pennysavers and ballsavers

Preservation campaigns need a celebrity to give some weight to their cause. Years ago, Jackie Onassis led the charge to save Grand Central Terminal. Does the size of the project correlate to the size of the star? Here's part of a press release I got the other day:

The 76 Ball has a new champion in actor Michael Madsen, star of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Kill Bill." Madsen told the BBC, "There seems to be this driving force to tear down everything that's a little old. These are things that were landmarks, it's a symbol that I remember from childhood. What's the point of smashing them and putting up flat signs?"

Next month, cartoonist Bill Griffith will turn his incisive eye to the threat facing the 76 Balls. Readers of more than 200 daily newspaper comic pages will see Zippy the Pinhead communing with one of the classic "meatball" signs, just as he did with the threatened Doggie Diner signs that have since been preserved.

Visit http://www.savethe76ball.com to learn more about the campaign to preserve one of the 20th Century's most successful and enduring design icons, and to see films of threatened 76 balls hard at work in Hawaii and California.

Meanwhile today in New York, a campaign to save the penny got a celebrity endorsement. As a believer in the cause, I was hoping they could find somebody better than Kevin Federline.