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Show ( THE THUNDERBIRD , SOUTHERN VTAH UNNERS11Y • MONDAY, SErTEMBER 27, 1993· PAGE 5 4'lr.1~~~~~~~~ i 1 1 ---Hurst -· --- '-"E -'-'J ~ Clearing consumer fraud with color Shopping for school supplies is a ritualistic activity that has always been my favorite part of beginning a school year. There's something metaphysical as well a metaphorical about blank pages; the trite words, a new beginning, come co mind as l enjoy the preternatural cleanness, the colorful look and manufacrured plastic smell of new stuff. Recently, 1 spent an hour or two trudging down the aisles at Walman. and literally ran into a dozen people we knew who were doing the same thing. l even caught a couple with notebooks to their noses, talcing in the scent so associated with school bells. After marveling at my 'finds', uch remarkable advances in technology as non,oione banning liquid Paper and pens made from com, l stood in the notebook aisle, drowning in memories. l recalled how proud I had felt to be an eleven-year-old environmentalist and have a 'green' notebook. You twenty-something students may not remember this, but in the early 70s, recycled materials had lirtle colored speck.s mixed in the whire pages. You knew it was recycled because it looked recycled. Anymore, you can't tell the difference. American consumerism is becoming too homogeneous. Case in point: In my wanderings at Walman, I learned that an icon of American consumerism, the nearly-pure Ivory liquid, was apparently not pure enough. White Ivory has been turned into Crystal Ivory. I assume that means it's now IOO°A> pure instead of only 99.9%. Too bad. Sinners are much more fun. What's with all this crystallization of everything? You used to be able to rell the difference between a bottle of dish ap and a Pepsi. Now, remove them from their packaging, and they look exactly tl1e same. If l were a can of cola, I'd be damn mad that some marketing department was trying ro sell more of me by denying my color. ln thi day of fear of the unclear, at the rate it's going, soon motor oil will be advertised as "crystal clear" and some young kid will die from drinking it, thinking it's Crystal Pepsi.What' wrong witl, a little color in the world? I've always enjoyed pouring my yellow Sunlight into the sink, the lemony scent surrendering to whiteness only as it blossomed into a bubble bath for my overworked dishes. 1f onh• I could get someone else to wash them. Maybe I'm so out of it that 1 don't realize people have been complaining for decades that their dish soap's color is d stroying their hand , the environment, their marriages, or whatever. Perhaps the world's cola drinkers have finally come out, after having met secretly for years, and are defiantly saying, "I'm not drinking that brown crap anymore." I've got a clue foe you folks, it may be clear, but it's still crap. Know what l really think? This color controVersy has been invented by product designers who have, like talk show hosts, run out of material and are scraping the bottom of the barrel for new product ideas. They've scraped so hard that nothing was left but a teaspoon of theit own perspiration, and, you've got it, it came out clear. life is differentiated by color. The value scale doesn't include dear. Can you imagine drinking cleat millc, brushing your reeili with clear toodipaste; using a clear toilet! These things may be our fate. And what about the cost? You know that none of this change comes cheap. All that product development and advertising money could be used by businesses to correct other color issues, like equalizing pay scales for women and minorities. Spread a little green around, Proctor and Gamble. W e can use natural dyes and enjoy color without destroying. our environment, our society, or our lives. Just because we enjoy drinking brown soda and we wash our dishes with yellow, blue, or white soap doesn't make us anti-environmentalists. What it does make us, if we allow ourselves to be taken in by the producers of these crystal-dear procluca, is gullible. As Consumers, with a capital C, we students need to wake up and smdl the coffee. Then we need ro save it, before it, [001 is dear. Thunderbird Classifieds really work! Check 'em out today! Only $1.00 in TH 003 or Student Center Secretary Hardware & Crafts 622 So. 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