anyone should care. This is hurting people. And greedy. Bad. But also because I’ve been buying properly fair chocolate (regularly and, these days, as far as humanly possibly entirely—and if in doubt, always asking and nagging…) since the late 1970s, as far back as I’ve been buying chocolate. My family has been involved with Oxfam since they started, back in the ’40s (plus allied antecedent movements on the Quakers-being-fair side). So it’s been in the blood for three generations now!

But this is something that needs more consciousness-raising, by as many people as possible; not just the converted preaching to the converted. Hence the sharing the link-love going on here.

My only complaint: Alter Eco made a great 73% chocolate with cocoa nibs, and then they stopped. They now only go up to 67%. I asked, and the reason is “American tastes.” Which sucks; I’m not American, and I’m always wary of falling into national stereotyping, and I know that’s not true. See, I’ve had amazing high-cocoa proper chocolate in the USA (including by American artisans); I know that’s not a land devoted exclusively to The Cult Of Hershey. Go USA indies!

Here’s another informative item, from Fair Trade Vancouver: 

  • Chocolate
  • and their buying options
  • which include my favourite, my solid reliable faithful, my beloved regular everyday daily (not quite hourly, not that bad yet…) special friend; been loving me tender, loving me sweet since last July:

clinchable zazubean clinchee