According to a report in yesterday’s L.A. Times, Americans are producing less garbage, and landfill use has plummeted in recent months. And no, it’s not because of some New Age primitivist movement, or because of that guy who only eats what he kills in the park, or because anybody actually reads AdBusters. That would be stupid. It’s because of the recession, of course.

Still, it’s kind of cool. According to the article, landfills all across California are noticing some major breaks from the norm. The Puente Hills Landfill has experienced a 30% decrease in garbage in the last six months. San Francisco’s garbage generation is at a 30-year low; and San Diego landfills are experiencing a 15-year low. If this trend is consistent for the rest of the U.S. — and it should be, since the recession is certainly nationwide — that adds up to an impressive level of waste reduction.

Now, it’s fine to say you value anticonsumerism on principle, but the proof is in the trash can. If people can’t afford to buy lots of crap, then they don’t need to throw out all the packaging it comes in, and this puts a lovely, and long-overdue slowdown on our journey to WALL-E’s backyard.

And, while I’m ranting, let me just point out that it’s not necessarily a bad thing for shopoholics to get a kick in the ass every once in a while. There’s a reason my 80-year-old grandparents are more thrifty than my 50-year-old parents: they remember the last time we as a nation had to examine the meaning of the word “essential.”

At any rate, I’m going to classify the garbage reduction as a win for now, even if it is a sign that people are losing their jobs. They’ll find new jobs eventually, and in the meantime, we get a better shot at keeping our planet alive. And this is a nice accompaniment to the reduction in gasoline sales that reduced prices, and hopefully CO₂ emissions, in the latter half of 2008. Speaking from a purely ecological standpoint: is it just me, or does this recession kind of rule?

In 1996, a young Barack and Michelle Obama were interviewed as part of a project on couples in America. They had their picture taken on the sofa, said lovely things about each other, and generally gave off the same smart-people-in-love vibe that we get from them today.

This is just the latest effort to humanize the new President, remind everyone that he’s just a normal person like us, and hopefully dispel any lingering rumors of a hidden radical agenda. Like all the previous efforts, it will mostly fail, not because he actually is a secret radical, but because his detractors are too committed to hating him. A handful of people will say, “Well, I guess he’s not so bad after all,” but many more will see this as another PR stunt, possibly planted by agents of the Obama Conspiracy.

So. If a few cute photographs won’t sway the die-hard haters, why does the media keep putting them out there? My first instinct was to assume they were acting out of white liberal guilt, but that seemed too obvious. No, they’re trying to bring about a phenomenon that I’ll call the Huxtable Paradox*.

I takes its name from the family featured on the Cosby Show, which many critics regard as the series that truly humanized African-Americans in the mind of the average viewer. The question is, why this show? Since the 1970s, there had been plenty of shows whose casts were mostly (and in some cases, entirely) African-American, but they aren’t treated as revolutionary. It’s not as if they were too “edgy” for the average viewer; if Richard Pryor could sell as many albums as he did, then white America could handle George Jefferson’s insults.

The simple answer, and the foundation of the Paradox (which I swear I’m getting back to) is that Cliff Huxtable was a doctor married to a lawyer, while Fred Sanford ran a junkyard with his idiot son. The Huxtables weren’t just an atypical African-American family; they were an atypical American family, period. Disregarding race for a moment, how many affluent medical/legal power couples do you know? And how many of them have time to be the World’s Greatest Parents for five kids?

Exactly!

And therein lies the Huxtable Paradox: in order to be accepted as real human beings, minorities must often transcend mere humanity and demonstrate superhuman talent. Probably the same deal for women, too, and if Hillary Clinton had won the primaries, I’d be writing that post right now.

We’re witnessing this phenomenon play out in much of Obama’s press coverage. As much as George W. Bush relied on his regular-guy image in 2000, I don’t recall hearing much about George W. Bush, the regular guy. He’d had his “youthful indiscretions,” and he cleared a hell of a lot of brush after he got elected, but I’ve never seen his baby pictures. I’ve seen tons of Obama’s baby pictures (seriously, scroll down to the one where he’s dressed as a pirate — so cute!). I’m sure pictures of Baby Dubya exist, but they were never considered newsworthy.

Barack and Michelle Obama are moving into the White House in less than a week, and one could argue that they’ve bested Cliff and Clair Huxtable in terms of superhuman feats. To a certain portion of the population, the Obamas will always remain too “unknown,” too “distant,” and too “foreign.” For many others, though, seeing Obama as President has finally allowed them to admit that yes, they would probably enjoy hanging out with that guy.

And who knows? Maybe, on some glorious day in the future, Americans will also be capable of being friendly and open-minded to non-Presidents.

*Distinct from the Huxtable Effect, which claims that the Cosby Show laid the groundwork for America’s acceptance of Obama.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I explained how porn built the internet? Well, porn has come to collect its reward. Preferably in the form of heaping piles of our tax money.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis have announced their intention to petition Congress, on behalf of the entire adult entertainment industry, for a $5 billion bailout package. Presumably, in accordance with classic porno negotiation tactics, the first billion will be for taking off their tops, the second billion for taking off their bottoms, the third billion for fellatio, and… well, you get the idea.

In what I must conclude is a glorious attempt to start the year off with some first-rate political theater, Flynt and Francis released a statement today explaining their position to the new 111th Congress.

Joe Francis declared:

“The U.S. government should actively support the adult industry’s survival and growth, just as it feels the need to support any other industry cherished by the American people.”

Larry Flynt added:

“With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”

Flynt is no stranger to the time-honored tradition of annoying the hell out of the government. In 1998, in response to the Clinton impeachment, Flynt offered a $1 million bounty for evidence of any sexual affairs committed by Republican lawmakers. Emboldened by the success of that endeavor, he did it again in 2007. He also ran for Governor of California in 2003, but lost to Arnold Schwarzenegger. This latest adventure is, of course, a mockery of our government’s newfound willingness to give a big wet golden shower to any automaker or investment banker willing to open his or her mouth submissively in front of a Congressional hearing.

I could spend a few more paragraphs making dirty jokes, but instead I’ll point out that, viewed objectively, the final reality is that there is a fundamental flaw in the logic of Flynt and Francis: we don’t need them. Sure, there was a time when if you wanted to see images and videos of people fucking, you had to go through a major pornography studio and purchase their magazines and VHS tapes. But that time is long past, and we are now several years into the Amateur Porn Renaissance. Every day, willing exhibitionists film themselves doing every sort of dirty deed imaginable, and give it away to the world for free online. If brands like Hustler and Girls Gone Wild are having trouble, it’s because they can’t compete with amateur porn, not because of the recession.

In the words of Seth Rogen’s title character in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, “Everybody wants to see anybody fucking.” If you can get a video of the lady down the street blowing the pizza delivery guy for free, you’re not likely to pay $19.95 to watch Jenna Jameson pretend to do the same thing. All I’m saying is, if the streets were littered with free cars for the taking, Congress never would have considered a bailout package for GM, Chrysler and Ford.

Nevertheless, Flynt and Francis are to be congratulated for reminding us that the likes of the Big Three automakers and the CEOs of investment banking institutions like AIG are, at heart, just a bunch of greedy fucking whores.

Hey, remember this asshole? Paul Nawrocki, the former executive who took to the streets of Manhattan with a placard advertising his “almost homeless” status, essentially panhandling for a new high-paying executive position? Well, that guy’s got some competition on the opposite side of the country.

Meet Kelly Kinney, a 29-year-old marketing professional from LA. She, like her New York counterpart, has been standing on the street asking for white-collar employment. The difference is, Kinney is wearing her resume.

About a week ago, after seeing a guy wearing a T-shirt that read “Unemployed,” she decided to take the idea a step further and put her resume on the front of her shirt and a cover letter on the back. The credentials on the white T-shirt are listed below a boldface heading: “I NEED A JOB!”

Is this any less pathetic than Nawrocki’s approach? Not really; in addition to wearing his sign, he hands out resumes from his corner in New York. But instead of banking on people’s sympathy, Kinney is making use of an ancient secret of marketing: if it’s on a T-shirt, it’s automatically kind of funny. People see her, and they think, “This person doesn’t make me sad. Why, this person might brighten up the whole office if we hired her! Too bad we’re in the process of laying off half our employees.”

It doesn’t hurt that she’s been sending out a staggering number of resumes the old-fashioned way as well, or that she’s tried other gimmicks in the past:

Kinney is tenacious. While the T-shirt idea is her latest promotion, she also posted her resume on her car window and sent postcards to potential employers — all in the hope one will believe in her.

“If I can sell myself this well, I can sell your company this well as well,” she said.

That’s a lot of “well”s, but her point stands, and I’m inclined to believe her. If she can take something as depressing as begging for employment on a street corner and make it seem fun, then she clearly knows something about marketing. Ms. Kinney, if I had any money or business sense, I would start a company and offer you a job. Or I would if you were willing to relocate to Pittsburgh, which you probably aren’t.

Look, at least I’m trying to do something nice here. Is there anyone in LA who could maybe help me out with this?

A former toy company executive, laid off from his job in February, has now given up on traditional job hunting in favor of an altogether weirder strategy. He’s spending his days standing on the streets of Midtown Manhattan, holding a sign which reads,

“Almost homeless. Looking for employment. Very experienced operations and administration manager.”

This seems like a clever, outside-the-box strategy, provided you don’t think about it for more than five seconds. Jackass.

I know that being a former corporate executive basically qualifies you for classification as mentally disabled at this point, but this man, whose name is Paul Nawrocki, appears to have lost all understanding of the simple mechanics of earning money. Just in case any of my readers are likewise fuzzy on the subject, allow me to explain: the simplest and most direct way of earning money in our society is to do something that somebody wants you to do. This is why it’s easy to get paid to do things like scrubbing toilets and repairing bicycles, and difficult to get paid to do things like standing around looking depressed.

When asked by a CNN reporter if he was embarrassed to be holding a sign in the city while other people went to work, Nawrocki replied,

“When you’re out of work and you face having nothing — I mean, having no income — pride doesn’t mean anything. You need to find work. I have to take care of my family.”

If this is Nawrocki’s perspective, then he’s going about it in a very odd and ineffective way. Usually, when a person decides to sacrifice their pride because they need money, they actually manage to make money. People who are willing to be embarrassed in order to earn a living become things like janitors, cashiers, stock clerks, telemarketers, dishwashers, waiters, dog walkers. Hell, some people even become street musicians and prostitutes. But all those people end the day with more money than they started with, whereas Nawrocki isn’t getting anything except maybe some added muscle in his legs from all the standing.

Sacrificing your dignity for a higher purpose is all very well and good, but it’s all rather meaningless if nothing gets accomplished as a result. What’s the endgame here? At this point I have to assume that Nawrocki is, in fact, waiting for a man in a red visor to walk out of the nearby Quiznos and say, “Hey dude, get in here, spend twenty minutes learning to make sandwiches, and then you can make some money doing that instead of standing around like a mental patient.” Minimum wage is, after all, still a wage, whereas you get paid absolutely nothing for standing on 42nd St. telling people that you’re sad.

And if this guy is holding out for work in management, then his plan seems even more inexplicable. Who the hell appoints someone to a position of authority out of pity?

Not that Nawrocki is going completely ignored. According to CNN’s report, one woman who passed by said,

“I feel sorry for him. I wish I could help him. I’ll pray for him. I’ll give him a prayer card.”

Oh, yes? How nice. Can you pay for your wife’s medication with prayer cards now? I thought they only accepted prayer cards as currency in countries like FakeCrapia and CrazyNotRealistan.

The bottom line is this: when Nawrocki’s unployment money stops coming, he can make good on the claim of shirking his pride and earn a damn dollar. Or, he can continue holding his sign and hoping that Manhattanites decide to give a shit. One guess as to which option will be more effective. Poor people instinctively know things like this. For some reason, former executives don’t. You know… maybe this guy didn’t get fired because of the recession. Maybe he got fired because every time there was a problem at the toy company, his solution was to walk around wearing a sign about the problem, in the hope that someone would see him and do something about it.

“They just found dangerous levels of lead in our childrens’ bath toys! We have to notify the media and issue a recall whilst simultaneously setting our PR people to spinning this into our favor and diverting the blame to the Chinese. This looks like a job for… a dude wearing a sign!”

Come the fuck on, people.

For those critics who have suggested that Barack Obama has not spoken to the American people enough since his victory three weeks ago, I have an answer for you: you’re not thinking geekily enough. While the President-Elect may be focusing on assembling his cabinet and giving vague answers to reporters, he’s also taken time out to talk to Planet Internet. I’m talking, of course, about Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect, broadcasting now on YouTube.

This week’s installment focuses on the job market in the coming years, and it’s half-impressive and half-not-specific-enough:

Sounds good, but there’s one statement in particular that I’d like to comment on:

“We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

I think I speak for millions of young working Americans with shitty jobs when I say, “Tell me where and when, Mr. President, and I’ll be there.” Seriously, I want in on this. Obama says that he and his new economic team will be “working out the details in the weeks ahead,” and hopefully those details include a how-to for people who want to participate.

I mean, where will we apply for these jobs? What sort of training will we need? I don’t know how to make solar panels! Do I need to go to engineering school, or will there be some sort of apprenticeship program? Can I take Alternative Energy Technologies 101 at the local Community College? These are things that need to be addressed, because it’s not enough to create the jobs; there must also be a system in place for Americans to become eligible for those jobs.

President-Elect Obama, we’re ready to build your wind farms. Please give us our marching orders.