Activist to Bono: Retire!

August 5th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

A fella from Chicago is demanding that Bono retire:

“Bono’s philanthropy efforts are self-righteous, ineffective, & counter-productive;… The grassroots leaders of the global fight against AIDS didn’t ask for Bono to be their frontman. Its time for Bono to step down. We’ll all pledge donations to the Global Fund, but no pledges are collected until Bono retires from public life.”

So far this campaign has raised $1,002, which is nearly equal to the amount of money Bono raises scratching his butt. Although, the money will not actually be donated unless Bono does retire. Go ahead and donate a Gazillion-bazillion dollars because chances are you’ll never have to pay.

The main target of the campaign is not Bono, it’s the RED campaign. Bono is the angle to get people talking about it. I for one don’t want Bono to retire. Sure he’s got a big ego, but he’s got an even bigger fan base that he educates about poverty whether they like it or not. Plus, who doesn’t love U2?

It is almost always annoying when celebrities confuse their worldwide fame for being a worldwide expert. I’ve read that even the other members of U2 get fed up with Bono’s rants. But in my eyes, talking about poverty and AIDS is better than not. You gotta respect when someone tries to use their fame to do good. An argument can be made that his intentions are self-serving, but in that regard are there any true acts of charity?

I’ve planned from the beginning to donate a portion of my earnings from “Where am I Wearing? to organizations that work with garment workers, but I have thought better of it. I don’t want to be accused of using this as a marketing angle to sell more books. But even if I did include such a note, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that a win-win for both charity and author?

I will be donating, but I won’t be shouting it from the rooftops. Unless you consider this post shouting and this blog a rooftop and, in that case, feel free to criticize my charity. I can take it.

As for the RED campaign, it probably does need to be looked at if, in fact, they have spent $40 million more on marketing than it raised from selling RED products. But what is the value of raising awareness? Maybe the message funded by the $40 million discrepancy has reached 40 million people who are now more aware about AIDS in Africa or poverty in general. What’s that worth?

Read the RED manifesto: , browse their products, or if you think it’s all a bunch of hooey donate to the “Bono Retire” fund.

Decide for yourself.

On a different note, The Point is pretty cool site. You should check it out.

Can Creative Capitalism Save the World?

August 4th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Bill Gates thinks so.

Gates in the pages of Time magazine:

As I see it, there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest and caring for others. Capitalism harnesses self-interest in a helpful and sustainable way but only on behalf of those who can pay. Government aid and philanthropy channel our caring for those who can’t pay. And the world will make lasting progress on the big inequities that remain — problems like AIDS, poverty and education — only if governments and nonprofits do their part by giving more aid and more effective aid. But the improvements will happen faster and last longer if we can channel market forces, including innovation that’s tailored to the needs of the poorest, to complement what governments and nonprofits do. We need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today.

Naturally, if companies are going to get more involved, they need to earn some kind of return. This is the heart of creative capitalism. It’s not just about doing more corporate philanthropy or asking companies to be more virtuous. It’s about giving them a real incentive to apply their expertise in new ways, making it possible to earn a return while serving the people who have been left out.

A great place to turn for discussions about Creative Capitalism is THIS BLOG. The contributors list is basically a who’s who of authorities on economics and globalization. The posts and discussions from the blog are going to be anthologized in a book by Simon and Schuster in the fall of 2008.

In the most recent post Stephen Landsburg criticizes Gates’s example of fair trade as a form of creative capitalism:

Never mind the fact that “fair trade” seems to be a euphemism for the enforcement of monopsony power (enriching some producers by pricing others out of the marketplace); this isn’t the place to get into that debate. But this much is directly to the point: Lots of people feel a moral obligation to help poor people in general. No sane person feels a moral obligation to help poor coffee farmers in particular. So the “creative capitalism” solution serves a non-existent goal—and this was one of the best two examples the authors could come up with! (KT: the other was the (Red) program)

In fact, the whole fair trade thing is an excellent illustration of creative capitalism gone insane. You can pay an inflated price for your coffee and put a farmer out of work, or you can buy ordinary coffee, contribute to CARE, and feed a starving child. Please oh please don’t trick people into thinking the former is a good deed.

The questions at hand:

1. Is it better for a consumer to NOT pay a premium for products produced under ethical conditions and to take the money they saved and donate it to charity?

2. Is it better for a business to maximize their profits by whatever means possible and then use the maximized profits to do good?

My thoughts:

Bill Gates talking about how capitalism can cure inequities is kind of like the United States, which wasn’t hindered by environmental regulations during its own industrial expansion, telling developing nations to stop polluting. Bill gates got where he did with cutthroat capitalism, not creative capitalism and the Unites States got where it did by burning unclean fossil fuels.

Gates is more of an example of earning boatloads of cash via cutthroat capitalism and then taking all of his money and trying to change the world. And few would argue that there are any individual philanthropists doing more than Gates to help the world’s poor at this time.

Companies doing “good” would be great, but I think that’s shooting a bit high. I would settle for companies “doing no harm” – to the environment and its employees. A company that donates money to a good cause, but has its products manufactured by workers treated unfairly – unpaid overtime, working off the clock, underpaid, overworked, abused, etc – or does unnecessary harm to the environment, more than negates whatever good their philanthropy does.

Before a company tries to do right in the world, they should do right in their own house.

That said, I think marketing fair trade products is a perfectly legitimate niche. There are people that want to buy products made ethically, and they should have the option.

I find the debate very interesting, and hope to check out the Creative Capitalism blog regularly. I’ve added it to my Blogroll on the right.

Your goals are making me feel inadequate

August 1st, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Author Stephenie Meyer was interviewed in yesterday’s USA Today. Currently she is dominating the bestseller lists (3 of the 4 top spots on the USA Today’s top 100). In the interview they refer to her as the “next J.K. Rowling,” which is always an overstatement, but overstated time-and-time again, just like the “next Michael Jordan” is in basketball.

What she had to say about the overstatement: “There will never be another J.K. Rowling. That’s a lot of pressure on me, isn’t it? I’m just happy being Stephenie Meyer. That’s cool enough for me.”

Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant, Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady, and Lebron James all have said a similar version of that.

As fans we’re rarely satisfied with what we’ve got, so we always search for the second-coming of what we had.

That said, she is hugely successful, prolific, and writes about a subject near and dear to my heart – vampires. Her teen vampire series that features a love triangle made up of a teenage girl, her love interest a vampire, and a werewolf, at first thought, sounds somewhat familiar. Although, I don’t think her teenage protagonist is a butt-kicking vampire slayer.

Her plans for next year: “I’m just going to try and stay home and write five books next year.”

5 Books!

That’s why I would like to make the transition to writing fiction one of these days. Between the travel and research, it would be impossible for me to write 5 WAIW-like books in a year. From the outside, making stuff up seems much more efficient, or at the very least, less expensive.

Meyer’s latest book, Breaking Dawn is out tonight at midnight. You know you’ve made it big when stores stay open to midnight to sell your book.

To jet-ski or not to jet-ski

July 28th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

I’ve never been much of a fan of the jet-ski. I’ve always looked at them as reckless boat parasites that tailed skiers too close in search of wakes to jump.

This weekend when I found myself on a jet-ski having fun, I was a bit surprised. I had been on jet-skis before and they never really did it for me. But I never had been on a jet-ski with my nephew, Jared, 4.

That little guy sat in front of me urging me to go faster and to do more tricks. He made motor sounds. He talked to himself as if he were at the wheel of a race car or spaceship. Who knows?

We had a blast. Check us out…

The Hobbit set to Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On”

July 28th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 4 Comments »

One of my favorite songs about travel and one of my favorite books seamlessly merge into a boatload of major geekery. Enjoy:

This seasons hot new travel accessory…BABIES!

July 25th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Joshua Berman, aka The Tranquilo Traveler, recently visited Belize with his wife and sparkly-eyed, smiling infant – Shanti.

She. Is. Adorable.

You have to stop what you are doing right this minute and checkout this photo set or miss Shanti in a Mennonite cart, Shanti making friends at the Jerk Pit, Shanti sucking on a cold beer, and other cutenesses.

(What I imagine to be) Advantages of traveling with a cute baby
- easy to make friends with the locals
- Acceptably butt in line at airport
- Never be bored again

Shanti even has her own passport! Oh, if only Annie would let me get our one year old a passport and take him/her with me wherever I go. The fun we would have. I doubt our baby will be leaving the country anytime soon.

I tend to lose things.

The USA is a pucker and China is a hemorrhoid

July 23rd, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

I had someone email me today asking about where our clothes come from. Here’s the short answer: 97% come from outside of the U.S., mostly from China.

And here’s that answer visually, courtesy of worldmapper:

The map is accompanied with this interesting tid bit:

Of all earnings from international trade, 7% is earned from clothing exports.

Social Butterflies

July 15th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

I’m not really sure about this whole social networking thing.

I realize that statement is so 2005, but I’m a little late onto the scene here. Now you can be my friend on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. And I want to be your friend, especially since my newly opened accounts are relatively friendless. Heck, with only 4 friends, I’m a MySpace hermit.

I guess that my issue is, who really cares what I’m doing this very second? Who am I to think you care?

Look at me trying to have my humble pie and eat it too. You’re reading this on my blog, at the domain name I registered, hosted by a travel community that I pitched an idea to. I have another domain name that’s simply my name: kelseytimmerman.com. And that’s nothing compared to the fact that I wrote a 300-page book where I am the central character.

If that’s not the opposite of humble, what is?

If it weren’t for the book, I don’t think I would have joined many of these sites. I saw the YouTube clip below on my agent’s website. In it an author is being drilled by his publicist to join all of the social networking sites. After watching him squirm, I thought I would circumvent any such conversations. So I joined.

I even downloaded Second Life and flew around a virtual reality world with my T-shirt-clad avatar hoping no one would talk to me because I wasn’t sure how to talk back. That’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

Doesn’t promotion look like fun?

Now that I have joined everything from MySpace to Twitter, I’m kinda like…meh. But it’s beginning to grow on me. I admit it is kind of cool getting updates on people that I haven’t seen in a long time and to see when someone has moved cities, or is having a birthday. A few of my friends even have changed their relationship status. I thought about posting a note on their wall congratulating or consoling them, but I didn’t. I’m still waiting for someone to change their gender; that would definitely warrant a “wall-to-wall”. I’ve even made some new “friends”.

I feel a little silly belonging to all of these networks, but I’m a firm believer that everyone has a story, so why shouldn’t they have a Facebook or Twitter account.

If you’ve got one…wanna be my friend?

Budweiser: Belgium for beer

July 14th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 6 Comments »

I’ve probably drunk less than half-a-case of Budweiser in my life. I know, I know that’s very un-American of me and very, very un-Midwestern American of me. But Budweiser has brought me great joy, all the same. (And NO, Annie did not fall for me after a night of heavy Bud drinking either.)

I’ve enjoyed Budweiser’s ads, especially the Real Men of Courage ads – brilliant.

And I always enjoy being in a foreign country and seeing Budweiser listed under the imports. Do foreigners actually pay more money to drink American beer than their local flavor, which probably tastes better (and less filling), anyhow? Why? Does it help them capture some of the rugged, do-it-yourself boot-strap-pullin’ up, raw Americanism?

Alas, those days are gone. Now Budweiser is a Belgium beer. Even though it will probably start tastin’ greater and be less filling, I’m sad to see Budweiser go the way of so many other victims of American inflation.

Budweiser…(grabs bottle of Becks)…this ones for you.

A confession…

July 12th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

I just bought a 5-pack of OneDerWear disposable boxers. If you’re wondering why (which you should be) be patient. You’ll find out in a month or so after I conduct some uber-serious journalism.