Scaevola

Aside from the occasional shamelessly pirated article, my favorite part of Wikipedia is the disambiguation page. The main function of disambiguation pages is to help navigate similarly titled articles, but they often show fun connections as well. The disambiguation banner for Scaevola reveals that the name is shared by a family of shrubs, a mollusk, several Romans (who have their own disambiguation page), and a nuclear test.

Among the ancients listed is Gaius Mucius Scaevola, the star of my favorite Roman legend. During a war with Etruscans, Mucius snuck into the enemy camp to assassinate their king. He was captured after slaying the wrong man. The Etruscans threatened to fillet their detainee, but Mucius delivered a defiant speech and held his right arm in a fire to show his resolve. This type of self-control impressed the Etruscans, who released him. Upon his return to Rome, Mucius was honored with the cognomen Scaevola, meaning the left-handed. (1)

The Scaevola nuclear test was part of the Hardtack I series, which concluded fifty years ago today. Other tests in this series had yields exceeding eight megatons, more than sufficient to neutralize an Etruscan army. But the Scaevola detonation did not, for it was a zero-yield safety experiment. (2)

(1) Titus Livy. Ab Urde Condita. 2.12-13.
(2) US Dept. of Energy. United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992.

Is Irony a Giffin Good?

A printed banner on the microeconomics text I received declares, “Instructor’s Edition. This is your personal copy for use in textbook evaluation. Sale or resale is prohibited and will contribute to higher student textbook costs.” Nice try, South-western Publishing, but microeconomics instructors tend to think that increases in supply lower the price of most goods. The warning on the back includes some copyright law arguments along with the dubious economic statements.

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.