Wall Street Journal Letter

11/12/04

Gentlemen/Ladies

I read with great interest Sarah McBride's reporting on the upcoming release of the movie Noel and the simultaneous release of the same movie on DVD. What peeked my interest and caused me much dismay was the new twist that the movie industry has added to this DVD release. Shades of Mission Impossible, this DVD self-destructs'.

At first I thought, "hey, that's pretty funny. Who'd be dumb enough to buy something like that?" Then I remembered the Pet Rock...and the Hummer. No matter how far we go forward we always come back to P.T. Barnum in the end. (There's a sucker born every minute) Actually with the population growth since Barnum's day it's probably more on the order of one every twenty seconds or so.

Then, as a reaction to many years of conditioning, my mind flashed to my office. My previous chuckle and laughter gave way to dismay. For you see, in the corner of my office is a cardboard box. It used to hold a ream of copier paper. Now it holds old videos, unusable floppy disks, CD's and yes, even DVD's. It is the office recycling center for such items and I am the Keeper of the Recycling. I pictured that box and then I looked at Ms. McBride's article. My shoulders slumped and all the humor left me.

In this day and age when we should be spending more time figuring out how to make things last longer; when we should be concentrating on doing more with less, and when we should be, at the very least, investing in future ocean front property in Mississippi, we are, instead, going the other direction. Disposable DVD's.

I will not harangue you with tales of gloom and destruction of our planet. I will not harass you with Chicken Little cries of "the sky is falling". While, indeed, there may come a time when, if at least it is not falling, it will become unable to sustain us, I know for the most part, these arguments fall on deaf ears. it is the economics that drive us forward, not our environment...and it should be neither. What should drive us forward are the innocent eyes of four year olds, the laughter of six year olds and the thought of the legacy we will leave them. Oh, and what a legacy we shall leave them. For in truth, most of those useless DVD's will not end up in recycling boxes. Most will simply, along with their packaging, be tossed in garbage cans and head to landfills. True, that is not how it should be, but the reality is, that's how it will be.

Somewhere, I'm sure, there are people patting themselves on each other's backs for coming up with this idea. They are most pleased, no doubt. After all, what company doesn't dream of making a product that will only last 48 hours before the consumer needs another one? Disposable, my Aunt Fanny. Disgraceful, is more like it.

So, thank you Mr. Rosenman, thank you for adding just one more fact to my ever growing pile of Ripley-like experiences. You own a Hummer don't you? I hope your movie flops and your experiment fails. I for one will not take part in it.

Thank you, Ms. Sarandon for arriving at the Oscar's in an electric-hybrid vehicle and then turning around and taking part in "Noel." - an experiment in landfill expansion. Oh, I'm sure you didn't know, did you? After all you're only an actress, right? Yeah, right. How convenient.

And thank you, Ms. McBride, for completely missing this point in your story...but then again why wouldn't you? After all it's The Wall Street Journal we're talking about here, isn't it? Remember the economics?

Hope all of you have a joyful...and thoughtful holiday season.

Sincerely,

Joseph R. Umholtz