[Jewelry making - Article 00622] - Re: [Orchid] "No Dirty Gold" campaign...

[Daniel Spirer]

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Olwyn,

    A thoughtful and well thought out reply but I take issue with a few
    points: 

>     To all those who demand utter purity and consistency from others
>     before you will listen to their concerns or consider their
>     suggestions 

    I'm not demanding purity. I just think people forget about how so
    many other things they do impact the environment in far greater
    terms. There has to be a balance achieved. If you don't like the idea
    of damaging the environment, gold mining is not (by any means) the
    worst thing going on out there (didn't 200 Nigerians just die while
    trying to steal oil from a pipeline so they could go sell it on the
    open market?). Additionally the NCO's go after what are considered
    soft targets because it's easier, not because they create more
    damage. 

>     I and others have mentioned before in this forum that gold and
>     diamonds and their ilk are essentially worthless to human life. 

    I don't know what your customers are like, but a fair percentage of
    mine would not consider what they purchase from me to be worthless to
    human life. They are representations of what are psychologically
    important periods in individual's lives. And I'm sorry if you don't
    think emotional attachments are necessary to a human's life, but
    there are a lot of people out there who do. My pieces represent times
    when people join together (try telling all my wedding band customers
    that those rings have absolutely no value), when people welcome new
    life into their family, when people say goodbye to family members,
    when people have made great achievements in their lives or reached
    important milestones. You try and tell my customer who bought 15
    rings from me, each the same, to give to 15 of her dead 30 year old
    son's friends that those rings are essentially worthless. Or try and
    tell the women who come in who's husbands have died, who can't get
    their rings off anymore, but won't allow anyone to take them off
    because of what they mean to them. Or tell my customer who's brother
    died in Iraq and got an id bracelet with his name on it that jewelry
    is worthless to human life. Or how about my customer who's sister was
    murdered and one of the things she remembers most is the sound of her
    sister's bangles clinking together on her wrist, so she keeps buying
    bangles so that she can hear the same sound. Worthless to human
    life??? THIS is what human life is all about. 

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-234-4392
daniel AT spirerjewelers.com
www.spirerjewelers.com
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