Data-Hacking the Cotton T-Shirt: True Cost (water, energy, travel, emissions, toxins, import costs, child labor, fertilizer)

Commercial Intelligence, Research resources, True Cost

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True Cost T-Shirt Kickstarter Project Page

Help advocate and influence in regards to the following:

There is unseen information in all materials
To know and grow a greater awareness about the world(s) we live in.

$12 backers of this project receive one American made tee shirt + a one page research handout not available online.

In January 2010 I (Jason Liszkiewicz) had a test batch of 52 of these t-shirts printed and sold (see here). It was a non-profit project which I would like to again see in print. My first batch received incredibly positive responses in-person & through the Internet from California to as far as India.

Below is an overview of the scope of the project:

From Farm to Fashion, what goes into the production of one cotton t-shirt?

This is the result of a one year side project to create a public awareness product.

The aim is to stimulate conversation about the water, energy, human labor, toxins, migration, and inventive practices that go into the products we own. How do we perceive or how aware are we about the people and processes that produce the products we have come to depend on in this global commercial society?

First hand research along with information from 30 sources comprise the contents of this shirt.

This T-Shirt is a “gateway concept”. By wearing this, it will insert into society not only the topic of t-shirts, but the overall question of what is the “true cost” of the products we are surrounded by, eating, and wearing? How can these answers become more publicly available? Can more knowledgeable shoppers that base purchase-decisions on more than dollar-amounts eventually augment the way product-designers think, design, and produce?

Imagine true cost information for all products and services available via text messaging/SMS (text a code for each product & service). And eventually, public kiosks in malls, public spaces, etc. A mobile encyclopedia service revealing the “open supply chains.” See http://wiki.re-configure.org for more information.

Front shirt: water, energy, travel, emissions, toxins, import costs, child labor, misc (fertilizer)

If you would like to circulate the link, the short version = http://kck.st/dcnGpn

2010/11/182011/01/03

New Low Cost + Extremely Portable Water Filter – OsmoPure

01 Poverty, 02 Infectious Disease, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Health, 12 Water, Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Technologies

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MassChallenge has awarded OsmoPure, an NCIIA E-Team, one of its four $100,000 prizes. See announcement.

OsmoPure, from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, is developing a low-cost water purification device for developing countries based on simple membrane filtration technology. The team showcased the invention at NCIIA's student innovation showcase in San Francisco earlier this year.

Source link

2010/11/172010/11/17

Journal: Chomsky on Mid-Term Elections

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Reform

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I have rather mixed opinions of Chomsky, but think he is on the mark in this OpEd.

The US Elections: Outrage, Misguided

truthout

17 November 2010

Noam Chomsky

The U.S. midterm elections register a level of anger, fear and disillusionment in the country like nothing I can recall in my lifetime. Since the Democrats are in power, they bear the brunt of the revulsion over our current socioeconomic and political situation.

More than half the “mainstream Americans” in a Rasmussen poll last month said they view the Tea Party movement favorably – a reflection of the spirit of disenchantment.

Noam Chomsky

The grievances are legitimate. For more than 30 years, real incomes for the majority of the population have stagnated or declined while work hours and insecurity have increased, along with debt. Wealth has accumulated, but in very few pockets, leading to unprecedented inequality.

These consequences mainly spring from the financialization of the economy since the 1970s and the corresponding hollowing-out of domestic production. Spurring the process is the deregulation mania favored by Wall Street and supported by economists mesmerized by efficient-market myths.

Read full article…

Phi Beta Iota: Emphasis added above. The chapter on “Legitimate Grievances” in ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (EIN, 2008) comes in two parts–domestic grievances warranting state nullification of federal abuse, and state consideration of secession if the legitimate Constitutionally-derived Republic cannot be restored; and global grievances occasioned by a century of unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and predatory capitalism working in unison to loot the commonwealths of all nations–our elite corrupted the other elites, and between them they have come very close to destroying what should be a prosperous world at peace.

Structured Reading on Reality:

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

See Also by Chomsky:

Journal: Up to 90 percent of US paper money [in large cities] contains traces of cocaine

Review: What We Say Goes

Review: Interventions

Review: Failed States–The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (American Empire Project)

Review: Imperial Ambitions–Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (American Empire Project)

Review: Hegemony or Survival–America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project)

Review: The Umbrella of U.S. Power–The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Contradictions of U.S. Policy

Review: Profit Over People–Neoliberalism & Global Order

Review: 9-11

Review: Acts of Aggression

Review: Manufacturing Consent–The Political Economy of the Mass Media

2010/11/172010/11/17

Journal: Israel, Gaza Blocade, and F-35 Lemon

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards

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editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Consider please the moral implications of concatenating the following events:

The Obama administration just humiliated itself by promising

to turn over $3 billion in stealth fighters to Israel, supplementing the 20 F-35s it will buy with the $2.75 billion in “grants” it gets from Washington (i.e., and thereby using taxpayer money to save the troubled F-35 program even as our Nato allies our pulling the plug on the disastrously troubled F-35);
to veto any U.N. resolution that questions Israel's legitimacy;
all in exchange for Israel's pledge to extend a ten-month partial settlement moratorium for just 90 days.

But according to the Jerusalem Post (13 Nov 2010), getting a 90 day suspension of settlement construction is going to be tough. The Israeli human rights group Peace Now just released a report saying that settler construction is booming. The report says that ‘1,126 foundations have been laid in 45 days, compared to 1,888 for all of 2009’ and that Settlers have built foundations for 1,126 new homes in the seven weeks since the moratorium on such activity expired. Moreover, ground has been prepared for another 523 homes, but the foundations for these units have not yet been laid.

And meanwhile, over in Gaza, the Israeli human rights group Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement just won an FOI court case to force the Israeli government to release official documents that reveal the obvious — namely that it is the Israeli government's policy to inflict collective punishment on the Gaza people and that Israel's blatantly illegal blockade of Gaza is not related to Israel's national security (see below). Nevertheless, the US still refuses to condemn the blockade or make its lifting a condition of continued aid paid for by increasingly strapped US taxpayers.

Would it not be more better for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the US government exhibited the courage to ally itself with the courageous Israeli human rights groups, like Peace Now, Gisha, and B'TSelem who are peacefully challenging the patently illegal policies of their own government?

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

“PUT THE PALESTINIANS ON A DIET”

MEDIA BURY DOCUMENTS REVEALING ISRAEL’S DELIBERATE POLICY OF NEAR-STARVATION FOR GAZA

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php

Israel has been forced to reveal what Palestinians and other observers on the ground have known for a long time: that the blockade of Gaza is state policy intended to inflict collective punishment, not to bolster Israeli “security”.

Continue reading “Journal: Israel, Gaza Blocade, and F-35 Lemon”

2010/11/17

Journal: Twitter Money To Open Money

11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Mobile, Real Time

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HelpAttack!

by jonl on November 16, 2010

My friend Sarah Vela launched a new company called Help Attack! in August, and it’s proving to be a cool way for nonprofits to raise money, and a clever way for donors to commit money by pledging to give some amount of money for every tweet they post in a month. Sez Sarah, Sez Sarah, “This new way to donate is easy, fun and offers a layer of social responsibility to online activities. We invite all nonprofit organizations seeking new ways to collect funding through year-end campaigns to visit the site, add themselves if they’re not already listed, and share this new way of giving with their supporters.” In addition to the money they’re raising, the nonprofits get more social media visibility via the Twitter connection. Callie Langford, Communications Manager of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), says HelpAttack! raised awareness of her organization and provided “a no-fuss way for us to receive additional donations, engage with new and old donors, and share details about our upcoming events.” [Link to HelpAttack!]

Phi Beta Iota: This is interesting in part because it shows the further development of bottom-up fund-raising at a micro-level; and in part because once the platform is well-established, the way is open to adopt Open Money and cut the banks out entirely. Facebook is also on its way to becoming a financial exchange without the built-in legalized organized crime.

2010/11/162013/02/09

Reference: Our Choice–Changing the Game

About the Idea, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Ethics, IO Sense-Making, Officers Call, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

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Today, with permission, I present Tom Atlee's newest vision, “Are We Ready to Change the Game Yet?,” and at the end, a link to his 2000 audio interview with Jim Rough, pioneer of Citizen Wisdom Councils and author of Society's Breakthrough.

ARE WE READY TO CHANGE THE GAME YET?

by Tom Atlee

Some people say Gandhi was about nonviolence. And he was.

But he is significant for something else that I believe is far more important:

He changed the game.

With no one's permission, he reconfigured the playing field of colonialism to a higher Game in which everything the British did in their smaller, narrower game backfired on them. Prisons, guns, threats and bureaucracies of control not only ceased to work like they used to, but actually generated more power for Gandhi's world-changing Game.

Gandhi's Game involved, in his words, “experiments in Truth” — a search for Truth, a bigger Truth, a common inclusive Truth, a win-win Truth in every situation. The British — and even many of Gandhi's compatriots — were not aligned to that Truth. They wanted victory, control, and righteousness. These things trapped them in their smaller game until, one by one, and sometimes wholesale, Gandhi's commitment to Truth won their hearts and minds — and Shift happened.

Unfortunately he failed to create adequate social institutions that embodied, sustained, and empowered the Search for Truth by the whole of society. He depended on individuals seeing the light and being transformed. The miracle of his work is that so many people did transform — and continue to transform even to this day — inspired by his words, his life, his work. But in the end, what he left was an inspiring possibility, not an India or a world that was united, peaceful, just and sustainable.

Today's world calls us, with increasing intensity, not just to carry on Gandhi's work, but to carry it further. It isn't a matter of doing nonviolence as he and Martin Luther King, Jr., did it. It is a matter of changing the game.

Which brings me to the current state of U.S. politics and governance. These games are desperately in need of changing. Several recent innovations offer us the possibility to actually accomplish that and the timing is ripe.

Continue reading “Reference: Our Choice–Changing the Game”

2010/11/152010/11/15

Journal: US Keeps Spending in AF

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

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Tom Engelhardt
Editor of TomDispatch.com

Posted: November 15, 2010 03:23 PM

The Stimulus Package in Kabul (I Was Delusional — I Thought One Monster ‘Embassy' Was the End of It)

You must have had a moment when you thought to yourself: It really isn’t going to end, is it? Not ever. Rationally, you know perfectly well that whatever your “it” might be will indeed end, because everything does, but your gut tells you something different.

Read rest of long, deep, important articulation….

Phi Beta Iota: Please take the time to link to the entire article at Huffington Post. Tom Englehardt has produced one of the most gripping, detailed, insightful, and provactive snapshots of how three monstrous billion dollar “embassies” in Baghdad, Kabul, and now Islamabad, are the last clarion of the Empire. His piece is a “must read,” both an epitaph on the Empire, and sadly, a preface to the next 20 years of death and debt as we wind down all that has been set in motion.