Sunday, July 22, 2012

Never Again! - Ten Reasons to Avoid Doing Business with Amazon.com



Amazon.com is great for buyers, just like eBay, but ONLY for BUYERS!
You can find almost anything you need there. It's easy, shipping speed is fast and prices are reasonable. I am still a happy buyer on Amazon.com, purchasing a special cat food for my senior cat all the time, since local stores hardly stock them any more!
I love shopping from Amazon.com, BUT WILL NOT SELL ANYTHING EVER AGAIN ON AMAZON.COM! Why? I used Amazon.com for years, but recently had an eye opening surprise, I realized that same as eBay, they don't care for small business, authors or artists! ALL they care for is to charge you more and more, to make their profit while hastening the demise of small, independent businesses. No thank you! I would rather give my "HazelMoon's Hawaiian Tarot" to people and small independent book stores who value them. They struggle just to pay their bills like the rest of us.

I used Amazon Market Place in USA, and the United Kingdom, especially the
"Fulfill by Amazon". From the beginning, everything  sounded good, so many of us sent them our products with little or no fees. Back then that was acceptable. Now, they want to charge you a long term storage fee? If you wish to not pay this, then you get stuck with the shipping bill too. Thank God I was not stupid enough to sent them all of my "HazelMoon's Hawaiian Tarot". I know some of the authors  were charged for $5000 or more for a new storage fee rather than be grandfathered in! I think that was disgusting. It made my stomach turn upside down.
If greed would be physical pain, these big corporations would be screaming right now!

So from now on, I will clean up my Amazon accounts and will ONLY sell my "HazelMoon's Hawaiian Tarot" through my website, my blog and on my eBay account. I will NOT make the FAT CAT corporations fatter. So, if you feel the same, and would like to have my "HazelMoon's HawaiianTarot" , please contact me directrly. I will be able to give you a "No Amazon" discount, just don't forget to ask! I am very flexable and more then happy to provide it to you from my heart to yours with Aloha!

If interested in, please visit artist/illustrator/author website direcly:


Ten Reasons to Avoid Doing Business with Amazon.com

From: TheNation.com / By Staff

Even with Borders gone and independent booksellers struggling to get by, the war for the future of publishing rages on. As Steve Wasserman explains in “The Amazon Effect,” which appears in this week’s special issue of The Nation, booksellers and publishers have shifted toward digital books, and Amazon.com, which sells more electronic Kindle books than physical hardcovers, is well positioned to overpower its rivals. But what’s at stake in the battle over e-commerce and why should you avoid doing business with Amazon.com?



1. Amazon Dodges Taxes and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Doesn’t Contribute to Local Economies Through Charity
Last year, the Greenlining Institute reported that Amazon’s tax rate was among the lowest, at just 3.5 percent, of all companies included in the study. Yet despite the massive savings Amazon enjoys from exploiting tax loopholes, the company contributes surprisingly little to charities around its Seattle-area headquarters.

2. Amazon’s Business Model Is Monopolistic
Amazon is the world’s largest bookseller, offering more than 2 million titles. In an effort to lower prices, the company has demanded additional discounts from distributors—which, as Colin Robinson points out, is illegal under anti-trust law that prevents companies from selling a product at different prices to different customers. The company has been accused of having a “monopolistic grip on the publishing industry.”

3. Amazon Contributes to the Demise of Small, Independent Businesses
Amazon offers bestsellers at a loss in order to attract customers, a practice that has upended traditional publishing in the United States. But it doesn’t have to be this way, as Germany’s bookselling model illustrates.

4. Amazon Collects Your Information
Amazon.com states that it is “not in the business of selling” customers’ private information—e.g., what you buy, what you review, how you browse—to other companies, but last year Amazon.com was embroiled in a class-action lawsuit (Del Vecchio et al. v. Amazon.com) for allegedly bypassing customers’ privacy settings. Others have raised concerns about Kindle Fire’s web browser, fearing it would allow the company “to track customer behavior all over the Web, gathering data and marketing intelligence as it goes,” according to the New York Times.

5. Amazon Removed WikiLeaks from its Cloud Server
Under political pressure, Amazon removed WikiLeaks from its cloud server in 2010, prompting this question from Keir Thomas of PC World: “In an idyllic future where we make heavy use of the cloud, what happens if a cloud service provider removes content it deems inappropriate, or just doesn’t like?”

6. Amazon Was a Long-time Member of ALEC
Amazon was late to pull out of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, pro-business nonprofit that recently came under fire for helping spread voter-identification and “Stand Your Ground” laws. Amazon, which has fought state-level taxation, focused on tax laws in ALEC.

7. Amazon Fights Unionization
When the Communications Workers of America launched a campaign to unionize Amazon’s customer-service representatives, the company argued that “unions actively foster distrust toward supervisors” and “create an uncooperative attitude among associates by leading them to think they are ‘untouchable’ with a union,” according to the New York Times. To make matters worse, many Amazon employees are temporary workers who do not receive basic benefits like healthcare, and for whom forming a union is “virtually impossible.”

8. Amazon Abuses Its Workers
Working conditions at Amazon.com warehouses can be brutal. Last fall, the Morning Callreported that employees were being “pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain” in warehouses where the temperature exceeded 100 degrees, causing workers to feel light-headed and pass out.

9. Amazon Has Turned Searching Into Another Way To Collect Users' Information
Amazon has made searching easier and more efficient, providing free information about books and, in some cases, permitting readers to “look inside” them. However, as Anthony Grafton explains in “Search Gets Lost,” the company has gradually cut back on its search capabilities, instead inviting the customer to provide information of every sort for Amazon to digest and profit from.

10. Amazon Is Just Too Big
In 2011, Amazon’s $48 billion in revenue exceeded that of all six major publishing conglomerates combined. It now resembles an “online Walmart” rather than a bookseller, writes Steve Wasserman, and has begun to colonize movie, baby product and shoe retailer websites, as well as the high-end fashion industry. For more on Amazon’s outsized power, be sure to read all of the articles in this week’s special issue on the retail giant.

DON'T MAKE THE FAT CAT ANY FATTER!
THANK YOU AND MAHALO FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION!



*****

Comment from: Tarotholics Anonymous

Jim Maher:
Katalin ...that is why I am glad I bought my signed copy of your Hawaiian Tarot with other words of wisdom that you wrote with a pen...
directly from you :)

Aloha Jim! I did post your comment on my blog!
Thank you for your input!
Many Blessings!
Mahalo and Big Hugs!
Katalin

My pleasure Katalin, I meant it, Best Wishes & Hugs right back to you always. I think people need to see and use your deck to better understand it, there is always something new there every time I use it/read for someone with it.. for me that is always the sign of a deck that will never wear out


Victoria Lanakila Generao:
A wonderful visionary deck that encompasses Ho'omanamana beautifully. I appreciate the thought put into the imagery and colors used in this deck.
Aloha wela ka hao!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Supporting Local Artists - Shame on you Kona - For distroying art



Once upon a time this small, town named Kailua Kona on the west side the Big Island of Hawai'i was a happy, peaceful, friendly little town for tourists and locals.


Until now....


So, the new Kona rules, if it's ugly and not Aloha (in their narrow minded greedy minds), then let's distroy it! I heard once that Hawai'i dosen't need another turtle painting or mural... Today, most of Kona's residents, are real estate agents, condo and business owners, money hungry profit mongers, and greedy rich people who now export their California lifestyle mentality here and start distroying art on streets of Kona and yet leave in their wake a slew of illegal business signage like garden slugs in the morning dew. Art bad-advertising good!

First it started recently with the artist Subi. Subi Roberto is an extraordinary artist and an enlightened person who meant no harm for Kona town and their residents. Yeah, she had a different view of life but nothing is wrong with that unless you happen to be channeling the repressive spirit of a overzealous missonary who must destroy a way of life in order to save a soul in the afterlife. Subi says her art is rewarding for her and makes her who she is.
Saturday afternoon, cars were stopping; people were taking photos of the wall and sitting and looking at Subi’s “Lightwalking in Hawaii”wall. The message she wrote next to it says; 


“This painting symbolizes the awareness of this generation. 
We must be aware in order to change. 
We must change in order to survive.”


“Lightwalking in Hawaii”





"Check out how much these people HATE my work!!! RIP "Lightwalking in Hawaii" I loved painting you. Its unfortuate they dont understand.

Here is an email from prince@ccimhawaii.com 

 "We got rid of it. Next time stay on the mainland.
When you lean to paint something aloha and not dark and disturbing come back. How dare you. You didn't even have permission. They call that grafitti." -Leonora Prince, CCIM
(Which is an industry title one can get by buying the online course and receiving a pat on the back from the cyber headmaster or some such winky-dink bullshit.) By the way, check out her site in the about her section and see how she loves to name drop California over and over again. I bet she thinks of Kona as "Little Cali".



"So glad to be out of here! Off to New York City today! should my wall get vandalized out here, that's fine, I've already made peace with it. THANK YOU to all the people that loved it and voiced there support. And still thank you to the people who hated it, I'm glad to have given you something to talk about and for making my skin extra tough. To actually paint the wall was such a joy, gorgeous weather, amazing beach to hang out at during a break and it was amazingly cheap to do the project. Now, I'm off to the big city where I belong!! Mahalo and A Hui Ho"!:))
~Subi


Subi’s Art Wall in Kona Gets Notice

Click here to read more about this...


and

...and more interesting readings...







...and Kona did it again...


Read unhappy comments about this event!

Read more about this event...




"I just can't believe the town of Kona did it AGAIN!!!! Erasing good art for NO REASON!!! David Choe did an absolutely GORGEOUS piece and it got erased a mere 72 hours after it was painted!!!Wtf!!???"


"I'm so furious I can't even see strait right now.
ANOTHER MURAL HAS BEEN DESTROYED IN KONA!!
This time by world renowned artist David Choe.
This has got to stop. Enough is enough"!


"Here is part of the mural that was recently created and buffed out in Kona. The artist David Choe had permission, but due to some very nasty complaints about it being "too dark and disturbing for kona" (sound familiar?) the building manager decided to get rid of it. What a complete coward. I will let him know this in person tomorrow. I know you mist hate Kona by now but this is NOT Kona! I cannot believe that Kona is a place of artistic repression and not expression but if that is the case something must be done. These stuck up assholes need to know that our art will survive their bitching. I'm so livid that I can't sleep this is the same thing that happened to me when your painting was destroyed Subi. Please contact David ASAP"!


"Protest the censorship of art in Kona Town today 2-5pm, Palani and Kuakini in front of the Harley dealership, the site of the most recent mural destruction. Please spread the word ASAP. Don't forget to bring a sign. Let's put a stop to this hewa"!


"Protest the artistic repression of Kona today thursday July 12 all day if you like I will be down there from 2-5 at the bottom of Palani and Kuakini. I'm pretty shy so please come help me out and dont forget to bring a sign. mahalo"!



     Artist David Choe
















From this... to an empty wall, just in 72 hours...


'ALL IN THE NAME OF GREED'
~Song Lyrics by Rich Lerner

I've seen men sacrifice their souls all in the name of greed
More than a few just lose control all in the name of greed
I've seen great leaders rise and fall all in the name of greed
I've seen death make a midnight call all in the name of greed

I've seen armies mobilize
I've seen love commercialized
I've seen salvation advertised
All in the name of greed

Successful men turn to lives of crime
All in the name of greed
Innocent men doing time all in the name of greed
I've seen countries overthrown all in the name of greed
Seen streets turn into battle zones all in the name of greed

I've seen hatred glamorized
I've seen rock and roll commercialized
I've seen poison advertised
Al l in the name of greed

I've seen justice bought and sold all in the name of greed
I've seen the young neglect the old all in the name of greed
I've seen families torn apart all in the name of greed
I've seen my share of broken hearts all in the name of greed




 

 I AM AN ARTIST TOO AND WATCHING ART BE DISTROYED THIS WAY AND BE ERASED FROM A NICE LITTLE TOWN THAT ITS PEOPLE ONCE CALLED 'FRIENDLY LITTLE KONA'  IS BREAKING MY HEART. I CREATED THIS BLOG FOR THOSE ARTISTS WHOSE ART HAS BEEN DISTROYED. PLEASE SUPPORT THEM BY FOLLOWING EACH OF THEM ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER ETC...

TELL THEM HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS!

THANK YOU AND MAHALO!





and my BIGGEST supporter, my husband