Reuse, repurpose, recycle: it’s a mantra we’re all hearing these days, whether we want to or not. And, while there are some who claim that all the hype over going green is just that — “hype” — most of us realize that it makes financial sense to reuse what you can, rather than shelling out for more stuff.

But when it comes to those Priority Mail boxes from the U.S. Post Office, that’s a big no-no. Not even if you strip off the labels. Not even if you turn the thing inside out and re-tape it before mailing, so that only the brown cardboard side shows. Such recycling might get you slapped with charges of “misusing postal service property” (even though you pay postage to mail it), as one Colorado man has recently learned.

“Our Priority Mail and Express Mail boxes are, bottom line, supposed to be used for that service,” said Nicole Reiter with the Postal Service. “That is what they are intended to be used for.”

The Postal Service said it promotes recycling, as long as customers pay accordingly, even if the box is turned inside out.

“It is important that the customer uses it for the proper service,” said Reiter. Reiter said customers sometimes order their priority and express mail boxes online and then try to use them standard mail. She said that makes it difficult for the USPS to determine which boxes are new or reused.

According to a Post Office spokesperson, the ban against recycling helps keep postal rates “low” for everyone.

Ever wonder what kind of mentoring advice such diverse personalities as Alan Greenspan and Charles Manson would give a 10-year-old kid who’s thinking about dropping out of school? So did “pop-culture historian” Bill Geerhart, who posed as “Billy” and wrote them both, along with several other notable names.

From serial killer Richard Ramirez, known as The Night Stalker came an odd request for a photo:

Billy,
Greetings. Got your letter. What school do you go to? Who’s your friend? You should stay in school. Send pictures.
Richard

(Ramirez later requested photos of Asian girls… but without “scenery”.)

The Unabomber, Ted Kacynzski, sounded surprisingly sane as he noted “I can’t advise you whether to drop out of school, because I don’t know anything about you…whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck.”

Erik Menendez, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his parents, apparently has a rather busy schedule in California’s Pleasant Valley Prison but that doesn’t stop him from trying to help a kid.

Dear Billy,
I apologize for the length of time it has taken me to respond. That will not happen again. [...] It is hard for me to imagine that you should drop out of school. Fill me in some more on the details of your life.

I am here and would like to listen to you and do what I can to help you Billy. But I really need to know more about you. No need to send stamps or that sort of thing. Thank you though Billy.
Your Friend,
Erik

When “Billy” wrote to Alan Greenspan in search of advice about the fastest way to save up money for a speedboat, the then-Federal Reserve Chairman was apparently too busy to write back himself. His assistant (who kindly enclosed a photo of the unphotogenic Greenspan) explained in a neatly-typed letter that it’s never too soon to begin saving since “the longer you have to invest your savings the higher the return will be.”

And notorious, freakazoid serial killer Charles Manson‘s advice? It’s as freaky as you’d expect.

Find out why the L.A. Times hasn’t sent my newspaper —Charles Manson.
P.S. O-yes HI BILLY
Easy easy EASSY

(Manson also attached the mysterious picture of a barn.)

I bet you don’t remember this —you dont [sic] even know where its [sic] at. HAHA. I got you there.
Charles Manson
Easy BILLY

But things get really interesting when Geerhart writes back 9 years later and tells Charles Manson he not only stayed in school but wants to become a prosecutor. Read it at Radar Magazine and be glad they haven’t let that sick bastard out.

Next time you’re strolling along in Wal-Mart, or any other store for that matter, make sure you’re wearing underwear.

Why?

Because, you see, once inside a store you have no reasonable expectation of keeping your privates private. Not even if you’re a teenage girl being surreptitiously photographed by a strange man.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A man accused of using a camera to take pictures under the skirt of an unsuspecting 16-year-old girl at a Tulsa store did not commit a crime, a state appeals court has ruled.

The state Court of Criminal Appeals voted 4-1 in favor of Riccardo Gino Ferrante, who was arrested in 2006 for situating a camera underneath the girl’s skirt at a Target store and taking photographs.

Ferrante, now 34, was charged under a “Peeping Tom” statute that requires the victim to be “in a place where there is a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy.” Testimony indicated he followed the girl, knelt down behind her and placed the camera under her skirt.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t in a million years think that, merely by stepping foot into a store, I’d somehow surrendered my right to exclude people from peeking at my panties.

Which kind of makes me wish those judges would stroll into Wal-Mart wearing their robes and see how they felt about someone sticking a cell phone beneath them to snap a few shots.

Twenty-seven years ago, Kazuyoshi Miura and his wife were shot in a Los Angeles car park. He was shot in the leg. She was shot in the head. Miura accompanied his injured wife back to Japan where she died a year later from her injuries. Naturally, the media was outraged that the couple had been so cruelly victimized in LaLa Land.

But then evidence implicating Miura began to surface. He’d taken on both a mistress and a huge life-insurance policy on his wife. He’d also, it turns out, had attempted to hire a friend to attack his wife with a hammer while they were staying in a hotel.

Not surprisingly, he was arrested and, since he lived in Japan at the time, was tried there for his crimes. The trial court convicted him but the conviction was overturned on appeal because, back then, Japanese law required a confession and Miura maintained he was innocent. He wound up serving time for attempted murder in connection with the botched hit-for-hire attack.

You might think that would be the end of it, but you’d be wrong.

Miura, it turns out, mentioned on his blog that he planned to do some business travel to a U.S. territory… where he’d never been tried for his crime. Not surprisingly, his lawyer advised against such travel but Miura didn’t listen. Now he’s facing trial for murder in the U.S. and here the Japanese court action doesn’t serve to trigger double jeopardy laws.

Anyone want to bet he blows off that lawyer’s bill?

Life is a stage for smokers at a bar in Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota, and they’re all merely players. That’s the clever way the bar owners are getting around the state’s anti-smoking measure which provides a loophole for theatrical performances.

Ergo, on Saturday nights, the bar itself becomes a stage for a theatrical production, its patrons are actors, and the cigarettes in their hands are props.

Co-owner Sheila Kromer says business had been down and she wanted to test the law.

“Several of the legislators said, ‘You know, you’ve got to be innovative. Come up with something to get the people in your bar.’ Right? OK. What’s wrong with a theater night? Is that not being creative?” Kromer said.

I love it.