I always try to pay attention to changes – subtle or overt.  In doing so, I attempt to determine the cause or planned affect of these changes.

One of the recent changes that I have been noticing more and more over the past three or four months is the media campaign designed to sell the public on the “dollar coin.”  Apparently, despite the fact that the new coins were created by law in 2005 and rolled out in 2007, nobody seems to be using them.

Now I am seeing posters at restaurants and convenience stores as well as hearing countless ads on the radio extolling the virtues of the $1 coin.  You tell me – have you used them?  Have you ever seen them in circulation?

Here’s a clue for the folks at the mint – get it into the places we spend our money so that it will be returned as change.  THAT, will get us to use it.

The other thing I have noticed recently is a bit more subtle.  Smokey the Bear has always been a stalwart defender of our nature spaces against careless fire starters.  His PSAs have been running quite a bit on television recently and there is a subtle difference in his famous tagline, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.”

Now Smokey ends his pleas with, “Only YOU can prevent wildfires.”

Why the difference?  Is it some conspiratorial positioning to keep us from realizing that our “forests” are diminishing fast?  Is it some move to update the language for “the kids?”  You tell me.  It just strikes me as an odd thing to change.