Me and my blog
There's a problem if some people think they can tell me what to write or what not to write in my blog. Such people are gravely mistaken because this is my blog. The primary purpose of my blog is not to collect trophy comments, trophy links or even trophy revenues. Popularity, acclaim and adoration of others is not a goal of my blog either -it's to educate. To educate, you have to tell the truth even if it hurts somebody's feelings.
Although I'd prefer you agreed with me, I don't care if you don't. I don't care if you don't like me, my politics or my lifestyle. Speaking of, let's just go ahead and get that out of the way, shall we? For the record, I'm an environmentalist, a social and political activist, a vegetarian and I resent the expenditure of finite natural resources used to make crap. I do not watch TV, not since 1981. The only radio station I listen to is NPR. I'm even a weird parent having planned a home birth with two midwives in attendance. I used cloth diapers, and still use real linen napkins everyday. I have never bought my child a plastic toy. Lastly, as social activism is the defining paradigm of my life, I'm insulted that some people think that because I wrote a book about manufacturing, that means I promote management issues over labor and that I'm less likely to worry about sweat-shop abuses. A lot of home sewers seem to take the attitude that I'm the progenitor of Satan's sweat-shops. Just why do you think I wrote a book? It's because if you do things the right way, you don't need to run a sweat-shop. I wrote a book about manufacturing to prevent sweat shops, not start them. It doesn't matter if you like me or my life choices but I will never attempt to persuade others to make the same choices I have. In a nutshell, you make not like this messenger but heed the message all the same.
I tell the truth because I resent the mindset that it's "okay" and "acceptable" to make crap and pimp it using lies justified by the fact that you're turning a profit -that's illegal in many industries but not in this one. Just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's "good"; you still have to weather the approval of your associates and customers to stay in the game for the long haul. Your talk must match your walk and if you're over the top in pushing your crap, you've made yourself a target for anyone! In that statement, I'm including everybody from home-sewing expert-crap to manufacturer-crap because I don't care where it lies in the spectrum. In other words, I will write about DE-crap, contractor-crap, retailer-crap, sales-rep crap, sewing-expert crap, fabric and fabric-supplier crap, pattern-makers crap, manufacturing-management crap, fitting and sizing crap, research and academic crap, equipment crap... no crap is sacred! If something is crap, I'm going to tell you about it because our problems are complex. We can't solve complex problems without understanding all of the details of how things feed into each other. I don't know how anyone thinks we can solve these problems if nobody's talking to each other. And somebody needs to stir this nest. If you agree with everything except that which affects you directly, one could surmise your defensiveness is dishonest or self-serving.
This blog isn't about making t-shirts because anybody can do that. If you want to do that, great, go wild but this isn't the place for you and I resent any implications that I should make this "safe" for you just so your feelings don't get hurt. This blog is not about how to do things that anyone can do because you can get that anywhere else so go there instead please. This is about reclaiming what we used to do and do well. These days, if a friend tells me she went shopping, my first thought is "what color t-shirt did you buy" because that's all there is. If we wait much longer to make this a priority, we're going to be in a great deal of trouble. What consumers probably don't know is that it is almost impossible to make certain things in the US anymore because we've lost the labor pool that knows how to do it. Most of the people who once made nice products are retired and dying. There are critical shortages of given skills in the apparel industry and if we wait much longer, we'll never regain the skills we need to make nice things again. I believe the US industry will never be of it's former size but I still believe there's a place for it here. I envision that we'll have a lot more smaller companies making specialized products and the industry infrastructure (suppliers, retail venues etc) needs to come to terms with that. I don't believe apparel companies need to be large to be profitable and it's a known fact that small businesses employ more people than large businesses do, so this is a win-win situation for everybody. If you haven't figured it out yet, my driving passion is job creation. Not everybody can work at Mc Donald’s and support a family.
Manufacturing does support families. I don't know why people think factories are so awful, have you ever worked in one? They can be kind of cool, fun places. I have literally spent the best years of my life in factories. For that matter, I live in one (an old brewery)! Some people like the noise of the machines. In the heart of every fork-lift driver or large equipment operator is a little 5 year old kid who can barely see under an over-sized hard hat and who sometimes can't believe he gets paid to do this. Factories aren't what you think. Only 3% of US manufacturers are sweat-shops so very few factories are boring, dangerous, dank and dirty. People who work or have worked in factories may resent your sweat-shop comments because they wouldn't work at a place like that anymore than you would and if you intimate that they have, that's an underhanded way of saying you're better than they are. Some of us deeply admire and respect our previous factory employers so a sweatshop comment can be offensive. DEs call me up and that's the first thing they'll say, "I need your advice but I don't run a sweat-shop". It makes me want to say, "are you suggesting that I do run a sweatshop or that I advise people on how to set them up? Or if I suggest a cost-effective way to do something, it means you have to have run one yourself?"
If you're one of those people who think that everybody else is the problem -not you- you won't find your apologist here so go somewhere else. If I follow my principles, I guarantee everybody will be offended at some point. My message has always been: other people are not always the problem. You are too. That's what my blog is about.
Although I'd prefer you agreed with me, I don't care if you don't. I don't care if you don't like me, my politics or my lifestyle. Speaking of, let's just go ahead and get that out of the way, shall we? For the record, I'm an environmentalist, a social and political activist, a vegetarian and I resent the expenditure of finite natural resources used to make crap. I do not watch TV, not since 1981. The only radio station I listen to is NPR. I'm even a weird parent having planned a home birth with two midwives in attendance. I used cloth diapers, and still use real linen napkins everyday. I have never bought my child a plastic toy. Lastly, as social activism is the defining paradigm of my life, I'm insulted that some people think that because I wrote a book about manufacturing, that means I promote management issues over labor and that I'm less likely to worry about sweat-shop abuses. A lot of home sewers seem to take the attitude that I'm the progenitor of Satan's sweat-shops. Just why do you think I wrote a book? It's because if you do things the right way, you don't need to run a sweat-shop. I wrote a book about manufacturing to prevent sweat shops, not start them. It doesn't matter if you like me or my life choices but I will never attempt to persuade others to make the same choices I have. In a nutshell, you make not like this messenger but heed the message all the same.
I tell the truth because I resent the mindset that it's "okay" and "acceptable" to make crap and pimp it using lies justified by the fact that you're turning a profit -that's illegal in many industries but not in this one. Just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's "good"; you still have to weather the approval of your associates and customers to stay in the game for the long haul. Your talk must match your walk and if you're over the top in pushing your crap, you've made yourself a target for anyone! In that statement, I'm including everybody from home-sewing expert-crap to manufacturer-crap because I don't care where it lies in the spectrum. In other words, I will write about DE-crap, contractor-crap, retailer-crap, sales-rep crap, sewing-expert crap, fabric and fabric-supplier crap, pattern-makers crap, manufacturing-management crap, fitting and sizing crap, research and academic crap, equipment crap... no crap is sacred! If something is crap, I'm going to tell you about it because our problems are complex. We can't solve complex problems without understanding all of the details of how things feed into each other. I don't know how anyone thinks we can solve these problems if nobody's talking to each other. And somebody needs to stir this nest. If you agree with everything except that which affects you directly, one could surmise your defensiveness is dishonest or self-serving.
This blog isn't about making t-shirts because anybody can do that. If you want to do that, great, go wild but this isn't the place for you and I resent any implications that I should make this "safe" for you just so your feelings don't get hurt. This blog is not about how to do things that anyone can do because you can get that anywhere else so go there instead please. This is about reclaiming what we used to do and do well. These days, if a friend tells me she went shopping, my first thought is "what color t-shirt did you buy" because that's all there is. If we wait much longer to make this a priority, we're going to be in a great deal of trouble. What consumers probably don't know is that it is almost impossible to make certain things in the US anymore because we've lost the labor pool that knows how to do it. Most of the people who once made nice products are retired and dying. There are critical shortages of given skills in the apparel industry and if we wait much longer, we'll never regain the skills we need to make nice things again. I believe the US industry will never be of it's former size but I still believe there's a place for it here. I envision that we'll have a lot more smaller companies making specialized products and the industry infrastructure (suppliers, retail venues etc) needs to come to terms with that. I don't believe apparel companies need to be large to be profitable and it's a known fact that small businesses employ more people than large businesses do, so this is a win-win situation for everybody. If you haven't figured it out yet, my driving passion is job creation. Not everybody can work at Mc Donald’s and support a family.
Manufacturing does support families. I don't know why people think factories are so awful, have you ever worked in one? They can be kind of cool, fun places. I have literally spent the best years of my life in factories. For that matter, I live in one (an old brewery)! Some people like the noise of the machines. In the heart of every fork-lift driver or large equipment operator is a little 5 year old kid who can barely see under an over-sized hard hat and who sometimes can't believe he gets paid to do this. Factories aren't what you think. Only 3% of US manufacturers are sweat-shops so very few factories are boring, dangerous, dank and dirty. People who work or have worked in factories may resent your sweat-shop comments because they wouldn't work at a place like that anymore than you would and if you intimate that they have, that's an underhanded way of saying you're better than they are. Some of us deeply admire and respect our previous factory employers so a sweatshop comment can be offensive. DEs call me up and that's the first thing they'll say, "I need your advice but I don't run a sweat-shop". It makes me want to say, "are you suggesting that I do run a sweatshop or that I advise people on how to set them up? Or if I suggest a cost-effective way to do something, it means you have to have run one yourself?"
If you're one of those people who think that everybody else is the problem -not you- you won't find your apologist here so go somewhere else. If I follow my principles, I guarantee everybody will be offended at some point. My message has always been: other people are not always the problem. You are too. That's what my blog is about.
4 Comments:
I don't understand the whole not watching TV thing. I guess back in 1981 the only good thing that could feed your mind was on Public TV. But these days you have this huge array of channels. You have the Discovery Science Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Times, The Learning Channel, Discovery Health Channel, Travel Channel, National Georgraphic Channel, History Channel, History International Channel, Biography Channel, DIY Channel, Court TV and CNN. You literally have a University of programming to watch at any time. I probably watch more TV than I should but I always learn something. I'm not watching crap sitcoms or anything like that. I guess you could argue that televisions use a lot of electricity? Well unless you have a plasma which uses a lot less power. What is your stance on TV and why did you decide to restrict your exposure to it completely? If you don't mind me asking.
My entire family are vegetarians so I completely understand that. I'm an avid gardner and love growing my own herbs and vegetables in the summer. You have said several times that you like working with leather? Do you not feel that the destruction of land to make that leather is a bad thing? That seems like a conflict of interests. I'd like to hear you speak on that some.
Even though I'm a vegetarian I'm not sure how I feel about animal rights. I believe that we ourselves are animals, human yes, but animals none the less. Animals hunt. I don't but some do. I'm not going to eat anything with a face simply because it's gross to me. I'm not going to kill anything with a face either. That's just me. I don't begrudge others who want to. Although I don't like the idea of turning killing into a sport. Animals should be able kill to eat.
I am shocked to hear that even 3% of US factories are sweat shops. I wasn't aware that we had any.
Josh
I'm saying that my lack of social immersion provides me with a perspective that few other people have. I am not saying that TV is evil -it's not a moral judgement. I'm saying that because I'm not exposed to it and having become immune to it, I notice certain things right away, things you're so used to looking at that you can't even see it anymore. I'm trying to say that if something pierces my world of social isolation, it's got to be a fairly strong message. Being socially isolated, I only see the world in intermittent snapshots that I can compare to the last ones I had. That's why I can read trends the way I do. There's staccato leaps between snapshots. Personally, I think people like me could be studied for determinants of the most successful saturation advertising because if marketing hits my screen, it's beyond saturation; it's endemic. And if the message is an ugly one, I'm pissed at having my equilibrium disturbed at the atrocity.
My lifestyle and choices I've made in it, are pathetic gestures toward trying to do something meaningful in my life, no matter how small. I'm very aware of the vast resources I still use but I've got to gain some peace somehow. Haven't you considered I have my own demons? You'll have to admit it's pretty ironic that a confirmed anti-consumer is actively engaged in the pursuit of making still greater commerce possible! This is the largest contradiction of my life. One must atone regardless of how futile it is in one way or another. That's why I do not -genuinely- resent others their choices (within rational limits)
I can't do my best work if I can't talk about my life honestly. I've already grown tired of having to continually cover up what is not politically correct in business. I want to talk about things no one will. I want to talk about love and how people can love their work profoundly. I want to talk about the communal support and ownership that goes into building a business, developing old-fashioned integrity and trust, things that are profoundly good for one's character. These things don't fit into a blog if I can't be myself and have to continually worry about policing myself for fear of offending someone or someone thinking I'm inordinately obsessed and weird -cause I am- but I'm not nuts!
Isolation and eccentricity is not my choice. Regardless, my personal choices should be respected even though they contradict my professional choices. The dichotomy of the two is another lens. People won't understand my viewpoint (and step outside of themselves) until they can see from where I'm looking at. My personal choices and my isolation are my lenses.
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