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20 Dec 02 - gleaners; quotes; Dave Barry; thanks; subscribers ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- Excerpted from a message from Peter Szydlowski, National Park Service, Pinnacles National Monument, Paicines, CA: Most of you have probably already seen "The Gleaners and I," the award-winning 2001 French documentary that is now on DVD. It follows the French folk who "scour the already-reaped fields," as well as the urban poor who "insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off." I saw it for the first time recently and want to bring it to the attention of others who may have missed it on the big screen. (For more on this film, see this Zeitgeist Films web page: http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/current/gleaners/gleaners.html ) Secondly, I'd like to thank all of you who have sent me your favorite "green" quotes, which I requested in my 11/21/02 posting. I won't be able to compile the list and send it to those of you who requested one until sometime in January, but here is a link to a compilation that is much more comprehensive and organized than mine will be: http://www.stthomas.edu/recycle/QUOTE.HTM It was put together by the folks at the recycling program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, and was sent to me by Anne McLaughlin. E-mail: Peter_Szydlowski [ AT ] nps [ DOT ] gov -------------------- Excerpted from a 12/15/02 column about the U.S. economy by nationally syndicated humorist Dave Barry: .....The U.S. economy is now teetering on one leg, which is: consumer spending. Despite the fact that their financial outlook is dire, American consumers are still buying things, and for a very sound economic reason. Q. They have tiny brains? A. In many cases, yes. But the main cause of consumer spending is the superb work of the Federal Technology Obsolescence Board, or FTOB (pronounced "ftob"). Q. What is the FTOB? A. It is a secret, quasi-governmental body whose mission is to convince consumers that they need to buy things to replace perfectly good things that they already own. The FTOB got us out of the early 1980s recession by promoting the compact disc; this caused Americans to buy CD versions of all their record albums, spending, according to the Department of Commerce, $117 billion on Fleetwood Mac alone. The FTOB is currently stimulating the economy with a bold three-pronged program designed to convince consumers that they must: (1) replace all their CDs with something called "MP3"; (2) replace their VCR machines, and all their videotapes, with something called "DVD"; and (3) replace their film cameras with "digital" cameras, which consumers believe are technologically superior, despite the fact that only 3 percent of all consumers can figure out how to get the pictures out of the camera, which means most people show you their vacation shots of the Grand Canyon by making you squint at the little screen on the back of the camera, which is the size of a Cheez-It. The entire U.S. economy is now based on consumers buying these things. Ski resorts will soon be built on mountains made entirely from discarded VCRs. Q. What does "quasi" means? A. Nobody knows. It's like "paradigm." ------------------- From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the National Waste Prevention Coalition: As 2002 nears a close, I would just like to thank all of you for being a part of the Waste Prevention Forum. I learn things, every week, from your submissions, and I know that many others do too. The National Waste Prevention Coalition (which is still a pretty informal organization, in many ways) started this Forum six-and-a-half years ago, and the Forum is still going strong. We're proud of that. It's also been a big year for the Coalition in other ways: - In October, the U.S. Postal Service put into effect new regulations that make it easier for post offices to donate undelivered product samples and other undelivered mail to food banks and homeless shelters. The Coalition helped initiate this project, wrote the draft regulations, and pushed the Postal Service to do this for a number of years, so we're thrilled that it finally happened. - Our Reduce Business Junk Mail project is still humming along and has generated increasing interest in this issue, which has helped spawn other related efforts, such as the new Red Flag service. - And we're preparing to announce new activities. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and comments as we have worked in recent months to develop a new project. As we do every year at this time, we're running the list, below, of the names of all the subscribers to the Forum. It's interesting to see who all is on the list (a lot of other people also end up reading the Forum, because some subscribers forward it to co-workers, friends, etc.). If you know of anyone else who would like to join the Forum, just have them e-mail me. Hope you all have great holidays, keep up the terrific work, and thanks again for all your support! - Tom E-mail: tom (D O T) watson (A T) metrokc (D O T) gov -------------------- Current subscribers to the Waste Prevention Forum: Abell, Nancy; Abrams, Heather; Aguiar, Victor; Aldridge, Mahlon; Alekel, Dale; Allaway, David; Allen, David; Aller, Sharon; Allison, Peter; Antonakos, Jetta; Apotheker, Steve; Arner, Rob; Asp, Karen; Assmann, David; Atkins, Katie; Auld, Mary; Ayde, Mary; Baasch, Gail; Baker, Tanya; Bakke, Rory; Balek, Joyce; Balsley, Rachel; Barto, Debra; Barton, Paul; Becker, Charlotte; Becker, Steve; Bell, Carole; Bennett, Jim; Bergeron, Susan; Bernthal, Tim; Biddle, David; Bircher, Maria; Bisson, Connie Leach; Bitansky, Anna Traktoueva; Blakely, Val; Blue, Dan; Blythe, Sue; Bogar, Janine; Boisson, Edward; Brawer, Wendy; Brewer, Gretchen; Brown, Ken; Bushnell, Vicki; Byrch, Chris; Cahillane, Jamie; Case, Melanie; Cassidy, Colin; Cecil, Rika; Cera, David; Chin, Yen; Christiansen, Pete; Christmann, Holly; Clark, Jack; Clarke, Marjorie; Clayton, Mark; Cloak, Connie; Cloutier, Chris; Cohen, Laura; Cole, Michelle; Conroy, Sharon; Cosgrove, Darin; Coville, Gerty; Coward, Megan; Crisley, John; Crockett, Judy; Cubic, Aaron; Cucina, Hope; Culver, Alicia; Cuyler, Alex; Danovitch, Alex; Daoust, Ruth; Daudon, Marc; Davidson, Cathie; Davis, Michele; Davis, Stephanie; DeBell, Jack; deGrassi, Dan; Deller, Kinley; Desmond, Roberta; Devine, Paul; Diangson, Ticiang; DiCarlo, Yvette; Diccicco-Craft, Dee Dee; Dickerson, Catherine; Domres, Patrick; Donnette, Rachel; Dorn, Betsy; Drew, Eron; Dubois, Peter; Dunn, Judi; Dunn, Paul; Durbin, Dennis; DuRussel, Lisa; Dutton, Lea; Eade, Teresa; Eckl, Beth; Engel, Steve; Eskridge, Anne; Estes, Tom; Estreller, Susana Reyes; Ewing, Bill; Fiedler, Karen; Fife-Ferris, Susan; Fikejs, Matt; Fine, Polagaya; Fisher, Sally; Fisher, Steve; Flora, David; Fogel, Shira; Foran, Brian; Foss, Scott; Friedman, Eric; Friend, Gil; Friend, Lisa; Frierson, Barbara; Frost, Crystal; Fuller, Brian; Fultz, Dixie. Gable, Cate; Gaisford, Jeff; Gaither, Michelle; Gash, Wayne; Gavin, Megan; Geissinger, Karen; Giernet, Jeanne; Glaser, Lise; Glass, Susan; Goldsmith, Leslie Bullock; Gondringer, Linda; Goodwin, David; Graves, Beth; Gregg, Jennifer; Grimm, Sarah; Grodinsky, Carolyn; Gruder, Sherrie; Gustafson, Laurie; Guttentag, Roger; Hagston, Bart; Hainault, Tony; Hallett, Mckenna; Hamilton, Karen; Hamilton, Susan; Hammer, Steve; Hamner, Burton; Handaly, Keri; Hanna, Christine; Hanscom, John; Harder, Greg; Hardison, Jeanette; Harrison, Ellen; Havens, Jennifer; Havstad, Cynthia; Hawkins, Gina; Hawley, Robin; Hayes, Priscilla; Haynes, Gwen; Haynes, Jim; Healey, M.L.; Henager, Bill; Henderson, Mary; Hetzel, Colleen; Higgins, Karen; Hill, Jim; Hlavka, Rick; Hoffmann, Steve; Hood, Timonie; Hopkinson, Tim; Houser, Rhonda; Howard, Debra; Hughes, Wilson; Hursh, Carl; Hurst, Andrew; Izzo, Sami; Jensen, Katie; Jimerson, Joyce; John, Jodi; Kazmann, Reena; Kimball, Renee; Kingsbury, Tony; Kinsella, Susan; Kinzer, Paula; Kitchell, Margaret; Kiwala, Kathy; Knorek, Martha; Kochan, Leslie; Koenenn, Connie; Kontovrakis, Andriana; Kroeger, Christy; Kroening, Paul; Kunde, Jenna; Kunz, David; Lang, Jessie; Lange, Robert; Laufle, Jeff; Lawrence, Bill; Lee, Eugene; Leopold, Lynn; Lien, Doug; Lilienfeld, Bob; Lindler, Jim; Linsin, Monica; Lobin, Peter; Long, Stephen; Longfellow, John; Lono, Maile; Lucke, Jan; Luxton, Janet; Lyman, Francesca; Lynch, Meg; MacCauley, Catherine; Machuca, Desmond; Malaret, Nancy; Marr, Andrew; Maxwell, Tom; May, Karen; McArdle, Wendy Wilson; McCabe, John; McCabe, Michael; McClearn, Pat; McClure, Shelly; McDade, Keith; McDonald, Kevin; McEntee, Ken; McKenzie, Sally; McLaughlin, Anne; McReynolds-Pellinen, Mary; McVay, Brian; Mellem, Suzy; Mercer, Dwight; Meyer, Glenn; Meyer, Leanne; Mihalenko, Alyson; Miller, Judie; Miller, Kivi Leroux; Mingo, Jerry; Mobley, Jim; Moen, Richard; Mojo, Steven; Mooney, Susan; Mouw, Scott; Moxley, Chuck; Muldoon, Bob; Munroe, Glenn; Murphy, Ann; Murray, Katherine. Nader, Jeanne; Nelson, Eric; Nesheim, Barb; Newenhouse, Sonya; Newman, Edward; Nordman, Bruce; Nussbaum, Sandra Thorp; Okun, John; Orloff, Alan; Orman, Spencer; Packard, Ben; Palacio, Cynthia; Park, Eric; Patton, Betty; Peterson, Thor; Phillips, Becky; Phillips, Melissa; Plagenz, Joel; Plunkett, Nancy; Pollack, Sasha; Pollard, Stephan; Pollock, Blair; Pond, Julie; Portman, Michelle; Powell, Jerry; Pratt, Wendy; Raine, Woody; Ramirez, Zulay; Reed, Bill; Reed, Michael; Rhodes, Julie; Rhodes, Tom; Rifer, Wayne; Ritter, Leann; Rogers, John; Rogers, John (LDEQ); Rolfe, Susan; Rosenberg, Betsy; Ruby, Mike; Rutan, Marcia; Salterberg, Susan; Sandlin, Erv; Sarafides, Athena; Sarantis, Heather; Schaefer, Tanya; Schmid, Dave; Schneider, Angela; Schneider, Ann; Schoenecker, Colleen; Schrock, Jim; Schwegman, Patty; Scott, Alexandra; Seaman, Deanna; Sepanski, Lisa; Seto, Patricia; Severson, Kent; Sheehan, Bill; Sheffer, Samanthe; Shepard, Jay; Sherf, Barbara; Shimada, Shirley; Siegelbaum, Heidi; Simmons, Alan; Skony, Wendy; Sloan, Bill; Smedberg, Jeffrey; Smirin, Dana; Smith, Bill; Smith, Rita; Spataro, Katie; Spille, Tom; Stapp, Eileen; Stein, Kathy; Steinberger, Mo; Stewart, Nicole; Stitzhal, David; Stoerkel, Laurie; Stole, Lori; Stone, Nancy; Sturm, Nate; Stutzman, Crispin; Sutton, Todd; Swart, Dave; Szydlowski, Peter; Tai, Nicole; Taitt, Jodi; Talbot, Jim; Tang, Scarlet; Tanzi, Carol; Timmons, Angie; Todd, Shawn Casey; Tompkins, Jennifer; Travison, Theresa; Trump, Roger; Truth, Caroline; Tumarkin, Jeff; Van Deventer, Mary Lou; Van Dyke, Donald; Van Orsow, Rob; VanDuyne, Vikki; Vernon, Gwen; Vigoren, Margie; Virostko, Cynthia; Walden, Linda; Wallace, Amy; Warnberg, Larry; Warner, Kate; Watson, Tom; Webber, Bonnie Lane; Weber, Lori; Weimer, Carl; Weimer, Sarah; Wells, Kate; White, Jeffrey; White, Jesse; Whitworth, Janis; Wiggins, Susanne Brunhart; Williams, Sue; Williman, Muriel; Wilmot, Tiffany; Wilson, Warren; Wing, David; Woestwin, Carl; Wolfe, Julia; Wollner, David; Wyss, Cassie; Zaccheo, Barbara Nichols; Zammarchi, Loretta; Ziolko, Susan. - end -