And Speaking of Conservation...
Will somebody PLEASE get the word to all the world's charities to STOP sending out sheets of address labels with every request for cash?!
Wake up, folks; it's an internet world now. People rarely send paper letters (more's the shame), and more and more people pay their bills online (this saves both paper and fuel). So all those address labels end up a) in landfills, b) in the recycle tub or c) stuffed into some poor schmuck's drawer-- some guy who hates the things but feels guilty tossing them.
I do not need your low-cost, impractical "gift." We were gonna give you some dough anyway. If you want to TRULY motivate generous giving, how about cutting your requests down to once a year, with a simple, no-hype statement of what you've been up to in the last 12 months, what challenges you foresee, and what you intend to do about them. A half-page budget breakdown would also be very useful. If I was treated with even this minimal level of respect I would be so surprised I would probably DOUBLE my charitable giving. As it is, I find most of the groups that I agree with politically and morally to be deeply and consistently annoying, on roughly the same level as a rectal aneurysm.
This means YOU: Doctors Without Borders, World Wildlife Fund, National Parks Conservancy, Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservancy, Sierra Club, UNICEF, Easter Seals, Habitat for Humanity. This means YOU Amnesty International, Rainforest Action Network, Boys and Girls Club, Public Radio, Public Television, American Heart Association, Audobon Society, International Campaign for Tibet. This Means YOU Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, LA Food Bank, Midnight Mission, Rails to Trails, American Indian Relief Council, Alzheimer's Association, International Red Cross, American Cancer Society!
Enough clutter! Enough crap.
posted by MM @ 2:38 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I love them labels! And I use them with impunity without paying for them! if they're foolish enough to send me stuff I can use, I'll by gum use it-- it's my conservationist duty to do so. and I've completely absolved myself of guilt for doing so! (in fact, I'm waiting for them charities to find me at my new address....)
but I'm 100% with you about the waste paper. I am incensed by the daily grind of advertisements. I propose a law that says there can be no mail sent to "occupant" and that any entity sending out stuff must create and maintain (on a better-than-occasionally basis) an opt-out list, just like we do for email. and speaking of email and spam and all that, why is there 10 times more outrage about spam than about all the millions of tons of waster paper denuding our mostly-denuded forests?
priorities, people! priorities!
You love them?! We're DROWNING in them!
As of this morning we have 45 sheets of labels, each with between 30 and 50 individual address stickers. Basically we have in the neighborhood of 2000 stickers, with a new sheet arriving at least once a month. On average each month I'd say we actually post maybe 4 or 5 pieces of mail, which means an net gain of 35 address labels each month. Madness!
And that's not even counting all the sheets of information-free stickers one is meant (I assume) to decorate with: panda bears and butterflies and cutsie-pie "miss-you" and "Happy Day!" and "Sending Ya Luv!" and just plain, most-revolting-of-all "wuv" and, for patriotic occasions, sparkly 3D 'merican flags.
We also can boast of the following bumper/window stickers: 2 Audubon, 1 Save Tibet, 1 Heal the Bay, 1 California State Parks Foundation, 2 Amnesty International, 2 Ocean Conservancy and 4 - 4 fer chrissakes! - Sierra Club.
I'm telling you, all this printed crap is not helping anybody's cause -- except perhaps a secret cabal of mental health hospitals trying to drum up middle-class clients.
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