rad in red.

I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.

My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.

I’m a wildfire and disaster logistics specialist.

I deal with a lot of agencies who provide disaster relief.

I used to say the Salvation Army’s disaster services were the one (literally the ONE) good thing they did.

They would come in, set up a canteen trailer, make and pass out hot coffee and donated food in a disaster, usually being one of the first agencies to get there and the last to leave.

Then I found out.

Every time they did this, regardless of if they were actually invited or deployed by the agency in charge (usually FEMA, sometimes others) they would SELF-DEPLOY. Meanjng they would just show up. Ok. That’s not TOO bad, sometimes agencies have to take initiative and get there before the red tape is sorted out. BUT. They, after they left at the end of the incident, they would send FEMA or the host agency a BILL. They used one or two paid employees (usually the driver of the truck and a supervisor); and many VOLUNTEERS, but they would bill for EVERYONE’s Labor at standard federal rates. They would bill for the food they distributed even though it was all donated by another agency or private parties. They would bill for the coffee they made and the supplies. Except they would use electricity from the shelter location, water from donations or from the shelter, and in many cases, they would get the coffee and industrial filters DONATED, but bill for them at retail prices.

another thing to consider is health. nail polish and other similar product fumes are incredibly unhealthy to inhale, let alone highly regularly. people also chew on their nails, eat with their fingers, etc. and because nail polish isn’t a consumed product, we have no idea about if there are any effects of constantly consuming those chemicals for many years. not only that, but because nail polish has bare contact with your body for long periods of time (your nails are still part of your bare body, keratin can absorb. also, it still touches the skin around it), your body can absorb some of the chemicals in it, which include endocrine disruptors, toluene, formaldehyde, and many more chemicals known to have profound health effects and can cause anything from allergic skin reactions to hormone issues to increase risk of cancer.

and finally, we cannot forget that all of these effects are a hundred fold for the poorly paid workers (vast majority women) who manufacture, mix, and package these nail polishes. working with such toxic chemicals has horrific long term effects for them, even if they’re lucky enough to have some safety equipment. and then, all the animal testing for the vast majority, the environmental pollution, etc etc.

and also, i found studies after this stating that your nails and skin absorb the chemicals from nail polish, many of which are endocrine disruptors and even carcinogenic. both of those are build-up toxins, it’s the constant using, even in small amounts, that causes the damage. so, the occasional one for like an occasion would be fine, but yeah.

like women can’t even die in a way that doesn’t exist to turn men on

Amazon and Audible made it into their policy that you can return ebooks and audiobooks and get a full refund.

They actively promote this, making their book shop into a book lending service, de facto a library you subscribe to. That's their business plan to encourage subscribtions.

The dirty thing, however, is that Amazon and Audible are making the authors pay for each refunded item. They will detract money, income, royalties, from the authors' account. They're not hurting from the refund, the author is.

Look, no-one is saying you're not allowed to return an item if you've read the first 50 pages or listened to the first 45 minutes. Maybe the style is not your thing. Maybe you don't like the narrator's voice. Maybe the quality of the writing drops severely after chapter three. Go ahead, if the product is bad, return it.

What I'm talking about is that no one should be able to listen to a ten-hour audiobook or read through nearly an entire novel and still get a refund.

Most of the readers don't know who's paying for this business plan. It's not Amazon and Audible, they're still keeping your subscription money. It's the authors.