Use It Up (everyday trash in absentia)

NOTE: Since I'm have used up all my blogger techmentality mojo and can't seem to figure out basics of posting via wordpress, I'm temporarily posting items for everydaytrash here. We'll move 'em over when Leila returns.

Apologies to everydaytrash faithful who thought they need not fear trash withdrawal while Leila ventured to other continents. I will spare you any excuses and just get down to it.

So many efforts are made to look to the future to solve our trash-related challenges that I wanted to take a brief look to the past. Before "Reduce/Reuse/Recycle" became a household mantra (if not yet a real habit), there was World War II and a slew of resource conservation propaganda. Back in the day, there were extensive efforts to encourage individuals to cut back or do without in almost every aspect of everyday life - do you really need to go on that trip? Are you preparing your home for winter so that you use the smallest amount of fuel needed? Suburbanites, have you planted a victory garden on your property so that industrial farmers can sell more of their food to support soldiers overseas?

I can't resist asking the obvious rhetorical question about why no similarly widespread federal initiative exists today. For those who don't want to call what's happening in Iraq a war, (or, reasonably, would prefer not to think of Iraqis as the enemy), there's always the real and universal enemy of global warming to rally against.

In any case, for your historical reading pleasure, here's a great short from Straight Dope at the Chicago Reader, reviewing which WWII efforts were beneficial (most) and which were mostly propaganda designed to boost morale (one or two). The Decatur Daily talks to folks who lived with rationing as everyday practice. More pix from wartime poster propaganda like the above (don't you love how innocently racy the Use It Up poster is?) can be found here (fair warning that plenty of these are far from PC). And, back to the present, San Francisco revitalizes the victory garden for 2007.

Dry and Droll

But you need not be Brit to find the BBC's program (programme) Recorded for Training Purposes funny, all sketch and satire. I love the fake ad for pc fruit products, whose claims include that "We make the Body Shop look like a Japanese whaling vessel."

Then, there's homegrown smart radio humor, too.

When Winning Is Losing

I won't resort to the s-word epithetics of my Man Utd-supporting coterie of friends, but Beatles orginators notwithstanding, Liverpool is not among my favorite locales these days, its futbolers having lost to Barca yet somehow still having managed to knock 'em out of the champions running.

I'm not about to shift allegiances from club or sport, but this whole "you can win the game but lose the championship spot" is probably part of the reason this game still has a bit of a difficult time in the U.S.

Deco, above right, in away colors.

Verdict

One down, four score and 7 (give or take) to go.

What a Mess

I’ll be guest blogging over at everydaytrash while co-conspirator nightgrapefruit is on the other side of the world for a couple of weeks.

If you haven’t found everydaytrash yet, we're not talking parishiltonnicolerichie trash. We mean dirty, smelly, nasty trash, the kind that you probably just drop down the garbage chute or set out on the curb and don’t think about again, even though you should. In Leila's absence I will deliver the second-finest in trashy news and commentary from all corners of the world.

For the moment I'm figuring out how to post on Wordpress, but will be spewing forth soon enough.