Tue, 08 Jan 2008
Shoes and socks
I exclaimed to Lisa when I signed my contract to start working, "Someone's going to hand me thousands of votes every month!"
I try to treat these dollars with respect. So far, I haven't given any of them to the MPAA as part of watching movies in theaters or buying movies. (I haven't participated in free advertising for them either by watching their movies for free without their permission.) I've bought music from eMusic.com or directly from the artist in the case of Girlyman.
It's easy to watch when I hand dollars to the copyright industry. But what to do about socks and shoes? Where can I go to buy shoes that weren't made in sweatshops?
Enter the Blackspot sneaker brand. It's by the people from Adbusters.
They tell me the shoes are made in a union shop in Portugal from organic hemp. I don't (yet?) feel like I need everything I own to be made of hemp, but the organic bit is a nice touch. I can buy them practically next door, at De La Sole Footwear in the Castro.
More on socks another time.
P.S. Thanks Jim at Irregular Times for the link (via Cthuugle).
[] permanent link and comments
Sat, 25 Aug 2007
Today
This is like a new year's resolution: Starting today, I'll chronicle how much money of my money I give to oil companies, monpolists in the entertainment industry, and other groups whose activities I think are bad for humans. I'll also tally the money I give to people doing work that I think is good that hopefully offsets that.
See the note about it for details. In the future, hopefully some smart application will put a tally of these stats on the right side.
