Just a few moments ago, my co-worker Robin got a text from a friend stating "2-year olds in Crocs make me laugh." This made Jenn, Robin and I all giggle for a bit and opened a brief discussion on how silly or awesome we think the trendy rubber clogs look. Just then, Jenn mentioned an article she had read about a toddler who's foot got stuck in an escalator while wearing the holey footwear. We started searching the Net for the article, digested it and then moved on to the Croc Web site. In one of the product testimonials, Jenn noticed there was an endorsement written by a child:
''I am 5 years old and I have been wearing Crocs for one year now. It is the only shoe my mom can get me to wear. Everyone asks me all the time "where did you get your shoes?" I have red and navy blue, the red is my favorite. I am looking forward to getting more colors of crocs."
Photo Source: http://www.hegemonyrules.net
We've got nothing against the Crocs company, but this testimonial started to raise questions in my head related to child exploitation:
1) How far is too far when using minors to pitch a product?
2) Is this instance OK, or just a precursor to more marketing by the youngest marketing segment, to the youngest marketing segment?
3) Several iterations and evolutions later, does this turn into things much, much worse -- like child labor?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below, or in a discussion board.
I spent the better part of last week in Northern Ireland. I flew into Belfast on a grey Thursday morning and took a long taxi ride into the heart of the city and my hotel, only a ten minutes walk from the inspiring façade of Queen’s College. My knowledge of Northern Ireland was short at best; I’ve seen the Hollywood interpretations, thanks to Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford (The Devil’s Own and Patriot Games), and heard bits and pieces of a difficult history through such well-groomed mouthpieces as U2. I did, after all, know the all the words to “Bloody Sunday,” based on the infamous 1972 day in Derry, Northern Ireland.
The sidewalks were wet from the rains that hang over Belfast this time of year, and students were leaving class. From where I sat, everything was normal; buildings, people, street noise and advertisements abounded. The black cab wove in and out of Lisburn Rd., Belfast’s answer to the neighboring High Street, and hung a left a few blocks down. We were driving down roads with painted curbsides, blue, white and red, “the loyalist colors,” Ken said. Ken was my taxi driver and tour guide, a Belfast resident for four decades. We squeezed down the innards of Belfast, stopping occasionally for a piece of history or the odd mural, where Ken would look in the rearview mirror to check my attention, or perhaps my reaction.
The Troubles, the period of sectarian violence between the late 1960’s and the Belfast Agreement (or Good Friday Agreement) of 1998, had marked up the streets and inevitably, the people of this town. The Troubles were made up of violent outbreaks and political activity between the majority Protestant/loyalist community and the nationalist community, generally Roman Catholic. At its most basic, the loyalists wanted to remain loyal to the crown and under British rule, and the nationalist wanted independence and self-rule. The conflict has been called everything from a civil war to terrorism, and was characterized by a flood of paramilitary violence and political warfare, leaving many dead or wounded in its 30 year wake.
Falls Rd. is synonymous with this past and stands not far off from Shankill Road, its Protestant counterpart. Both were hosts to the parasitic ethnic conflict, bearing battle wounds and inscriptions above doorframes, commemorating the matryed and the lost-too-early. The murals too, stare down from high in alleys, retaining walls and building fronts; Frederick Douglass, the mural tells me, believed in the nationalist cause. So did Ghandi, who resides next to a pipe smoking George W. Bush caricature. On the other side, the Queen’s portrait and birthday are celebrated blocks from Bobby Sands, the original of the infamous Hunger Strikers of the early 1980’s.
Between them all, the murals, the roads, the claimed curbs, stand towering Peace Lines. The Peace Lines, ironically, are a series of barriers that run through Belfast, separating Catholic and Protestant territory. The walls grow from lines in the ground, your side/my side, to twenty-five foot walls iced with barbed wire and nets to keep stones from being thrown over. Ken drove us through one of the few gates in the peace lines, which stretch for 13 miles, and we skimmed the edge of a section where tourists and well-wishers, including Bill Clinton, have left messages of peace and reconciliation.
As we sped past stone cathedrals and public housing, the irony of the walls sat heavy in me. Despite the sharp decrease in violence since the 1998 Belfast Agreement that ushered in ceasefire proclamations and paramilitary disarmament, the calm seems to run thin. The Peace Lines mark the irresolution of a long and tired conflict, a scar that cuts through Belfast, scoring the edge of stability and the return to a darker and more dangerous time.
But then, we circled a round-a-bout, I leaned back in my seat and snapped a photo of a overgrown church through the back window of the cab. As we lurched forward, I was confronted by the rest of the city, the imposing signs of a new Belfast in every direction. Titanic’s shipyard outlines the harbor and the giant ferris wheel, sponsored by Ulster Bank of Ireland, claims the skyline, much like the London Eye. City Hall is nearby, regal and serene, and the Merchant Hotel is down the street, boasting chic visitors like Tom Hanks and Bill Murray, as well as the most expensive cocktail in the world. Van Morrison and Snow Patrol call Belfast home, along with local favorites Foy Vance and Oppenheimer. People are everywhere, suits and students, and from this vantage point, the walls all disappear.
We’re nearing the end of our tour, and Ken drops us at the Hewitt pub in the shiny city centre. We pass Hotel Europa as we climb out, and Ken chimes in, “Didja’ know Europa is the most bombed hotel in the world?!” I’m reminded again that here, things are two steps forward, one step back.
Swanky restaurants and reinvented pubs line streets the entire walk back towards Queen’s. It’s late now, and university students have left their wellies in favor of footballer jerseys and mini-skirts. Someone asks me about the new Rambo movie and we laugh at American films. Secretly, I wonder if he’s Protestant or Catholic, if he walked Falls or Shankill and if he thinks it all will hold. But I don’t ask, it feels foreign to talk about such things now, when the night is free from worry and the ferris wheel is lighting up the sky.
“Insofar as Northern Ireland can be described as peaceful, that peace has come at the price of reconciliation.”- from a 2006 United States Institute of Peace report
There are some things that stop you in your tracks when you read them, statistics too big and jarring to pass by, read over or turn the other way and forget. 4,500 children will die today from water-related diseases—4,500. The worst thing about this statistic is that every single one of those 4,500 deaths is preventable by providing clean water to communities in need.
There are many non-profits in the United States and around the world dedicated to bringing clean water to the needy, whether it be raising awareness or working on the ground in the developing world to implement clean water solutions for those in need. They are, daily, trying to lower the number of children and families that suffer due to the many diseases that make their home in contaminated water sources. In many areas, villages get their water from muddy and dirt-filled holes, and sometimes from a hand-dug well that is contaminated or has run dry form over-use. In other cases, villages have water pipes that run to their community from the nearest city center, but the city lacks the power and energy to get the clean water our to their villages. Sometimes, a community will go without water for years simply because of a well in need of repair. In Uganda, a $5 broken chain link on a well pump left an IDP camp without water for months. Groups like Living Water International, Charity:Water, Blood:Water Mission, H20 Africa, the Fermi Water Project and others devote their resources to bringing attention to the need for water, and work on the ground with locals to drill wells, construct filters, and bring water to thirsty people.
World Water Day is a perfect time to reflect on the prominence and prevalence of water in our lives, and in that recognition, come to know the urgency of the need for clean water all over the world. Water is not simply a cause to get behind, it is one of our most basic and urgent needs, it is a building block for life. In thirsty communities the world over, clean water really does change everything.
Kenya in 2008: more than 1,000 dead. 300,000 displaced. The statistics of human suffering read like a stock ticker on the daily news. We see them online, hear them in the news, perhaps even find ourselves repeating them in conversation. But how can we possibly make sense of it all? What is the story behind the numbers, and where are the statistics of reconciliation?
Yesterday, exactly six weeks after the widely disputed Kenyan election, Kibaki's ruling party and Odinga's opposition have agreed to the formation of an inclusive, power-sharing government. While details of the truce have not yet been revealed, any step toward peace is a welcome one.
What you can Do:
Global Giving allows you to donate (and raise) money for organization responding to the post-election crisis. Sometimes even a few dollars can go a long way.
The Student Movement for Real Change has started an online petition for peace in Kenya.
Question: What does your vocabulary skill have to do with third world hunger? Until now, not much. But thanks to the good folks at FreeRice.com, now you can help alleviate malnutrition in developing nations by simply testing your vocab skills.
Sounds crazy, but it's working. In the couple weeks since it's launch, almost 200 million grains of rice have been donated. (The rice will be distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme.)
What does "initiate" mean?
A. Strew
B. Nap
C. Begin
D. Engage
If you got that right, you just donated 10 grains of rice to a hungry person in the developing world. It's that easy. For each question you get right, 10 more grains of rice gets donated (thanks to the advertisers on the site). Like the GMAT, as you get more answers right, your questions get harder (but don't fear, they get easier as you answer questions incorrectly).
It's really addictive -- I played till I had donated 1000 grains of rice, then had to stop myself and get back to work. It also appeals to the competitors among us, as your vocabulary skill gets ranked by level (levels range from 1 - 50, with few people topping 48 -- current score to beat is 40).
This is the kind of innovative, creative solution we love to support, so check it out. (And let us know if you top our level 40 rating!)
Yesterday was Free Burma: International Bloggers Day, which encouraged bloggers to post this badge to support the peaceful revolution in Burma:
Beth Kanter did a nice job of covering the details of the blogosphere rally here.
The Road
We've become quite engaged with the Burma topic over the past weeks, as our good friends at Digital Telepathy have been generating a lot of buzz around their good friends behind The Road film.
The documentary takes a personal look at the situation in Burma, and is the work of four friends who didn't set out to change the world, but are doing it
just the same. The story behind how they came to this point in their lives is quite inspirational.
Here's a quick summary:
Situation - Burma is one of the most oppressed nations in the world, and remains under the control of a brutal military Junta. With the
international community unaware of the atrocities that are taking place, it leaves little hope for those who are being afflicted. Mass rape of women, ethnic
cleansing, mandatory relocations, military recruitment of children, and forced labor are only a few of the many violations that are taking place.
Story - In the summer of 2007 four friends made a decision to embark on a journey that could cost them their lives. Their goal was to break into an unknown country, in order to uncover a story the world had never heard. Armed with cameras and Powerbars, the four friends ventured into the jungles of Burma with their cameras rolling, and what they found has forever changed them.
Goals - The immediate goals are to get the film completed, so the initial stages of raising awareness can begin. They believe that through
awareness comes action, so they are implementing tangible ways regular people like you and me can take a stand for justice. Long term goals are to overthrow the military regime controlling the country.
Learn more and get involved
Check out CNN this Saturday (10/6) for coverage of The Road. Saturday 4pm Pacific, Sunday 10am Pacific.
It's October, and with a new month comes a new focus for Razoo. This month we're shining a spotlight on human trafficking and slavery.
For those of you not familiar with the issue (I wasn't until I started researching it for our October campaign), here's a snapshot:
Trafficking in human beings is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking involves a process of using illicit means such as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability. Victims (usually women, teens and children) are often kidnapped and transported or sold into prostitution, forced labor or soldiering.
Officials at the International Labour Organization say they believe that between 700,000 and two million women and children are trafficked across an international border somewhere in the world every year, feeding an industry with profits estimated at somewhere between $12 billion and $17 billion per year. According to the United Nations, there are currently 127 "source countries" that provide large numbers of prostitutes, mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe, and 137 "destination countries," including the U.S.
For an in-depth look at the global trafficking crisis, check out this excellent article by Caroline Moorehead for the New York Review of Books.
Today I was reminded of one of the many reasons why I love my hometown, Arlington, Virginia.
As a volunteer ESL teacher for the past seven years, I have grown to love and respect the people who come to my class from all over the world. They show up to learn English, night after night, after twelve hour days on the construction site, in the the restaurant kitchen, or cleaning our homes and buildings. And without fail, they come with an an open mind, an eagerness to learn and deep gratitude for the opportunies the United States offers them.
So it has been disheartening for me to witness the recent trend towards anti-immigrant measures enacted by local communities throughout Northern Virginia. It was particularly disconcerting to see Herndon choose to shut down their day-labor center, thus forcing hard-working men back out onto the streets and out of the job market. While I respect diversity of opinion, I have to say I was shocked at the ignorance of some of the motivations behind the closing. Exhibit A: Ann Null, a council member who opposed opening the center before she retired in 2005, said she hoped its closing would induce illegal residents in the town to leave the country. "There's a construction boom in Panama," she said. "They can find jobs in a country where they don't have to learn the language." Are you kidding me?
With the anti-immigrant sentiment swirling all around us, naturally I've been concerned about the possible impact these recent precedents would have on our community in Arlington. So I was relieved when I read this morning's press release from Arlington County:
"The Arlington County Board today adopted a resolution expressing support for immigrants and calling upon state and federal officials to enact policies that promote the integration of immigrants into society," the release states. The Board resolution affirms that Arlington "rejects policies and practices that promote discrimination, hostility, abuse, exploitation, and fear of government." Arlington, the resolution states, "is committed to be a welcoming community that recognizes the contributions of all of its members, in all of their diversity."
It reaffirms my faith in our society's willingness and ability to find solutions to our challenges, rather than turning our heads in ignorance. Thanks, Arlington, for adopting a policy of inclusion which manages to abide by our Federal laws while smartly addressing the realities of our wonderfully diverse community.
I admit I'm fairly uneducated about the issue of homelessness in America, so someone please educate me.
Take a look at this video out of St. Petersburg, FL, which shows local police slashing through a homeless tent-city.
It's pretty shocking, and raises lots of questions. So before making an ill-informed judgement, I'd love to get answers to some of these questions. What's the background here? What were the police trying to accomplish? What other tactics had they tried prior to this? Who were the folks on the losing end of this slash-fest? Had they committed crimes?
I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt to the police, that there was some rationale for the decision to destroy the "homes" of these folks. But the video is pretty harsh, and doesn't portray the powers-that-be very favorably. As someone not in-the-know about how we're dealing with homelessness these days, please tell me -- is this how we're dealing with homelessness these days?
Razoo is a community united around making a positive difference in the world. Where passions are connected with actions, showing us that when connected, our small contributions add up to a big impact. Go ahead, have a look.
Good Happens is a daily dose of good stuff. A counter to all the bad stuff we hear every day. There's plenty of good in the world -- we find it and celebrate it here. Why? Because man can't live on dread alone.
There are some things that stop you in your tracks when you read them, statistics too big and jarring to pass by, read over or turn the other way and forget. 4,500 children will die today from water-related diseases—4,500. The worst thing about this statistic is that every single one of those 4,500 deaths is preventable by providing clean water to communities in need. 
World Water Day is a perfect time to reflect on the prominence and prevalence of water in our lives, and in that recognition, come to know the urgency of the need for clean water all over the world. Water is not simply a cause to get behind, it is one of our most basic and urgent needs, it is a building block for life. In thirsty communities the world over, clean water really does change everything. 
