Thisnext.com is a new shopcast portal – a Squidoo meets E-bay of sorts. Summer Rayne Oakes was asked to give her insights into what cool products she has discovered and would recommend to others. Here are some of her recommendations and some general thoughts.Archive for September, 2006
What’s Next? ThisNext.com
Thursday, September 28th, 2006Thisnext.com is a new shopcast portal – a Squidoo meets E-bay of sorts. Summer Rayne Oakes was asked to give her insights into what cool products she has discovered and would recommend to others. Here are some of her recommendations and some general thoughts.Register to download S4, sustainability trends in fashion
Saturday, September 23rd, 2006
Head over to S4trends.com and register to download the S4 newsletter reporting on sustainability trends in fashion. Read press release here.
Going behind-the-scenes: Touch-ups with Stacia and Teddi at the Allen Martin“Hoodoo: Spirit Magic” photoshoot. Check out this S4 editorial and more at S4trends.com.
Shout Out! Thanks to Collin over at the Sustainable Style Foundation for featuring it as their “spotlight” over the weekend.
OH SO MOSO – The Premier Issue
Bamboozled by bamboo? Sometimes it’s difficult to see the forest through the trees, or in this case, the clear message through the cluttered attic of consumer culture. From socks to surfboards, toilet seats to TV sets, birthday suits to bikes, floors to furniture, this almighty grass is getting more attention than a well-manicured lawn.
Bamboo became quite a hit when it began percolating onto the fashion scene in designer collections a few years back. What made it unique was not only its impressive resume of technical properties, but also its positioning as an eco-friendly fabric. The common proclamations of bamboo’s benefits consistently reiterated include: green or eco; renewable; biodegradable; fast-growing; luxurious; breathable; absorptive; ventilated; hypoallergenic;and antibacterial. Find out what S4 has uncovered about fashion’s latest greenhorn.
More praise and support for Mark Ritchie
Sunday, September 17th, 2006
I know I gushed about Mark Ritchie in a previous post, but I went to another one of his fundraisers in NYC tonight and I just think he is deserving of more praise. I met Mark ironically in Hong Kong at the World Trade Organization. One of his colleagues (under the non-profit that he had founded – Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy) had hired me to represent fair trade issues at the fair trade expo. Mark, if I can just say (and I will) is a McArthur Genius and one of the finest, fairest people that I have ever met. He is currently the DFL endorsed candidate running for Secretary of State in Minnesota. He gives me hope in our democratic system. At the event, he gave an impassioned speech about his role as Secretary of State and acknowledged that even though a Democrat, his goal was to “deliver an election to everybody that is open, free, and fair,” something that hasn’t been given to the citizens of MN in quite some time under the current opponent who is up for re-election. “There is a fundamental crisis in the democracy – people’s participation,” Mark stated. “I had 40 people call into me recently because they just finished watching 4 Princeton professors on CNN hack into a voters machine in 45 seconds and change the results. People are disenchanted with the final results and feel disempowered. Secretary of State is tackling bigger issues – these issues. We need to figure out a way that our electoral process can make a difference because there is a hunger for it. It won’t happen until people step foward.”He acknowledged that there needs to be more cross-collaboration between states. For 2006, he said that he is busy building and supporting a network of people running for Sectretary of State (’08) across many states. “This ensures the Presidential Candidate doesn’t have to go to the same state a dozen times, because we are doing our job of mobilizing the base of voters in an open, free, and fair way.” Perhaps that is what will get MN and other neighboring states out of the swing state category.
GO Mark GO!
If you would like to support Mark, visit his site here.
P.S. Jon Tester, who is running for an important Senate race in Montana was also supposed to be there, but didn’t make it. Hopefully he was off at another important event. 
Mark at the Fair Trade Expo in Hong Kong
Mark at the Fair Trade Expo in Hong Kong