Shower Power

Not long ago, I lived with my parents and care of the lawn was my often neglected responsibility. A sparse mowing schedule minimized air pollution, water pollution, and interruptions to my summer leisure time. Such reasoning rarely persuaded my parents. My visit this week featured a startling role reversal with my insisting the grass ought to be cut and volunteering to do so.

As I pushed the mower that humid afternoon, I wondered what had changed. Perhaps a hiatus from mowing will make anyone’s landscaping philosophy more exacting, but I think the reports of vandalism and the scraggily look of the whole neighborhood are what compelled me to do anything I could for my old street.

After mowing I was reminded of a resource that, in a better world, would secure property value. The shower in the upstairs bathroom delivers water pressure beyond anything Bull Connor could order. Adjustable settings let a bather choose anything from a typical shower to a hockey check. If only showerheads were the measure of a community, then my hometown’s far eastside would be legendary.

Buying Local

In the college town where we grew up, many held supporting local businesses to be an article of faith. Some industries (such as restaurants or photography studios) appear to either have diseconomies of scale or skilled labor demands that discourage oversized firms, but adherents to the buy local mantra usually justified it for cultural reasons. Usually this philosophy subjected customers to poor selections and inflated prices, though our hometown had plenty of notable exceptions.

Moving to a major metropolitan area has really takes the sacrifice out of shopping locally. With a nationwide department store, two major banks, a supermarket chain, and a large number of small businesses headquartered in the region, effort would be required not to support local businesses in my new city. My friend from Seattle can claim Costco, Eddie Bauer, Nordstrom, and Amazon as local businesses. (He is most loyal to Amazon, from which he regularly receives packages containing diverse assortments of canned foods, math textbooks, and socks. I would mock this, but I purchase my pants as well as my books from Amazon.) Chicago (home of Sears, Crate and Barrel, Aldi USA), Minneapolis/Saint Paul (Target, BestBuy, SuperValu, General Mills), and Cincinnati (Kroger, Macy’s, Proctor and Gamble, Fidelity Investments) also are convenient places to buy locally.

Passed Prospectus Defense...

May now start breathing again.

I Work in a Billboard

The University of Minnesota’s historic Pillsbury Hall shows that donor recognition has long been a part of collegiate building nomenclature. Granted some of that history is tackier than others. The University of Delaware has named MBNA America Hall after a bank – classy, eh? On most college campi, the business school has the most flagrant naming. Coincidentally, they also have the nicest buildings.

Last month, my department moved into a new building we will share with the management school. The building is named after the business executive who funded part of its construction, but what most strikes me is how everything inside the building is named as well. I wouldn’t have thought an academic building to be prime ad space, but corporate sponsors have claimed the atrium, all the classrooms, and all the tiny conference rooms. (The conference rooms are called "breakout rooms", in case the MBA students have to be quarantined I assume.) Yet, workers still are mounting plaques. Every morning I have an urge to sneak breakfast into the General Mills Classroom, but instead I sprint upstairs to check if my desk has a “Your ad here” sign.

The Trouble with Blogs

Billy Collins wrote, “The trouble with poetry is / that it encourages the writing of more poetry / more guppies crowding the fish tank / more baby rabbits / hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass. // Poetry fills me with joy / and I rise like a feather in the wind. / Poetry fills me with sorrow / and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge. // But mostly poetry fills me / with the urge to write poetry...” (1) So it is with blogging. After reading a few posts, the mind thinks, “Hey, I’m observant and engaging. What RSS viewer wouldn’t benefit from my wit?” So the cycle continues.

(1) Collins, Billy. The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems. Random House, 2005.

Singing So Softly That You Love Me Too

Today is Mother’s Day. In Mormonism, Mother’s Day is one of the most important holidays, or at least one of the least neglected. (Holy week differs from the regular routine only because we sing “That Easter Morn” once and schedule the Sunday School lesson to be on resurrection.)

Perhaps this is because motherhood is something at which Mormons excel, at least quantitatively. Of Americans identifying themselves as Mormons, 49% reported having children at home. (That edges Hindus at 48%, but squashes the national average of 35%.) Mormon fecundity shines even more in the results for three or more children at home: 21% for Mormons, Muslims in a distant second with 15%, and the national average languishes at 9%. (1)

In my congregation, the lineup included three speakers all talking about motherhood and a children chorus singing two Mother’s Day songs (one with ASL signs included). However, the greatest tribute to the dedication of mothers came from the daughter of two of the speakers. This four year-old girl responded to her parents prompting to go up and sing in the children’s choir by diving under a pew and from that entrenched position screaming loudly how she did not want to sing. She then commenced with a tantrum unrivalled in volume and duration by anything in our congregation’s noisy history. An embarrassed father carried her out of the sanctuary, and closed the doors to give the children’s choir a fighting chance against the louder screams of his daughter. To fully muffle the rant he probably needed to cross the river with her. He might have wished he had when his daughter, still incensed, escaped back inside the sanctuary during the next song. She eventually calmed down, but the message was clear: mothers work hard.


(1) Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

New Staff

My sister invited me to join the staff here at Temiandu Kuera. The two of us have much in common: parents (for starters), but also an upbringing in a Midwest college town, middle school Science Olympiad fame, a world view gleaned from early Dilbert strips, a propensity to sunburn instantly, and admission to social science doctorial programs at large state universities. Therefore, look for more of the same familiar wit. She will retain editorial control, and I shall try not to annoy.