S-Curl Accident

I don't wanna sound overly preachy or self righteous, but as a consumer its important to support companies that are morally defensible. And companies who have moral transgressions should be made to pay. The easiest way as a responisble consumer to affect these companies and their bottom line is by boycotting their products. Only when their bottom line is compromised, do they start listening to the public. The only problem is that boycotting isn't so simple, or effective for that matter. Corporate malfeasance is so widespread that if you boycott all companies that are irresponisble in some way, shape or form you may find yourself without any products to buy. For example I have a big problem with Nike, due to their labour policies in developping countries. They manufacture $200 sneakers for less than $5 in east Asia and pay the workers a pittance to do it. But what is the alternative? I mean Adidas, Reebok, Puma, And 1? They're all do the exact same thing. In fact the only major shoe company who I can think of that manufacture their shoes in North America and pay their employees a fair wage is New Ballance. I have a decent sized shoe collection and ask me how many pair of New Ballance I own: Zero. The truth is New Ballance are a great quality shoe, are reasonably priced and are really comfortable. But they just aren't stylish enough, which is what attracts me to sneakers in the first place. I am a hypocrite. We're all hypocrites. With globalization so widespread it is impossible to live in the 21st century without being a hypocrite.

But boycotting some companies is a must for political, and more importantly personal reasons. My newest personal consumer vendetta is against SONY. They make great electronics and I have so much SONY product in my house it is ridiculous 3 SONY TVs, 2 Sony headphones, 1 Soundsystem, man....I even have 2 minidisc players!! Honestly, who owns a minidisc player, let alone 2? My allegiance to SONY ran so deep that I recieved a SONY VAIO laptop as a gift from my family. But after 7 months the laptop broke down and SONY's customer service put me through the ringer even though I had the extended warranty too. I'll spare you all the details but after 2 months of wrangling with SONY head office they offered to cover 1/2 of the estimated damage. Unfortunately the estimate had doubled from the original price of $800 to $1600 which put me back to square-1 and they had the nerve to act like they were doing me a favour. This experience was enough to sour me from ever buying another SONY product as long as I live. I thought that I might just be being petty and that 1 very negative experience shouldn't sour me from patronizing SONY but then I saw this ad for the new white model of the SONY PSP and it confirmed to me that SONY wasn't a company that I wanted to deal with. This ad dipicts a white woman grabbing a black woman's face. I found the racially charged subliminal messages in this ad appauling. So FUCK SONY.