Lance and a Bunch of Fixies
 

Check out the new nike add. www.nike.com/wearyellow/seelanceride/main.html

HEY!! That's in SF!!! (i think)

very emotional. very nice.

It looked like Seattle to me but it's been awhile.

Lance rocks, too bad the US Postal won't sponsor anymore, how stupid is that? Of all the government money that was some of the BEST spent! As for Nike, they can kiss my ass, I won't buy any products that exploit their workers like that.

Born in Seattle
lived in S.F. For 35 Years

It's S.F. Trust me. They don't have cable cars in Seattle.
Fixedgearhead

did you see the cadence those fixies had trying to keep up?

The fixies were a nice touch, but I really liked the end where the football-helmet-wearing-bmx-kid is sucking Lance's wheel.

I liked that part too. I have been seeing the commercial aire here on various channels now. I wonder how much of the general public understand the subtlety of that last scene. Hmmm... or any of them for that matter.

Yeah -

I think the kid on the BMX takes the prize. The real question is what is that bulging out of Lance's jersey pocket in the last shots - his endorsement check?

Probably none. It was what I liked too... thought maybe all those miles riding meant that the kid was finally able to keep up.

Does Nike even make bike shoes? I thought it was all about basketball.

Nike has a whole cycling line, including way over priced italian shoes. I don't even think they make that much money [ed. comparatively speaking] off of B-ball these days. Instead, it's all about Tiger.

Whats this all abooot?

Yup. That S.F. A few runs through and I could tell.

Is that Lucklust or ephermalskin in the pack? I bet they made loads off it.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/apr98/debunking.html

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...2/edmonton.htm

http://www.forbes.com/2001/02/22/0222disasternike.html

I could go on and on....

actually I think Nike makes most of it's money right now off of their re-vamped reissued vintage stuff...supposedly they were going ape **** because kids wanted their reissued jordans rather than their $150 hi tech new style basketball shoes.

Could be cocaine-cola too... http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/04/1678261.php

All the US companies are doing it. If you haven't been watching that new PBS show Colonial House, there was a black man that was a 'free' man - just indentured to pay off his debt on it. He realized that from where things were in the 1600's it was a really easy slide to realize that you couldn't really expect a poor person to work for almost no wages - much better to buy a person.

Now the companies that financed buying America (or their bastard children) are buying our government and using it to take over other countries where they are desperate enough to accept the wages. The problem is - a lot of the people that work in the factories know they are being ripped off, so they try to do what America did and create unions. But then they get killed by governments that the US government supports.

When I read the news I really hate this planet.

When I ride my bike I really LOVE this planet.

yeah even better than cash, we all got nylon fanny packs and glossy promos signed by lance of his surgery photos where they stitched a little swoosh on his scrotum. on the back they say 'nike and cancer, together we make martyrs happen' (tm).

actually i currently live in eugene, or. home of the university of oregon and its numerous monuments to phil knights version of philanthropy. i wonder if he personally chose the horrid salmon and teal and pink marble color scheme of the knight library because i would love to give him an extra lash for that particular offense to humanity and as retribution for the daily personal suffering inflicted on me by those disgusting walls.

Wow man. I'm glad you found the straight dope on corporate America on the internet. Those execs will be POed when they find out it is out there.

I'm not saying that corporations are perfect. Believe me, I know first hand that they aren't. I know they do a lot of stuff in other markets that they could never get away with in the U.S. But if you don't realize 85% of the stuff on those sites are just as false and agenda-driven as the "we hate child labor" stuff that corporate PR departments churn out, you should really cut back on the smoke.

One day a journalist told me he trusted the word of corporate PR person over that of almost any activist because there were real consequences for corporate PR people caught lying. Activists, he said, will usually say whatever it takes to get their cause on the 11 o'clock news.

Now leaving my soap box.

Those two jobs are somehow different from one another? explain.

Didn't Chiquita have a hand in overthrowing a South American government back in the 60's? The Banana War or something.

That is a cool commercial.

And I understand the knocks on Nike, et al., but lemme ask you folks this: With respect to sweat shops, what do you think those kids that work there would be doing if they weren't working there? Do you see them sitting by the pool sipping lemonade? Or do you see them working themselves to the bone to try to help their family raise crops or cattle, working similar hours under similar conditions, only outside? The truth may very well be in the middle, but still. What kind of life do you envision for those that work for American or other companies that have a reputation for exploiting cheap labor? When I think about it, I see them closer to the second example I mention.

I think that the truth is that the developing world is just stuck between a rock and a hard place. As technology has brought a greater awareness of what's out there, the demand for a labor market that will pay for labor has grown. We can lament this by saying that we should never have opened Pandora's Box and started this desire to live at a higher living standard, but that's not in any way realistic. So, the reality of the situation is that people are willing and able to work in exchange for money, which they can use to buy food or clothes or grain or some hope of what they've started to see as a better life. Obviously, the extreme examples of abuse are abhorrent, but the day to day for many of these people comes down to a decision of working themselves to death to try to feed themselves with what they may be able to grow on lands that are often not suitable for growing or have been overused or working themselves to death to try to give themselves some leverage and not be reliant on the former. It's not a good situation, but it's a part of reality for developing economies. History shows that every major economy has had more than its share of labor force exploitation. We can just hope that, like the developed economies of today, the developing world finds itself looking back at its history of exploitation one day and shaking its head.

I didn't knock Nike. Heck, I see it as my God given duty as an American to exploit the world for my gain.