I love toys you never thought you “needed” until you actually owned them, like having heated seats in a car. The Apple iPad strikes me as being one of those toys. Do you ever wonder how different the world would be if, instead of buying expensive toys we don’t actually need, we invested the money for the benefit of the truly needy? Apple expects $4 billion in revenues from the iPad, but I wonder how many homes, schools and sewer systems $4 billion would build in, say, Haiti, Africa or New Orleans?
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
Quotation from Mother Teresa
Life’s pretty good, and why wouldn’t it be? I’m a pirate, after all.
Quotation from Johnny Depp
A great post Sera…and wonderful, lovely words form Mother Tresa! I love love love it:)
heated seats in a car? oooh i didn’t know about those…… (love your photo today Sera)
Oh Sera, to be so evolved …we wouldn’t need to hide behind masks. love it!
yeah, it’s so stupid, we can’t afford food, but our car has heated seats, poverty and wealth are contiguous worlds….. awesome post sister!!!
Hi Sera
After sustained economic growth we still in Australia revere the “Aussie battler” as Political parties vie for middle class welfare (rather than to help the genuine poor) to provide help for the ‘’ battler “which serves to perpetuate a myth driven by materialism.
Notwithstanding pockets of hardship the overall trend is to accommodate overconsumption so that people feel they haven’t enough for the necessities in life which often turn out to be simply overconsumption. Average households have fallen from 3.3 in the seventies to 2.36 today yet the size of houses has grown on average from 115 square meters to 221 today. All of that extra space has to be filled up with furnishings, large entertainment systems and other toys. We continue to buy the big houses we can’t afford.
Until fairly recently I think the same trend would be very evident in the USA..
Best wishes
The iPad was just released here in Canada yesterday. Some people lined up for twelve hours to buy one. Lordy. What does this say about people’s priorities? Nothing good. Toys/material possessions seem to take precedence over everything else.
You could start a new fashion trend with that eye patch in the photo. My cellphone came with two games, but they were ‘trial versions’. I didn’t like one, but the other I played a lot, but the trial is limited to the first level which only takes about 2 minutes to finish. So I contacted Verizon about registering the game. It was $3.99 to ‘rent’ the game monthly, or $7.99 to buy the game permanently. I quit playing and started just viewing photoblogs on my cellphone instead of playing games. I already had the game on xbox anyway, and could use the $3.99 for a burger instead.
Top dollar pun Sera and a point well made, though rather an ‘Eye’pad or even a footpad than a bomb.
I agree absolutely with your words, my friend. The Ipad and so on…
I don’t get the Ipad trend but again, I there are many trends that I don’t get. I find this life where we have to constantly spend on this and upgrade that tiring.
Love your idea – we really should invest in things that worth it like… I don’t know, education?
You are funny and thought provoking.
Very good point! And I was just thinking today how much I wanted an iPad. Would be great for sketching on the go, no need to bring both my notepad and my Wacom. Maybe will leave the buying to Santa this year…
Great quotes, too. So true, life as a pirate must be good…
Here, Here!!!
I like the eye pad work! Very nice and good thoughts also – nice perspective on what is important – I like the quote from Mother Teresa also! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
However, I tried the iPad and it is pretty cool for making blog comments!
I try to keep myself away from all this useless electronic paraphernalia. We truly do not need it. It took me until about 3 years ago to get a cell phone. I didn’t and still don’t really need it, it’s more about convenience. As far as donating to improving peoples condition goes i am all for it as long as it remains in this country. I am tired of all the organizations dedicated to helping everyone but our own citizens. And i mean CITIZENS! Not every damn illegal in this country. There are so few of them helping our own that i have just gotten sick of the whole thing.
There’s something seriously wrong about consumer culture once we consider whatever we do harms others. By merely having being born in developed countries, we have access to many things that we had no part in making – telephones, cars, i-pads, electricity, even running water, etc. These gifts of human ingenuity and invention don’t degrade our lives, but enrich and enhance us. What degrades us is our lack of concern for those unfortunate enough to experience poverty, hunger, and homelessness.
A funny comic to expose a real problem…
the geeks i know say, “yep, cool. Mac has done it again. big changes coming. but we’ll wait for the second generation before we buy one.”
shuffle, scuffle, bump, thud, rustlerustle, grunt, taptap…. just getting on my little soap box.
on what money can do…. the average home built by Habitat for Humanity in third world countries costs about 5 thousand, U.S. to build. that’s about 800,000 homes for iPad’s $4,000,000,000. too many 0′s for me… i start seeing spots. home ownership is the single most effective way of eradicating poverty.
k; i’ll get down and put the soap box away.
brilliant post. again. don’t know how you do it. you never get stale.
I am so behind the times, Seraphine. I have no clue what an iPad is! But I used to live with someone who needed all the latest gadgets and would buy them on the spot. I must add, however, that she gave her “old” gadgets to less-fortunate family members, and was generous in that regard. But still…my biggest pet peeve is how batteries and power cords, etc. become obsolete when an upgrade model comes along. We really do live in a throw-away culture and it makes me sick! (I love your way of bringing these things to our attention!)
I’m with you here. We have become a society of over-consumers…buying before thinking about what it is we really need to survive. Yes – wouldn’t it be nice if we could put all of that money and energy into building infrastructures in the countries that truly need it?? Thank-you for this wonderful reminder and post!!!
never fancied the iPad.. i do like the clever humor in your comic though.. ;D
lol i just had an organic salad with egg yolks, well and the rest of the egg, those are fake daisies so that’s why the centres look like egg yolks lol but your comment sure made me laugh, you gotta fight, for the rights, of egggggg yoooooolks, to the tun of the beasty boys song
oh my badness!!! stop!!!! you’re making my face ache from grinning too wide, that was sooo funny
Very artsy patch.
Lovely thoughts.
Very funny me hearty!
*I* can sing lalalala *all proud*