On A Totally Unrelated Note...

[Quiet One 15]

As a thank you for Steph's kind words, and although I don't feel specially inspired, I wanted to show some vital signs before she had a fight against everybody in the forums on my behalf (Seriously, Steph, not worth it!)

I didn't really know what to post on F1, so I just picked some (not quite) random news from here that I found interesting to share and that has passed almost unnoticed amidst the World Cup/local politics/international wardrums craziness.

Last weekend, a local fashion firm called La Alameda, in a joint venture with a thailandese firm called Dignity Returns, displayed their design collection or whatever it is called simultaneously in Thailand and Argentina (Sorry, my knowledge of clothes and fashion does not go beyond the "clothes are something you put on to hide the body smell and the hairy bits"). Why is it interesting? Because their new company is called "No Chains" and it is made by "100% free workers performing their job under human conditions". In other words, no slave labor was used in the manufacture of these garments.

Two thoughts:

- Globalisation can be bad (Foxconn) or can be good (No Chains). It is up to us to choose, it is not a given fact. There is always an alternative to Francis Fukuyama's dystopia.

- It is sad that well into XXst Century a company advertising that they do not hire kids or slaves should be hailed as "good news".

Ermmm....sorry. That's all.

[Rainmaster 7]

A shame such alternatives are usually short lived/unsuccessful.

[Max Mosley 2]

Great to hear from you, Andres and George. I too am profoundly opposed to child labour. In fact, for that very reason, all my posts are lovingly hand-typed by yours truly, even if they seem like something someone with a mental age of 8 would write.

[Kopite Girl 0]

A shame such alternatives are usually short lived/unsuccessful.

Agreed.

Hey Andres! *waves*

Me fight? There is no fight they know I'm right.

Sorry. We're right.

I oft think of stuff like this too. I was watching a documentary couple of nights ago as it happens. Little kids as young as 5 working in the Bolivian Mines. The most horrifying thing was these 5 year olds looked OLD. How on earth is this allowed to happen?

Kids should be kids.

[Persevere 0]

As a thank you for Steph's kind words, and although I don't feel specially inspired, I wanted to show some vital signs before she had a fight against everybody in the forums on my behalf (Seriously, Steph, not worth it!)

I didn't really know what to post on F1, so I just picked some (not quite) random news from here that I found interesting to share and that has passed almost unnoticed amidst the World Cup/local politics/international wardrums craziness.

Last weekend, a local fashion firm called La Alameda, in a joint venture with a thailandese firm called Dignity Returns, displayed their design collection or whatever it is called simultaneously in Thailand and Argentina (Sorry, my knowledge of clothes and fashion does not go beyond the "clothes are something you put on to hide the body smell and the hairy bits"). Why is it interesting? Because their new company is called "No Chains" and it is made by "100% free workers performing their job under human conditions". In other words, no slave labor was used in the manufacture of these garments.

Two thoughts:

- Globalisation can be bad (Foxconn) or can be good (No Chains). It is up to us to choose, it is not a given fact. There is always an alternative to Francis Fukuyama's dystopia.

- It is sad that well into XXst Century a company advertising that they do not hire kids or slaves should be hailed as "good news".

Ermmm....sorry. That's all.

Good post, Andres. The world does go on outside of F1, pretty or not. And, for me, you hit the nail on the head: a company that doesn't utilize any child or slave labor has to tell everyone as much and it is "...hailed as good news." I don't fault them. It's no different than a large mulit-national company jumping on the "green" bandwagon and spending advertising dollars to tell consumers they don't dump toxic chemicals in rivers.

Still, it does tell us something about the cynical times we live in.

As for your insistence on fabricating strange and obscene D#ckensian-sounding names and linking same to dystopian fantasies, well, apparently there's no bottom to your shame. And I'll ask you to keep mothers everywhere out of all future posts.

Glad to see you and your shameful bottom back.

[Kopite Girl 0]

To add to David's post. Thanks Andres. Do miss your wit, sarcasm and outright intelligence. Your a star that shines far brighter in a storm than on a clear night.

[Quiet One 15]

To add to David's post. Thanks Andres. Do miss your wit, sarcasm and outright intelligence. Your a star that shines far brighter in a storm than on a clear night.

Yeah, I get a lot of that. Must be something about the lightnings being reflected on my bald head.

Seriously now: they are not the same as a large company jumping into the green bandwagon. These people from La Alameda are former slave labor employees here. The initiative might ned up being short lived, but by no means unsuccessful. There is a continuous generation of small ideas like this one going on in these parts, after decades of "There Is No Alternative" politics. Right or wrong, there have been many projects in this direction and I think it is very healthy that they keep moving. I'd rather see a thousand projects like these fail than accept that my country should be turned into a sweatshop for multinational companies because "There is no alternative".

FWIW, I am not against multinational companies per se (I work for one, after all ), I am against the idea that they should be allowed to bring back practices banned 300 years ago after eons of slavery and exploitation. If you are a multinational compaby so successful and blah blah blah then prove your worth, show that you are capable of being successful and still benefit your workers. Otherwise, you are just an above the law salt mine, that's no "excellence", that's what the robber barons did.

[monza gorilla 1]

This post no longer exists. Sorry.

[yurp 0]

This post no longer exists. Sorry.

This one does, but let's pretend it doesn't.

[AleHop 0]

- Globalisation can be bad (Foxconn) or can be good (No Chains). It is up to us to choose, it is not a given fact. There is always an alternative to Francis Fukuyama's dystopia.

Ermmm....sorry. That's all.

Globalisation is bad because the concept behind it was evil. The aim was moving big corporations to countries with very loose regulations (for workers, enviroment, etc.) where they could produce cheaper and then sell the goods for 50 times their costs in the country of origin.

Why is Global economy so bad because the concept behind Globalization was bad.