481. Call for Entries: Government Food Style and photograph a U.S. Government Meal Packet to look as scrumptious as it could ever hope to be. The best photos will be incorporated into a 2007 calendar, sold to support The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition. Contact [email protected] for more info or to receive a Government Meal Packet (while supplies last.) The deadline is April 15. Photos will be posted here.

482. Brazil's sugar crop fuels nation's cars “More than 80% of new cars now sold in Brazil are equipped to use ethanol as well as gasoline. Both fuels are available almost everywhere, and since ethanol can cost about a third less than petrol per litre at the moment (though the mileage is not quite as good), the home grown fuel is more popular than the foreign import.” It’s not just home grown, but distilled from a previously untapped waste product — what’s left after sugarcane is refined into sugar.

483. Sappi: Ideas That Matter Papermaker Sappi again offers cash grants for designers working with non-profits. In their words: “Sappi invites graphic designers from Europe, North America and Southern Africa, to create printed communication campaigns for causes they want to support.” Apply here. See the 2004 winners. (via)

484. A House for an Ecologist: A Design Ideas Competition The AIA is sposoring a compeition to design a modest, sustainable house on the Potomac River. Entries will be judged on design excellence, celebration of place, respect for resources, and design process. (“How do innovative design methods promote great design? Collaborative and interdisciplinary teams are encouraged.”) Deadline for registration is March 17, 2006.

485. Counter-Recruitment Comics “‘Mixed Signals’ is a counter-recruitment tool in comic book form — is now available for use in activism, outreach, counseling, education, starting conversations and saving lives.”

486. Cooperative Housing for and by the Aging “Opting for old age on their own terms, they were starting a new chapter in their lives as residents of Glacier Circle, the country’s first self-planned housing development for the elderly — a community they had conceived and designed themselves, right down to its purple gutters. Over the past five years, the residents of Glacier Circle have found and bought land together, hired an architect together, ironed out insurance together, lobbied for a zoning change together and existentially probed togetherness together.” (via)

487. What should my clothes be made of? “Globally, cotton production accounts for the use of 22 per cent of all agricultural insecticides.... Nylon is reckoned to be responsible for 50 per cent of UK emissions of nitrous oxide (a poisonous greenhouse gas) and polyester is, of course, derived from petrochemicals.... Alternatives such as bamboo, organic linen, wool grown on ‘biodiverse’ ranches, hemp and innovative fibres such as Ingeo, derived from degradable corn starch, all look much more appealing.” (via) Cotton also requires a lot of water.

488. Samedi Gras(s) Vivid poster from a worker movement in Italy promoting a carnaval event this Saturday in Milan. The event is in solidarity with the people of New Orleans and to protest the ‘eating’ of green areas by highway construction.

489. A brief history of the “clenched fist” image “A persistent symbol of resistance and unity, the clenched fist (or raised fist) is part of the broader genre of ‘hand’ symbols that include the peace ‘V,’ the forward-thrust-fist, and the clasped hands. The clenched fist usually appears in full frontal display showing all fingers and is occasionally integrated with other images such as a peace symbol or tool.... Fists, in some form, were used in numerous political graphic genres, including the French and Soviet revolutions and the United States Communist Party. However, these all followed an iconographic convention. The fist was always part of something — holding a tool or other symbol, part of an arm or human figure, or shown in action (smashing, etc.). But graphic artists from the New Left changed that in 1968, with an entirely new treatment. This ‘new’ fist stood out with its stark simplicity, coupled with an popularly understood meaning of rebellion and militance.” (via)

490. Compendium on E-government Innovative Practices (300KB PDF) A mixed, global survey by UNPAN, December 2005.