New Clear Vision

On Brand Names and Mass Graves…

by Robert C. Koehler

Cheap clothes! Their cost, as it turns out, is beyond calculation.

“Babul Mia said he identified his wife Mariam Begum, 25, who was apparently burnt beyond recognition, but he could identify her bangles and her small teeth,” reported Bangladesh’s main English-language newspaper, The Daily Star.

“Zahera Begum, who worked on the fifth floor of Tazreen Fashions, too, was identified by her husband Iqramul from her nose ring, bangles and necklace.”

So a fire swept through a sweatshop in Bangladesh on Nov. 24, killing at least 112 people, nearly half of whom were unidentifiable and buried in a mass grave. (more…)

From Rosa Parks to the ‘Walmart Four’

by Will Wilkinson

It was a real Rosa Parks moment on January 13 in Layton, Utah, when Walmart staff caught a convicted felon shoplifting a Netbook. They escorted him into an office where he pulled a gun, cocked it, and charged towards them. The four longtime Layton branch employees (Lori Poulsen, Justin Richins, Shawn Ray, and Gabriel Stewart), acting instinctively, disarmed him before he could barge back into the customer area. The investigating police officer reported that they acted in the “best interest and safety” of everyone around them.

A week later, Walmart dispatched a representative trained to handle situations like this with their well-known sensitivity. “You’re fired,” she told them. (more…)

Walmart, Food Deserts, and Genuine Sovereignty

by Devon G. Peña

Let us begin with a “defining moment,”  courtesy of the Oxford World Dictionary:

Commissariat (kɒmɪˈsɛːrɪət)

Definition: chiefly Military department for the supply of food and equipment.

Origin: late 16th century (as a Scots legal term denoting the jurisdiction of a commissary, often spelled commissariot): from French commissariat, reinforced by medieval Latin commissariatus, both from medieval Latin commissarius ‘person in charge’, from Latin committere ‘entrust’

How does this relate to the news cycle? Well, on January 20, Walmart announced plans to reformulate the ingredients of their in-house or private brand processed foods. An estimated 60 percent of the company’s annual grocery revenues are currently tied to the sale of processed food items. It is therefore expected that this formula change will place pressure on other private suppliers to follow suit. (more…)