When I first heard about Freecycle years ago, it was fairly brilliant,  a way to offer up things that you don’t need, so that instead of throwing them away someone else will come and take them off your hands. No payments, just giving things away to someone else who wants them. Over the years I’ve given a lot away on Freecycle.

For the past few years, though, the DC-area Freecycle groups have become slightly… well, draconian. They were splintered into lots of smaller groups, which made sense. But suddenly they started demanding that people prove that they were in that small geographical focus, something I always found silly because does it really matter if I live on one side of a town line or the other if I’m going to keep things from being thrown away? This is an area with enough communities and towns all up alongside one another it’s not like I’m in Topeka signing up for things in Chicago. I had to actually fight to get onto the group where my office is; it’s easier for me to have people pick up things here, based on location and hours, than where my home is.

Today, the group for where my office is located sent out a note saying the following:

The Freecycle Network™ made a structure change from groups serving large geographic areas to local groups serving local communities several years ago. This “local focus” helps us create a close-knit, local giving community of neighbors helping neighbors that makes a real impact.

In an effort to maintain our local focus, we need to reserve membership in this group for folks who live in McLean, Vienna, Great Falls, and Merrifield.  Local charities are welcomed (and encouraged) to join. Working here isn’t enough to qualify, you *need* to live here.

If you don’t live within the community we serve, we need to ask you to unsubscribe from this Freecycle list and join the Freecycle group where you live. This will ensure that you are participating with your neighbors, and building community there. Over the next several weeks, we moderators will be doing a clean up, and in the process, might actually take care of this for you.

It’s nice to see this local group go completely opposite against this statement from Freecycle’s “About” page: “The Freecycle Network is open to all communities and to all individuals who want to participate.” In an area where the majority of people work and live in different areas, this message is loud and clear. “We don’t want you. Throw away things rather than try to give them to us.”

Well done, Freecycle. Every time I see a landfill from now on, I’ll think of you.

Take for instance, this lovely article from DallasNews.com.

Veteran Dallas County jail guard fired over comments
07:26 AM CDT on Tuesday, March 16, 2010
By KEVIN KRAUSE / The Dallas Morning News

A veteran Dallas County jail guard has been fired for making offensive comments about his religious beliefs to co-workers, including his contention that gays should be “put to death,” sheriff’s reports show.

At this point I’m thinking to myself, “Oh look, another boring article.” And as I read along, at first it seems fairly run-of-the-mill. Hates gay people, hates non-white people, and pulls out the whole “the Bible says slavery is all right.” Now to be fair, I am impressed that he pointed to the Bible’s pro-slavery passages, because normally people just go for the anti-gay stuff in that section. (Funny how no one ever goes for the “God says you may beat your children” and “mixed fibers are a sin” passages, but that’s another story.)

But then? Suddenly, with no warning…

“I believe that all dinosaurs were born of Satanic angel who has sex with woman and the animal kingdom that created ungodly reptilian creatures none of these were on the Ark,” Johnson said.

What the?!?!

As if to make you think you just mis-read that paragraph, the next two paragraphs are back to boring anti-gay, you’re-going-to-get-fired everyday material. But then we go back to the motherlode of awesome.

“He continued making statements which included his belief that God had sex with angels, and that dinosaurs were destroyed because man had sex with them, as well as his belief that the Devil had sex with humans,” the report concluded.

This is now, officially, the best news article ever. Also, I am going to write up a book proposal involving God having sex with angels, humans having sex with dinosaurs, the Devil having sex with humans, and Satanic angels giving birth to dinosaurs. I will sell a billion copies. Possibly more.

Also, I want to know just what it would look like to see a (Satanic) angel giving birth to an apatosaurus (the dinosaur formerly known as brontosaurus). Maybe someone could please computer animate this for me? If I ever have children, I am fairly certain I could show it to them to make them do… well… anything I want. “Brush your teeth or this might happen to you.” “Clean your room or you’ll give birth to a dinosaur.” Just think of the possibilities.

Now, I’m not saying all the photos were good. Even back then there were some rather questionable images. But we’ve noticed lately that some images don’t quite fit what you’re asking for. (I won’t even get into the nudity that crops up when you least expect it. I think we’re all still a little dazed by the naked guy holding a bunch of bananas next to—but not in front of—his crotch.) Take, for example, today. I typed airplane and eating into the search box, told the website that it had to match all of the search words, and clicked on submit. What I wanted was a photo of someone (preferably a family, but I’d take what I could get) eating food on a plane. Perhaps even a meal provided by the airline. What I got… well…

Ok, which of the three do you think showed up in response to the words airplane and eating?

A shirtless man holding a bottle for a baby?

A pile of crabs?

Or a hummingbird eating nectar from a flower?

Well, if you said “all three” you would be correct. Even better, if you said those are the only three photos offered you’d also be correct! Fortunately some other photo services we belong to actually had pictures of people on a plane eating food. But these? I suppose at least two of them having eating in progress. And a hummingbird does fly. But I am also pretty sure that none of these images are set on an airplane.

Postal Employee, weighing the box: Do you want to use a different box? This is so light it will actually cost less if we put it in another box.
Customer: No, I want to use this box. It needs to get there this week.
Postal Employee: We can use another Priority Mail box but with the weight…
Customer: No.
Postal Employee: After insurance and tracking it comes to $12.55.
Customer, angry: Why is this so expensive?
Postal Employee: That’s why I was saying we should put this in a different box.
Customer: You’re over-charging me! I’ll take this to the McLean Post Office and they’ll charge me less.

I’ll bet you anything the customer has no idea what the phrase “flat rate” actually means. I wish I could have overheard what happened at the other post office, for an encore.