6 Clothing Companies That Every Engaged Consumer Should Support

The Last Garment Factory

So there’s this argument that I hear all of the time:

The garment industry comes to a region or country and, yes, it has loads of problems. The workers aren’t paid well and they’re overworked. The working conditions are dreadful and no place for an adult to work let alone children, which also work there. BUT there aren’t a lot of opportunities in this country and the industry allows the workers and the country to grab hold of the first rung of the global economic ladder. The countries main resource is cheap labor. Over time wages and workers rights go up along with the cost of the goods being produced. Other,…

"Poor" living like they just won a showcase showdown

There’s this argument out there that poor people in the United State have stuff and that if you have stuff and are poor you aren’t living frugal enough. A recent segment on FOX News reported that 99.6% of those living in poverty have a fridge, 81.4% have a microwave, 78.3% have air conditioning, 63.7% have cable, 54.5% have cell phones, 48.6% have a coffee maker, 32.3% have two or more TVs, 25% have a dish washer.

The same folks making this argument would tell the poor to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. I’d like to make a couple of points.

• If you don’t have a fridge, you have to eat out, which is more expensive.
• If you don’t have a microwave, how do you cook a warm meal when…
  

Jordanian "Rape Factory" is one of many

The labor rights community is laser-focused on a factory in Jordan in which multiple rapes of female workers by male management have occurred. Headlines shout, “Tell WalMart, Target, Macy’s, Lands’ End, and Kohl’s to stop Profiting from Rape.”

Profiting from rape?  Yep, that sounds a bit extreme.   No matter what you think of these companies I doubt you think that they’re sitting around a boardroom discussing that if only they could get a few more rapes this quarter they’d hit their target profit.  In these instances I always wonder if public shaming was the first or the last resort.

I’m the kind of guy that people think to email or to tweet when news of…

Glocal World Champion: Peru Paper

What do Anne Heche, Kyra Sedgwick, and Jimmy Fallon have in common other than Kevin Bacon? They all received (along with Kevin Bacon) greeting cards designed and made out of recycled materials by Peruvian women in their 2010 Emmy swag bags. Grace Bateman Greene, the founder of Peru Paper, and I recently connected and she agreed to share her thoughts on travel, education, and the importance of a job.

I prompted her with this question:

I’m interested in how your travels and your education have impacted the course of your life. How has travel influenced your education? How has your education influenced your travels?

Without further ado, Grace…

I’ve loved reading what Kelsey has said about TOMS shoes recently. …

Etsy asks New Yorkers, "Where are you wearing?"

This video by Etsy is proof that my work isn’t done, not even close.

And here’s my much shakier, less produced, too long, hookah version of this…

…

Radioactive Balls (yes, those kind of balls)

Hey baby, I'm radioactive-free Down There. My place or yours?

Do you carry your cell phone in your pocket? Do you Facebook with your laptop on your lap?

If you answered “Yeppers” to these questions, you could be suffering from radioactive balls. Radioactive balls can lead to impotence, infertility, and the the production of offspring with genetic mutations that give them superpowers for which society simultaneously loves and shuns them.

And it’s never easy being the parents of a superhero.

Batman’s parents = Dead
Superman’s biological parents = Dead
Superman’s earth parents = targets of evil geniuses
Spider-Man’s parents = Never heard from
Spider-Man’s Uncle = Shot

If impotence, infertility, and superhero parenting aren’t your thing, I’ve got just the…

Volunteer 2hrs/week & offset budget cuts from debt ceiling debate

We live in tough times. Budgets are being slashed in households, cities, states, and our nation. Show me someone who hasn’t been impacted or had someone close to them impacted and I’ll show you a hermit with a billion bucks stuffed under his mattress.

With congress coming to terms at the last moment, the debt ceiling has been raised, but another $2.4 trillion of cuts are to be made over the next 10 years. $2.4 trillion seems like a lot, but it’s nothing that a nation of volunteers can’t make up for.

Let’s do the math:

$2,400,000,000,000 of cuts / 300 million Americans = $8,000 of cuts / person

1 hour of volunteering = $20

$8,000 of debt per person / $20 per volunteer…

It's. ALL. About. Empathy.

Sam Richards
Sam Richards is a sociologist and teacher of the largest race relations course in the US. He argues that empathy is the core of sociology. Full bio here.

…

Fire Eaters Wanted

What do you like to do?

Do you enjoy planning events, taking photos, editing videos, designing posters, playing guitar, playing video games, fire eating, sword swallowing, or working with spreadsheets?

I don’t mean to knock volunteering in a soup kitchen or swinging a hammer to frame a house, but that’s not the best way for me to use my time. Like BJ I don’t have a ton of time. I’ve got a two-month-old baby boy and a two-year-old daughter. (That’s a lot of diapers!) And I have to be very selfish with my time. Volunteering is an important part of my life, but I only have so much time,…