The Archer's Christmas Gift ideas
For those needing ideas for Christmas gifts but don't want to sell out to rampant commercialism, you might consider some of the fair trade ideas and businesses listed on The Ashram blog (Thanks to Kyle for digging this up). You will find an extensive list there. I am not giving warrant to the legitimacy of many of the links there, not because I have any particular reason to think any of those businesses are bad per se . I just am not familiar with a lot of them. That having been said, I will say that I do have some issue with how certain fair trade businesses are run. From an economic standpoint, I find their logic well intensioned but often flawed. Please don't misunderstand me on this point. I am not advocating that poor people should be ripped off or left to the mercy of economic powers beyond their control. But the problem I see (and I have had some first hand experience on this) that some fair trade organizations turn into liberal paternalism very quickly because they ar...