Yes but do they earn enough to go on holiday?

I need new shoes.  I would like to buy myself some shoes that I could feel good about wearing but unfortunately I can't feel good about these shoes for two reasons.  The first is that they are gym shoes and nobody needs to feel good about new gym shoes.  It's kind of like getting a new iron, it's new and all and there's something exciting for that brief moment you get something new (damn material conditioning) but I don't think I will be feeling good about these.  The second reason requires more explanation.  I am a fairly simple person with fairly simple requirements.  No big logos, comfortable fit, not too expensive (on account of me being an arts student and musician), and here's the kicker (get it) - ethically made.  What exactly is an ethically made gym shoe?  Can you even buy them and if so, can you buy them relatively cheaply?  My last pair of gym shoes were second hand given to me by an ex AFL footballer.  I kind of figured that if they were good enough for him to train in that they would do me for my fifty squats and general inept exercises on minimum weight setting on a Sunday morning at Fitzroy Gym.  But now I would like to get some new gym shoes.  I would like to have been the only one to have gotten slightly moist feet in them, I would like to feel that nice bouncy feeling of a new sneaker and I would like to smell that slightly rubbery smell as I pull the laces through my new shoes for the first time.  So back to the ethical shoe idea, what exactly constitutes ethical shoe construction?  Can you even buy athletics shoes made somewhere other than China?  So what would I settle for in my purchase of these shoes or what would I like to believe about the people that have made my soon to be new shoes?  I would like to believe first and foremost that the people who made my shoes weren't being threatened with violence to produce my shoes.  I would also like to think that the people making my shoes were all over eighteen and were there of their own free will.  I hope that they were able to take a lunch break and did not have to work more than a 12hr shift.  I hope that their jobs were rotated so that they did not get stuck performing the same task for said 12hr shift.  But is that it?  From the web research (open to scrutiny) the average factory worker's salary in China is $100 per month.  This is essentially a meaningless number until you take into account PPP or Purchasing Power Parity.  This concept compares what it would cost in one country to how much money you would need in the USA to buy the equivalent amount of goods.  Advocates of cheap Chinese labour will tell you that PPP in China enables the average Chinese worker on $100 p/m to afford as much food and basic essential items as a worker on $2000 p/m in the USA.  While PPP has merits as a measurement of purchasing power if all you are purchasing is food, it has little merit when you are trying to establish whether Chinese workers can afford luxury items.  Electronic devices are generally a little cheaper in China, some European made goods such as clothing and department store goods are more expensive and some things are about the same as they are in Australia.  For example you can get a plane ticket for many destinations in South East Asia for approximately $800AUD return, about the same as you would pay for a short holiday somewhere from Australia.  This is where simply looking at PPP in terms of food fails as a fair measure of quality of life and ability to buy non essential items.  If you consider that $800 is eight months wages for your average Chinese manufacturing worker it doesn't look so good when compared to the USA wage of $2000 p/m.  If a ticket for a small break somewhere close to home (but international) cost $16,000 then we might view PPP a little differently.  So my point is that while we might argue that the workers in manufacturing industries in China are paid fairly, PPP is an inadequate measure when it comes to luxury goods and access to non essential goods.  They might earn enough to eat well, pay rent and pay utility bills but perhaps we should be asking another question............................... Do they earn enough to go on holiday?

Things I didn't have to do today.

When I started to wake I didn't have any pressure to get up before dawn to work to support my family. 
When I awoke from my night's sleep I didn't have to chase away a bunch of people trying to steal my things.
I didn't have to move along because the police asked me to.
I didn't have to stay hidden for fear of being seen by the militia that ransacked my village last night.
I didn't have to clear my sleeping gear out of my booth so others could start work around me.
And I did not look over to see a photo of my deceased partner sitting beside the bed. 
There was no need to go to the well to pump some water for me to boil and then drink.
I did not have to cut wood for the fire.
When I finally got out of bed I did not need to hunt for food for breakfast.
I did not have to check to see if my ill siblings had lived through the night.
I wasn't wondering about how I would obtain the drugs I am addicted to without getting arrested.
I noticed that there were no bars on my window, and I could see daylight. 
When I turned on the water tap, I did not wonder whether the water was safe to drink
When thinking of where I had to be today, the four hour line for the opportunity to buy food and medicine was not one of the places that came to mind.
There was no sound of explosions and gunfire.
There was no stench of faeces.
When I picked up my clothes they were not tattered, or dirty, or wet.
While eating my breakfast I did not have decide how much I would eat myself and how much I would leave for my family.
Nor did I have to worry about whether there would be food later in the day.
When getting ready for work I did not have to wonder how I would possibly pleasure up to thirty men in the next fifteen hours.
I did not wonder whether my work would be deemed worthy of pay today.
And as I thought about how I would get to work, I did not consider which route would be the least likely to result in my leg being blown off by a landmine.
Nor did I have to morally justify to myself the fact that I was being paid to kill people.
I didn't fold my cardboard box mattress up and hide it behind a bin.
I didn't have to defecate under a bridge and I definitely didn't have to search the restaurant bin for last night's leftovers to eat.
When I finally made it to work my boss didn't threaten or blackmail me.
And I didn't even have to use potentially dangerous machinery that could kill me.
My skin wasn't burning from the sun and my hands weren't frostbitten from the cold.
I don't think I wondered whether I could afford to stop for lunch.
I wasn't exposed to any toxic chemicals and I didn't have to compromise my health to stay employed.  I don't remember thinking about my children in substandard health care.
I am pretty sure I didn't wonder where my husband was.
And I am certain that I did not have to use another employee as a scapegoat for a mistake that I made just to keep my job and a way of putting food on the table.
So when it came time to leave for the day it wasn't dark outside.
And I wasn't too physically worn out to stand.
I didn't have to clock out.
And I don't remember asking the boss if it was ok if I came in tomorrow.
On my way home I didn't ask anyone for money for a hostel for the night.
And I didn't have to carry 40kg of water in buckets across my shoulders.
I wasn't concerned that I might not get to my second job on time.
I didn't have to borrow a blanket from my neighbour so my family could fight off the cold for one more night.
And I don't remember wondering if they would let me across the border tonight.
When I finally arrived home the locks had not been changed by the bank. 
My house had not been destroyed by a mortar round. 
I didn't have to cook for my husband and his family after a fifteen hour day at work.
I did not have to kill and gut my food.  
I didn't have to protect my food from the other prisoners.
I wasn't wondering when the test results would come back.
I didn't have to explain to my child why the bad man touched her.
My wife didn't say "we have to talk"

And as I thought about all of the things that I didn't have to do today I realised that all the things that I did have to do weren't that bad.
Spare a thought for all of those people that had to do one or more of these things today.

Would you still donate if you didn't get a free sticker?

Here we are again at that time of the year when we begrudgingly haul a year's worth of crinkled up receipts and spuriously work related purchase invoices in to the accountants, ask them to make sense of it all and provide us with a fat refund cheque at the end.  Inevitably at some time in the conversation between justifying six hundred dollars worth of stationary and explaining that your 'Guitar Player' magazine subscription was in fact necessary for keeping up with industry trends, the accountant will ask you about donations to charity.  If you are like most of us you will donate a few bucks at the traffic lights, maybe sign up to sponsor a friend for a marathon for a worthy cause, maybe sponsor a child or give to the salvos a few times a year.  Generally for your efforts you will receive a pin, a sticker, a fridge magnet or in some cases even a sticker to display proudly your affiliation with said charity which brings me to my point.  How much of our motivation is the actual 'sticker' itself or indeed how important is displaying our affiliation with the charity to others and for what reason do we do this.  In Melbourne currently the 3RRR radiothon is up and running.  3RRR for those who don't know is a community based radio station which relies solely on subscriber donations to keep it on the air.  Every August they have a subscriber drive and through donations they offer subscribers the chance to win prizes for subscribing during this month.  Perhaps the best thing you get for your money though is a shiny 10cm x 20cm sticker that simply says 3RRR to display proudly your affiliation with this station.  But what does this sticker actually say about you and why would you choose to display it so prominently on your car/house/bike/ etc.  Well for starters it says that there is a fairly high chance that you live/work somewhere north of the river or have done at some point in your life and are vicariously staying there by listening to 3RRR on a regular basis.  It says you are into independent music, interviews and thought provoking discussion on a wide variety of topics.  It says that you reject being subjected to shit music trying not to be too offensive with the purpose of getting you to stay tuned until the next advertisement is blasted through your speakers stimulating your desire to consume endlessly.  It also says that you were willing to spend seventy bucks to keep a station that promotes free speech and independent music alive.  And isn't that a lovely image of yourself to put forward to the world.  I bothered to spend money on a worthy cause.  And 3RRR is by no means the only organisation that does this.  Consider all of the Amnesty International stickers on the backs of cars around town.  It's pretty nice being able to instantly tell people that you are a proud supporter of human rights, a community radio station and that you like to vote green all simply by getting stuck in traffic.  However think for a minute about all of the worthy causes that don't have stickers.  And also think about all the kids that are starving in the world that weren't lucky enough to have World Vision take their photo and write a blurb in English appealing for help.  I'm not saying for a minute that the charities that use stickers as part of their marketing campaign are not worthy of your dollars, I am simply making a point that the idea that true charity is anonymous is a point worth thinking about.  Many charities require behind the scenes help, often with no actual interaction with the recipient of the benefits.  That's not to say that the guy that volunteers to clean the Amnesty International offices once a week, or the guy that letter drops all day hoping to raise awareness of the plight of malnourished children in developing countries, are not doing just as much as those who receive recognition through displaying their affiliations and donations to the world.  As I mentioned before, true charity is anonymous.  It feels great to hand over a fiver to the guy selling the Big Issue on the corner and watching him smile as you hand over your money but the feeling is slightly different when you hand over a donation to a doorknocker for the same cause.  It is a hollow gesture that is made simply to make us feel better about ourselves, but can you really disagree with the fact that at least part of the reason for donating is to feel like you have been a decent person and done something good?  Even the most giving and selfless souls in our society are driven by the self motivation that making the world a better place is the right thing to do.  Rather than devaluing this feeling and making anyone feel bad for having it I am encouraging the contrary.  After you have subscribed to 3RRR (and you should), and received your 'xxxxxxx' sticker in the mail from 'xxxxxxx' charity, consider doing something for which you will receive no recognition, no payback, no thanks and indeed no sticker.

South of the River part 1

One of the major sources of confusion for me in life is people's obsession with naturally unobtainable physical traits.  For example, how is it that beauty and health has become associated with a shade of skin reminiscent of the Nullarbor Plain, contrasted with teeth whiter than Arctic ice.  I get that Australia is a fun loving sun filled country and enjoyment of outdoor life is part of our culture, but nobody's fooling anybody in winter.  Clearly you have not been sunbaking at the pool on the weekend nor have you been frolicking at the beach in your swimsuit.  Instead the only truth that can be ascertained is that you have paid upwards of fifty dollars to a stranger to spray your body with a synthetic substance designed to temporarily stain your skin the colour of a southern Italian fisherman because of your skin's natural inability to produce enough melanin to enable you to wear the 'skimpy little black number' that all the boys love.  And the teeth is another thing, our obsession with oral hygiene is frightening.  Sure a clean mouth is desirable and nobody wants to get hot and heavy with a mouth full of funk but seriously, there are shades of white seen on teeth south of the river that shouldn't even be used to paint walls in art galleries.  Advertising agencies clearly have a lot to answer for but advertising agencies don't have an agenda pushing this ideal without a product.  The beauty industry playing on people's insecurities is clearly to blame here.  Fair enough being tanned in Australia during winter isn't that much of a stretch but when beauty product manufacturers play on class ideals and cultural identity primarily in Asian countries clearly there is a bigger problem.  In India, beauty products contain whiteners as pale skin is associated with the higher castes and often with higher socio-economic status and wealth.  Helping to support this beauty myth and unobtainable physical traits only serves to provide these companies with a market for unnecessary products.  I won't pretend for a second that I haven't ever bought in to this before and I confess I once purchased a home teeth whitening kit and remember diligently sitting for half an hour being unable to speak because of the massive piece of plastic in my mouth coated in awful tasting jelly.  I guess we all buy into the beauty myth once in a while but when it starts getting associated with class and status we find ourselves on a slippery slope.  Are we to believe that because a person is tanned all year round and has enough money to visit the tanning salon weekly, they belong to a higher class than those who are pasty and pale during winter?  Are the tanned better people and worth more to society?  The purveyors of these products would happily have us believe that this is true by actively associating the 'tanned look' and 'white teeth' with good health and an active lifestyle.  I don't wish to generalise in this blog and try to claim North superiority because obviously that would be just as harmful a generalisation as I have just critiqued.   My intention is not to claim that this only exists south of the river however vintage clothes stores in Brunswick profiting from the sale of 'indie' cred to me is far less psychologically harmful than tanning salons and dentists using a bunch of toxic chemicals to alter the body's physiology in the name of fashion.

I can feel you judging me.

During the mundane little lives we lead we somehow bumble our way through existence trying to assemble some sense of normalcy and control over a world which is clearly as random and chaotic as life itself.  It becomes a necessary part of our existence that we adopt certain guises to make it obvious to the outside world which particular cultural 'hat' we have on today.  Now if you are like most of us you will no doubt have to transgress between these defined and structured sets of cultural guidelines purely to  earn some kind of living.  Whether you are a pharmacist by day and a stripper by night (I know, I always wonder) or a kindergarten teacher who sings in an 80's glam rock tribute band, there exists a certain need to present different images of ourselves to those we come in to contact with.  It would hardly be considered appropriate for our second life to somehow intersect with the first.  It's not exactly this that I have a problem with as such, it's my problem with people having some sort of idea that there is a way to rebel against society and make a statement against the blind conformity of people in today's society by wearing skinny jeans and a black shirt.  Now it's not the first time in history this phenomenon has occurred.  Think of Kurt Cobain wearing flanelette shirts and cardigans circa 1991.  It's cold in Seattle, really cold but Kurt (by trying to keep warm and being in a mega succesful band) gave a disillusioned, disaffected youth a mode of expression and pretty soon in order to rebel against society there was a strict set of cultural guidelines that one must abide by.  Every "rebellious" subculture has a quite clearly defined set of culturally accepted norms that must be obviously adhered to for immediate categorisation in this group.  And as human beings our lust for belonging is insatiable and undeniable.  So when I was on the tram this morning on my way to work for a meagre salary as a sales representative in my shirt, black pants and tie, I felt a certain unease as the skinny jean asymmetric haircut sporting hipsters cast their eyes my way and judge.  Fair enough I admit, I am abiding by culturally accepted norms of business attire and what it means to be an inner urban male in inner urban society.  And I admit, I am also sacrificing a certain part of my creativity and individuality by adhering to these guidelines BUT.......... For you to judge me for trying to make enough money to put myself through university, play in a band of a night time, run an independent record label, volunteer for charity, try to be a supportive partner, release independent music and occasionally do my dishes is a bit of a stretch.  Particularly when although you might look like the lead singer of the latest shithouse indy rock band to grace the gig guide of Beat magazine, how the fuck do I know that you don't get off the tram to go work in a call centre scamming the elderly on insurance deals or utilities providers, then go home and play your Playstation 3 through your 50 inch plasma TV in your upwardly mobile post gentrified inner urban suburb while simultaneously verbally bashing minority groups while your vacuous (but hot) girlfriend talks about the latest "news" she read in the MX.  The point is I don't know that.  But I don't feel qualified enough to cast judging looks at you on the tram so to you I say, judge not lest ye be judged.... or something equally as biblically profound.  We can all get along fine as long as we are prepared to admit that there is a little bit of bullshit that goes along with living in any society, and it's ok to admit it.