Hasta La Gadget!

“At the same time, values and ideas which were considered universal, such as cooperation, mutual aid, international social justice and peace as an encompassing paradigm are also becoming irrelevant.”

Maybe this piercing observation by Roberto Savio, founder of the news agency Inter Press Service, is the cruelest cut of all. Geopolitically speaking, hope — the official kind, represented, say, by the United Nations in 1945 — feels fainter than I can remember. “We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . .”

I mean, it was never real. Five centuries of European colonialism and global culture-trashing, and the remaking of the world in the economic interests of competing empires, cannot be undone by a single institution and a cluster of lofty ideals.

As Savio notes in an essay called “Ever Wondered Why the World Is a Mess?,”: “The world, as it now exists, was largely shaped by the colonial powers, which divided the world among themselves, carving out states without any consideration for existing ethnic, religious or cultural realities.”

And after the colonial era collapsed, these carved-out political entities, defining swatches of territory without any history of national identity, suddenly became the Third World and floundered in disarray. “. . . it was inevitable that to keep these artificial countries alive, and avoid their disintegration, strongmen would be needed to cover the void left by the colonial powers. The rules of democracy were used only to reach power, with very few exceptions.”

Whatever noble attempts at eliminating war the powers that be made in the wake of World War II — Europe’s near self-annihilation — didn’t cut nearly deep enough. These attempts didn’t set about undoing five centuries of colonial conquest and genocide. They didn’t cut deeper than national interest.

And global peace built on a foundation of nation-states is an oxymoron. As historian Michael Howard noted in his book The Lessons of History (quoted by Barbara Ehrenreich in Blood Rites): “From the very beginning, the principle of nationalism was almost indissolubly linked, both in theory and practice, with the idea of war.”

All of which leads me to the $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive warplane ever built, or not quite built. The aircraft, designed by Lockheed, is now seven years behind schedule, but the Pentagon had planned to display its new baby this week at the Royal International Air Tattoo and the Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K. This debut has now been called off because the engine of one of the planes caught fire on a runway in Florida in June, and officials feared the problem was systemic.

In other words, it could happen again. It could happen at the airshow, with the jet’s prospective customers — Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and eight other U.S. allies — in attendance. Grounding it was a business decision. Indeed, it was a decision made at the delicate intersection of business and war.

“The setbacks follow a series of technical problems and development delays that have affected the F-35, one of the world’s most ambitious weapons programs, with estimated development costs of around $400 billion,” Nicola Clark and Christopher Drew wrote this week in the New York Times. “Analysts said the timing of the problems, just as Lockheed Martin was hoping to demonstrate the plane to prospective export buyers here, could not have been worse.”

What I found interesting — well, overwhelmingly depressing, actually — was the fact that this story ran in the Times’ International Business section. When Savio writes, “Attempts to create regional or international alliances to bring stability have always been stymied by national interests,” this may be what he’s talking about. National interests are business interests. In the mainstream media, this is simply a given.

And the ongoing setbacks and escalating cost don’t matter. The F-35 project is still going forward, even though, as Kate Brannen wrote recently in Foreign Policy, “over the course of the aircrafts’ lifetimes, operating costs are expected to exceed $1 trillion.”

The warplane’s supply of funding is inexhaustible, apparently. Congress is behind it all the way. And it’s hardly news. “Lockheed has carefully hired suppliers and subcontractors in almost every state to ensure that virtually all senators and members of Congress have a stake in keeping the program — and the jobs it has created — in place,” Brannen wrote.

Austerity is for losers. There’s always money to wage war and build weapons, indeed, to continue developing weapons, generation after generation after generation. The contractors are adept at playing the game. Jobs link arms with fear and patriotism and the next war is always inevitable. And it’s always necessary, because we’ve created a world of perpetual — and well-armed — instability.

The problem with the United Nations is that it’s a unity of entities defined by their hatred of one another and committed to the perpetuation of “the scourge of war.” We won’t begin creating global peace until we learn how to bypass nationalism and the single, unacknowledged agreement binding nation-states to each other: the inevitability of war.

– – –
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press), is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

© 2014 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, INC.

Last month, I had the honor of participating at the Quartz “The Next Billion” forum, an event gathering global leaders from innovative companies (including Facebook, IDEO, Amazon Web Services, to name a few) to discuss the implications of new technologies on the next generation. The interconnectedness brought by the internet is a fast-growing reality affecting all demographics. One segment worth attention is Latin America, and the online trends booming now among today’s generation. A look at the 2014 FIFA World Cup provides a snapshot of Latin America’s online voice and rise of the middle class, as well as amongst the growing Hispanic.

Brazilian World Cup Bringing People Together

The 2014 Brazil World Cup has just come to a close — the very first world cup in history to be part of the real-time era. Football (“el fút”) is of course huge in Latin America, and we’re not surprised that it’s especially big on social media.

According to CNN and Twitter data, the 2014 World Cup was the biggest social media event to date. This happened not only because Latin Americans are some of the most social-media-engaged in the world, but we also saw for the first time in history how the athletes themselves became part of the conversation. This recent infographic by Mediabistro, points to the fact that 3.6 billion people (or half of the world’s population) were expected to watch the World Cup teams, with the most Twitter followers for teams Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, with 1.46 million, 1.45 million and 823,000, respectively.

The same will inevitably hold true in the U.S., a country in which the word “Football” refers to a completely different sport. Yet, for the first time, the country was united by their US soccer national team; just check out this depiction of social media activity during the U.S. vs. Portugal match.

E-commerce in Emerging Markets – Latam’s place

Often, China and India (huge markets) and Africa (untapped potential) come to mind with the notion of e-commerce in emerging markets. There’s probably less general understanding of what Latin America represents. We can think about Latin America as a market of nearly half a billion people, with twice as much disposable income per capita as China — or four times that of India. Think about it as a fast-evolving middle class, and a young population (some countries like Mexico, Peru, Colombia have over 30 percent of their population under the age 15).

The World Cup showed the huge e-commerce potential and purchasing power in Latin America. Shakira, Nike and Samsung made a huge roar in ad time-not just during halftime; fans are watching the commercials on YouTube. Furthermore, a study by Mindshare reported that this year in Argentina, football fans watched the games on more than one screen — with more than half expected to watch on the internet and 21 percent watching from mobile devices.

Hispanic America(s)

With the growing number of Hispanics in the U.S., the Latin American market should be catching the eye of American companies. If it were a country, the Hispanic population in the U.S. would be the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. According to recent census figures, one of every four kids born today in the U.S. is Hispanic. In itself, the Hispanic market in the U.S. represents the 15th largest consumer market in the world. It should not come as a surprise then, that Univision, the Spanish language network with broadcasting rights for the World Cup, drew over 80 million viewers during the tournament.

Undoubtedly, having a better understanding of Latin America can offer a deeper understanding of the needs and wants of the U.S. Hispanic market. However this understanding is just half of the puzzle — it is a market that is both bilingual and bi-cultural. They watch fútbol and American football. They watched the World Cup with true passion, but will also never miss a Super Bowl or the World Series.

The White House on Thursday sent a message to companies that want to opt out of covering birth control, saying those employers are required to be transparent about their objections.

The Department of Labor updated its website to indicate that closely held for-profit corporations must include in their insurance plans “a description of the extent to which preventive services (which includes contraceptive services) are covered under the plan.” If the company chooses to opt out of covering any of the 20 contraceptives required by the Affordable Care Act, it has 60 days to disclose the change to its employees.

A senior administration official said the move was in response to the Senate failing to pass a bill Wednesday that would have required all for-profit employers, regardless of their owners’ religious objections, to cover the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraception in their health care plans. The bill would have overridden a recent Supreme Court decision that allowed Hobby Lobby, a craft supply company owned by evangelical Christians, to opt out of covering certain contraceptives to which the owners religiously object.

“Yesterday, a majority of the Senate voted for a bill to keep bosses from interfering in a woman’s health care,” the official said. “Now the House should act. In the meantime, we are making clear that if a corporation like Hobby Lobby drops coverage of contraceptive services from its health plan, it must do so in the light of day by letting its workers and their families know.”

There are no fancy bottles, no elegant or funky labels.  There’s not a celebrity face to be seen or multimillion dollar marketing campaign.  There’s just the juice.

“Juice” is perfume industry speak for perfume, the juice inside the bottle.

What happens when you strip away the packaging of a perfume, and invite people to judge the fragrance on its own merits?  You get the Fragrance Republ!c, a place where all perfumers, from scent superstars who make blockbuster commercial fragrances, to newbie perfumers just starting out, all on an equal footing to present juice of their own creation.

This is an artisan perfumery with no limits, no budgets and no focus panels.

You are free to like the scent or not.  It’s a fragrance republic after all.

Frangrance Republ!c (FR!) is the brainchild of co-founder François Duquesne, who, from 2002 to 2008 ran the niche scent company L’Artisan Parfumeur.  He says the idea came from both sides of perfume industry – the noses themselves and the consumers.  “One the one side you have perfumers that work for big fragrance houses like Unilever that make brands but they say we would love to work on projects that are more personal and not be constantly limited by creative directors,” he explains.  “But they say they are too small and don’t have access to the market.”  On the other hand, “we hear from the customer that fragrance is turning into a consumer good, but where is the craft and who are the artists?”

For François, the concept was clear.  He has that market access.  “Let’s start a project where whatever a perfumer submits that he or she considers whole and perfect develops without any outside creative direction,” he says.  That means giving the perfumer carte blanche on materials, composition and costs.  Instead of the brand, the perfumer is the focus.  Each month a new scent is released, along with the nose’s bio and photo.

Sounds a lot like Editions de Frederic Malle, no?

No.  The difference is that every month one perfume from the featured perfumer of the month is sent to citizens (at the Patrician and Senator membership levels), in a small, 15 ml size to try out, live with to see how it develops on your skin and comment on.  You don’t get to choose which fragrance, so you may or may not love it.  The hope is of course you will, and that you will buy more from the FR! website.  If you don’t care for the scent, share it with another fragrance fan.

Another difference, these are perfumes never released to the marketplace.  You can’t even buy them directly from the individual perfumers.  They are exclusive to FR!

“We call it a fragrance republic because consumers have to have direct access to the scents,” François says.  “For consumers to discover the true craft of perfumery it has to be something that comes on a regular basis.”

You could say FR! is a perfume club.  While there are similarities to a wine of the month or cheese of the month club, there are more aspects that make FR! unique.  François knew he wanted interaction between members, called “citizens” and the perfumers making the scents.

Citizens get the first sneak peak, or sneak sniff, of each scent.  They are invited to perfume release parties and master classes with the featured perfumers and also can interact online with the noses.  

At the Senator level of membership you can actually become a perfumer’s muse and have a hand (or a nose rather) in developing the next new scent.  You can even submit a brief for a scent you’d like to have created.

Senators and Patricians also participate in voting on fragrances for release.  While each perfumer does have free reign, he or she must first submit their scent for review by the Senators and Citizens and a group that includes fragrance industry insiders, experts and writers, who can reject a perfume for not being innovative enough or too similar to what’s already out there.

In addition to Patricians and Senators, you can also be a Freepeople, which means you don’t get the monthly perfume samples, but you don’t pay a subscription either.  You do have access to buy any of the perfumes once they are released, can rate perfumes and can attend events for a fee.  And, FR! just started offering free samples of up to three perfumes (shipping is $5).

To date, eight fragrances have been released since FR! launched in October 2013.  Each perfume is sent out directly from the lab, in a plain bottle with a plain white label.  The perfumes are named only by numbers, such as 01/01 and 01/05.  The most recent release is 01/08, by Jean-Christophe Hérault.  The perfumer’s names are on the side of the bottle.

It’s an interesting experience to try a perfume stripped of fancy packaging.  You just have the pure juice to judge.  I liken it to tasting wine blind.  You don’t know the cost or the producer.  All you have to go on is the wine in the glass.  With FR! all you have to go on is the perfume on your skin.

But François points out that by learning a little about the nose behind the label and the way the fragrance is made gives you a better appreciation for the craft and the perfume itself.  He feels the perfume industry creates mystery, having you think Georgio Armani created that scent himself, instead of a nose at a fragrance house.  He says FR! is all about making perfumer creations accessible and acknowledging the real artists.

01/01 was created by Nathalie Feisthauer, a blend of bergamot, pear, iris, lily of the valley and saffron which makes this a very intriguing scent with an interesting dry down.  01/02 is one of my favorites, bursting with rose, tuberose and chocolate, made by Julie Massé.  You don’t often see rose and tuberose together, and never done this well.  “Julie is a very young perfumer and we gave her a chance,” says François.  “She came up with such a simple idea saying all these white floral scents are so heavy.  She wanted to do something light, and she did.”

Scent 01/03 is fun, with a note of the mojito cocktail in it, a creation of Cécile Matton.  “Cécile wanted to play with the mojito alcohol as her secret weapon,” François says.  “It’s fun and we released it for the holidays.”

Amélie Bourgeois created 01/04, a rich fragrance with mandarin, jasmine, mimosa, sesame and tonka bean.  “Amélie is very interesting because she is not a well-known perfumer,” François says.  “She’s a teacher at ISIPCA, the perfume school at Versailles.  She started her independent project to show she is also a perfumer.”  Co-founder Bradley Skaggs says her master class was one of the most memorable so far at FR!  “She basically has 35 ingredients in her perfume and she brought 22 of them with here, so we just tried every ingredient.”  Imagine having access like that to the raw materials in any perfume.

So far there are 800 members worldwide.  I met up with François in San Francisco on his launch of the line here.  He is looking to develop a global network of local FR! chapters.  “What is most important is the human interaction,” he says, “so you can have the opportunity to have the perfumer of the month come for a master class, or go on local perfume maker visits, or just gather to enjoy the next fragrance.”  It’s the emotional connection that interests François the most.

I can’t wait for the San Francisco chapter to get going.

Some people turn trash into money (tote bags sewn from discarded juice packs, for instance.) Then there are those who find ways to turn death into life. Not the raising-from-the-dead type of things, because that’s obviously impossible, but the green type of transformation, such as the one that happens with the Bios Urn.

It’s a biodegradable urn that lets you remember your late pet the way Mother Nature would want you to: celebrating its life by bringing about new life. Store your pet’s ashes in the biodegradable urn, then fill the top capsule with soil from the area where you plan to plant it before adding the seed. The latter’s design facilitates the seed’s germination, with the ashes helping the tree to grow since ashes contain phosphorus (which, in turn, is a fertilizer.)

The Bios Biodegradable Urn kit is available from Firebox with an Aleppo Pine tree seed for $111(USD), but you can choose a larger selection of trees directly from the manufacturer.

[via This Is Why I’m Broke]