Olympic Sponsors and rambles
Okay, first off, I disagree with the more..... involved.... protestors, and would much rather see people lining the streets all in black with Tibetan flags just being held. Silent, peaceful, but highly visible. I think it is more respectful to peace, and stands in direct comparison to the general attitude of China.
But I don't disagree with the choice to protest.
One thing that I hadn't really been thinking about until today, and then a few news articles on the state of things struck me. There are more ways to speak out against this (for those of us who can't get to the torch events, and weren't going to go to the Olympics or buy Olympic goods one way or the other).
http://en.beijing2008.cn/90/53/column211995390.shtml
That would be the sponsor list.
Here's a quickie text version.
Worldwide Olympic Partners
Coca Cola
Atos Origin
GE
Johnson & Johnson
Kodak
Lenovo
Manulife
McDonalds
Omega
Panasonic
Samsung
Visa
Beijing 2008 Partners
Bank of China
CNC
Sinopec
CNPC
Chinamobile
Volkswagon
Adidas
Johnson & Johnson
Air China
PICC
State Grid
Sponsors
UPS
Haier
Budweiser
SOHU.com
???
Tsingtao
Yanjing Beer
bhpbiliton
???
???
Exclusive Suppliers
GreatWall
???
???
MengNa
BEIFA
???
Yadu
Snickers (okay it's in chinese script, but the link is to snickers and look at the logo)
??
??
TechnoGym
Royal
Staples
Schenker Logistsics
What if anything anyone choses to do is up to them. I know that for all that I am a coke drinker, and as much as I love my snickers bars, I won't be touching them until after the olympics are past (okay it's a rather minimal ban since I only eat about 8 snickers a year and 6 or 7 sodas a month, but..)
Look at labels, is it "made in China?" - do you really need it and there isn't an American, or hell made version available? (okay do you really need it *anyway*?). In all honesty we all (myself included on this) should have been doing this anyway, it's not like China suddenly has a bad record on human rights. This has been ongoing for some time, and as is the case sometimes, it took the recent events to bring it all to the forefront.
Second half of my musing ramble on involvement..
So as I was driving to the supermarket last night to pick up my epi pen (yeah, I called my doc to ask about testing her smallness in case it was genetic and I was scolded for never having mentioned this before (I'm sorry, doctors ask if I have allergies and I think thinks likely to be in medicines they're going to prescribe, don't think about that one time in high school I got stung by a wasp and was nauseous, dizzy, and had tunnel vision and so on). ANYWAY, and I was beating myself up. I was on the road for a good hour last night? it's the only thing about living where we do that makes me sad, there's no convenient way (and by convenient I mean "Doesn't involve a 25 minute walk in potentially freezing weather with a toddler") to bus into town, get the kidlet to school, and get us to work... And god forbid we need to run errands after work. Though this town is great in providing mass transit, it's all on such screwball schedules if you have to run from A to B, with a stop at C. You end up spending a LOT of time on the bus.
And last night I was thinking to myself "And that's bad because?"
Time is the one thing I'm selfish about. I don't mind buying my clothes second hand, I find good stuff, and look good (I'm assuming that the more blunt of my friends would have no problem telling me otherwise) and *not* like I'm a thrift shop junkie (woo hoo for my $17 Anne Taylor suit that I look SPECTACULARLY professional and hot in). I don't mind spending the extra money that could be going to frivolous purchases on organic, local, small production items that support real people and not just megacorps. I don't even mind the headache of NOT grabbing a paper towrl or plastic sandwich bag, wrapping things in cloth or using towels like they're going out of fashion (course, then those have to be washed, so.. is that *really* helping?) (though I guess since I'm on a well and septic system, the water ends up in the same place at the end of the day (well, technically it's the other side of the house, but you know what I mean). I like keeping chickens and gardening, and am disturbingly fond of our composting worms.
But my time.. THAT I'm a selfish bint about. And it's something that echoes throughout my life.. I always feel like I simply don't have enough time.. And so anything that cuts into it becomes an issue for me. I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand some of the downsides (such as the issue with public transport most days) really bug me. On the other hand, you know, the things I DO want to spend my time on ARE the important things.
My husband, my daughter, our friends-who-are-family... These are things that it's worth trying to save time for.
The problem is that you really *can't* save time. You get 24 hours in a day. If you don't spend them all doing the things you want, you don't get to bank away a few extra hours here and there.
dunno what all this means. just rambling.. should get some work done now.