Express Yourself!

Because Budweiser made up the vast majority of the roadside trash that I gathered in my neighborhood (see previous posting), I thought I would honor them with a new crown. In fact, if you add up all the Anheuser-Busch products (Natural Ice, Natural Light, Michelob, and Bud Extra) the total trash items goes from 33 to 40 items. Considering that I picked up 79 pieces of trash total, that means Anheuser-Busch made up over half of all the trash that I found in my neighborhood. It makes me wonder why that is. Are drinkers of other brands of beer more conscientious? Is there something about the brand that attracts certain people? Is there something in the Budweiser message that communicates, "drink me and then throw me out your car window". Well, that brings up yet another disconcerting idea. Given that I haven't noticed any pedestrians carrying beer cans, why are all these people drinking beer in their cars? Is it just my neighborhood? What does your litter look like?

As a follow up to my previous posting, I walked approximately 1.5 miles in my neighborhood and picked up the trash I saw along the way.  Here are my counts:

Budweiser and Bud light. Beer: 33 cans/bottle.
Dunkin Donuts: 5 cups
Coke: 5 cans
Milwaukee's Best: 4 cans<br />Pepsi: 4 cans/bottles<br />Natural Ice Beer:  3 cans<br />MacDonalds: 3 cups<br />Michelob Beer: 2 cans<br />Chilla Thrilla (Irving): 2 cups<br />The following are all single items: Natural Light beer can, Power Aid, Garcia Vega Cigars,  Coor's Beer can, Coffee Zone cup, Red Bull, Poland Springs, Twizzlers, Buggler Tobacco, unknown beer bottle, NestTea, Minute Maid bottle, Welches grape drink, Sunkist, Spiralbound notebook, Titleist golf ball, Motor oil can, BE (Bud Extra).</p><p align="center"><img hspace="0" src="http://oz.plymouth.edu/~estiller/Fall06/KingOfTrash.jpg" align="baseline" border="0" /></p><p /><p />

As I was going for a glorious fall bicycle ride, I was ascending one of New Hampshire's many brutal hills, going at a suitably slower pace, when I couldn't help but notice the trash at the side of the road.   As I inspected the discarded remnants of our lives, I was annoyed by the idea of turning this into <a href="http://wcbs880.com/pages/108098.php?contentType=4&contentId=222992">&quot;art&quot; by encasing it in plastic cubes</a>.  I started thinking about how many civic organizations adopt sections of highway for the purpose of trash clean up.  Why are organizations that already work for society's betterment picking trash?  Why aren't the corporations who manufacture the items picking up their products?   Corporations should be assigned a percentage of highway based on the percent of garbage they produce.  This lead me to wonder, &quot;who is creating the most trash?&quot;.  Based on my bike ride, Budweiser is the king of trash!  I'll do a more scientific study of my neighborhhod trash and give you the statistics, so check back.

<font size="2"><font size="2"><font size="2"><p>While traveling in Wyoming during the summer of 2004, I caught a couple television commercials about Halliburton. Through these I discovered that one of Halliburton’s special services is to feed people, like our soldiers, in extreme environments like Iraq.  Given that Halliburton is suspected of <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/12/politics/main588216.shtml">overcharging the American taxpayer $61 million</a>,  it seems as though it would have been an appropriate gesture if Halliburton had used this expertise to help bring food and water to the people of New Orleans when they needed it (for free!).  <font size="2">But of course not, Halliburton is not interested in serving this country, they are interested in making as much money as possible. </font></p><font size="2"><p>Surprise, surprise <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090401193.html">Halliburton is once again the recipient of a no bid contract by the Bush administration</a> to provide repairs in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Although George W. Bush fumbled the ball by appointing incompetent cronies to head FEMA, like Mike Brown (&quot;heck of a job Browny&quot;), that won't stop him from continuing to grease the palms of his supporters.</p><p>For more sleazy connections please check this out:</p><p><a href="http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?showtopic=66816">http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?showtopic=66816</a></p><p /></font></font></font></font>

<p>I believe we should all consider the social cost of any business transaction before we think that we got a good deal.  For example, that burger you just bought for 99 cents isn't such a great deal when you consider the portion of the rainforest that got burned in order to grow the grass to feed the cows for the cheap beef that permits McDonalds to profit from that same burger.  The too low wages of people who serve you the burger and the horrible working conditions of the meat packing workers also merit mention.  Thus, the social cost of that burger is quite high.</p><p>When I consider the social cost of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChoicePoint">ChoicePoint </a>my anger goes to such heights that I become depressed.  You recall <a href="http://www.csoonline.com/read/050105/choicepoint.html">ChoicePoint's most recent blunder</a> in which they sold private information of individuals to identity thieves.  ChoicePoint's Corporate Information Security Officer believes that information security and fraud are separate and unrelated issues.  Clearly, this is not true, and now thousands of people must contend with identity theft.   The truly socially expensive &quot;blunder&quot; of ChoicePoint was to deny primarily African-American voters their rights to vote by listing them as felons, and thereby give us George W. as our next President.  Given that <a href="http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/print.html">ChoicePoint has close Republican ties, how can this firm be trusted to provide a list of names to be purged from voter rosters?</a>  Does the fact that Florida Secretary of State (the person responsible for Florida elections) was George W's  Florida campaign chair, sound a little suspicious?  Given how close the Florida election was, we can attribute George W's victory to ChoicePoint's inaccurate felon list.   The hundreds of billions of dollars and many innocent lives wasted in Iraq are all because of ChoicePoint's sleazy tactics.  Who would do business with ChoicePoint other than a crook?  Please break any business ties with this sleazy company.</p>

<p>Buy <em><a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9844/9844.intro.html">Deceit and Denial, the Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution</a></em> by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner.</p><p><img height="62" hspace="5" src="http://turing.plymouth.edu/~estiller/blog/uploads/hairspray.serendipityThumb.jpg" width="110" align="left" border="0" />According to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050207&s=wiener">Jon Wiener</a> in his Nation article, the chemical industry is launching a campaign to discredit the authors of this book that chronicles the history of said industry covering up health risks associated its products, like tetraethyl lead and vinyl chloride.  The chemical, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20000320&c=1&s=kitman">tetraethyl lead</a> ,was introduced into gasoline to create leaded gas, despite numerous lead poisonings by workers exposed to it.  Although <a href="http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org/dirtysecrets/vinyl/1.asp">vinyl chloride</a> was known to be a potent carcinogen, it was used as an aerosol propellant in products like hairspray until 1974.  Industry is still releasing 1 million pounds of vinyl chloride into the atmosphere every year by using it to create PVC pipes and car upholstery.  According to the EPA, <a href="http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/vinylchl.html">&quot;Air inside new cars may contain vinyl chloride at higher levels than detected in ambient air because vinyl chloride may outgas into the air from the new plastic parts&quot;.</a></p><p /><p>I can still picture the cigarette industry CEOs sitting at a table during Senate hearings on the health risks of tobacco, claiming one after the other (without so much as a smirk) that there were no known health risks associated with their products.</p>