The Much Needed Book Job

It's been a long time since I've related to and enjoyed an episode of The Simpsons (I didn't even get all the references in "The Food Wife" and that's saying something). I've always loved the show for it's social commentary and satire. Being a fan of ensemble heist films (Ocean's Eleven and The Italian Job top the list), and a writer, I smiled throughout the entire episode, "The Book Job".


I don't read young adult lit and I don't like vampires but I know everyone and their nephew's half-sister's neighbor's uncle's personal trainer is into vampires. I had flashbacks to the Book Expo America and the world of book junkies and author groupies. And I felt Lisa's pain when she realized who was receiving book deals and writing best-sellers (a dog? Tyra Banks?).

Made In Haiti

The Simpsons have always bitten the hand that's fed them and that opening sequence was the most visual, direct... biting  at 20th Century FOX that I can remember. There have been digs at anything FOX related throughout the series - 

• Homer and Marge go on a reality TV show, Mother Flippers, after winning a no-expenses paid trip to Fox Studios 
• After Kent Brockman gets fired for cursing on the air, Lisa encourages him to reveal how Fox news gets money to the Republican party by airing racy, tasteless shows on Fox Network.

Chime in with the ones you can remember, I'm drawing a blank...


Now back to the opening sequence. The images of workers deep in the "sweatshops" which resembled coal mines is too close to the truth. I thought about the Chilean miners and I thought about @TastyKeish. On the Friday before this episode of The Simpsons aired, I went to the 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks office to pick up my prize package for this contest I won (I'll get to that later). One of the items was a commemorative Michael Jackson T-shirt. I  looked at the tag to check the size and noticed it was a Hanes Beefy-T "MADE IN HAITI". I tweeted the info to TastyKeish and expressed that some of the same concerns she had popped into my mind as well. Were the workers treated fairly, working in safe conditions and paid a living wage? U.S. clothing companies are encouraged to source 1 percent of their clothing production from Haiti. Let's hope that doesn't give them license to take advantage of those they should be helping.


I did a very quick web search to see what I could read about "hanes beefy t made in haiti". There were message board comments about the shirts being made in Haiti and insults about "that should tell you about the quality", other people complained they couldn't get any answers from Hanes (Sara Lee) about their policies and practices. 


I also came across this tweet from @mattnedostup: 
Turns out my Hanes Beefy-T was made in Haiti, so it looks like I contributed to the earthquake relief effort after all!


Wouldn't that be great if it were totally true? There are t-shirts sold where the proceeds go to the Earthquake relief or in some instances you donate to the relief effort and get a t-shirt. According to Hanes, this is what they did do to help.