For Shame

[UPDATE]:

Behold the power of Twitter. H&M says it will stop this practice, while WalMart said "oops." But this is what gets me:

It's hard to know why the employees of H&M and Walmart felt it their duty to destroy clothing in the first place, but my guess is it is a growing resentment against so-called freegans and other dumpster divers in the city. The New York Times itself has covered this phenomenon a few times, and it's well-known that many employees of restaurants and grocery stores occasionally render food inedible so the freegans won't come rummaging. There's the sentiment among some that no one deserves a free ride (or a free pair of pants) -- even if it's in someone else's trash.

Excuse me??!! You resent the freegans? Well fuck you. I resent that there are people without food and clothing in the world's most prosperous nation. I resent that we're the most wasteful nation on earth.

So take your resentment (and your boxcutter) and stuff it. Here's a little tip: if you don't want freegans rummaging through your trash, then don't throw it away. Use it. Recycle it. Don't buy it to begin with.

Things have got to change, America. We can't be the world's Hoovers, sucking up everything within our reach, and not expect to pay some kind of price for this profligacy.

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I’ve known that big companies like Wal-Mart do this, but kudos to grad student Cynthia Magnus for spreading the word about this shameful practice:

This week the New York Times reported a disheartening story about two of the largest retail chains. You see, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need, H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. And in the case that someone may stumble on these bags and try to keep or re-sell the items, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable.

This unsettling discovery was made by graduate student Cynthia Magnus outside the back entrance of H&M on 35th street in New York City. Just a few doors down, she also found hundreds of Wal-Mart tagged items with holes made in them that were dumped by a contractor. On December 7, she spotted 20 bags of clothing outside of H&M including, "gloves with the fingers cut off, warm socks, cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor, men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.”

You know, there’s so much human pain associated with modern American retail, from the overseas sweatshops which manufacture these items to the child labor used to pick the cotton to the feudal systems in third world countries which force farmers to grow cotton instead of food. All so we can have a $20 T-shirt that, when it’s not sold, will be torn to shreds to ensure no one can ever use it. It is then thrown in a New York landfill to be buried with the other garbage.

These are the sins of American life for which we will be judged. Not gays and abortion and failure to post the 10 Commandments in the courthouse. It’s this. When the wealth of the powerful and enfranchised is used to oppress the powerless and disenfranchised, that’s sin. The Bible is very clear on that. And someday, whether you’re religious or not, we’re all going to have to answer for that--indeed, we already are. It's not just a Biblical law, it's not just a religious law, it's a universal law. It's karma.

A couple years ago I wrote about how Wal-Mart padlocks its trash dumpsters to deter dumpster diving. I wrote:

One of the worst things I ever heard about Wal-Mart was that stores padlock their trash dumpsters. Former Wal-Mart employees have told me of the perfectly good food and merchandise that is thrown away on a daily basis, yet Wal-Mart locks people out of its trash. When your trash is so valuable that it requires padlocks, something is seriously wrong. Hey, Wal-Mart, if it’s that valuable, try donating this stuff to a shelter, OK?

This post sparked outrage among the free-market greed brigade (sadly, those comments got lost when I switched commenting formats.) No one could believe that I would be so anti-free market as to advocate “dumpster diving.” Now, I’m not a dumpster diver, but if something is trash, then why shouldn’t it be someone else’s treasure? It seems that the fear is that people won’t buy things if they can get it for free, but quite a lot of people can’t or won’t buy it anyway. And if the problem is that the “trash” still has value, then it’s not trash, is it? Donate it to an American charity, recycle it, mark it down, send it to an orphanage in India or Africa where the cycle of abuse started, quit overbuying to begin with.

Stop the sin cycle. Corporate America and American consumers alike need to come clean.

The Business of Dehumanization

Judging by the head-popping over at Kleinheider’s and in comments here, it seems I struck a nerve with my radical idea that capitalism is not, in fact, the answer to every problem.

How very un-American of me.

Mostly I was trying to point out that free insurance markets will create a whole new headache without actually reforming anything. Our problem isn’t lack of insurance. Our problem is a system that isn’t people-oriented but instead business-oriented.

Congress is asking how we can reform the business of healthcare to better serve people. That’s the wrong question. I’d rather ask how we can keep people healthy and get affordable healthcare to everyone at those inevitable times when we are not. Business may play a role in that but it shouldn’t be the overriding focus.

The business of healthcare should serve people. That it doesn’t is a failing of the modern capitalist religion, in which people are viewed as “consumers” first, human beings second (if at all). We’ve had this drilled into our psyche so thoroughly that we blithely accept such terms as “American consumers,” not recognizing the pejorative it so clearly is. Because when humans are reduced to mere “consumers,” their value is in their purchasing power. They are nothing more than wallets, checkbooks, bank accounts. Even, ominously, “credit scores.”

This leaves a whole bunch of people out of the equation (namely, the poor), and creates a social inequity in which the wealthy are deemed of greater value to society than the rest. Just look at the rhetoric from conservatives, who routinely disparage the poor as drains on society (Nashville’s own Phil Valentine recently referred to the poor as ”greedy grumblers” who are “sucking up the tax dollars of hard-working Americans by the trillions.”)

It’s dehumanizing, yes, but also entirely inevitable under a system that sees only wallets, not people.

It’s not just healthcare. I point readers to Mark Slouka’s riveting article in the September issue of Harper’s about education: “Dehumanized: When Math & Science Rule The School” (subscription required). Slouka highlights something I’ve long suspected but have been unable to articulate: our education system is one engineered to serve business interests at the expense of civic interests. The result, while good for capitalism, is bad for democracy.

Writes Slouka:

Like a single species taking over an ecosystem, like an elephant on a see-saw, the problem today is disequilibrium. Why is every Crisis in American Education cast as an economic threat and never a civic one? In part, because we don’t have the language for it. Our focus is on the usual economic indicators. There are no corresponding “civic indicators,” no generally agreed-upon warning signs of political vulnerability, even though the inability of more than two thirds of our college graduates to read a text and draw rational inferences could be seen as the political equivalent of runaway inflation or soaring unemployment.

I would argue we saw those “warning signs of political vulnerability” at this summer’s Tea Party gatherings, where a population unsure of anything except their anger and powerlessness followed the orders of their corporate overlords and gathered at public squares to protest ... public squares?

There are plenty of other “civic indicators,” I might add: pathetically low voter turnout compared to other industrialized democracies; the focus on politics over substantive information on our national news; even the fact that we have a national business news anchor clueless about a program like Social Security. None of this bodes well for the Republic's civic health.

Why are the arguments for investing in education always capitalistic ones? To “make us competitive on the world stage,” of course. As Slouka notes, that’s a great way to create worker bees, not such a good way to create citizens. And it's implemented by emphasizing math and science education over those disciplines where it's more difficult to assign a dollar sign:

The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be. Their method is confrontational, their domain unlimited, their “product” not truth but the reasoned search for truth, their “success” something very much like Frost’s momentary stay against confusion.

They are thus, inescapably, political. Why? Because they complicate our vision, pull our most cherished notions out by the roots, flay our pieties. Because they grow uncertainty. Because they expand the reach of our understanding (and therefore our compassion), even as they force us to draw and redraw the borders of tolerance.

Little wonder totalitarian regimes tend to keep tight control over things like art, music, literature, and history.

And finally:

Rein in the humanities effectively enough—whether through active repression, fiscal starvation, or linguistic marginalization—and you create a space, an opportunity. Dogma adores a vacuum.

Someone remind me, when did we stop teaching civics in public schools?

We’re out of balance as a society. We’ve accepted the idea that our value as human beings is in our purchasing power. That might serve IBM and Microsoft and Monsanto and Koch Industries well, but how well does it serve America?

Look around you. People, both right and left, are angry and disillusioned. Dehumanized. We look for solutions in electoral politics, and they are not there. We look for solutions in the marketplace--in boycotts--and they are not there.

Where is the solution?

Bad Christmas Gifts

One Christmas, back in the dinosaur age, when Southern Beale was just a baby blogger waiting for Al Gore to invent the internet, my grandmother gave our family the strangest gift. With absolutely no irony whatsoever, she presented us with an electric inside the shell egg scrambler.

It was the kind of completely useless thing advertised on late night TV back before the days of infomercials. Back then everything was “brought to you by Ronco” and came with a free ginsu knife!

We thought it was hilarious. It certainly beat the time my grandmother gave everyone in the family neon-colored fuzzy bathrobes--without the belts, which she said she was going to sew together to turn into a rug. My grandmother was an eccentric woman, to say the least, and not given to home craft projects of this type, so it was no surprise that after she died several years later we found those belts shoved in the back of her closet. Needless to say, the robes had been consigned to a Goodwill bin years earlier.

Anyway, I was reminded of this when I saw a TV advertisement for The Snuggie, the “blanket with sleeves.” Mr. Beale and I just cracked up when we saw this ad. Mr. Beale couldn’t believe anyone would wear one of these things out in public. If you’re going to a sporting event and it’s cold outside, why not just wear a coat?

I think the burgundy-colored ones make the wearers look like priests in a strange cult. And notice, these things have no belts! My grandmother would be proud.

I’m trying to imagine who this item appeals to. I’m guessing the very elderly or someone in a wheelchair--anyone for whom standing up to put a robe or sweater on the "proper" way is a challenge.

One of the things that amuses me about the holiday season is the opportunity to see this collision of American ingenuity and consumerism. Seriously, who thought Chia Pets would ever take off? And yet they are a holiday staple.

So to the inventor of the Snuggie, the Clapper, the ThighMaster, the PerfectPatty and all of the other gizmos and gadgets that are hawked on late night TV during the holidays, my hat's off to you. It takes real talent to come up with this crazy stuff and convince us we absolutely, positively cannot live without it.

Merry Christmas!

This Is Ridiculous

Building on this morning's post about the California budget crisis, Arnold should be so proud of this:

Tom Farber gives a lot of tests. He's a calculus teacher, after all.

So when administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, Farber had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they'll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.

"Tough times call for tough actions," he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.

Ads on test papers because the school district cut the supplies budget? This is a Libertarian’s wet dream. Free hand of the market! Problem solved! After all, in modern society everything is a commodity and everyone is a potential buyer! Everywhere a sales pitch, even in high school math class. Got to get that consumer messaging in early.

I think I'm going to be sick.

Farber says he was overwhelmed with requests from prospective advertisers. I’m not surprised. Young people today are an exceptionally ripe market for advertisers. They have few expenses and a lot of disposable income, and they’re easily suckered into buying a lot of crap they don’t need. And you don't get a more captive audience than a high school kid showing up to take the calculus final.

If this doesn’t ring some alarm bells, I don’t know what will. Says Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert:

"The advertisers are paying for something, and it's access to kids," he says.

Exactly. I railed against advertising to children and youth well over a year ago when I was nauseated by the constant barrage of sales pitches at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

Free enterprise has its place. I just wish it would remember to stay in it.

Welcoming Our Corporate Overlords, Part 2

As if network television weren’t crappy enough already, someone at NBC has come up with this lame idea:

At a presentation on Wednesday afternoon, senior executives of NBC, part of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric, will describe how they are seeking to make advertisers into long-term partners rather than just sell them 30-second commercials.

One example is a new deal with the Liberty Mutual Group insurance company that is centered on a pair of two-hour TV movies to be broadcast under the banner of the company — “Liberty Mutual Presents,” for example.

The movie plots are intended to complement a campaign for Liberty Mutual that was introduced in 2006 by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston, which carries the theme, “Responsibility. What’s your policy?” The scripts, which Liberty Mutual will help develop, will discuss subjects like taking responsibility for one’s actions and deciding how to do the right thing.

Oh great, just what I need: to take my moral cues from a freaking insurance company.

This all worked so well in the 1950s, didn’t it? I’m sure the fact that Phillip Morris sponsored I Love Lucy had nothing to do with the fact that Lucy, Ethel and Ricky smoked like chimneys on the program.

Let me be clear, as a “content creator” (i.e., a writer) I absolutely detest this idea. I find it abhorrent to allow anyone--government or corporation--to have control over the creative process. I know newspapers and magazines do it all the time with advertising inserts and “special sections,” and I don’t like that, either.

The Times article quotes Michael Pilot, president for sales and marketing at NBC Universal:

advertisers “are not asking us to be programmers,” Mr. Pilot said, but rather “they want to be more connected to the programming; they want a seat at the table.”

Excuse me, I thought programming was a network's job, and who said advertisers should be involved in programming anyway? Who said that’s in the best interest of TV viewers? They're hawking products at us, why should they have a seat at the table?

I’ve voiced my distaste for being marketed to several times. I realize that this dislike of advertising is why corporations are forced to get more creative with their sales pitch to begin with. But it’s getting downright predatory. It’s like there’s some phantom lurking in my home reaching out to sell me shit I don’t want at every turn. Ads on supermarket shopping baskets, in the movie theater, on television, in my mailbox, and now even snuck into the content of my entertainment. I’m sick of it

Here’s a novel idea to Liberty Mutual: how about making a better product? Yeah, I used to have your insurance and I cancelled it because your premiums got way too high and you didn’t offer the same bells and whistles that other insurance companies did. How about just providing a product people want, and trust the “free hand of the market” to do its job?

Anyway, the NBC/Liberty Mutual partnership will debut in September with “Kings,” which Liberty Mutual’s PR guy described as

a “fast-paced, contemporary drama, kind of like ‘The West Wing’ set in a kingdom,” and inspired by the biblical story of David.

Good luck with that.

Slave 2U

NO.

Just, no:

Looking to strike a blow against the proliferation of digital video recorders, the ABC network, its affiliated broadcast stations, and Cox Communications’ cable systems are establishing an on-demand video service that would allow viewers to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” any time they choose.

The catch: It uses a new technology that disables the viewers’ ability to fast-forward through commercials.

Am I stuck in a Pepé Le Pew cartoon, or what? Just when consumers figure out a way around those annoying TV commercials that we all hate to watch, corporate America finds another way to FORCE us to watch their sales pitch anyway.

STOP IT. Just, quit it. We don’t want to watch your ads, alright? You’re pissing me off here.

I hate being marketed to. I hate it. I’ve written about this before, notably here and here. I can’t tell you how offensive, intrusive, dehumanizing and manipulative I find this whole “you WILL WATCH” crap from corporate America.

Listen up, Corporate America: quit treating me like a giant, throbbing wallet. I know all you want is my money but geez, could you at least pretend we consumers are, you know, people?

Here’s what you people fail to understand: I want to buy your product. I’m a consumer. I live in America. That means I consume A LOT. It’s the American way, it’s how we show our patriotism, right? But the over-aggressive way you shove your products at me is a huge turnoff. I’m this close to going all lefty-commie-DFH and getting all anti-consumer on y’all's ass.

Keep this Advertising Nazi crap up and I will. Just you wait.

They're Baaaack!

Following up on this post from earlier in the month, I thought I'd show you the mail we received at the Beale house yesterday.

Yep, all catalogs.

It was the same the day before and it will be the same today. This deluge was bad enough before Christmas, but now all the crap I didn't buy the first time around is on sale, so retailers feel compelled to make that final push.

I never buy from catalogs anymore but I do buy online, which I guess is the same thing from the retailer's perspective. But I'm seriously reconsidering these online purchases, knowing that it will only result in another deluge of catalogs four or five times a year.

If a person buys stuff online, shouldn't they be able to opt out of receiving catalogs from that retailer?

Help, I’m Drowning

We’re drowning in catalogs at the Beale household. There’s a whiff of panic in this daily retail blitzkrieg: where in the past I may have received two or three catalogs from a particular retailer, now we’re getting dozens from each one.

This aggressive sales pitch can only mean one thing: sales are down and they’re getting really, really desperate.

Note to L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, Sierra Trading Post, J. Crew, Sahalie, etc. etc.: you do not need to send me 10 catalogs all with the same crap in them. And no, putting a new cover on it doesn’t convince me that what’s inside is any different than it was the last nine times you sent it to me. If I browsed through your catalog and didn’t feel inspired to buy anything the first time, I’m not going to change my mind now.

This is such a terrible waste of paper, time, money, and space in my mailbox. These days I go straight from the mailbox to the recycling bin and dump everything I don’t want so it doesn’t further clutter my already filled countertops.

The folks at Environmental Defense have some useful tips on decreasing catalog clutter. One of them is to “register with the Direct Marketing Association”--for a $1 fee. Now, why would I want to do that? Why would I want to pay to not receive something I never asked for? (I know, they say the nominal fee is to “cut down on fraud.” Bullshit.) And why do I get the feeling that giving these Direct Marketing people my name and address will only increase the likelihood of getting more crap I don’t want?

A better idea from Environmental Defense is Catalog Choice, a free service. After registering, you list the catalogs you no longer wish to receive, and they contact the company on your behalf. This may not stop you from getting anything new but it will cut down on what you’re currently getting.

I’ve written before about how offensive I find the daily assault of advertising on my life. The constant drum-beat of “buy buy buy buy BUY!” is destroying the fabric of our society. It trivializes what’s important, and has turned everything from religion to politics into a commodity that can be bought and sold.

I’m as much of a consumer as the next person. I like having nice things and I like having the latest gadget. I like to shop--who doesn’t? But these things need to be kept in proper perspective. It should not rule our lives.

Every journey begins with a single step. I’m going to start by eliminating these freaking catalogs from my life.

Eavesdropping For Fun & Profit

Was that the free hand of the market reaching into my telephone, or are they just happy to see me?

Pudding Media, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., is introducing an Internet phone service today that will be supported by advertising related to what people are talking about in their calls. The Web-based phone service is similar to Skype’s online service — consumers plug a headset and a microphone into their computers, dial any phone number and chat away. But unlike Internet phone services that charge by the length of the calls, Pudding Media offers calling without any toll charges.

The trade-off is that Pudding Media is eavesdropping on phone calls in order to display ads on the screen that are related to the conversation. Voice recognition software monitors the calls, selects ads based on what it hears and pushes the ads to the subscriber’s computer screen while he or she is still talking.

Let’s hope this idea finds a place in the bad product cemetery right beside New Coke and Crystal Pepsi. Seriously, how much can customers prostitute themselves? We went from 10-cents a minute to free calls--if you let us listen in and shove advertisements your way? And it gets worse:

Pudding Media is working on a way to e-mail the ads and other content to the person on the other end of the call, or to show it on that person’s cellphone screen.

Let me go on record as saying, if you are a Pudding Media customer, do not call me. Ever.

I’ve blogged about this before but I am offended that corporate America sees me as nothing more than a giant throbbing wallet. Whatever happened to innovators whose creations were conceived to make life better for people? Now all they’re designed to do is make money for someone.

I’m tired of the constant assault of advertising. You can’t walk out the door without being hit with dozens of advertising messages. They’re on billboards, on the grocery cart at the store, on public transportation, not to mention what you hear on the radio.

It’s relentless and the message is always the same: buy! Buy this! Buy that! Buy buy buy! Buy me! Have we really become a nation of whores? Or is this the inevitable result when you have an economy no longer based on creating things, and now based solely on consuming things?

[UPDATE]: A poster over at Digby's pointed this out, which I neglected to mention:

Mr. Maislos founded Pudding Media with his brother, Ruben. Each had spent several years doing intelligence work for the Israeli military.

Great selling point, guys. We've got the Mossad creating a service where they can eavesdrop on your phone calls, yeah I'll be signing right up. {eyeroll}

And here's another point: Maislos claims that “The trade-off of getting personalized content versus privacy is a concept that is accepted in the world.” But I don't want personalized content. Americans run from advertisements, we fast-forward on the TiVo, we have Spam-blocking, we sign up for "Do Not Call" lists. In short: we do not want this crap. Quit shoving your "personalized content" at me because I don't want it.

Freegans: They’re Not Down With Capitalism

Today’s New York Times has a fascinating article on a burgeoning movement of modern-day scavengers called "freegans.” These are folks who reject the consumer economy and live by dumpster diving. They aren’t bums, many are middle class and have jobs, they just don’t see the need to go out and buy a bunch of crap when they can get what they want for free:

Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.

Before you go “eww, that’s gross,” take a moment to think of your own garbage, or maybe if you’re more thrifty, think of the trash from your workplace or your neighborhood. For instance, there are several houses on my street that are rented to college students and when moving day comes, it’s a regular Wal-Mart shopping spree on trash day. One year, the kids left a satellite TV programming box in the trash. That’s the principle at work here:

As of 2005, individuals, businesses and institutions in the United States produced more than 245 million tons of municipal solid waste, according to the E.P.A. That means about 4.5 pounds per person per day. The comparable figure for New York City, meanwhile, is about 6.1 pounds, according to statistics from the city’s Sanitation Department.

“We have a lot of wealthy people, and rich people throw out more trash than poor people do,” said Elizabeth Royte, whose book “Garbage Land” (Little, Brown, 2005) traced the route her trash takes through the city. “Rich people are also more likely to throw things out based on style obsolescence — like changing the towels when you’re tired of the color.”

Dumpster diving isn’t just for young kids on the far left, the kind you see protesting G8 summits and the like; there’s actually a growing movement among social justice and “red letter” Christians. Sojourners Magazine covered this movement last fall in their article, The Tao Of Dumpster Diving. Author Ryan Beiler, Sojourners web editor and a dumpster diver since 2005, says he subsists largely on food reclaimed from dumpsters. Here he explains why:

Reason number one--you get a lot of really, really good food really, really free. I often come away with a decent segment of the food pyramid: vegetables, meat, milk, eggs, and almost always lots of bread. And we’re not talking Wonder Bread--we’re talking sprouted wheat berry, pita, ciabatta, foccacia, and any number of Mediterranean-themed baked goods.

Though I’ll occasionally supplement my dumpster bounty with a trip to the natural foods co-op for some local produce or organic oats for homemade granola (bring on the stereotypes), I’ve come to rely mostly on society’s waste for my provision. As Jesus taught, “Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’... Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:32). In this spirit, dumpstering’s spontaneity is both liberating and satisfying. Instead of the anxiety of bargain-hunting among the throngs at corporate übermarkets, I enjoy the surprises of late-night expeditions and never worry about finding enough to eat.

BEYOND BASIC NECESSITIES, there’s also the allure of the big score. On my very first dumpster run, I went into Homer Simpson-drool mode at finding several pounds of smoked salmon--a delicacy I could never justify buying in real life. I ate it three meals a day for a week. It’s really great with eggs.

On a subsequent trip, I found six jars of caviar. I’ve also developed an addiction to grocery-store sushi (all pre-cooked or veggie). Just tonight I had a simple dinner of dumpster fare: soup and bread. But the soup was lobster bisque, and the bread was a lovely sourdough boule.

I never thought I’d pull food from a dumpster to feed my family but hey, you never know. Caviar? Lobster bisque? Sourdough boule? I have to say, as a city dweller, this intrigues me.

I can’t call myself a dumpster diver, but I have been known to pull something I wanted out of the trash; in fact, when I first moved to Nashville I found a perfectly lovely bamboo trunk on my first trip to the dumpster at my new apartment complex. I pulled it out, cleaned it off and it became the centerpiece of my living room for years afterward.

One of the worst things I ever heard about Wal-Mart was that stores padlock their trash dumpsters. Former Wal-Mart employees have told me of the perfectly good food and merchandise that is thrown away on a daily basis, yet Wal-Mart locks people out of its trash. When your trash is so valuable that it requires padlocks, something is seriously wrong. Hey, Wal-Mart, if it’s thatvaluable, try donating this stuff to a shelter, OK?

Americans generate a lot of trash. Contemporary American society, indeed our entire economy, is based on marketing consumer goods that folks don’t really need. When you buy stuff you don’t really need, it makes it a lot easier to throw it out later.

Which makes me wonder: why do we need to be buying it in the first place?

Corporaquarium

I am cranky. I just spent my Saturday at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. It wasn’t a good time.

This is what the world looks like in the global economy. You’re assaulted by corporate logos everywhere you look; even the aquarium’s mascot is a bright-orange Nemo rip-off named--get this--”Deepo.”

Deepo? As in Home Depot, perhaps? Why yes, the Atlanta-based Home Depot, known for its orange logo, does happen to be a major sponsor of the new facility. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

In fact, much of Atlanta is one giant sales pitch. The wonderful MARTA, which transported us with ease and comfort from Buckhead to downtown, is filled with advertisements: television screens inside the cars blare ads, while at the station you are greeted with LED displays, billboards and floor mats hawking everything from new DVD releases to eyecare.

I don’t mean to pick on Atlanta, which is a lovely city in many respects. I’ve traveled enough New York subways to know that Atlanta isn’t the first city to view transit riders as a captive audience. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I’m sick of being marketed to. I’m tired of being viewed as a giant, throbbing wallet of cash everywhere I go by some “big brother”-like force that wants to know everything about me so it can separate me from my savings. It’s the ultimate dehumanizing experience for the consumer age. We haven’t been names in a long time, now the only number we represent is what’s in our bank accounts. And now they want our kids.

Seeing corporate logos so shamelessly displayed at a family destination like the Georgia Aquarium appalled me. These weren’t small “brought to you by” plaques; in many cases the corporate sponsor’s name was more prominent than that of the attraction.

This is wrong for a lot of reasons. Museums, zoos and aquariums are not entertainment venues, they are educational opportunities. They serve a community function, and with that should come a civic responsibility to not treat impressionable young kids like market sectors.

Three years ago the American Psychological Assn. called for stricter regulations protecting children from advertising. I really don’t see the difference between a TV ad for Lucky Charms featuring a cute leprechaun and Home Depot’s Deepo the orange fish.

Look, I’m glad that corporate America is supporting a worthwhile effort like the Georgia Aquarium, and they deserve to be acknowledged for this contribution to the betterment of society. But do they have to turn these good works into a screaming sales pitch that’s rammed down our throats at every turn? Did UPS really need to advertise how it transports animal exhibits to the aquarium in a multi-panel advertise---oops, I mean educational display as I left the beluga whale exhibit? If this is what brown can do for me, I don’t want it.

We’re all just little fish here, but it’s high time we stood up to this big fish and told it to quit pushing us around.