2007 October archive at The Silver Tongue Show

Archive for October, 2007

Oct

Coldcut’s on the mix!

By Madsnail 0 Comments

Categories: Music

I’ve found the on the Ninja Tune website some links to three videos from Coldcut @ the Eurockéennes de Belfort this year.
As usual with Coldcut, there’s a lot of VJing and visual effects with their music.
A hip-hoppy first part with MC Juice Aleem, mixed with Hendrix and AC/DC. Those Coldcut guys are crazy!

The second part, not any saner than the first. Humphrey Bogart can be seen with some bits of Blade Runner and C3PO.
Oh and remember how they mixed the theme from Peter and the Wolf 10 years ago? Well they’ve done it again with the jazzy theme of King Louie from the Jungle Book animation movie.

The third video: utterly out of control!
Blair, Bush, Chirac, Nixon with Tintin and even Pierre Richard for a loud D’n'B version of “Revolution”. The lunatics have taken over!

Oct

Fair trade? Who says?

By Madsnail 0 Comments

Categories: Politics

There’s a very, very interesting article on Le Monde Diplomatique about Max Havelaar and the development of fair trade.
It’s called “Max Havelaar ou les ambiguïtés du commerce équitable”. Unfortunately it’s only available in French, if I’ve got time I’ll translate bits of it into English.

Have you ever noticed that now a majority of coffee and tea you find at your supermarket are labeled “Fair Trade” and have the Max Havelaar logo on it? It’s literally exploded during the last five years.
Have you ever wondered why, with so many fair trade products now being sold, the situation of poor peasants in developing countries hasn’t improved significantly?
What do you think of McDonald’s or Starbucks, two companies that have dubious social practices, selling fair trade coffee?
If you’ve asked yourselves these questions, then this article is for you.

The article is quoting the CEO of Leclerc, one of the biggest supermarket chains in France:

Fair trade is just an emerging market segment. With bigger volumes, producers will be able to squeeze their production costs, thus allowing us to increase our margins.

This is surprisingly eloquent, especially coming from this CEO and that sort of confirms the feeling I’ve got when I’m in the coffee/tea alley at the supermarket: spurred by “charity coffee” businessmen, fair trade has quickly become the trade of fair…

Oct