The New Busy

If you live in Seattle (or one of the three other metro areas in which the campaign has been launched) then you have probably seen the new ads for Microsoft Hotmail. If you haven't, click the link, and the above image will make more sense. I actually think the campaign is sort of clever, though most everyone else on the internet that has commented about them tends to disagree.

Surely there are lots of reasons to dislike the campaign, but mine is less marketing-specific and more an underlying philosophical critique - what is the deal with championing a busy lifestyle? Do people these days really need to be more busy?

Ethical Consumerism Part 2

I had to write a blog post for the LVC blog so I updated this one and here is the result:

LVC, WARM FUZZIES AND CONSUMERISM

In college, a friend of mine asked me a question about something she'd heard I'd said. "I heard," she began, trembling slightly, "that you think we shouldn't buy TOMS."

What she heard was half-true. I love TOMS (seriously check them out, a definite model for aspiring triple-bottom-line businesses everywhere), especially since they've made an explicit commitment to not only giving a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair that's bought, but to require fair labor practices in their factories.

What I actually said was that buying TOMS was great but it wasn't the answer. My ideology was: If you don't need new shoes, don't buy any. Buying TOMS because it makes you feel good to support the cause plus you get something out of it, instead of buying TOMS as a replacement for another shoe that you were already going to buy because you need new shoes, substitutes one "evil" for another - supporting unethical labor practices for supporting unnecessary consumerism.

It's a tough, weird ethical debate; surely buying TOMS, no matter how many pairs, is better than buying sweatshop-produced shoes, and gets more shoes onto the feet of children in Argentina and South Africa and wherever else TOMS gives shoes. Add to that the fact that the more TOMS we buy means more fair-wage jobs for folks in Argentina. But instead of "wasting" resources with a purchase, your money will be much better spent through a donation, no matter how ethical the company.

...Right?

Making Words Work

I was recently commissioned to make an "infographic" of sorts for a friend's company. Turns out I don't really know how to make an infographic. This is more of an English Language Cheat Sheet, only somewhat-artistically designed.

This remains unfinished. There were a few more pairs of words, and I was maybe going to change/update some of the examples (what is on there is generally the first thing that came into my head). And unless someone reading this blog is like, "Oh I'd really like to have that printed out on a poster of some kind or something for my classroom; these freakin' kids always get these words screwed up" then it will remain unfinished.

This project one of the reasons I haven't posted in over a week. I've been slowly uploading some other design work I've been doing lately, and some I've worked on in the past, over at the PORTFOLIO page. Thanks for looking. Image after the jump.

On Ethical Consumerism

A couple years ago, I had the privilege of meeting/hanging out with Shane Claiborne, a definite hero of mine. Around that time, I was spearheading an on-campus movement to reduce our campus' consumption of goods made in sweatshops.

I had a dual focus for the movement - I was interested not only in reducing consumption of unethically-produced products, but also interested in reducing consumption/consumerism overall.

A friend of mine (Robbie, pictured above in white shirt on the right) came up to me one day and asked me a question about something I'd said. "I heard," she began, "that you think we shouldn't buy TOMS."

On Citizenship, Terror, and Assassination

Came across this terrifying article on Tumblr today: Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen.

Goodness, that title sure jumps out at you doesn't it? I don't know if it's possible to see that link without at least glancing over the article. It's incredibly troubling that the President/the CIA have the authority to assassinate anyone; it goes against most Americans' core beliefs about the role of our government.

The article mentions it, but remember when all the liberals went up in arms with Bush's domestic spying program (which, by the way, Obama has not done away with)? If the title of the article were accurate, then you'd expect us all to be 1000x more enraged by this.

But as you read the article and the coverage of the issue you learn that the point of contention for most of these people is not that the president is assassinating someone. The problem is that this person is a U.S. citizen. Nevermind that he is an Al-Qaeda operative apparently actively participating in terrorism against the United States:

"The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday..."

Wait, why again can't we kill a terrorist? We kill tens of thousands of terrorists (or civilians, who can tell them apart?) every year. Oh right, because he's both a terrorist and a U.S. Citizen! You can't assassinate a U.S. Citizen.

What is war if not large-scale assassination? Does the CIA have assassination targets that aren't U.S. Citizens (yes)? If so, does anyone care? That's just what war is, right? We are allowed to kill "enemy combatants." But apparently, by definition, U.S. Citizens cannot be classified as "enemy combatants" without due process:

"Even more strikingly, Antonin Scalia, in the 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, wrote an Opinion (joined by Justice Stevens) arguing that it was unconstitutional for the U.S. Government merely to imprison (let alone kill) American citizens as "enemy combatants"; instead, they argued, the Constitution required that Americans be charged with crimes (such as treason) and be given a trial before being punished."

My question is, if we are allowed to murder on a grand scale (i.e. war) and on a small scale (assassination of high-level terrorist leaders) as part of the "War on Terror," why does it matter whether our "enemies" are citizens or not? The above quote implies that it is constitutional to imprison/kill non-Americans as "enemy combatants." Why is that OK?