29 going on 5

I’m five.

I’m sitting on the living room floor munching on Cheerios, watching Big Bird on PBS, and picking a new hole in my socks – hand-me-downs from my older brother. Mom tells me I need to pay close attention to the TV.

“PBS would like to thank Kelsey Timmerman,” a voice (not Big Bird’s) says.

That’s me. I’m so excited. I smile and dance around the living room wondering if my friends heard that.

–

I’m 29.

I’m driving home from work listening to All Things Considered on NPR. During a break, I’m guilted into donating to the station that I listen to regularly.

“IPR would like to give a big thanks to Kelsey Timmerman,” a voice (not Big Bird’s or Michelle Norris’s) says.

That’s me. I try to play it cool like people read my name on the radio all the time. But I can’t fight the smile. It’s big and goofy and the other drivers wonder exactly what I’m up to.

I’m 29 going on five.

A Thousand Words…My Brother’s Wedding in SLC Utah

…At First Sight

The Brothers Timmerman

Dad can’t spell Y-M-C-A

The Village People with Class

U.S. Passports Made in Thailand via the Netherlands

In terms of the previous post, if there is anyone that should be a red, white, and blue consumer, it’s the United States Government. I’m not sure how many hundreds of millions, if not billons, of dollars they spend per year protecting farmers and American jobs, yet they turn around and do something as stupid as outsourcing the production of our passports to save a few bucks.

Apparently there are security issues too.

Your tax dollars at work.

What kind of consumer are you?

I’m working on the books conclusion and thought I would share a bit on types of consumers. Actually, my intentions are selfish. I wanted to see if anyone else had any types of consumers they would add to the list. Let me know if you have any ideas or if the below passage rubs you one way or the other.

Are we bargain hunters that follow our pocketbooks more than our conscience? If so, we don’t care where or who made our clothes as long as we get a good deal. But some of us don’t have a choice. If we want to clothe and feed our families, we can’t afford to be anything else but bargain hunters. As much as we would like to have the option to worry about a garment worker in Bangladesh struggling to support her family, we are struggling to support our own.

Are we red, white, and blue consumers that, after watching our jobs and those of our neighbors slip away, want to support only American companies? Believe it or not, it’s possible. If so, we support companies like American Apparel, the U.S.’s largest garment manufacturer, which employs 4,000 workers at its facility in Los Angeles. Dov Charney, a controversial figure recognized in The Economist of, “…(having) been called a brilliant businessman, an amateur pornographer, a Jewish hustler and a man with a social mission,” founded the company in 2003. Anti-sweatshop and anti-globalization activists alike have praised Charney and American Apparel for their vertically integrated business model, keeping business in the U.S., and providing his workers with a fair wage and benefits. Charney told The Economist, “I believe in capitalism and self-interest. Self-interest can involve being generous with others.”

Where Charney sees his decision to manufacture in the U.S. as primarily a good business decision, other companies see their decision to sell only products made in the U.S. as primarily an ethical/patriotic one. All-American Clothing Co. – which incidentally is located in Darke County, Ohio, not far from where I grew up – sells solely American-made products online.

Are we conscientious consumers that want to be sure the products we buy were made under good working conditions and the workers are treated fairly? If so, we shop online at places like Justice Clothing, Maggie’s Organics/Clean Clothes, and No Sweat Apparel that ensure us they source from factories that meet our approval.

For most of my life, I have been none of the above. I was fortunate enough to not be restricted to bargains, yet I really didn’t put much thought to whom or where I was wearing. I was the worst kind of consumer – an apathetic one. I knew the people that made my clothes lived difficult lives, but I didn’t think about it.

Now I do.

I believe that we need to be engaged consumers. Until some type of GWC-like labeling system is available, we have to base our purchasing decisions on our own research. We should visit companies’ websites of the products we buy or are considering to buy from to see what kind of involvement they have with monitoring the factories they source from. If they only have a couple of paragraphs outlining their codes and how they self-police their factories, we might want to consider shopping elsewhere. But if they belong to organizations like the Fair Labor Association or have worked with the Clean Clothes Campaign, their factories are inspected by a third party, they have a position or department that handles social responsibility issues, and they acknowledge the challenges of ethical sourcing, we should consider giving them our business. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee that their products are made under fair conditions, but such actions show signs that the company is engaged.

Warning: this blog isn’t for reading…it’s not a flotation device either

This weekend my brother got married (I’ll post about that later with a photo or two) in Salt Lake City. Annie and I flew out on Thursday and back on Sunday. The trip to and from Salt Lake marks several travel firsts for me:

1) I had never been to SLC before. Ooh, pretty mountains.
2) I had never pulled wheeled luggage through an airport before.
3) I had never used one of those neck pillows on a flight before.

Two and three are signs of becoming a rapidly aging traveler. Soon I’ll probably be zipping through the airport on a beeping golf cart making remarks about young whippersnappers with long hair and overweight people.

On closer examination of the neck pillow, I discovered the following phrase: “Not for sleeping.”

I guarantee the company that made the pillow markets them with people on planes sleeping comfortably. Yet their lawyers and some medical professional tells them that they could cover their asses from any sleeping/neck pillow injuries if they stuck a stupid “not for sleeping” tag. I’m half tempted to fake an injury and sue them to see if the warning will hold up in court.

This is almost as stupid as an inner tube not to be used as an flotation device.

Drowning guy (panicking): Help!!! I’m drowning!

Sunbather: Sorry, all I have is this here inner tube which can’t be used as a flotation device.

Drowning guy: blurb…blurb…sputter…(dies)

Fantasy Kingdom on the World Vision Report

You might remember my piece in the Christian Science Monitor titled “Frivolous gift or lifelong memory?” in which I take 20 kids and an old man into a Bangladeshi amusement park. If you were too lazy to read it, now all you have to do is sit back and listen to my hick %$#@ redneck accented voice (as a recent YouTube commenter called it) read it to you.

Listen to Fantasy Kingdom on the WVR

Enjoy. Ya’ll come back now…ya hear?

Global warming good for water-skiers

Economist William Nordhaus on global warming:

Snow-skiing will be hurt – but waterskiing will benefit.

As a fella who has dreamed about SCUBA diving around the ruins of Angkor Wat, I think I would enjoy an early morning ski through Manhattan or Athens.

(I read the quote in Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy)

Nike’s Contract Factory Compliance flowchart

I’ve been farting around looking at Nike’s Corporate Social Responsibility info (there’s a ton) and stumbled upon this flow chart. If the point of this chart was to show how complex factory compliance is, it worked on me. I don’t have a PhD in flowcharts and don’t have a clue what it all means.

Can you figure it out? The larger version is located in this .pdf file on page 27.

Pepto Bismol is calling

Literally.

I got a call from Pepto Bismol yesterday.

Apparently, I’m on some travel writing marketing list. I get a couple of press releases a day and a couple of phone calls a month about new products, books, and events.

Anyhow, Pepto is synergyzing with the Travel Channel, specifically the show Bizarre Foods with host Andrew Zimmern. The nice Pepto lady asked me if I read the press release, which I hadn’t. So she resent it. The release includes travel tips from Andrew, half of which involve Pepto. I’ve pasted it below the cut.

I’ve never used Pepto once at home or while traveling. This is for two reasons:

1. Their commercials freak me out. I don’t want my stomach slowly coated with pink paste.

2. I don’t eat like an oinker and therefore don’t require stomach meds. I’m either a-okay or experiencing the subject of the previous post.

If you could be sponsored by a drug what would it be? Me, I would be sponsored by Coppertone Sport SPF 30. I have albino tendencies and can hardly leave the house without it.

(more…)

Diarrhea…

Can you spell it?

It is a word that I’m pretty sure I have never correctly spelled in my entire life. And, as a 3-time Spelling Bee Champion of Mississinawa Valley Middle School, I like to think that’s saying something. Lucky for me, I don’t think they ever include diarrhea in spelling bees due to its unseemly nature. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be so jealous of my 3 shiny spelling bee trophies because I wouldn’t have them.