This whole story I am about tell reminds me of a passage from the movie picture "Knocked Up", a romantic comedy starring Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, in which they have a fight and in a blast of honesty, Ben Stone (played by Rogen) lets it all out of his chest and questions how humanity could have ever survived without "the baby books"! The way we live our lives nowadays truly begs this question, I believe. We are always so afraid, so distant, so cold, so well scripted that even if we mean good, we all can end up doing some pretty stupid things.
Such is the battle between CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) and the Handmade Toy Alliance. One side wants to keep children safe (at least that’s their main discourse…), the other wants the freedom to pursue their creative and artistic talents commercially while rescuing kids from an increasingly oppressing mass media market for toys.
Basically, CPSIA will put thousands of small companies out of business since due to the one-of-a-kind innate characteristic of their products, it becomes impossible and impractical for them to submit and pass each and every item through the cumbersome and expensive CPSIA tests.
In Portuguese, the expression "common-sense" actually translates into "bom-senso" or "good-sense", which in this case although subtle a difference, is more what we really need. No matter where the toys come from, *nothing* will ever replace good parenting!
At a certain point during this discussion came Hasenpfeffer Incorporated, a small shop run by Daniela and Chris, threatened to be closed if CPSIA goes through with their broad rules. So instead of just sitting and watching, Hasenpfeffer Inc. came up with what I like to call the "Fighting Bear" which soon became symbol of the whole community in their fight against such a nonsensical piece of legislation that mixes Chinese mega manufacturers of large scale cheap plastic toys with Handcrafters all over the US of A in the same bag.
I am proud to say that "The Fighting Bear" is an original LittleLion Studio creation and was picked by Chris and Daniela without my knowledge, making my bumping into it online a "happy accident" so to speak.
If you want to get involved you can put The Fighting Bear logo on your website/blog, make donations or even purchase "CPSIA Buttons" featuring "The Fighting Bear" at Hasenpfeffer Inc’s store on Etsy.
Get involved, wave your banner and be a responsible parent! ;-)
