Shop until you drop ….or not!?

Most women want to hear two special words from the person they love, expressing their deepest emotions towards them. The desire to hear the gentle and kind phrase, “shopping spree!”,as a signification of their partner’s compassion and understanding of the woman’s need for retail therapy, is what we live for. But, in this day and age this simple concept has been made extremely complicated! I for one love to shop, I would shop in the morning at night midday and even in my sleep if I could. Due to this “clever” invention of internet shopping what was once a simple distressing tool, is now an enormous catalog interface that brings about anxiety. I remember when internet shopping began to flourish, sites like: eBay, Amazon and Overstock were said to have everything a shopper could want. Despite the convenience of never having to leave your home, internet shopping sucks! It is such a hassle; you could start to hurt your eyes from looking at the screen for an hour or more, you never know if your account information is truly safe, and you are always at risk of receiving the wrong item or getting your shipment late! Not my idea of a fulfilling day of shopping I must say. But I guess with anything there are pros and cons, even for internet shopping they are as follows:

Pros:
1) The luxury of never having to leave your home
2) Variety is more diverse since the market is global and not local
3) Items are more generally lower priced due to the high percentage of auctions and discount sites
4) The stores are never closed
5) Products can be found that are not available locally

Cons:
1) Items ordered online are often on backorder but the consumer may not be informed until weeks after they make the purchase.
2) Shipping costs
3) False advertising, the person selling the item could hide it up just to sale it but in actuality its everything but it description
4) Refunds may not always be accessible
5) The risk of identity thrift

There are indeed some considerable pros to shopping online, but I stand on the fact there is nothing like being in the actual store. For me, shopping online gets to be overwhelming, there is no one to seek counsel from when you’re confused. There is also the fact that you are completely left at the mercies of the World-wide web. There is more to shopping than what meets the eye. It holds a certain nostalgic essence, a tangible surety that cannot be easily replaced by a computer screen filled with over stock items.


sources: Photo by Jose Miguel Martinez 2010

From Streetcorners to Craigslist....

As if Craigslist isn’t sketchy enough. Apparently they have an adult services section on their site which according to CNN Wire staff, Craigslist has finally made moves to monitor the interactions on its site by “censoring” this section of their site. Craigslist has been accused of promoting prostitution via from their website due to this particular section. "These prostitution ads enable human trafficking and assaults on women," claims Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal who “spearheaded a recent letter from 17 attorneys general urging Craigslist to discontinue its adult services section”(CNN Wire staff).
I think this is very important seeing as Craigslist is a pretty popular website and there have been quite a few attacks and even murders in the past year having to do with encounters arranged via ad’s placed on craigslist’s adult services section. For example the infamous, Craigslist killer case covered by CBN in September 2009 having to do with a young man named Phillip Markoff, who basically went on a seven day killing spree. He would meet the prostitutes/escorts from the craigslist ads in hotels or motels, attack them, rob them, and eventually killed one of the three women he had attacked.
This story alone gives reason for further investigation on why and how Craigslist as well as other major sites should be more careful and somehow have more censorship in sections that deal with such matters, seeing as prostitution is perfectly illegal in the U.S. except for in specific areas in the state of Nevada. I found it interesting that in today’s society we can hold Craigslist a bit more accountable for allowing itself to be so easily accessible to such activities, and yet we would never hold any specific street in the infamous red districts of the U.S. accountable for the same sort of accessibility.
What do you think?

Aisha

sources:

CNN Wire Staff, . "Critic praises Craigslist move to censor ads, calls for more info." CNN Justice. CNN, 06 Sept 2010. Web. 7 Sep 2010. .

"The Craigslist Killer: Seven Days of Rag." 48 Hours Mystery. CBN NEws, 10 July 2010. Web. 7 Sep 2010. .