Boy, you gotta hand it to Fran.
She backed off on a drastic revision of Director's Order 21, that little memo that outlines how corporations can/will be recognized in the national parks. Gone were the possibilities of the Viagra Visitor Center at Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon Overlook Brought to You By Draino not to mention the prospect of park superintendents going with hat in hand on corporate solicitations.
Yet what she didn't rule out-of-bounds was the National Park Service director shilling for corporate America. Fran, who last week was front-and-center at the American Recreation Coalition's Great Outdoors Week shin-dig in Washington to promote getting physically fit in the parks -- who would have thought!! -- this week can be found promoting Lipton tea. No word if she likes it sweetened or unsweetened or with or without lemon.
You know, at a time when the parks are in a state of disrepair and struggling to make ends meet, you would hope the NPS director would find something more useful to do than trying to impress on Americans that being physically fit is good for one self and that the parks are a perfect place to recreate.
Not only is she trying to sell the obvious -- and by the way, isn't this something the Surgeon General should be promoting? Oh yeah, he did...back in 1996-- but she's plastering corporate America all over the message. Great idea to get around her decision not to commercialize the parks, don't you think?
Leave it to Fran to find a way around the limitations in D.O. 21. So while Lipton Tea and its parent -- Unilever -- might not be able to place their brands too obnoxiously in the national parks, there's nothing to prevent them from blatantly trying to wrap the national park system around their products.
Check out this link and not only can you learn all the latest about corporate America's backing of the national parks, but you might even win a national park vacation!
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