New American Paradigm

Starbucks Economy Update

A while back I talked about Starbucks being the proverbial canary in a coal mine with respect to the health of our economy.  To me it seemed the most obvious example of conspicuous consumption that represented our debt driven economy, and the place where newly stingy Americans would cut back drastically.

Well it turns out I was onto something.  Check out this graphical illustration of Starbucks store closures around the country from just the last year:

Iran Students Teach Us About Freedom

Some pretty important people have died recently.  You might have even noticed it on your evening news or splashed across your favorite blog.

No, not Michael Jackson or Steve McNair (if you don't know who he is your husband will.) 

I'm speaking of Neda and other more anonymous protesters, mostly young people, who continue to give their lives in defense of freedom in Iran.

Neda's death hit us all particularly hard.  She's a strikingly beautiful young woman, and like a lot of young Iranians, torn between tradition and western style wearing jeans and makeup under her hijab.  She can be seen laughing and smiling while chanting with her fellow students in a video taken before the shot came that took her life.  We know her name from her music teacher who is heard crying her name after she was shot in cold blood.

Global Warming Costs Illustrated

If there is one thing I hope to accomplish one day with this blog, it's convincing a few people that their simplest choices can have devastating consequences for someone somewhere else in the world.

For example, the mining practices used in Africa to power our laptops and cell phones probably resulted in someone's death.  Either the minerals are used to fund wars the way West Africa diamonds once did, or the environmental protections are so lax that people are poisoned or simply driven from their homes.  If consumers agreed to pay just a little more, computer makers could pay more for the material and therefore afford more environmentally sound practices.