Paris Metro Exit

Paris Metro Exit, originally uploaded by tupbebek.

missing

this blog has been slowly bleeding to death since i've left Turkey, and i'd be happy to let it except for the fact that modern narratives tick-tock, and that means i have to write some sort of closing. my sparring with the concept of social entrepreneurs and Bono's cronies isn't a satisfying enough ending because this blog was never about such things.

in extension, i have a few things to share. first, new (new to you, a few months old to me) pictures are forthcoming here. second, i've started this thing as a more suitable place for the stuff i want digitally published, which, for the moment, is a collection of quotes from books that i'm reading. in the future, it might be pictures, my own writing, or sublime and flaming computer monitors.

nearly six months removed from my life in Turkey, i miss the ease and availability of non-prepackaged adventure. i also miss being struck by a daily strangeness that forced me to ask questions and justify my way of living. it was those constants that allowed me to write here. perhaps when/if i get back to Turkey or abroad, i'll start up a sequel to this blog. for now, farewell.

-tb

RED(iculous) responds!

simply because my humble blog mentioned bono and his deceptive advertising campaign as bloated and inefficient, i got this carefully written response/advertisement/propaganda from their PR department:

I saw your post and wanted to correct a comment you made about (RED).

In just three years, (RED) has generated more than $135 million for the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. 100% of this money is put to work in Global Fund-financed AIDS grants in Africa — no overhead is taken out. This is actually the opposite of ‘bloated and inefficient’. (RED) is the largest private sector contributor to the Global Fund and ranks above many countries in annual contributions to this organization.

While you may not agree with the idea of ‘social entrepreneurship’, the fact is that this initiative works and has already helped fund programs that have reached more than 4 million people affected by HIV/AIDS in Ghana, Rwanda, Swaziland and Lesotho.

For more information on the real results of this effort, visit www.joinred.com

Julie
(RED)

FOUR REASONS WHY (RED) IS RIDICULOUS FOR ISSUING THIS RESPONSE:

!1. nobody reads this blog. even if you type the title of this blog into yahoo, i don't make the top 80 listings (i stopped looking after that- for all i know i'm not in the top 1,000). i've had 65 hits this month, and that is probably the same 3 readers (thanks mom) refreshing the page. god only knows how many pages Julie had to sift through to find my post. it probably took her all day. thanks for the confidence booster, but yr wasting yr time.

!2. the fact that Julie spent all day sifting through blogs that refrence pesky facts about (RED) is more than enought proof that the company is bloated and inefficient when it comes to raising money for AIDS or to fight poverty. considering the readership number, this is obviously ineffiencent PR, and now I'm just judging the company by business standards, not against the agent for social change (RED) poses as.

!3. only a business that spends an absurd 100 million dollars in marketing for every 15 million dollars given in aide could dream of having enough wasted overhead to target a blog with 3 readers.

!4. it seems beside the point now, but i don't like being told that i'm corrected when Julie hasn't even answered to my critique. i'm not disputing that (RED) donates lots of money to AIDS and poverty. i was suggesting that it is bloated and inefficient to spice up crap white tee-shirts with the illusion that you are solving the world's problems. ("Buy RED, Save Lives" reads their website. A Gap billboard advertising (RED) asked "can a tank top change the world?") Bono could just send his money directly to the Global Fund if he wanted to be helpful, but then he wouldn't get to hire worthless PR representatives to litter my blog with advertisements. Bill Gates gave 650 million dollars straight to the Global Fund. he didn't waste hundreds of millions on billboards and models and packs of PR reps to patrol the blogosphere. he's so much cooler than Bono.

TOMS

i had a friend in Turkey working in social entrepreneurship. and i didn't and still don't know much about it, but i nonetheless found the phrase repulsive. entrepreneurship- that's the way McDonalds and Boeing and Microsoft started. investment bankers and insurance companies use that word. entrepreneurship is the start of fashionable consumption, that big waste bin of generated desire through advertising. social entrepreneurship is a glamed up version of the same model. instead of selling clothing linked to the arbitrary criteria of fashionable consumption, social entrepreneurs make products socially fashionable. selling products with guilt-free cards. in an age when we are aware of our limited world resources and of the dire poverty of 2/3 of the world's population, social entrepreneurs spin consumption as social justice.

Bono's product red is the best example of social entrepreneurship done wrong- his advertising dollars spent on the project far outmatch his contributions to fighting AIDS and poverty, making the project bloated and inefficient.

but Bono's company has been well critiqued. i haven't read much about TOMS or about the movement of social entrepreneurship itself (although, admittedly, i've only started looking into it). instead of continuing to flog Bono (and he does deserve a good floggin), i want to give 4 reasons to dislike TOMS. we'll start by checking out their "Movement" official philosophy:

OUR MOVEMENT

One for One

TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about.
Our Story

In 2006 an American traveler, Blake Mycoskie, befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need. One for One. Blake returned to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff later that year with 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by caring TOMS customers.

Since our beginning, TOMS has given over 140,000* pairs of shoes to children in need through the One for One model. Because of your support, TOMS plans to give over 300,000 pairs of shoes to children in need around the world in 2009.

Our ongoing community events and Shoe Drop Tours allow TOMS supporters and enthusiasts to be part of our One for One movement. Join us.
Why shoes?

Most children in developing countries grow up barefoot. Whether at play, doing chores or just getting around, these children are at risk.

Walking is often the primary mode of transportation in developing countries. Children can walk for miles to get food, water, shelter and medical help. Wearing shoes literally enables them to walk distances that aren't possible barefoot.

Wearing shoes prevents feet from getting cuts and sores on unsafe roads and from contaminated soil. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected. The leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted parasites which penetrate the skin through open sores. Wearing shoes can prevent this and the risk of amputation.

Many times children can't attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don't have shoes, they don't go to school. If they don't receive an education, they don't have the opportunity to realize their potential.

There is one simple solution...SHOES.

Of the planet's six billion people, four billion live in conditions inconceivable to many. Lets take a step towards a better tomorrow.

Reasons to Dislike TOMS from an ethical perspective:
!1. The model is inefficient in achieving the "movement's" mission goals. These cheaply made shoes can cost around 60 dollars. what can you do with 60 dollars to aide children in Argentina, Ethiopia, and South Africa? a lot. a lot more than give one pair of cheap canvas shoes. if consumers really wanted to help starving children, they should realize immediately that they could do more with 60 dollars then buy themselves another pair of shoes. A dated business weekly article says TOMS earned 4.6 million since its launch and has donated 115,000 shoes. (the math: 40 per shoe, 80 per pair). that looks like lots of waste and lots of profit for TOMS. "Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about." that's good business and really bad activism.

!2. There is no reflection on the root causes of poverty and suffering in the countries TOMS is supposed to be helping. The only problems mentioned above in the mission statement are the ones directly related to the product: "There is one simple solution... SHOES." No question not leading to shoes is asked. Why are those children in poverty in the first place? Why is their soil contaminated and their roads unsafe as the mission statement claims? The answers to those questions are not because the population lacks TOMS shoes, and so they are not asked. And so, the "movement" is clearly about selling shoes first, not about solving problems.

!3. Deception! Deception! what is TOMS and similar social entrepreneurial companies if not a more deceptive way to sell products then the standard advertising schemes?

!4. Capitalism is the base of TOMS and all for-profit social entrepreneurs (the for profit, non-profit distinction seems extremely important and i think it should always be made, but, then again, if it is non-profit then why use the unsexy term "entrepreneur" and all the filth associated with it in the first place?). if the root problems of Argentina, South Africa, and Ethiopia (the places where TOMS has been giving shoes to great fanfare and photo-ops) were examined then slavery, racism, colonialism, and capitalism would top the list. when you do your social activism via TOMS or other social entrepreneurs, any thought leading to these root causes is cut off by more capitalism (capitalism which, via some social critics, is the root cause for slavery, racism, and colonialism). the message is buy and be happy that you're solving all the world's problems. that's a deal for 60 bucks. pretty convenient, 100% deception.

footnote: i don't hate TOMS, the idea, anyone that buys them, or people that support this sort of thing. the founder says he puts into charity what others put into advertising. the charity becomes his advertising, getting him free representation in forbes, business week, with president clinton, and so on. that's fine and fine to buy the shoes if you know what you're doing. you aren't taking part in a social movement. you're buying fashionable philanthropy, but maybe that's better than plain fashion. i've listed my problems with the idea above and argue that these problems might outweigh the social good of a few thousand donated shoes. i fear that people buy the shoes and their interaction with struggling populations stops. i fear that we are coming to an age when consumption is the only viable reaction we have to injustice, and i know that that is a dead end.

the long tour, the last tour

information:
he is back from a long trip, emotional, beautiful, moving a distance, wheels on road and rail, now he may be home.

status of flow:
this blog may be closing, once musings are recollected, the long haul properly archived.

status of recollection:
resting, check back in a week.

newest and possibly last zaman article

here

i haven't really liked the travel writing, but it's an excuse to get into the newspaper.

bank robbery

my savings are 0's and 1's on a computer server somewhere in New York at JP Morgan Chase.

i have a few thousand dollars in Iş Bank of Turkey, paid to me by the U.S. State Department for my work as a teacher. some of it reimbursement for the two months i financed on my own while attempting to set up a bank account in Turkey for the US govt. to transfer money to.

to transfer that money back to the United States, where it started, i just paid 188 lira ($122). a few sheets of paper, 15 minutes of labor time, numbers rolling on servers in Istanbul and NYC.

"fee" is a self justifying linguistic nugget.

what are you going to do?

this was my third time in the bank, my third attempt to provide the right stream of numbers for the transfer to take place and only just before the transfer did that self justifying nugget appear.

the bank has the power in the situation. i'm given a few seconds to decide, customers rubbing close behind me, my gracious translator's time ticking away, the rolling eyes and exhalations of a frustrated bank clerk for whom "fee" is a magic and efficient explanation. don't hold up the teller. next customer.

what exactly am i buying with that $122? i would like someone to answer. the security of not having to transfer my bills physically. the ability to keep them in 0's and 1's, transferring through space-time as bits of heat precisely contained. how that is more comforting, i don't know.

what else are you going to do? that's all the bank has to count on when determining the fee of any transfer, hidden or otherwise. are you going to deal with customer service for an hour over a 5 dollar hidden fee? are you going to decide to take your wad of hundred dollar bills through 4 international airports with no insurance if something happens?

when the bank robs me my frustration is a crack in an otherwise seamless reality. on the other side are options full of creative justice.


no wonder we're so depressed.
no wonder we want to unleash by tossing bricks.

Today's Zaman

New Article here