Homeland

I was watching WGBH the World network last night. They featured the documentary Homeland: the fight of four American Indian tribes to preserve their land against pollution and more importantly they are fighting to preserve their way of life against what amounts to subtle genocide from the hands of lawmakers and US corporations.

It is a facinating look at the way we pollute our land.

We*, the United States, choose in the name of energy to contaminate the Navajo land in New Mexico by re-opening uranium mines that were closed because the cancer rates in the Navajo people were four times the national average.

We choose to allow the dumping of contaminates into the Penobscot River upstream of the Penobscot Indian Reservation.

We also choose to set up Natural Gas wells all around the borders of the Northern Cheyenne which dumps saline into the water supply. Saline erodes soil and destroys vegatation.

We choose to allow drilling in the ANWR region right where the caribou fawn their young. The caribou are a source of food for the Gwich'in. There are not Safeways or Walmarts in the Artic Gwich'in land.

These lands are not ours to take and pollute or pollute around. There are better and more efficient ways of achieving our energy.

* We. By "we" I mean we as in "We the people in order to form....". If WE do not take responsibility for our politicians, the people we vote or did not vote for, we give up our right to individuality, freedom, and everything America is suppossed to stand for.

If you don't write your congressman and voice your opinion, how are we to measure his actions and judge how he/she is doing the job we hired him/her to do?

Conversations with Retail Sales: Dooming Walmart

In the Body Shop, the sales assistant and I started talking about the after Thanksgiving shopping hell and the internet. More people could shop the internet as opposed to risking their neck or someone's to buy Aunt Essie a scarf. Or maybe shop at local boutiques.

This might seem odd for the sales lady to be saying because the store I was in was at the mall. Hey, retail people are human too. The retail consumers are the ones that are not human. You try working retail. Try working retail during a holiday. Trust me. Working retail and becoming disgusted with the general consumer was enough for me to vow to never again work in a job where I had to deal with Joe Shmoe at the ripe old age of twenty one. If I did I knew I would hate the world at large if I continued to deal with people wearing their worst face; the consumer.

The conversation changed and the sales lady mentioned Wal-Mart. She tried really hard, honest she did, not to make a face. She just couldn't pull it off. I told her not to worry.

I hate Wal-Mart. I refuse to shop there. I have many friends that refuse to shop at Wal-Mart. My friends have very good social - political reasons for not going in that store. I agree with their reasons. You probably know these reasons. I'll not reiterate. If you don't know, then check out: http://www.1worldcommunication.org/Walmart.htm or my favorite http://www.intellectualpoison.com/WalMartisPureEvil.html . Then watch http://www.walmartmovie.com/ .

All these reasons are sound and are cause to choose carefully where you shop. However, my reasons not shop at Wal-Mart are aesthetic. The stores are dirty, not well lighted, and completely disorganized. Nothing is intuitive about shopping in Wal-Mart. You will never be able to find anything in this store. (If you can find stuff in there, you've shopped there too much.)
There is a science to laying out a store. Wal-Mart chose a layout that is conducive to Wal-Mart not the consumer.

That's my point really; the reason I don't shop at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart treats people like consumers not customers. Wal-Mart forgets that one of the tenets of business is customer loyalty, gained by numerous factors that include customer service. Low prices only guarantee loyalty when someone else cannot meet your price. (Now go check out the sites above) Why should I shop at a place that does not care about my business?

Exactly, I shouldn't.

The sales associate whom I was speaking with gave me a scary tidbit of news. Wal-Mart is planning to open a bank.

Slapping my hand to my forehead...

Amerikan Passport by Reed Paget

An independent film, released in 1999 with commentary overlaid in 2001, Amerikan Passport takes the viewer around the world with Paget through 1989-1991, where the world changed on all fronts; Tiananmen Square, re-unification of Germany, Gorbachev's perestroika and dissolution of the communist party, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the first Gulf War, El Salvador, the abolishment of South Africa's apartheid, etc...

The incredible reality in this documentary is accompanied by a surprising candid commentary from Paget that is lacking in most of today's journalists. Paget lets his subjects make his points. He laughs at the intolerance of the prejudiced by balancing the interviews with the eludidating intelligence of the people in the heart of change. He also laughs at himself.

Paget's travels take him to 20 different countries in one of the most politically charged times asking if the US is doing right or wrong in these countries, or sometimes Paget lets the camera simply watch the events taking place. The answers and observations might surprise viewers of this film.

I won't keep spinning this film in my own direction, but I will strongly urge people to watch it. If you can't catch it on the Independent Film Channel, try and order it. I warn you Netflix won't have this film. Interview with Paget: http://www.indiewire.com/people/int_Paget_Reed_990813.html