Diamonds equal love. Or something else.

Seth Godin's Blog has a post today entitled "Don't get sued" which basically warns to be careful what you write online. Which reminds me- when I started this blog, I vowed never to talk about work in any detail- other than jewelry work, of course. After all, if you can't say something nice, well, you know.
Ahh, but what's a rule if not to be bent? Besides, my non-jewelry work happened to be jewelry related the other night.
No details. L.L. Cool J introduced Russell Simmons, who was receiving an award for Simmons Jewelry, and during his speech mentioned how much he loves his green bracelet. Blah, blah, blah, his green bracelet. I wanted to check it out. I actually think it's pretty cool. I really like the rough diamond inside its diamond cage. I'm not crazy about the rest, but it's for a good cause. I think. Take a look. It's for the Diamond Empowerment Fund (DEF) "to raise money for the development and empowerment of the people and communities in Africa where diamonds are a natural resource."

Then Russell came on stage talking about how "diamonds equal love" and how we (the jewelry industry) need to reinforce the idea to consumers that the bigger the diamond, the bigger the heart- or something to that effect. Ugh. I suppose I don't know enough about diamonds. I think they're pretty, but I don't use them and have never bought them. The idea that any store bought object, well, any physical object really, EQUALS love is absurd. The fact that any big industry has it in them to PUSH this idea makes me sick to my stomach. Then again, that's fundamentally what a capitalist economy is based on, right? In a nutshell. Stuff equals love. Buy stuff for the people you love so that others can buy stuff for the people they love, and so on. It makes me want to reconsider my part in all of it.

I think I get the point though, the mission of the DEF is to keep diamond miners in Africa employed. And it's good to stay employed. So, no details. No details. I need to do some research.