to buy local or not to buy local

I've been hearing more and more about 'buy local' and 'food miles' (or 'food kilometers'). At first I thought this preoccupation with the distance covered by the transported food, from farms to supermarket shelves, made a lot of sense.
Recently however, I read "Food miles. Green good sense, ill-considered hype, or naked protectionism?", by Ethan Zuckerman, in worldchanging, and learned that the environmental impact of the food we eat should not be measured only by the distance it travels.
And in case you're a New York Times Select subscriber, you can also read "Don't buy local", by Richard Conniff, for another balanced view on the subject.
This debate is far from over and will certainly shape the way we buy our food from now on.
PS: I have truly enjoyed reading Richard Conniff's blog in the New York Times (unfortunately for subscribers only, sorry). Apart from learning a couple of German words - schadenfreude (pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune) and gluckschmerz (luck-pain, or sorrow at someone else's luck or happiness) - his writings offered an insightful look at human nature that were a delight to read.

association for consumer research

I’ve been an on and off member of the Association for Consumer Research (ACR) since 1993, as far as I can remember. The ACR is an academic association dedicated to promote the study of consumer behavior. Its members come from a wide range of expertise (anthropology, marketing, sociology, communication, linguistics, etc.) and include luminaries such as Harold Kassarjian, Sidney Levy (a pioneer who wrote the seminal “Symbols for Sale” in 1959!), Gerald Zaltman (How Customers Think), and my favorites, Grant McCracken (Culture and Consumption), Russell Belk (Happy Thought), Morris Holbrook (Symbolic Consumer Behavior), and Elizabeth Hirschman (The Creation of Product Symbolism).
Collectively they have published a wealth of knowledge and insights since ACR's inception in 1969. I personally found their production fascinating for somebody whose good chunk of work is to understand consumers (although this is not ACR's main goal, let me be clear, this is an academic body, knowledge for knowledge's sake, they don't exist to provide consulting services).
Nonetheless, they've provided me with invaluable insights about symbolic consumption, ethnography, cultural aspects of consumption, to mention just a few of the topics they cover. In the process, they have explored all sorts of unconventional methods in trying to understand consumers, from introspective, self-analysis of their own consumption behavior, to analysis of movies as consumption objects, to the analysis of the sacred aspects of consumption, which easily make them one the most unconventional, innovative, and creative group of people that I’ve ever met (even if some of the articles are too highbrow for me to understand).
For whatever reason though, I seldom meet a branding practitioner who is aware of the existence of this body of knowledge. Perhaps people get intimidated by the academic approach, but if you get past the academic terms, there are real gems in there.
Take a look at some of the articles below:
"Happy Thought", by Russell Belk.
"I'm Hip: An Autobiographical Account of Some Musical Consumption Experiences", by Morris Holbrook
"Advertising: Meaning or Information", by Grant McCracken
"Consumer Behavior Meets the Nouvelle Femme: Feminist Consumption at the Movies", by Elizabeth Hirschman
Most of these articles can be found either in the "Journal of Consumer Research", or in ACR’s website (there’s an online proceedings search). Enjoy the readings.

men don't buy their own underwear

I was doing some research on a topic and came across this. And it occurred to me that this is absolutely one of the points that make men so different in their buying behavior from women.
Take a look at this excerpt from Paco Underhill's book "Why We Buy":
"Men have always bought their own suits and shoes, but women, traditionally, shopped for everything in between. Especially they bought men's socks and underwear. Now, though, that's changing-men are more involved in their clothing, and women have enough to do without buying boxer shorts. In Kmart menswear departments, you'll still sometimes find a female-male ratio of 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1. But in expensive apparel stores, among more affluent men, males shopping for menswear now — finally — outnumber females."
Very well, this behavior seems to be slowly changing, but I believe that there are still many of us out there who let their wives and mothers buy their underwear for them, as seen in this Czech report that says, "...almost 60 percent of men surveyed admit to not having bought a single pair in the last twelve months. Another 60 percent were unable to name any brands of underwear. Most Czech men, it appears, prefer to let their mothers, sisters, wives, and girlfriends do the shopping".
And apparently this is a truly global phenomenon, as shown in this New Zealander history project, where one of the tasks is to "follow up the market research which suggests the majority of New Zealand males do not buy their own underwear...".
So, what does it say about us, men?
I once heard (coming from a woman) that "this only proves that men are just grown children". Go argue with that.