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No More Chores

I’m gouging (laboriously) in a drainage pipe to avoid paying $20 an hour to somebody who knows how to do it right with proper tools.

Cars And Other Headaches

We took it as just so much more enemy venom when Nikita Khrushchev said the Russians didn’t have to fight the United States because we would spend ourselves out of the “race.” Enemies are always wrong; who would believe a character like that?

Sad Song

Life At The Top Of The Dial

The WDBS Story

WDBS is an institution, as much a part of local culture as Somethyme Restaurant, Apple Chill Fair, Breadmen’s, Carrboro and canoeing the Haw River. It’s one of the things that makes this area a nice place to live. Without it, life would be different.

Nestles Vs. The Newborn

Death, Malnutrition, And The Infant Formula Boom

To the poor, uneducated mother, an obvious solution is stretching the formula by diluting it with more water than is specified on the package, the label of which she probably cannot read. A study conducted in Barbados in 1969 showed that 82% of the mothers were “stretching” the formula. They were making a 4-day can last between 5 days and 3 weeks.

The Chain Gang

Consumers foot the bill for the supermarket monopolies. And what a bill! A 1975 government report found that 41% of the increase in food margins in a nine-year period was the result of rising advertising and promotional expenses — money spent not to better our diet but to manipulate us as shoppers.

Excerpts From RAIN

Journal Of Appropriate Technology

RAIN is one of my favorite magazines. Published monthly in Portland, Oregon, RAIN calls itself “a monthly information access journal and reference service for people developing more satisfying patterns that increase local self-reliance and press less heavily on our limited resources.”

Cartoons By David Terrenoire

The cartoons in this selection are available as a PDF only. Click here to download.

Hot Dogs

I was compiling a list of what I would take with me in the coffin when along came a dog wearing a hat.

Break! Break! CB And The — Mercy Sakes Alive! — Communications Revolution

Citizen’s Band radio is the biggest thing to hit the market since television. It is also the biggest revolution in communications since the telephone. There are two main facets to this phenomenon — fad and function.