Rent seeking updated: GE invests in green technology; NBC whips up green fervor

NBC gives new meaning to the phrase "green screen" next week, spreading a pro-environmental message across five of its prime-time entertainment programs.

"30 Rock," where Al Gore takes a cameo role, leads the way. Environmental themes were also added to the scripts of "The Biggest Loser," "The Office," "Heroes" and "Community."

NBC Universal's three-year "green" campaign has largely focused on off-camera issues like making company facilities more eco-friendly. News and information programs have also been enlisted to do stories on environmental issues, but except for one "30 Rock" episode two years ago, the campaign hasn't touched the prime-time lineup.

This year on "30 Rock," corporate boss Jack Donaghy tells the late-night show's staff it has to cut its carbon footprint by 5 percent, and puts Kenneth the Page in charge of getting it done.

"It's something that is relatable and is something that a lot of people are doing," said Jack McBrayer, the actor who portrays Kenneth.

Backstage, the show has done its part by removing water bottles in favor of water filters and using chemical-free cleaning products. The show rents hybrid vehicles to transport its actors and crew members, said Beth Colleton, vice president of the "Green is Universal" campaign.

"Everybody is on board with greening up the place and being more environmentally-friendly in real life," McBrayer said. "Every now and then people need to be reminded of things that can be done."

Some stimulus dollars stimulate oddly

"Long a punching-bag for critics of wasteful government spending, the National Endowment for the Arts continues to live up to its reputation by throwing hard-earned tax dollars after frivolous and not-infrequently obscene projects. A group of 52 congressmen, all Republicans, recently wrote the agency to question the latest example of NEA spending foolery. Take, for example, CounterPULSE, which received $25,000 in stimulus funds, and which may be best known for its "Perverts Put Out," a "long-running pansexual performance series." The group urges guests, "Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun."

Last Friday, the NEA defended this and numerous other small grants of extremely questionable merit in a letter to Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. "The NEA did not use [stimulus] dollars to fund any of the projects," wrote Patrice Powell, the agency's acting chairman. The grants, she wrote, "can only be used to provide salary support for staff positions or fees for previously-engaged artists and/or contractual personnel that are critical to an organization's artistic mission and in jeopardy of being eliminated as a result of the current economic climate." In other words, you're not paying for "Perverts Put Out." You're paying to make sure that CounterPULSE has enough money to produce "Perverts Put Out."

CounterPULSE is just one of several groups whose grant awards baffle. There is also the Tuscon-based Teatro Fronterizo, which will soon put on "What's Under that Skirt: A Borderline Look at Gender" (described on the group's site as "a family favorite,") and "She Was My Brother," which "explores the borderline between love, sexual orientation and fluid gender identities." Then there is the Buffalo-based Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts, which is promoting the transgender photography of Alice O'Malley and a play called "Deviant Bodies," "presenting work through the multiple lenses of Transgender, Genderqueer and Gender Variant perspectives."

There are many, many more examples."