Is Diaper Hype a Pile of Garbage?

When she launched Garbage in 1989, this “Practical Journal of the Environment” was Patricia Poore’s baby.

Then she had a real baby and soon found herself in deep doo-doo.

Poore’s trouble started when House Beautiful profiled her. When asked what type of diapers she used at home, Poore answered honestly: “Pampers.”

The floodgates of eco-fury opened.

“YOU HYPOCRITE!” one reader blasted, concluding her diatribe with a scatological flourish.

Writing in the October/November Garbage, Poore says, “I was taken aback, more by the venom than by the concern. Angry, hysterical, holier-than-thou ravings over diapers , a tiny part of the solid-waste stream, arguably not an environmental problem at all.”

Poore’s article and accompanying sidebar explore in great detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of cloth vs. disposable diapers. Neither side wins overwhelmingly, though cloth would appear to be slightly more sound, environmentally.

The more interesting questions, however, are how the diaper became such a loaded symbol to begin with and why the controversy got so heated. Readers may find Poore’s analysis resonating with other arguments they’ve had lately.

Certain environmentalists, eager to win their debates at all costs, have shoved reason and intellectual honesty aside, she says: “I did not like the tactics of the anti-disposable diaper crowd. There is only one word for their methods: propaganda.”

In her accompanying editor’s statement, Poore follows an admission with a battle cry. Too many writers, she says, accept environmental party lines without skepticism. She too has pulled editorial punches “to avoid alienating the well-meaning people who support environmental causes.”

But the diaper dialogue has pushed her to independent thinking, and she’s seeking out writers willing to challenge conventional dogma: “The brave voices are out there. . . . (But) now I find these voices are being labeled ‘an anti-environmental backlash,’ with hints of conspiracy.”

Her main essay concludes: “Environmental problems will not go away. To solve them, we have to shake ourselves out and make sure we’re thinking straight. We have to stop being bullied into political stands that have little to do with science or the real world.”

REQUIRED READING

Novelist E. L. Doctorow’s essay in the Nov. 9 issue of The Nation is worth pondering as the nation sinks into its post-election euphoria or depression.

“The President we get is the country we get,” he writes. “With each new President the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. . . . He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. One four-year term may find us at reasonable peace with one another, working things out, and the next, trampling on each other for our scraps of bread.”

* As Bill Clinton prepares to assume office, yet another disenfranchised segment stirs--the liberal-leaning intelligentsia.

In the November/December Lingua Franca, Eric Alterman profiles 19 “Aca-Dems” likely to get called for duty, including Occidental College economist Derek Shearer and UCLA historian Steven Spiegel.

* Dubuque, Iowa, has 58,000 residents, 331 of whom are black. But the city is now actively campaigning to attract black, Asian and Latino families to this 98% white town.

The “noble experiment” stems from incidents three years ago, when a small group of young white yahoos started stirring up hatred, Newsweek magazine reports in its Nov. 9 issue. Now the town has an African-American, straight from California, as director of a new diversity council.

The city is not yet bathed in the warm glow of peace, love and harmony. But it’s trying.

* An article in U.S. News & World Report, meanwhile, cites statistical evidence that blatant white racism has diminished in the last 25 years. Still, however, white misconceptions about blacks persist, the article argues.

For instance, one white myth, according to the article, is that “blacks are given to violence and resent tough law enforcement.” But U.S. News cites a study showing that 85% of blacks nationally consider police performance either good or fair, just 5% below white ratings.

The perception may stem from the “I’m OK but you’re not” syndrome, U.S. News says. As a consequence, “. . . both whites and blacks exaggerate the extent of white stereotyping.”

* When National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu was a boy in Romania, Josef Stalin “was the daemon, the evil star of my childhood.”

Still, the fatherless and confused Codrescu had a portrait of the Soviet dictator in a tin frame on his bedside table. When he said the Lord’s Prayer, it was to Stalin. When Stalin died, he cried.

In the Nov. 1 issue of American Way (American Airline’s top-flight magazine), Codrescu talks about revealing all this to Robert Duvall--”a great actor and an American right-winger down to the tips of his cowboy boots.”

Duvall, who portrays Stalin on HBO this month, responded, “Some of the people he put in prison even wept (when told that Stalin was dead). He had that kind of hold.”

Codrescu’s engaging, multilayered story on Duvall’s Stalin stretches the possibilities of the celebrity profile.

NEWSSTAND NEWS

* News weeklies, which usually start hitting stands on Monday, get crunched by a Tuesday election. Newsweek solves the problem with a complete “Election Extra!” which arrives on the stands today.

Time has opted to fill next week’s issue with election coverage and make it more timely by releasing it early--today.

U.S. News & World Report will stick with its usual schedule.