2006年NPR美国国家公共电台八月-Freecycle: A Web of Free, Unwanted Things（在线收听） |
| Now, what may be the ultimate Internet service, one that helps you clean out the garage? NPR's Ted Robbins explains. Deron Beal is really proud of his home office in Tucson. More to the point he's proud of how he got what's in the office - a computer, two desks, bookshelves, and filing cabinets. Pretty much everything you look at, aside from the chair I'm sitting on, I had to get an extra tall chair, it's reuse. And ah, that's pretty cool in my book. The extra tall chair is for Deron Beal's lanky six-foot-four body. He spends most of his day in the chair running Freecycle.org. The website is pretty simple, just members in local groups posting things to give away or requesting things they want. Unlike eBay or Craigslist, on Freecycle nothing is for sale. Our main rule worldwide is keep it free, legal, and appropriate for all ages. So legal means no drugs. Appropriate for all ages means no alcohol, tobacco, or firearms, which children shouldn’t have, that kind of thing, and free means free. Freecycle began three years ago when Beal emailed friends offering a bed that he didn't want and didn't want to send to the landfill. Today, Freecycle has about two and a half million members in more than three thousand local groups in seventy countries, all shuffling stuff from non-use to reuse. After all we are all gonna pass away someday and you don't wanna leave a shed full of junk to your, your kids, you wanna give it out there where people who need it and want it, er, can use it. Beal even has a mandate from his wife Jennifer, no more acquiring until he gives away what he already has. Like a huge old coin collection and a hu… boxes and boxes of comics that he couldn't get rid of. But he's learning. He got an Abdominizer off Freecycle, kept it for six months without using it, and finally got rid of it again on Freecycle. There's a lot of exercise equipment posted, but the biggest category of giveaway, says Beal, is not one particular thing, it's inconvenient things. You see a lot of heavy items that you’d otherwise have to lug to the landfill, right? And you'd rather give it away than lug it somewhere. And it doesn't get much heavier than a piano. On a warm summer evening, Sean Cramer and his friend Jay Langdon push a battered hundred-year-old upright into a trailer hitched to Langdon's pickup truck. Sandy and Scott Lockby watch, they are giving the piano away. I really like the piano, would have liked to spend the money to have it restored. Un, but started having kids and there are just other priorities for the money and… I'm glad it's out of the house. And Jay Cramer can't wait to get it into his. Cramer's kids wanted to learn the piano, but he couldn’t afford to keep renting, so the family will make a project out of restoring the barely playable instrument. Before he leaves, Cramer learns the piano's history, always a nice thing to know and he figures it just became a little richer. Now this is gonna be the piano that was on NPR. (Laughs) It just increases in value. (Laugh) Value of course is in the eye of the beholder. A teacher planning a class project once asked for a dryer-lint. Deron Beal says she got gobs of it. But for all, it's apparent altruism, Freecycle is not without detractors. They criticize Beal for taking a salary from a corporate sponsor and the organization is fighting a lawsuit challenging its trademark of the name. Critics say freecycle is a generic and widespread term. Beal says he welcomes anyone who wants to keep things out of landfills as long as they use another name. Ted Robbins, NPR News, Tucson. ------------------------- lanky someone who is lanky is tall and thin, and moves awkwardly synonym gangling a lanky young man shuffle [transitive] to move something such as papers into a different order or into different positions Jack sat nervously shuffling the papers around on his desk. shuffle through Frances shuffled through a pile of magazines. comic also comic book a magazine for children that tells a story using comic strips Abdominizer 一种锻炼腹部肌肉的健身器材 battered 1 old and in bad condition a battered old suitcase 2 battered woman/wife/husband/baby etc someone who has been violently attacked by their husband, wife, father etc hitch a) [transitive always + adverb/preposition] to fasten something to something else, using a rope, chain etc hitch something to something He hitched our pickup to his trailer. a goat hitched to a rickety fence [transitive] also hitch up to fasten an animal to something with wheels so that the animal can pull it forwards I hitched up the horse and drove out into the fields. lint （敷伤口用的）软麻布 gobs American English a large amount of something gobs of gobs of money |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/NPR2006/40885.html |