The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy . . . how can 336 pages about the microeconomic look at how a t-shirt is made (from the beginnings of the US cotton industry to the cotton mills of yesteryear to sweatshops in Asia) and how the history of t-shirt production can be a good way of looking at globalization and the effects of free trade NOT be awesome.

Yes, markets and percentages of GDP and currency fluctuation and Cold War vs Globalization can be confusing if you’re not an MBA student (or hell, sometimes even if you are), but Pietra Rivoli does a pretty decent job offering a narrative that most anyone can understand what she’s talking about.

The big question is – even if you get what she’s talking about, will you find it interesting? Good question. The book starts off a little slow with a specific, detailed, micro look at the cotton industry and its origins in the United States, but really does make you sit back and think about where the t-shirt on your back came from. Whose sweat is responsible for that? Why did the US dominate the cotton industry? Some truths are tragic, others make you realize how great our country has become.

Cotton subsidies, yeah they screw over poor farmers in Africa who don’t have US subsidies and university resources, but at the same time, these poor African countries have their countries working against them (rather than for them as in the US). Sure the US cotton industry came about because of free labor in the form of slavery, but look at what’s it’s developed into and the people its helped.

The poor conditions of US cotton mills matched the poor conditions of British cotton mills decades before and holds a surprising resemblance to cotton mills in Asia at the moment. Are these Asian cotton mills entirely horrible if they eventually lead to skill enhancement and better lives (in the long run) for its people? In Britain and the US, cotton mills led to child labor laws and fair employment laws – whose to say that what led to the independence and well-being of so many people won’t lead to the same for their present-day counterparts?


The author does a great job of remaining impartial – instead of telling the reader that Chinese sweatshops are horrible or that using slavery to advance the cotton industry is bad bad bad – she lets you draw your own conclusion. These things are bad on a humane level, but they led/can lead to greater things.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman




Image from Amazon.com

  My boyfriend suggested the Dragonlance Chronicles, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, as an interesting read.  I was hesitant to start this series as I have been burned by similar suggestions from former boyfriends.  However, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised and plan to willingly continue the series.

I knew that the series was based on the Dungeons & Dragons Role-Playing Game and I was wary of how this would translate into a novel.  (I had read a few books based on a similar Vampire RPG and found it repetitive and dry.)  There were a few things that were clearly game based, i.e. the mage's limitations when it came to spell casting, but they weren't so glaringly obvious that I would have noticed if I hadn't been looking for them.

The descriptions of setting were my favorite part of this book.  The authors didn't get lost in them, à la Tolkien, but they certainly painted a vivid picture.  The beginning description of the town of Solace and the Valenwood Forest was so crisp I felt as if I could actually go there to see these massive giants and the town nestled within the branches.  Xak Tsaroth's description makes me feel like I am at the base of Niagra Falls once more, but with an aging city all around me.  Beautiful detail that envelopes the reader and engages the imagination.

The development of characters is a little predictable at times, but no less interesting.  The complicated back stories of Tanis Half-Elven and Raistlin Majere are enticing enough that I want to read more of the series and unravel the mysteries surrounding them.  These two characters, as well, are interesting in their decisions and motivations throughout the novel.  Some of the minor characters in this first book are two dimensional but I hope they are further developed in later novels.

Definitely a book I would recommend to anyone looking for a new fantasy series to read.

February Reading List

January had me unsuccessful in cleaning out the book queue.  I started reading a series that was recommended to me by my boyfriend, so that has taken precedence. To recap, here are the books I have carried over from last year:
The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter by Russell T. Davies & Benjamin Cook (11/14/10) - Started 11/15/10
Changeless by Gail Carriger (10/16/10) - Started 10/24/10
Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas (6/01/10) -Started
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin (08/01/10) - Started 10/25/10

Here are the new ones I added in January:

Dragonland Chronicles, Volume I: Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

Now I just need to stick to it and finish these before heading off-plan again.

"Do As I Say..." Webseries

Okay this is not exactly a book and I am changing the point of my blog to write about this.  But, my sister's high school friend, Andrea Schwartz, and her friend, Kim Kalish, are finished the pre-production on their web-series, "Do As I Say..."  Andrea started talking about it at Cinco de Mayo last year and it sounded really interesting.  Three friends, one of them pregnant with their first child, looking back on their early twenties and deciding to do a video advice gift for the baby.  I'm not sure if that is still the premise, but it's still about ladies in their twenties navigating their way through life, love, and professions in New York City.

One of my favorite parts about their website is their profile description

Kim and Andrea met in college where they majored in Theatre with a minor in Unemployment. In New York, they studied improv and sketch comedy with Upright Citizen's Brigade. They spend most of their time watching cat videos on Youtube.

They are lined up with a professional director, camera crew, lights, etc. so I can't wait to see the finished product.  I am very, very excited for them.  I know it's something on which Andrea has worked very hard and I love it when people see their labors rewarded.  It makes me feel like there is some sort of balance to the universe, or a legitimate reason to try for difficult goals.  Even if they don't fully succeed in this endeavor, for some unknown reason, the experience will be invaluable.  If only to know that you tried to reach that. unreachable. star.....wait this is sounding familiar.

I just really want them to succeed, okay?  If I could take everything that is in my heart right now and turn it into felix felicis, I would.  I am so very proud of Andrea for everything that she is doing.  So please consider visiting their website and backing the development of their series.

I'm Super Girl and I'm Here to Save the World

I’ve always been a dabbler in the comic book world. I know enough to get by in a conversation about the difference between the movie and the comic book (be that X-Men or Batman, so on and so forth).

However, recently I’ve discovered there’s so much more to the comic book world than the simple Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-Men. Much more. The comic that I’m currently enjoying is the critically acclaimed event 52. 52 was a year-long weekly comic detailing the events of the year after Infinite Crisis in the DC Universe when there is no Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. We learn more of the lesser known heroes (Booster Gold, the Question, Black Adam, etc) and see how their lives and stories are all woven together in the DC Universe.

No worries - I won't give away any of the plot since we all hate *spoiler alert* spoilers.

The beauty of the overall story is that you experience the events of the DCU in real-time since each issue took place over a week and was issued every week. There are so many plot-twists and rich character developments that you can’t help but get lost in the story. Not to insult any hard-core comics fans, but the comic reads like a soap opera. You jump into an episode of All My Children and you know who Erica Kane is . . . but Greenlee and Jackson, how do they all fit together? You keep watching and realize everyone in Pine Valley is connected and their stories more complex than you could imagine. Gotham and Metropolis don’t appear to be much different than Pine Valley.

Right so. To sum: politics, mythology, globalization, commercialism, homosexuality, inter-galactic bounty-hunting, and spandex. Lots of spandex.

New Year, New Friends

I have invited a couple of my friends to start posting.  I am hoping that it will bring a little bit of diversity to the blog.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions

Like Me by Chely Wright - Final

I finally finished this biography in its entirety.  I have a great amount of respect for Country Singer, Chely Wright right now.  Though I am a little concerned that at the time the book was written, Chely had not yet come out to her mother.  I hope that she was able to tell her before the book was on store shelves, though I know it was probably difficult.

As I said before, I would recommend this for anyone struggling with their own issues.  Whether it's coming out to your family or having had a family member come out to you.  This isn't a how-to manual, but it does show that there are, indeed, people like you.

Editing Twain

Yesterday afternoon, I was listening to NPR and I heard a very interesting conversation.  It has to do with this new edition of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, by New South Books,where the N-word is replaced with the word, "slave."  (If you've followed the link I attached to "NPR" it's down towards the bottom of the transcript after the discussion about the Health Care bill.)  I know this is the Hot-Topic in literature right now, but the NPR article really raised a lot of questions I felt were interesting. 

1) Is it better to change one aspect of the book so that it will be read or to keep it as written and risk the message being lost?

2) Does changing offensive language allow us, as a culture, to forget the mistakes in our history? And do we run the risk of leaving ourselves open to future problems?  Or is it a way to eradicate that type of prejudice from society?

I am personally concerned that we run the risk of over-sanitizing our lives, just like with germs and bacteria in our physical world.  If we do not build up a natural immunity to certain illnesses, there is a chance we will always being at risk for infection.  Or as with certain medications, the viruses and bacteria evolve to a point that the old remedies don't work anymore.  Is this change in Huckleberry Finn merely a temporary remedy for a much larger problem?

On the other hand, in college, there was a girl who could not get through Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Not because the language was difficult to navigate, but because the language choice personally offended her.  She had suffered a lot at the hands and words of others during high school.  So much so that reading Heart of Darkness made her physically ill and she could not continue reading.  I remember her tears in our discussion and I felt so sad that someone had had to endure that kind of torment; that this level of hate existed in our current society.  So I can definitely understand how a message can be lost because of a few words.

But had those words not been there, the opportunity to discuss that specific issue would not have happened.  She would not have been able to share her story and let the rest of us see how thoughtless words and actions will affect someone negatively.  If these words are removed from a classroom textbook, where is the opportunity to talk about it and safely instruct the next generation on the history and connotations.  Can we hope that parents will have this discussion with their children outside of the classroom?  If we remove these words from our life altogether, will they lose their power?  Words only have the power that we, as a society, give them.  By removing them from a text, do you think that gives them more, or less power? 

To Kindle, or not to Kindle?

For some strange reason I have gotten it into my head that I want an e-reader.  I don't know why exactly as I am a pretty hard-core physical book person.  (Bad days can be better with a simple trip to the library or bookstore.  Something about the smell just eases any tension.)  It might have something to do with the XKCD Comic, actually.  Ever since they linked it to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I've been a little obsessed with the idea.  Then, with my plans to travel to Europe in the near future, I have these wonderful visions of how useful it will be. 

Imagine standing by an old church on a street in London, for example.  The sign says, Temple Church, but you've never seen/read the DaVinci Code and have no idea what it is.  Pull out the Kindle, go to the search feature and type in Temple Church on the "use Wikipedia" feature and Voila!  All the information that public forum of knowledge has to offer on Temple Church, PLUS links to other interesting sites in the area.  Not to mention, one could download a travel guide (if one is offered on Amazon) as well as any books to read on the journey.

And yet, I went to Target and I held a Kindle in my hands.  I seriously thought about buying the 3G version, but I just couldn't get excited about it.  I went to Barnes & Noble and looked at their Nook.  I found the touch screen at the bottom neat but not as easy to use as I would like.  If there is touch screen, I want to be able to touch the whole screen not just part of it and the 5-way rocker button on the Kindle is more natural to me for some reason.  Now the Nook Color, could be be more natural to me than the 5-way rocker button but it's not exactly in my price range.  I held the Nook in my hands and I couldn't get excited about it.  The ideas of what I could do with either device, see Temple Church above, are exciting.  But the actual device itself did not induce the same impulse-buy feeling I get when I see a new book.  Still, I have plenty of time before I take my European Vacation and that should give me time to make up my mind about whether or not to get one.

Comments Encouraged

Since we're starting off a new year, I thought I might open up the floor to book suggestions.  I'm really looking for a new series to read, though any book is welcome.  Typically, I would pick a fiction book over a non-fiction but I will always make an exception for something interesting.

Is there a book that has really captured your attention?  Something that you just couldn't put down?  Maybe an old favorite you wish people read more often...Let me know and maybe I'll check it out.

K