How about that for a cop-out of admitting that Made-in-Chinaness is inevitable? So yes, I’ve just purchased this lovely Chargrill grill/smoker:
I read that using a charcoal grill is a horror, but the idea of having my own magical slow-cooking smoked magic meat was way too enticing. If anyone has some tricks to make this supposedly steep learning curve a bit more acute, help a sister out.
**Note: This grill will make its grilling debut this Sunday, June 15 at my house for a bbq bonanza. Come one, Come all Ohioans!
Categories: made in china
So I didn’t really make any purchases this past week – the things I did buy (mostly groceries) were all China-free. I learned that the plastic container my mushrooms came in was made in Canada. eh?
I am, however, investing in a grill this week. We shall see if my China-free living can span into the third week of June. In the meantime, read this somewhat related article on Eco-labelling in Europe.
Categories: made in china
I just finished reading the June issue of Fast Company, which includes an extensive series of articles on China’s infiltration of Africa (which has been going on for a while) to establish optimal resource-guzzling relationships to supplement their own dwindling supply. A good majority of the dwindling is done by consumption of Chinese products by other countries, namely the US (surprise, surprise). Perhaps the scariest part is that China is kicking everyone’s ass in developing these relationships due to how well they understand (or cater to) the needs of these African nations. They don’t care about “spreading Democracy,” instead they care about supporting whatever that country needs – whether they agree with it or not – to form an alliance. Our American Ideals sure are paying off now, eh?
Also – buying products made in China is not only damaging on the raw resources end – it takes quite a bit of resources to then get products from China to the US (namely that “oil” stuff everyone is talking about these days). This then makes for more greenhouse gas emissions and may or may not contribute to global warming (depending on your view of that, which I’m really not getting into) – but it most certainly makes for an unpleasant haze on the horizon.
So, I’ve decided to try and be China-free for a little while. There have already been observations on how difficult it would be to do this, so I am doing this more as a study to personally see how my seemingly-aware consumerism is affected when the manufacturer is in question. Originally, I was going to shoot for a month of China-freeness, however Dan laughed at the idea, so I figured it more reasonable to try for a week and go from there. So here goes – June 1, 2008 = Day 1.
Categories: made in china
In NY and other big cities, there are an abundance of websites that exist to publicize and organize events in a fairly egalitarian manner. I know several people who like the idea of meetup.com, but I never got into it (Columbus area witches and Pagans are totally into it).
One site that caught on pretty well that I dug was going.com. They did quite a bit more than act as a virtual bulletin board; for instance, they were pretty integral in the success of last summer’s Pool Parties, a series of completely awesome and completely free shows at the McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn. They’ve also done a great job of promoting events that my friends and other upstanding cultural contributors have produced (via exclusive going.com discounted/non-existent cover charges and the like). I received an email from the folks at going.com the other day with news that they had expanded and now support 30 cities, including Honolulu, Austin, Atlanta and Columbus!
Yay!
Categories: 1 · technology + us.
