the everyday adventures of sabrina

what is labor day for, if not cleaning one’s home, throwing out acres of paperwork (or setting it aside to be shredded), and listening to political speeches?

actually, i’m really liking audible.com, which i signed up for last week after seeing an ad for them on salon.com, noting that free gifty swag for signup was a copy of “Jon Stewart’s America (The Audiobook).” which, i have to say, pretty funny. as noted previously, niqui <3 Jon Stewart.

today i’m listening to all the audible recordings of the RNC speeches, because i haven’t gotten around to it yet. it’s good background while sorting through old mail, because i can’t, say, read a book and listen to the audio at the same time, and so this makes me get off my ass and do the cleaning i’ve been putting off for ages. i decided saturday that my goal for the weekend was to make my desk usable once more, but so far — although i’ve tossed out a whole bag of junk, recycled more, and have a decent pile of to-be-shredded — i don’t think i’ve actually made much net progress. alas. such is the perpetual state of my life, i suppose.

oh well, back to laura bush. so far, i think cheney was the best speaker (yes, i’m listening out of order), but, you know, she’s not half bad either — though i really wish she’d quit saying “terra” for “terror.” so far, cheney’s the only one i’ve talked back to, which either speaks well of my comportment or poorly of my hope, i’m not sure which.

DivestTerror.org:

Premise: The economies of terrorist-sponsoring states are almost entirely dependent on the revenues, expertise and advanced equipment and technology provided by global publicly traded companies in which millions of Americans own stock. Accordingly, a basic premise of DivestTerror.org is that some, if not all, of these governments would likely choose to end their support for terrorism before suffering an economic collapse catalyzed by the withdrawal of these public companies.

Such was the experience in an earlier application of financial leverage — the South African divestment campaign. Pressed by the withdrawal of public companies whose share value and reputations were under withering attack by anti-apartheid activists, the government in Cape Town ultimately abandoned its racist policies and surrendered power.

Objective: To dissuade public companies from continuing to provide vital life-support (i.e., revenues, equipment, technology, etc.) to terrorist-sponsoring states, thereby forcing those governments to choose between their ongoing sponsorship of terrorism and an economic meltdown.

It is a little-known fact that some 400 large multinational and American corporations have demonstrated their determination to place profits ahead of ethical and terrorism-related concerns. That calculation must be changed.

Slate opines:

While shareholder activists will surely welcome this new recruit to their cause, there are glaring omissions in Gaffney’s report. Of the 400 companies, it names only a dozen—including Alcatel, Hyundai, Siemens, and Total SA. Every one of the dozen is a foreign company, and each is in unquestioned compliance with its home government’s laws and regulations. Gaffney’s report tiptoes around the sleaziness practiced by American companies—including some with strong GOP ties such as Halliburton. While Gaffney’s report mentions that several U.S.-based companies conduct business with rogue states—especially Iran—it never names names of those companies or enumerates the holdings of pension funds in them. It only singles out foreign firms.

Despite U.S. sanctions against terror states, a loophole in the law permits American companies to conduct operations in countries like Iran through foreign-based subsidiaries. Some public pension funds have already been making a stink about U.S. firms—and naming their names. Last spring, I wrote about how the pension fund representing New York City policemen and firefighters was pushing shareholder resolutions to get Halliburton, General Electric, and Conoco Phillips to reconsider doing business in Iran. In one instance, the pressure worked. In February, Conoco Phillips pledged to New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. that it would not start any new business in a sanctioned country.

But others have continued to resist. General Electric defended its Canadian subsidiary, General Electric Hydro, which works in Iran. For 16 years, Iranian Hamkar Machine Co. has been the exclusive dealer of Caterpillar products in Iran. (It has an agreement with Caterpillar Switzerland.)

i second slate’s note that it’s annoying that they only provide the names of twelve targeted companies, despite claiming many more. they apparently ran their data past the Conflict Securities Advisory Group‘s risk analysis software — see below — in order to obtain the assessments. CSAG did the determination of who supports, etc. terrorist states. their web site is also not very helpful in telling me what companies are the criticized ones. if i had $12,500 i could pony up for the software. sadly, i’m not a fund manager, just an ordinary consumer, which makes it a bit hard to answer the DivestTerror call without more information.

The CSAG “Monitor” software blurb:

This on-line service provides detailed profiles of those publicly-traded companies worldwide that have operations in — or ties to — six terrorist-sponsoring states, as designated by the U.S. Department of State (i.e., Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Libya).

interestingly, i used to be invested in the IMRF — one of the retirement plans that comes up in the state-by-state report, claiming that they have a 34% exposure of the fund to companies which do business with or have ties to terrorist states — as a public-school employee of new trier township HS district 203.

so i’ve been scouring chi.forsale and craigslist for a little bookshelf, something to put my printer and reference books on. nothing very special, really — in fact, i really really regret having given away all three of my folding wooden bookshelves in my spring pre-move giveawayathon, because one of those would be perfect for me. (which was why i had them in the first place! sigh!) anyways, i’m not looking for anything special, just something sturdy and with a flat top to put my printer on, mostly. you’d think *someone* would be getting rid of one, somewhere. i’m not even really hoping for free, although that would be nice . . . someone, somewhere must have a little shelf that doesn’t work for their decor that they want to get rid of for $15 and i’ll pick it up?

i don’t want to buy a new one, because the only new ones that i like are expensive, and i can’t afford expensive, so i don’t want to pay new prices for something decent that i’m not actually going to like.

somewhere, someone else must be waiting for the right moment to post their bookshelf they’re getting rid of, in a style i’d like . . . right?

meanwhile, i’m going to give away bill’s old coffee table that he gave to me, to a new grad student who just moved to hyde park with “only what would fit in a honda civic.” so i am definitely doing my part to keep the free furniture flowing.

sigh. damn, i really should have kept one of those shelves!