mighty leaf tea: green tea and greenwashing
I recently tried a new brand of tea. I’m always looking for almond tea, which is difficult or impossible to find (more on that below), and noticed Mighty Leaf had…
consumer issues
amman to cairo to home: in which things out work very nicely
EgyptAir, we love you! I’m writing this from an airport hotel, where I did not expect to be. After Ridiculous Breakfast #3, we did a little negotiating (see below), then…
amman to cairo to home: in which things out work very nicely
EgyptAir, we love you! I’m writing this from an airport hotel, where I did not expect to be. After Ridiculous Breakfast #3, we did a little negotiating (see below), then…
frustrations with technology, or, when upgrades are really downgrades, or, give me back a previous gmail app
I’ve really been enjoying my Nexus 7 tablet. I dislike that tablets have become the norm, and in a perfect world I’d use a desktop, a netbook, and a tablet.…
#walmartstrikers + international buy nothing day = don’t shop at walmart
I don’t know when people starting calling the day after US Thanksgiving “Black Friday,” but the expression has become synonymous with over-consumption, empty consumer culture, and the bizarre importance assigned…
towards a cruelty-free face: switching to products not tested on animals
I’ve begun changing my personal care products to cruelty-free: natural products from companies that are better for the environment and don’t test on animals. I’m not sure how far I’ll…
negative reviews and threats of lawsuits: let’s not give in to corporate bullying
There’s a new bully in town, and he’s not going after fat kids in the school cafeteria. He’s a corporate bully, and he’s gunning for you, his dissatisfied customer. An…
amazing but true: mlb does the right thing and increases fans’ access to the postseason
The biggest surprise of the 2014 baseball postseason isn’t the absence of both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. It isn’t the Baltimore Orioles, making the postseason…
sometimes knowing your rights is all it takes: in which we win our landlord battle
We won! And we won so easily, we’re left scratching our heads and asking, “What just happened?” As you’ll recall, our landlord asked for an illegal rent increase – 10.5%…
know your rights, rental edition, part two
Just about one year ago today – July 8, 2013, to be exact – our area was hit with a massive flood that swamped homes, cars, highways, trains, and .…
is the food movement elitist? michael pollan connects the dots between labour and our tables
In an excellent interview in Truthout, Michael Pollan responds to critics who accuse the food movement of being elitist. He very rightly credits Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation with explicitly…
in which i survive three days without internet, or how rogers (maybe) punishes former customers
Sometime late on Thursday night into Friday morning, our internet went down. This is the worst possible time for such an event, as internet is our lifeline to baseball, and…
in praise of freecycle
It’s been a while since I wrote about Freecycle – once as we were getting ready to move to Canada in 2005, then again when we moved from our first…
self-checkout is unpaid labour, gift cards are interest-free loans, and let’s stop using both
There are two current trends that I seriously dislike, and wish we would all organize to change: retail self-checkout and the use of gift cards as thank-yous and gifts. Neither…