Blog posts

Today doesn’t allow much time for writing. The student newspaper has just taken delivery of three shiny new computers and between that and our Finance Committee meeting this afternoon, I’m feeling busy. Via supradeluxe’s fair trade coffee blog I spotted this report. It seems that the World Bank is getting in on the Fair Trade act (nice timing guys) and the report contains some pretty stark figures on the crisis in the global coffee market. The pressure on richer governments to reduce their agricultural subsidies has long been present, but when a body like the World Bank makes statements such as: ...

One of my part-time colleagues has an obsession with the word ‘oligarchy’. He’s a politics student and just can’t seem to get enough of the word. It’s perhaps not surprising that in the modern world someone could get caught up with the word, given that many ‘democracies’ tend to operate oligarchically (is that a word? it should be). A few weeks ago, the blogsphere was full of analyses of Howard Dean’s campaign to be the Democrat Party’s nominee for US President. They were asking what it had brought to the primary campaign and why when initially so strong, it had failed to win Dean the nomination. In that regard I found this interview with Joe Trippi (Dean’s former Campaign Manager) a fascinating read. ...

In the wake of moves to establish a British ‘Supreme Court’, the introduction of US-style ‘citizenship ceremonies’ and a government minister’s suggestion that we remodel graduation ceremonies along American lines, a frequent question in many of the instant messenger conversations I’ve partaken in has been what’s the next step in the American makeover of Britain? If this report in The Guardian is to be believed it is a change of emphasis in government volunteering schemes to shape them along the lines of Clinton’s ’ AmeriCorps’. ...

With this being Fairtrade Fortnight, and the tenth anniversary of the Fair Trade mark at that, it was to be expected that there’d be some movements on the part of major retailers. The biggest news I’ve picked up so far in the UK is that Marks and Spencers are introducing their first fair trade labelled clothing range. The range appears to be a rebranded version of Gossypium’s yoga clothing, but this is a good step forward. Strangely the Marks and Spencers website doesn’t appear to make any mention of this news, even in their “Commitment to Society” section. ...

Browsing Juan Cole’s blog always provides some useful insights into the current situation in Iraq. You may well not remember something I wrote about back in November about current threats to federal funding of Middle Easter Studies in the US. All seemed to have gone silent on the matter, but a recent entry on Juan’s site shows that this hasn’t gone away and provides considerably more detail than I was able. Well worth checking out. ...

One of the hot topics in Higher Education at the moment is plagiarism, with Universities struggling to develop appropriate educational and disciplinary responses to a rapidly increasing number of cases. The reasons for this increase are many: from changes in research styles resulting from increased internet use; to less awareness of British approaches to plagiarism; to increased financial and other pressures on students. It is also a tricky area to deal with given that many other cultures have a very different approach to western academia when it comes to copying and referencing. ...

This article (linked to by Nate) reminded me of a train of thought I’d intended to blog, but forgot about while Kari visited. Salon recently ran an article about American Apparel, a clothing manufacturer in Los Angeles who have made waves by ensuring all their employees are paid a living wage and looking for ethically sound suppliers. Paragraphs such as: At American Apparel’s corporate and manufacturing headquarters, Charney appears to have done the unthinkable: He’s made working in a garment factory hip, not just for his young creative and corporate staff, but for the Latino shop workers as well. Fingers fly as teams of sewers are paid by the piece (a modern-day version of the old sweatshop payment system), but shop workers also partake of such trendy on-site services as yoga and massage and wear the T-shirts they make to work. The company offers counseling for co-workers who get involved romantically and then break up again, nobody cares if you smoke a joint, and seven or eight times a year working class joins management in one big beer and pizza party. It’s like one of those multicultural Benetton ads, except, well – it’s an American Apparel ad and it’s real. ...

It’s been on the cards for a while, but news of Jane Griffiths’ deselection was finally confirmed this weekend. I could add some barbed comments to the BBC story. But deselection speaks for itself.

There was a very interesting piece on Minnesota Public Radio’s The Splendid Table on February 7th exploring the growing debate about fair trade coffee in the US. Guest Kevin Knox, a buyer for Starbucks and Alegro Coffees, talked about the demand for quality beans which fair trade in the USA has yet to meet. The argument reminded me very clearly of the debate around fair trade coffee in the UK over the past decade. When first introduced, fair trade coffees were pretty much undrinkable, but over the past few years they’ve developed to the point where 5065 can be marketed alongside other quality instants. But it is that word ‘instant’ which is one of the key issues to focus on. The US coffee market doesn’t want to know about instant coffee and while CafeDirect may be producing high quality instants in the UK, that same quality isn’t seen on a wide scale in fair trade beans in the US. ...

At points he told us the truth: “free societies are societies that don’t develop weapons of mass terror and don’t blackmail the world.” At points he stated the obvious: “the leaders from Iraq, there is no question in my mind that people that I have seen at least are thrilled with the activities we’ve taken.” And throughout he dodged the issues. Perhaps someone needs to tattoo the definition of the word ‘quote’ on Bush’s hand? ...