Crappy Customer Service

Reportage, Anyone?

I just threw The Green Life off my RSS reader.  It's the Sierra Club's blog/style guide to an environmentally friendly existence...or at least it's supposed to be.

First off - the tips they're sharing aren't innovative.  I've been hearing the same ways to green up since the first wave of eco-chic in the late 80's.

And secondly, they pissed me off with their latest entry telling consumers not to buy antimicrobial fabrics.  They are correct about the fact that nanosilver-impregnated fabric loses it's coating in the wash, and bleeds silver particles into the water, which can deposit in wildlife.  OK they got that part.  What I don't like is that they are telling people not to buy ANY antimicrobial fabrics.  Some fabrics are rendered antimicrobial with chitosan, which is made from waste shrimp shells.  No silver in there.  Or how about bamboo charcoal fabrics?  There's an antimicrobial that won't wash out, ever.   

I've disagreed with other articles in The Green Life where they give advice.  Their research is done in a half-assed manner with very little journalism involved.  Is this the future of news gathering?  What about the articles I've read where I don't have the specialized knowledge to decide that the Sierra Club, or anyone else for that matter, are talking out their asses?

Today's Topic: Bacteria

So I was watching Mansbridge One on One on CBC this afternoon. (Foreigners please note, it is not "The CBC".)  He was interviewing Michael McCain, the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, about the Listeriosis disaster of last summer.  I was impressed by how McCain has always been very straightforward about what happened, and why.  He told Mansbridge that he listened to the company's lawyers, who told him to deny and point fingers and assign blame elsewhere.  He listened and then said, "I'm sorry, we're not going to do that."  He then made reparations and apologized countless times over the ensuing months, both in public and in private. He told Canadians how he was going to do his best to make certain this wouldn't happen again, and then did those things he said he was going to do.  He also told us the real truth, which is that there are no guarantees that bacteria won't ever show up in our food, no matter what we do.

Why can't more people be like that?

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While watching Mansbridge a commercial came on for Lysol.  That alone is weird enough, given the subject matter, but I found the commercial unsettling.  It depicts a boy with a teddy bear waking up in the morning and going about his day, with his mother escorting him through the city on a bus ride and to the park.  When the mother gets home, she sprays his teddy bear with Lysol.  She then sprays his shoes and his mattress.

What the blue fuck, Mom?  Are you some kind of germophobic freak?  Your kid needs exposure to bacteria to build his immune system!  You're going to destroy his liver by spraying him and everything he touches with chemicals?  You bitch!  No wonder we have superbugs - he went to the park and you practically threw him in an autoclave!  That kid's gonna have issues.

Splat!

I just finished reading an interesting article in last month's Esquire about James Brown's estate and what  a clusterfuck it is.  Among other things, his last mistress mentions that he liked to have sex with her when she was covered in Vaseline, greased "like a porkchop" as it were.  This reminded me of something I read about Hugh Hefner:  He also likes to get it on with girls that are oiled head to foot.

No woman in the world would ever request this practice, right?  This is about as pure a male fantasy as I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty.  Being an exceptionally practical person, I could only think about the 2-hour long post-sex shower and how much Borax I would have to use on my sheets.  I also wondered how Brown & Hefner would ever be able to get any traction, never mind the necessary amount of friction to...well never mind the rest.  Suffice it to say, I'm perplexed.