Browse Topics
Consumerism
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.
February 1978Nestles 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.
February 1978The 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.
December 1977Excerpts 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.”
December 1977Cartoons By David Terrenoire
The cartoons in this selection are available as a PDF only. Click here to download.
November 1977Hot Dogs
I was compiling a list of what I would take with me in the coffin when along came a dog wearing a hat.
March 1977Break! 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.
September 1976Sex Is Not Strawberry Jam
My thumb was out and Interstate 86 out of Providence, Rhode Island was getting hot. Me and my St. Bernard, Roger, were thumbing across America. It had been a messy morning.
July 1976Small Is Beautiful
Many writers, dazzled by the growth in size and power of national governments and corporate enterprises, make the mistake of calling for a single, global organ to coordinate human affairs. Their idea is to free industry from national shackles and supercharge the market by way of central organization.
May 1976Off The Road
Studying astronomy, as a child, I was fascinated by the Earth’s movement, its rotation on its axis, its orbit around the sun, its sweep, with the rest of the galaxy, through space. Despite the evidence of my senses, nothing stood still.
May 1976
