Frequent visitors (assuming there are any) will notice that I haven't updated this blog much over the last several months. There are a series of reasons for this -- I have two part-time jobs, I'm moonighting as a translator, I've joined a band, and I'm building a media consortium to put on multipartisan political debates. Also, my girlfriend and I are about to go visit Venezuela.

However, October is fair-trade month, and I can't let that slide. My friends at Just Coffee are putting on "Deep Fair Trade Month," which represents the cutting edge of what fair trade can and should be. At the end of the month, they are bringing a prepresentative of La FEM up to Madison, and I will be her interpreter.

TransFair USA is also holding some special events for Fair Trade month. Their press release is attached.

It doesn't look like I'll be updating this blog a lot. I will, however, post things from time to time. Also, I'm always available on email if you have news to share with others interested in fair trade. And don't worry, I'm still still promoting fair trade actively in other ways. I hope you are, too.

These products are 75% elephant poo.

It appears they're not kidding.

Rachel Cope writes in... "I'm part of BuyWell out of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Basically, our idea took root a little over year ago with the ambition of introducing Fair Trade coffee and other products into the mainstream by absorbing costs. Acting as a bridge between the farmer and consumer, we measure our success by the number of people we bring out of poverty. Forgoing the traditional corporate model we are starting with an almost non-existent marketing budget, we pay our CEO 10 bucks an hour and buy our office furniture at the local thrift shop in order to provide great Fair Trade Organic coffee to our consumers at the lowest prices possible. There's ten of us in the office and over one hundred volunteers throughout the US. After a year of working to promote the fair trade movement and our unique company model we have sold one million dollars of stock, and will begin selling our artisan fair trade coffee by August 1.

"During this pre-production phase we figured it's prime time to network with like-minded, forward-thinking people and organizations. Our website is currently being re-designed and over the next month we hope to link up to other socially-responsible websites to embolden our collective movements. So, give us a visit at buywell.org!

"We appreciate your good work and hope to hear from you soon."

Editor's note: Be sure to check out their page where they explode neoliberal myths about fair trade, something I've been meaning to get to for ages.

I've already been back from the Social Forum for a week, and not managed to find time to write up what I saw -- until now.

I was there primarily as an interpreter, so I was actually working most of the time. I also unexpectedly met up with friends I made during my years in Nicaragua, so I made a point of spending time with them. I did, however, spend some time wandering through the various tents, and even made it to several workshops.

I leave on Tuesday to go to Atlanta for the US Social Forum. I am part of the core interpreting team, but I will also be a participant. Everything at the USSF is important, but here are the two tracks I'll be focused on:

The Democracy track. My friends in Liberty Tree are sponsoring an entire Democracy Tent to encourage participation in the Democracy Track, which is all about making voting into what most people believe it already is. I've written at some length on this at my other blog.

The Solidarity Economy track. The solidarity economy is another name for counter-economics, or for fair trade. This is so inspiring to me that I am pasting in their entire announcement:

In my morning e-mail this morning, I got the news that Wondwossen Mezlekia of Coffee Politics is taking it to the next level. After eight months of blogging on the dispute between Ethiopia and Starbucks and contextual issues of fair trade in coffee (mostly emphasizing Africa), Wondwossen is launching Coffee Monitor. The idea is collect and then disperse all available information about coffee. There is no mention of fair trade on the About page, but

Pachacuti means "world upside-down" in Quechua. They are a company that makes Panama hats in Ecuador ("Panama" is a style) and sells them in the UK. I generally avoid promoting organizations on the other side of the pond, but this place seems unique, as far as I can tell. It might even make me reconsider my long-standing tradition of not wearing hats.

Here's a new website on fair jewelry. Actually, it's as much an advertisement for one company as it is information clearinghouse, but that's OK. Exactly what makes jewelry fair is a bit vague, though they do say that a gem must be proven not to be a blood gem. Also, they provide a list of questions to ask your jeweler.

At the moment, I am working three jobs, with a bit of moonlighting to fill in any remaining cracks. I also go to Green Party meetings, the occasional Wobbly get-together, and am gearing up to be on the translating team at the US Social Forum. But, if I had any spare time, here's what I'd be reading:

I'm not entirely sure why, but Kiwis seem to like my Free and Fair article. This time, the good people at Celsias are reprinting the whole series, one article per day. They were nice enough to give me several days to touch them up, so if you liked the originals, I hope you'll like the updates even better.

Naturally, I checked out the site before I sent them my stuff, and was very encouraged by the depth and scope of their articles. They focus primarily on the environment, which I don't, at least not on this blog. It is, however a concern of mine (note the color scheme here), and I don't consider fair trade and ecology to be isolated from each other. Indeed, environmental care is one of my criteria for fair trade. So, it's a good fit, and I'm inspired to start writing like that again.