Save twice as many dolphins!

So says today's fundraising appeal from the Ocean Conservancy.  Actually the full text is:  "Save twice as many dolphins!  Free decal enclosed!" 

I am not opening this envelope.  I already have enough material.  Not to mention enough decals, personalized mailing labels, and coupons I can redeem for collapsible totebags and coffee mugs.

It's the "save twice" that's getting me. 

Saving dolphins I get.  As in save the whales, save the redwoods.  To save in the sense of to protect.  It's a clever use of the word, because the imperative "save!" usually means save our money; it's not about protecting something out there in the world, but hoarding something as ours. 

Can we really protect something without feeling like we own it? 

Campaigns about air pollution are settling on "spare the air."  I doubt "spare" was given much thought beyond the cute internal rhyme.  But spare is the right verb; it captures the taoist-environmentalist ideal, to do something by not doing anything, or by doing less.  The slogan reminds people they have the power to spare, which suggests, in a nice nonthreatening way, how violent and destructive our lives are.

We can't quantify what we've spared.  I do my part to spare the air but I also move through life unconsciously sparing: ants, weeds, morale, blog readership, microbes.

Now I'm invited to save twice as many dolphins.  Not spare them.  Save them, like money.  But if I save twice as many dolphins, how will I know they're still mine?  Will I get an account statement?   Can I trade them for redwoods later?

Comments

[Dave]

1.My Dad swears that he once saw a religious billboard that some griffiti artist had improved to read: JESUS SAVES U.S. TREASURY BONDS

2. Speaking of odd slogans, i got a decal in the mail that read:
NO FARMS
NO FOOD, to which i could only add
NO SHIT
and stuck it to my fridge. When my friend Chris was visiting, he said he, too, had initially been baffled by the slogan, which he took to represent some primitivist brand of anti-farmer zealotry, i.e., "No Farms! No Food!"

3. The other day I got a piece of junk mail promoting some pretentious literary magazine (almost, but not quite, an oxymoron). Right on the envelope, in big letters, it said: NO EDITOR LASTS FOR LONGER THAN ONE ISSUE. What, you take them out and shoot them?

None of these examples of bad promo campaigns are as funny - or as sad - as "Save Twice as Many Dolphins - Decal Enclosed," however. Thanks!

Save the tuna - eat sardines.

[the_bone]

I read this earlier, and "Save twice as many dolphins" nagged at me all. day. long. Grrrr.