It's a good beginning.
My PCA used to have many excellent, snark-intensive bumper stickers on her truck. This was one of my favorites. However, I don’t think it’s entirely fair. It’s a little misleading.
It really should say, “Mall-Wart: Your source for cheap plastic crap, which also
- Uses slave labor in other countries for outsourced goods
- Violates the Clean Water Act in multiple US states and otherwise engages in practices egregiously harmful to the environment and dangerous to the consumer
- Exploits its workers
- Busts unions
- Systematically and intentionally puts small businesses out of work
- Participate in racist employment practices
- Has been sued repeatedly for Americans with Disabilities Act violations, such as not allowing people with disabilities accompanied by assistance dogs into their stores
- Is owned by people who each make over $18 billion annually, lobby conservative elected officials, but donate less than one percent of their income to charity.” (By comparison, Bill Gates donates over 50 percent of his income to charity.)
But that would make for a really, really long bumper sticker, don’tcha think?
Anyway, why, you may wonder, am I writing a totally random post about Wal-Mart? Well, partly it’s because it’s evil, and I like to raise awareness about the depth, breadth, and sprawl of their evilness. You’d be hard-pressed to find any form of despicable activity — human rights abuses, animal rights abuses, environmental destruction, trade practices bad for US interests, etc. — that they don’t participate in. Where am I getting these facts? From this extremely long list of facts and their sources about Wal-Mart’s illegal and unethical practices. (Except for the ADA and service dog stuff; I just know about that from my involvement with disability rights activism.)
You can learn all this and more, in entertaining, heart-breaking detail, by watching the documentary: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price on a DVD that you rent or purchase, or for free online!
So, back to the reason I’m writing this now. The reason is that I have been promoting the auction that I have helped organize, Marlena’s Teaching Fund, and it’s down to its last 30 hours or so. We are having a big sale to try to get as much donated as possible when this comes down tomorrow at midnight.
Thus, I have slashed prices! I have encouraged people to spend! And bargain-hunt! And obtain!
I have been relentlessly posting on Facebook and Tweet-spamming, such that I think everyone will unfollow or unfriend or block me. And I’m talking about how many, many items and services are still available, and how “there’s something for everyone,” that I was thinking, “My God, I’ve turned into some sort of Mall-Wart-esque monster!” Aieee!
But then, I remembered, no.
For one thing, this little shindig is actually an offering of gifts by people who want to contribute to someone’s (or a group of someones’) well-being. And much of this stuff is stuff that people have but don’t want or need, so it’s being repurposed, recycled, not going into the landfill. And a lot of this stuff was handcrafted, by people who did it with love, not sweatshop labor.
Actually, I have learned a lot from this experience. I have gotten the opportunity to connect with and meet some really awesome people. I think it has served many useful purposes and contributed to meeting the needs of many people. So, overall, I’m very glad of my involvement.
I am not Mall-Wart. I am still me. And hopefully Betsy will help me create a spreadsheet so my head doesn’t explode when I try to match item donors, winner bidders, mailing addresses, donations made or to be expected, etc., when this all comes down tomorrow. (Or maybe I’ll just crawl into Barnum’s crate and put my head in my arms and rock myself and hope that people will telepathically figure out who to contact and what to mail, etc.)
Or maybe one of you reading this is good at spreadsheets and has some spare time in the next day or two? Heh heh heh heeeeeeeeeeeee. . . ?
So, I guess this is a request for help, which really was not my intention when I started this post, but there it is — life takes you in unexpected directions, and for me, these directions are often found while blogging. My requests:
1. If you have bid on the auction and won one or more items, starting Sunday night or Monday morning, please check your email (including spam folder) and/or your blog comments — or whatever you gave for your contact info — or contact me yourself, because I have already not heard from two people I’ve tried to contact where there were questions about their bidding, and I feel quite anxious about not being able to connect to everyone who bid.
2. If you know of anyone who has bid, please pass along the note above, in case you have more reachable contact info for them than I do.
3. If you haven’t bid on anything, go check it out. There really is some amazingly cool stuff there, and some unbelievable bargains. I really did go and mark everything down that had not yet been bid on.
4. If you bid on stuff, check to see if you were outbid. If you were, and you want whatever that stuff was, bid it up.
5. If you are in any way able to help me with the adding up of sums or creation of spreadsheets or email of people who donated items or made winning bids, please contact me! (If you know my phone number or email, use that. Otherwise you can use this private form.)
Finally, to paraphrase Trillian from that most remarkable book, The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, “[This blog] will be restoring normality as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway. Thank you.”
– Sharon, the muse of Gadget, and Barnum, SD/SDiT (We have some cool training stories to share; I just haven’t yet finished any of the blogs I’ve started recently.)
UPDATE: The kind and talented Kat of Join the Club! created a google docs form/database/embeddable thingy which we think I’ll be able to have winning bidders fill out with their contact info. This will make my job MUCH easier (if it works). So, some help has already been given, and I am very grateful!
After Gadget 