Have you ever wanted to make fun of something so badly, only to find yourself hesitating, because you'd feel like a really horrible person based on the object of ridicule's good intentions? The photo above is from the Model Home Project, described thusly on the organization's website: "Professional models give their time and resources to service projects, providing positive images of bettering communities and inspiring youth into volunteer service." Yes, my normal instinct might be to mock the misspellings on the site, or notice how the guy in the middle of this picture seems to be looking for groupies hidden behind garbage cans, but I'm going to try to be a better person than that, if only for today. Instead, I'm going to focus on the fact that these models are actually working to rebuild houses and inspire hope across the land. That's it. Really. Didn't giggle at all while typing that.

Moreso than most other forms of self-expression, fashion seems like it should be fairly apolitical, better suited to questions like "ankle or knee-high?" rather than "Republican or Democrat?" Except, of course, when it isn't. Today, MUG's newsletter had a follow-up story on some jewelry they'd recently featured--turns out it's sold at Anthropologie, a store owned (along with Urban Outfitters) by Richard Hayne. MUG's beef: In a recent Philadelphia Weekly story, Hayne was revealed as having made significant contributions to Rick Santorum, the Republican Senator with extremely conservative views on things like abortion, homosexuality and evolution. Hayne also had some pretty frank things to say about sweatshop labor.

We here at Fashion Geek missed the original story and were pretty shocked to hear about it. Both stores obviously pocket a big chunk of change from liberal-leaning shoppers looking for T-shirts like the one above (on sale now). In fact, we've bought plenty ourselves. Which begs the question: In this topsy-turvy fashion world where it's often hard to know what's happening offstage (paging Kathie Lee), how much do you actually change your shopping habits based on stories like this?