Last minutes gifts for Leftists (reasonably priced!)? November 25, 2020
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Okay, we’re still weeks away from Christmas but this year, something is different, post is taking longer, much shopping is done online, shops are… often closed. So in light of that starting a bit earlier and as noted a few years back “all suggestions gratefully accepted, books, items, clothing, ethically sourced items whatever. Anything people like or have seen. And price is in this capitalist world a factor.”
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Alternatives to Amazon would be a nice gift. What are the contenders?
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I’ve been using Kenny’s for books (kennys.ie) and they’ve free postage. Also the Secret Bookstore (thesecretbookstore.ie) have some great bargains. Just about bypassing Amazon I’ve been finding stuff via their website and then because many independent sellers just use Amazon as a storefront it’s sometimes possible to find their own website outside of Amazon and buy the item from there instead.
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Biblio is free of Amazon as well, and doesn’t just do secondhand.
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+1 Yes and alibris too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibris
They actually seem to have almost everything Amazon have.
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Also add the Bookshop.ie – not as extensive as the others, perhaps, but a number of books as Gaeilge, and in other European languages, as well as the usual assorted categories:
https://thebookshop.ie
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Just about bypassing Amazon I’ve been finding stuff via their website and then because many independent sellers just use Amazon as a storefront it’s sometimes possible to find their own website outside of Amazon and buy the item from there instead.
You’re not the first person I’ve heard of, doing that. Speaking of Amazon, wonder if they’ll finally bestow a Euro anglophone site (now that the Mainland has left).
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Is there an issue with delivery times though Alan?
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Kenny’s can be pretty slow alright. They appear to order stuff from their wholesaler once they receive an order, and I’ve been disappointed with them coming back with “sorry that’s out of stock” after a couple of week’s delay on one book. But they’re fine for mainstream and recently published stuff, novels and cookery books and that kind of thing.
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My OH used O’Mahony’s in Limerick for books by post over the summer and found them quick and efficient:
omahonys.ie/
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Mind you, everything she bought was published in Ireland, so they might be similar to Kenny’s for other books.
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I notice in the OP the reference to the ethically sourced items. Good idea of course. Sort of related in a way but I had a brief discussion with the eldest daughter at the weekend when she sort of gave out to me for using a plastic toothbrush when there are billions of them manufactured every year that end up in landfill or being incinerated when really we should all be using eco-friendly bamboo toothbrushes instead. I started to launch into how toothbrushes were the tip of an iceberg but i was cut off at the pass by my wife in order to prevent an escalation that would ruin the very welcome home visit. (She’s already had COVID so we’re assuming, I hope accurately, that she’s not a spread risk.) Anyway not directly relevant to the ethically sourced aspect of the OP, but I though it was funny in retrospect. Hopefully she’ll move on in her thinking from toothbrushes to capitalism as a whole, but I won’t be holding my breath and of course I love her to bits all the same regardless of any of that.
So apart from books, what else can Lefties do as presents? This seems to cop up as a bit of a dilemma every year. I was looking at getting a secondhand zoom lens for my old 35mm SLR. But herself suggested, and I gladly went along with it, that Santa might bring me a bike that I could use for commuting to the tech hub in Kells, in case we ever get back to working outside the home of course. The bike will also be used for cycling holidays, again COVID permitting. Herself did a stretch of the Kingfisher Trail with one of her pals early in the summer, up around Cavan and Fermanagh. She had a great time. So hopefully next summer we’ll do a bit more of that together, and maybe even get back to doing the next part of the Danube cycle if we’re very lucky. Because that’s what I’d really like for Christmas, some hope and optimism about 2021. And sure I might get myself that zoom lens anyway, they’re next to nothing on EBay.
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The reprint of SALUD by Peadar O’Donnell . It’s been out of print for over 80 years so likely they won’t have it !!!
https://www.connollybooks.org/product/salud
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Maybe mentioned in previous years- the tea towels, mugs, calendars etc from radicalteatowel.co.uk have been brightening up our kitchen all year, and are certainly not expensive.
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https://monthlyreview.org/product-category/books/
” The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.
But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.” – Einstein.
https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/
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For those getting ebooks and trying to bypass Amazon I’d recommend ebooks.com and even at a pinch, and yeah, it’s a corporation but it’s not as large as Amazon, Apple.
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