Filed under: Amazon, Organically Grown | Tags: Amazon, Amazon 2010, Amazon earnings, Amazon Holiday, Amazon.com, Holiday shopping, Jeff Bezos, organically grown
Amazon just released its earnings statements for the end of 2010. Sales for the year were $34.20 billion, a 40% increase of 2009. Holiday season sales totaled $12.95 billion! Founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos thanked his customers in a release. Organically Grown thanks Jeff Bezos and everyone at Amazon for hanging in there in the early days and for allowing us to be a very small part of your amazing story . The seeds you planted many years ago, are the fruit you bear today. We consider you to be part of our Organically Grown family and hope that we continue to grow together.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Organically Grown, Reasons to Buy Organic, Whole Foods | Tags: Dinner, Fish, Meat, organic, Tarzana, Vegetarian, Whole Foods, Whole Foods Tarzana
I had dinner last night at Whole Foods in Tarzana. Their salad bar offers some organic vegetables. I am excited to tell you about their new offering (if you are not a vegetarian). You can choose your own fish or meat and they will cook it for you at no extra expense. Whole Foods does not add the usual chemicals to fish and meats, so if you eat that kind of stuff, you can eat healthier than in most restaurants. In this way, it is a breakthrough, although you still have to navigate between organic and non-organic.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Organic, Organically Grown, Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Browner, Carol Browner, Carol Browner Resign, Climate, Climate bill, Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Energy, Enivornment, Global Warming, Obama, Politics, President Obama, State of the Union
While our nation’s politicians attended last night’s, “prom night”, the other story was Carol Browner’s resignation. As Obama’s energy czar, Ms. Browner was the President’s top adviser when it came to climate change and energy matters. Sadly, no comprehensive energy and climate bill addressing the threat of global warming has been passed into law during her term over the past two years. With Ms. Browner’s departure, it seems unlikely that there will be any movement on this issue of paramount importance. Most of the world’s top scientists have been warning us about climate change for decades, and now is the time to enact real change. As they campaign for votes and fight amongst themselves, our politicians have forgotten that we belong to the earth…the Earth does not belong to us. The threat of global warming is already a crisis, and environmental issues need to be an immediate priority for all politicians, regardless of their political affiliation.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Organically Grown, Reasons to Buy Organic | Tags: FDA, Healthy Foods, Michelle Obama, Wal-Mart
In July 2008, Wal-Mart, not the FDA, banned the chemical Bisphenol-A from being used in the plastic baby bottles sold on its shelves.
This week, again with no FDA intervention, Wal-Mart announced that they are requiring suppliers to reduce the sodium content of packaged food by 25%, and added sugars by 10%, as well as remove any industrially produced trans-fats. Although I try to avoid processed, canned, frozen, and non-organic foods, I can’t help but wonder how many lives will be saved by Wal-Mart’s bold decision.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Politics, Sergeant Shriver | Tags: Peace Corps, Remembering, Sergeant Shriver, Shriver
Yesterday, the world lost one of its greatest citizens, Sergeant Shriver. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and served as its first director. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps. Through the Peace Corps, American volunteers have served in over 77 countries. Shriver wanted the Peace Corps to be volunteer-driven, and for no one to serve more than five years, in order to keep it fresh and not be bureaucratic. Many of these volunteers will tell you that they joined the Peace Corps to do good by improving the lives of others. America and the world owe a lot to Sergeant Shriver. So many lives have been touched and enriched by the Peace Corps. Sergeant Shriver will be remembered. The dream is still alive.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Martin Luther King, Organic, Organic Cotton, Organic Cotton Farming, Organically Grown, Politics, Reasons to Buy Organic | Tags: Dr. Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream, Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike, MLK Day, organic, organic cotton, Organic Exchange, Organic Farmers, Promise of America, Textile Exchange
In my last blog, I wrote about the “Promise of America.” Today, we honor a man who embodied the potential of how great America can be: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Appealing to the moral decency in all of us, Dr. King showed us how change can occur without violence.
Dr. King’s final speech was in support of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike. The workers were being exposed to disease, making for very unsafe working conditions. Following King’s death, city officials resolved the strike, providing new protections to the city’s sanitation workers.
Being able to live and work in a healthy environment should be a basic human right. Just as the Memphis sanitation workers were subjected to poor working conditions, people around the world who work in conventional cotton production are subjected to hundreds of millions of pounds of pesticides each year, according to the Organic Exchange. Seven out of ten of these pesticides are on the EPA’s list of known, likely, or probable human carcinogens. By choosing organic cotton products, made without pesticides, we can make a difference in the quality of life for those farm workers.
Everyone should have the right to make healthy decisions, regardless of where they live or how much money they possess. Being able to choose organic products is an economic issue because they are generally more expensive. At Organically Grown, we try to provide our customers with fashionable organic cotton products that they can afford. We hope that as the demand for organic products grows, the price will continue to decrease – making them increasingly accessible to everyone.
Martin Luther King understood that environmental justice is social justice, and to truly celebrate his legacy, we need to listen to his words and work together towards his vision of a free, equal, and healthy America, and for that matter, the world.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Organically Grown, Politics | Tags: Alan Simpson, America, Barack Obama, Congress, Erskine Bowles, Orrin Hatch, Politics, President Obama, Ted Kennedy, Tucson, United States
America is a young nation. It has been called the Great Experiment. The promise of America is its freedoms, liberty and equality. This promise demands that we respect, or at the very least tolerate, the views and beliefs of others, even when they are not our own.
Orrin Hatch gave the most beautiful and emotional eulogy for his dear friend Ted Kennedy: Two great senators who, despite their huge ideological differences, became great friends and worked together for America. This often meant compromise, meeting somewhere in the center.
Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have come together warning our politicians to deal responsibly with the federal deficit or suffer the consequences. They came together as great Americans. Now Congress must heed their call.
Last night, President Obama asked each of us to find more respectful ways of doing politics. President Obama concluded in his speech in Tuscon, “I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.” He was asking us to respect each other’s opinions, listen to each other more carefully, and trust in America to form a more perfect union. That’s the promise of America.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Organically Grown | Tags: Amazon, Amazon Books, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan, Amazon UK, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bezos Birthday, organically grown, Zanart
Happy birthday to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
Sometime around 1994, my dad read a story about Jeff and Amazon in a Miami newspaper. My parents lived in North Miami Beach, near where Bezos attended high school. I phoned Jeff, trying to sell him some Star Wars lobby cards that my former company Zanart had manufactured. He thanked me for the phone call, but told me that he was just selling books. I said, “But Jeff, you have something really good going here, and I think you can sell more than just books.” He said that he agreed, and that he wanted to branch out into other products, but for the time being, he needed to focus on books. He thanked me for the phone call and my good wishes, and asked me to please stay in touch.
When the dot com revolution imploded, Jeff stayed the course and persevered, because he had an important service to offer the world. Many Wall Street folk watched to see if Amazon could make a profit.
Needless to say, Jeff and Amazon are now selling more than just books! They are even selling our Organically Grown’s products (in the US, UK, Germany, France, and soon Japan)…as well as a few other companies’ products. So happy birthday Jeff, and keep on rocking through the free world.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Cotton Articles, Cotton Industry, Organic, Organic Cotton, Organic Cotton Farming, Organically Grown | Tags: BCI, Better Cotton, Better Cotton Initiative, Genetically Modified Organisms, Genetically Modified Seeds, GMOs, organic, Organic Apparel, organic clothing, organic cotton, Organic Exchange, Textile Exchange
You may come across the Better Cotton Initiative. Reportedly, prominent companies are jumping on the Better Cotton Initiative bandwagon. According to the following link, http://assets.wwf.ch/downloads/qa_shortfacts_cotton.pdf, dated August 2009, the Better Cotton Initiative, at this time, included the use of cotton grown from genetically modified seeds. One can argue the benefits and detriments of genetically modified seeds.
At Organically Grown, we have nothing to do with the Better Cotton Initiative. When the BCI standard is organic, we will support their efforts. We are committed to providing our customers with 100% certified organic cotton, made without the use of pesticides and GMOs.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
Filed under: Emma Watson, Fashion, Harry Potter, Organic, Organic Cotton, Organically Grown, Reasons to Buy Organic, Uncategorized | Tags: Emma Watson, Harry Potter, organic clothing
Because of the blockbuster success of the Harry Potter franchise, Emma Watson has become a worldwide superstar at a young age. Even more impressively, Emma has used her celebrity for a higher cause and has shown concern for the planet by shining a spotlight on the importance of wearing organic clothing.
Much like the Harry Potter books enticed children who were busy playing video games to pick up a book, Emma is a role model to other young people who may not otherwise know or care about organic clothing options. At Organically Grown, we admire and thank her for her extraordinary efforts.
BY BOB STEIN, CO-FOUNDER OF ORGANICALLY GROWN
