American Notes TEXAS

The TV screen shows two Dallas Cowboys football players, Randy White and Ed ("Too Tall") Jones, collecting litter along a Texas highway. As White picks up a discarded beer can, he leans into the camera and growls, "You see the guy who threw this out the window? I got a message for him." He crushes the can in one powerful fist as Jones snarls, "Don't mess with Texas!"

That macho slogan is the centerpiece of an imaginative, aggressive campaign to convince litterbugs that it is anti-Texan to trash. Aimed at "deliberate" litterers, 18-to-34-year-old men who are unmoved by threats or appeals to civic duty, the "Don't Mess" theme has struck a chord with Texans' sense of defiant pride during tough times. Celebrities such as Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds rock group have appeared in radio and TV spots, and the slogan is being proclaimed on bumper stickers, T shirts and even beer-can holders. Best of all, the campaign works: a research-agency survey found that after nine months, litter had been reduced a remarkable 29%.