Jean Factory Toxic Waste Plagues Lesotho

Lesotho makes it to the CBS Evening News on 2 Aug … but not in a good way. Gap and Levi co-star in Lesotho’s big break into mainstream news:

There’s a disturbing report today of dangerous waste being dumped by a plant in Africa which manufactures blue jeans for American consumers. Both Gap and Levi Strauss are investigating the alleged dumping at the plant in Lesotho in southern Africa, as CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports.

On the outskirts of Maseru, dozens of children – the poorest of the poor – scavenge at a huge municipal dump for anything useful – anything they can sell. A months-long investigation by the London Sunday Times found tons of illegally dumped waste from garment manufacturers including suppliers of major denim manufacturers Levi Strauss and Gap.

Full story: Jean Factory Toxic Waste Plagues Lesotho.

 

Where’s your oxygen mask?

Op-Ed Contributor – Till Children Do Us Part – NYTimes.com.

I was just perusing the NYTimes and noticed that the article above is currently the No. 1 Most Read article on the website. This particular op-ed piece is all about a recent study on the effect of children on a marriage … and the study has some pretty interesting things to say — I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

For me, both marriage and children are still a rather nebulous idea for the somewhat distant future, so what interested me most about the article is that it’s the No. 1 Most Read. I’m always fascinated by what captivates other people’s attention and why it might do so. With everything that’s happening in the global economy, with ongoing wars and disaster, with a lot of news from around a big, big world, why would this little op-ed on marriage and children be the No. 1 Most Read?

One could take a cynical view and say that marriage in America is so screwed up that people will grasp at any article that might explain away their problems. Or maybe it’s just nice to know that your marriage isn’t the only one that’s suffering. But I’d like to think the popularity of the article reflects what really matters to people. Sure, maybe there are a lot of things wrong with the way our society treats marriage and even children, but I’d like to believe that at the end of the day, spouses and children still matter more to a person than a job, a cratering economy, a club, the environment, whatever. Funny how our major news networks never really cover topics like this, huh?