Brad’s Take

Frank W. James at Corn, beans, spent brass, an empty page and a deadline, writes about the Death of Service – how franchise fast food joints don’t care about serving the customer.

My son actually got me to thinking about this some time ago and I’ve been checking in terms of personal experiences ever since, but he believes besides the lack of culinary excellence associated with all fast food enterprises there is also the accompanying complete lack of service.

His theory is these businesses work off ‘numbers’. All fast food ‘restaurants’ are built for volume and that’s how their individual success or failure is graded. If they screw up your particular order (because maybe you DON’T want cheese on your burger, or pickles or Gawd knows what else) they don’t care. They know there will always be someone else standing in line to take your place and your complaint or momentary discomfort is meaningless to their profit at the end of the day.

In short, they could give a shit if you come or go.

My first reaction is to think, well, if the employee wants to see the job as an opportunity to serve the public, working in a fast-food joint won’t prevent her or him from providing service.

But, you know, there are a couple of things that complicate the issue. One is turnover. When you take a new job, all your attention is on learning to read your boss to find what is expected. Two businesses can give the same instructions, in the same words, and mean different things. A new hire takes time to figure out what the words mean. When the environment is geared to lots of turnover, then that “learn the formula” distraction is going to be a powerful motivation for the entire work force there.

Established franchises have a formula for success. The franchise owner, the store manager, the shift leads, the worker at the cooker or register or dumping trash all have a job description defined to avoid errors. Meeting daily metrics and reports gets to be the major hurdle of the average work day. It can be easy to view this as “the goal” of the day.

High volume eateries often assign each sale a number to track the order, so they can track the order and hand the correctly assembled tray to the right customer. Hopefully. Unless one is careful, it becomes simple to transform the customer, in the employee’s mind, with the order or order number.

The immediate task of the cashier is the order – get it taken correctly, meet the manager’s or computer’s demand for specific information, in a specific order. Especially when trying to work through a line of visitors waiting to place and order, it is easy to let the attention focus on procedures, on money handling, on serving the computer. And the job slips from serving the community or the customer, to serving the computer, or perhaps the cash register or cash drawer.

I have walked out of various fast-food joints, when it takes too long to get someone’s attention, to get a cashier to take my order. I find that taking 45 seconds or more, with people “busy” behind the counter, to get someone engaged in my order is about as long as I intend to wait. I have been disappointed in food quality, and angered by further unneeded delays each time I put up with shoddy business practices like that. Supposedly there is someone, on each shift, every day, to be working an order-taking station. Whether they are being over-tasked and used for additional functions by an inept manager, whether they are ignorant about priorities of various tasks – I don’t care. Watching people bustle behind the counter, but not prompt at taking the next order is a sign, to me, of a manager failure. The manager fails to keep the work force in discipline, fails to keep the focus on actual service instead of looking busy, or fails to train people to meet primary assignments before working on secondary tasks.

When I moved to Phoenix (west of town, Goodyear, AZ), I had been a long-time customer of Taco Bell. But in Phoenix, I found that with a few exceptions, service was dead slow. Something like 10 or 15 minutes slow, in almost all stores. The exceptions occurred at a couple of stores, on certain shifts. The shift lead at certain stores could achieve a good quality product, without the ghastly delays. But evidently the district manager set the tone for the whole region – slow.

In part I agree with Frank. The nature of franchised fast food relies on newly-hired employees, and prescription workplace rules intended to keep quality high in the presence of green employees (which stifles the ability of the store to benefit from experienced employees).

But I think there is reason to consider the employee, too. Many are at their first job, or haven’t worked anywhere but in fast food. Others are working part time, or are working there because nothing else is available – that is, this is a last resort, not a cherished career goal. And many do not got to work with the intent to serve the community.

I know that having a dating partner that relies on emails, texting, or even lots of phone calls for “communication” in the relationship – is a big red flag and sign of a strong reason to leave. Electronics interfere in communication. Think of voice mail, those annoying “press 1 for sales, press 2 for technical support ..” automated replacements for people. Letting the computer define taking an order asserts an abuse to the customer in the name of “quality control”. Instead of an employee working to understand what the customer needs, the task becomes impersonal, translating what the customer needs into what the computer will accept. And defining the customer as an order number.

Combine the computerized interface with an employee paradigm of an assumption of using new hires in a consistent fashion – and Frank’s criticism of the industry pretty much holds true.

I suggest that the single greatest force for dehumanizing service, is an electronic order system. When I walk up to the counter at Wendy’s, and I am thinking what I want to eat – but the person taking my order cannot get to what I want to eat, until I answer the computer’s “Is this for takeout or dine in?” – that feels abusive. Even if the cashier is prompt and order taking runs quickly there.

Hip Mountain Momma writes on One Small Change about going No Poo – that is, no commercial shampoo. She shows a nice video clip about mixing a couple spoonfuls of baking soda into a quart of warm water for washing, then a finger or so if apple cider vinegar in a glass – filled with water in the shower – for a rinse.

A couple of issues bother me.

First, HMM (re-)uses a quart glass jar for the baking soda mix. That seems risky to me, in the shower. Any surface solid enough to stand on is solid enough, at the right angle, to break the jar if it slips. I understand about not encouraging plastic containers. HMM mentions not having to buy commercial shampoos in additional plastic containers each time you run out – but there is a reason for the plastic. It won’t shatter and slice feet and skin.

When I grew up we had aluminum pitchers that were reasonably robust, and wouldn’t shatter if broken. I don’t see them much anymore, plastic seems much more amenable to mass production. But they still show up in yard sales and the Salvation Army thrift store. I recommend a non-rustable metal container in the shower, or just reuse the dreaded plastic. Same with the vinegar rinse; keep glass away from bare skin and wet hands.

Then there is the part where HMM mentions pouring the baking soda mix over her hair, let it set for a minute or so, then rinse “really well”. Then pour on the apple cider vinegar mix, and “rinse really well.”

Is this “organic” and “plastic free” and “dangerous chemical elimination” approach – using more water?

Is she using the “rinse with water, towel dry, and brush it” form of intermediate care? Or is her hair longer than necessary – that is, is her long hair an ostentatious, conspicuous display of affluence?

Just words.

Over the past couple of weeks I have learned a couple of things, learned while responding to John Michael Greer’s Archdruid Report articles on Peak Oil, the economic decline and speculation on the coming post-industrial society/culture. JMG refers to the current changes in America as “becoming a third world nation.”

1. Affluence. This is the distance between a person and rote labor.
2. Efficiency. This is the elimination of waste that affects return on investment, almost always measured in currency, and taken from the perspective of the owner/investor in a commercial or industrial venture.

The Archdruid Report.

JMG uses the term household economy to describe the production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services amongst the home and family, that doesn’t involve a cash flow. This is somewhat akin to Sharon Astyk’s informal economy, which I prefer. Setting an informal economy in relationship to a formal, cash-based economy makes the distinctions easy to label and to comprehend. The term informal economy has the additional benefit of identifying why it is disparaged by those involved in maximizing profits for employers, investors, and tracking cash flow for governments.

Can there be affluence in an informal economy? Yep. If affluence is avoiding the need to perform physical labor, then have kids. As the children mature, put them to work. Presto. Work gets done that Mom and Dad don’t have to do – affluence.

Today JMG advocates many families re-evaluate the cost of that second income. He points out that, in pure cash terms, it makes sense for many families to abandon that second income, and keep one adult at home. Reduce paid child care and housekeeping costs, qualify for a lower income tax bracket, and garden and cook from scratch instead of ready-to-eat dishes and meals.

And JMG laments that no one will take this eminently sensible advice.

Affluence.

There have been people in recorded history that turned from a cash-based affluence to lead a “simpler” life. Others refuse to leave enlisted ranks in the military, or advance into supervisory or management roles, because they prefer the craft and skills they exhibit every day, to the affluence and isolation of a strategic, rather than a tactical, definition of their work life.

But most people are driven to accumulate more assets than they consume this week. The taste of “running out” or sometimes lessons from elders that survived shortages of food, water, shelter, and other necessities of life, warns us that in bad times, we may need to rely on things saved in better times, when more assets were available.

Formal economy forces turn this cultural drive to conservation into . . ambition.

Ambition.

Ambition comes in many forms. Ambition is the need to build up the pantry, so that low-cost food is available when needed. Ambition is investing in a growing business, so that more money is generated for later times. Ambition is a community or business recognizing that good managers and supervisors are able to increase the efficiency (rate of cash return to the investor) of an organization. And convincing people that they are worth more to the community and business in advanced levels of responsibility and authority – and thus ambition has come to be a societal imperative to advance one’s career. To improve the efficiency of the company. For more efficient returns of cash to the investor, the owner.

A change in perspective.

A couple of points JMG overlooked, in advocating single-family incomes. While he acknowledges derision about becoming a house-husband or house-wife, he only recognizes that choosing to abandon outside-the-home income is a sacrifice. That is, choosing to live with less cash and greater home autonomy now because the need is coming soon anyway, and getting a head start while society still provides lots of options while gathering tools and implements to better survive coming harsh times just makes sense.

At the same time JMG describes his household economy he doesn’t make plain that it is described in different terms than the formal, commercial and industrial cash economy. Sharon’s informal economy, however, makes fairly plain that the services and goods are evaluated on a barter system, on an ad hoc basis. Applying my own, new word – I would contend that affluence, avoiding rote work, is present in the formal economy by hiring or buying necessities. What affluence there is in the informal economy is expressed by doing work one enjoys, or that can be traded for what is desired.

A different affluence.

What JMG suggests – reducing unemployment, reducing the clutter and waste of pre-packaged, pre-prepared foods and goods, reducing out-of-home costs by choosing one partner to function at home, is nothing less than redefining affluence from dollar terms, to a more fundamental “distance from rote labor” – and recognizing that we aren’t really all that affluent today.

Thoughts?

Google Earth computer program

Google offers a nifty earth-scene program GoogleEarth. Go to Google.com, on the menu at the top-left or wherever, select the drop-down list under “more”, then “even more”. In alphabetic order is “Earth”. This is a fairly large application, you download it and install it, that will then connect to Google for information about what part of the Earth you are looking at. It is fascinating to see moderately detailed images of your house, your city, the nation, or the world.

Earth comes in three flavors or prices. Google Earth is free – I have used it for several years, it is great. Google Earth Pro is $400, and I don’t know what that looks like. Then there is Google Earth Enterprise Solution – $Call $$Us. I think part of the difference is how fine a detail you get, and whether the images are a few years old (Google Earth free edition) or real time ($Call $$Us version).

Wunderground.com

I like the weather presentation at Wunderground.com (Weather Underground. Huh.) A few months ago they added a display option called “WunderMap”. It sure looks like Google Earth. It sticks current temps and radar activity (rain, snow, etc.) on top of satellite imagery of the ground. Really good satellite imagery.

This morning I wanted to check on the weather where a friend is working. While looking at the WunderMap, I zoomed out to see the whole nation, and noticed nothing much doing around North Dakota at the moment.

There has been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the storm on the East Coast I grabbed the image with the cursor, and dragged Washington, DC to the center of the image, and zoomed in slightly.

The Ocean

I noticed the Continental Shelf – the gradually deepening, rather flat extent of ocean floor near coast lines.

It looked gorgeous.

I zoomed out a bit. I had read a few months ago about the Gulf stream and how it flowed to the North Atlantic – and sank, to flow along the bottom of the ocean back to the Gulf of Mexico.

There is a seam along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, guiding those warmed waters from Mexico up to warm and modify the weather for Ireland and the United Kingdom. And it is gorgeous, zoomed out to see most of the Atlantic Ocean from in one view.

Across the Pond

At the time of Columbus’ sailing, the general wisdom was for ships to stay nearly within sight of land, maybe several miles, depending on how tall the ship was for a lookout to keep track. Zoom in on the British Isles, and notice the broad and nearly flat (I am still admiring WunderMap at Wunderground.com) continental shelf – which moderates the power of the waves likely to be encountered by a ship. It is amazing to view, in colors representing height and depth (topological view of the ocean floor), the character and historical impact of the shape of the ocean floor.

Fault Lines

Back on the US side of the Atlantic, I noticed a string of “pimples” off the shores of New England – volcanic cones. A fiction book some years ago posited a major earthquake in New England. There are fairly major fault lines there – and I can see the progression leading up from the depths of the ocean and across the continental shelf there.

I looked for Haiti (not that Haiti has been in the news, or earthquakes there). That is one folded and torn piece of ocean bottom. The ridge from Haiti to the south, and crevasse to the north across the ocean floor sure look to me to indicate lots of stress in the earth’s crust, cutting right across Haiti.

And it is interesting to see the wide range of depths around the Caribbean Sea. Amazing – no wonder wrecks got so very lost. Or that the waters were so troubled as to sink so many ships over the centuries.

The oceans, as seen through WunderMap and Google Earth. Amazing.

UPDATE:

I glanced at the Indian ocean (South of India, between Africa and Australia is how I think of it). There was temperature and wind marker – at the top of a single volcano cone, on a fold of the ocean, in the middle of, well, ocean. Ile Amsterdam.

I zoomed in on the mountain – closer than they had imagery for all the surrounding water. Move the image to the center, zoom a little bit, repeat. There is a ring of trees just off the ocean on the east side of the island. With a road leading north. And a Land Rover-looking vehicle on the winding track, heading north. On the North side of the island is a group of buildings – La Roche Godon. Amazing. (67 degrees, wind to the southwest, from a station on the shore, to the west of La Roche Godon.)

The Crunchy Chicken kicks off her latest Challenge to Reduce Food Waste.

I wish all that participate good luck on making your food quantity match your needs, budgeting anything can be a challenge. Luck to all of us to do better, too!

Reading Crunchy’s article, it occurred to me – if you have too much food around, does that mean you aren’t feeding friends and neighbors often enough?

Which brings up Sharon Astyk’s concern about community building as a necessary part of Peak Oil preparation. How can you balance a tightly planned menu with trading meals – having guests, or eating elsewhere – at either planned or spontaneous events or invitations?

In the last few decades many of us have come to think of meal time as the family only, when we should also be considering sharing hospitality and meals. I can remember, years ago, recipes always came with suggestions on how to stretch the unexpectedly for an extra plate or two.

My Dad farmed. When trading work, if you were at the neighbor’s place at noon, or they were at your place for shared work – mid-day meal was provided and expected. And was almost as substantial as a social event related to the work, as a substantial “hungry man’s” meal.

I would like to see adding a guest invitation per week to the reduce waste challenge.

Because I think that what is needed isn’t just parsimony – using the bare minimum. I think we need to use that frugality to amass useful and usable surplus – wealth. Wealth, or surplus, allows us to be generous. You cannot give when you don’t have a needed asset.

When growing up, I recall spending weeks visiting cousins and my grandparents from year to year. This kept the extended family together, expanded our awareness of the world and different ways to live, and exposed us to different kinds of discipline and even different ways to prepare food.

Eating at a neighbor’s house happened at least monthly, if not every other week or so, more often in the summer. You know, when you could send someone to the garden for an extra bowl of peas and tomatoes for the dinner already on the stove.

I see Crunchy’s mid-winter food waste challenge as being a great exercise in planning and values. But I would hate to have someone overlook keeping a well-stocked pantry, and using it well to offer hospitality and build relationships and community. Or even just to brag a bit on canning, gardening, and cooking skills. Because that happened a bit, too. Anyone could feel just a bit content, for a reputation as setting a “good” table.

I am thinking my plans for a garden are even more important than I thought, if I can use it to stretch food resources to cover more shared meals. Now if I can just get the clutter off the pile where I think I left the kitchen table. . .

Tam at View From The Porch mentions (commends) a Dennis Ranch post on “Whining“. That is, a working rancher reflects on – rants about – people (city, or non-ranch, folk) stranded and torn from their regular routine by the recent blizzard.

The rant:

We get a three day doozy of a blizzard. How long has it been since we had one of those in this country at Chriustmas? Been awhile. Setting here this morning reading all the comments and talk on the internet from blogs and Facebook, of people I read and know who have just went thru’ this. And what do I read? Whine, whine, bitch, bitch and moan, moan! “Woe is me!”

Oh how sad that your poor little lives have been upset by Mother Nature. On all the farm/ranch blogs I read, I never saw one person who whined about the extra work to feed the stock. Just the satisfaction of knowing they got the stock all fed and taken care of. Mostly (sorry town and city dwellers) all I read was whine, whine, cry, cry. because we can’t get somewhere we WANT to go. Oh my!

Things didn’t go your way!

How sad!

I grew up in rural NW Iowa, and have been snowed in – mostly every winter, at home. We had heat and running water, food, and barring emergency, accepted the situation and went on. The lane from the house to the road was most of a quarter mile long (house set in the center of a quarter-section of land), and we walked to meet the school bus, whether there was snow drifted or not. If school was on, we headed out; we could see the school bus a couple miles away so we just had time to make it, if we hurried.

So I understand that DennisRanch has little patience for people that haven’t organized their life, from the vehicle they drive to how they heat their home and plan for water when the power and roads are down. That knowing the neighbors and being ready to help – or ask for help – when needed is a matter of planning for regular natural interruptions.

Look at Sharon Astyk’s take on this at Chatelaine’s Keys. Sharon doesn’t mention the blizzard; she is concerned about the nation falling off the common electric grid. That is, the Peak Oil community expects the average (read: more than half, not counting those living in poverty) American family will *not be able* to afford local utilities by 2012. That number came from expectations about instability of oil and coal prices, and much before Obama decided to tax the utility industry into rubble. Kathy at The Just In Case Book Blog looks at all kinds of preparation for emergencies. The Original Modern Urban Homestead is one family’s example of creating a microfarm in Pasadena, focusing on sustainable and alternative energy practices, and food security.

I venture to say that DennisRanch hasn’t “prepared” for transportation cost to overcome market value on his livestock – so he could no longer afford to sell. I venture to say that DennisRanch would be hardpressed to manufacture the appliances and clothes in his home, or the homes of “city slickers”. A recent fairy-tale movie, Juia Stiles’ “The Prince & Me”, makes a point that we are all interconnected. That no one gets hurt without hurting all of us.

And I don’t think DennisRanch adequately takes into account, that storm surprises that catch folks unprepared for what he experiences rather regularly – the isolation and danger of show storms and road travel – is that over time, the rural folk have learned to cope. Others don’t yet have the experience. Where DennisRanch likely, as I did, learned from parents and neighbors what works and what is a hazard over the course of a year, others have family heritage that includes office work and urban interests and hazards. The rural bragging about weathering harsh storms over city slickers is as much a truism and a joke, a the green out of towner or rural rube getting mugged or lost in the big city.

The answer, I think, is to be aware of what the natives know and how they act. Anything different might be due to ignorance – but might be due to hazards and opportunities that we are ignorant about.

Even the village idiot has a story to tell.

I might have been six. It was Christmas Eve, Mom had settled my sister and me in the car, and gone back to “help Dad get ready,” I think was the explanation. It was dark, we were headed to Church for the annual Christmas presentation. It might have been 1957 or 1958.

Years later it was obvious – Mom and Dad scurried, playing Santa Claus in the few minutes they grabbed to drag out the gifts from their hiding places.

The superintendent of the Sunday School at Church handed out to each of us children the usual and expected Christmas bag – a plain brown paper bag, with an orange, an apple, maybe a short pound of peanuts, three or four peppermints in cello wrappers, and a couple of pieces of hard candy. Each and every bit of it, from the paper bag to the last peanut, was a treat, something we didn’t get in the usual course of things. Mom says of that time, “Things were tight. It was a problem if Dad needed shaving cream and I needed deodorant the same week.”

It was a great year for Santa plunder. I got a metal Tonka truck with big wheels that didn’t scratch the floor, and there was a 10 gallon aquarium. With gravel, an air pump and filter, a plastic plant, a light, and four orange and 2 black “popeye” Moor goldfish.

I don’t know, now, how Mom and Dad passed that fish tank off as a gift from Santa Claus. But it was a wonder, and a delight. I think almost all of the fish were there when Star Trek came on the air 10 years later, after one move and with a different tank stand.

What is there to wonder about some fish in a clear bucket? Sure, there is a light, they move, there was a bit of color and gentle sound. What was Christmas-ey about it? I still don’t know. But it was a wonder, something bright, and precious, and fragile.

I still like aquariums. After serving in the Navy, I had a 29″ aquarium and a 10″ black and white TV. When I left the Navy in 1980, and traveled in a packed Toyota to Tennessee, I recall we had a couple of Red Cap Oranda (goldfish, I had been working in a pet store) in a gallon pickle jar, changing water and putting the fish in a large goldfish bowl each night.

Back then for that fishy Christmas, we lived on a farm in Iowa. With Bantam chickens, hogs, and milk cows. Yet that aquarium and those fish brought a different aspect of nature into our home. Dad took us fishing, both then and later. There was never a confusion about whether to eat goldfish or free the bluegills, Bullhead or wall-eyed pike.

Were the goldfish an introduction to chores – feed every day to keep them alive, never overfeed ’cause that poisons the water? Were they a stimulus to young minds, a balm to overactive toddlers and yard apes? Were they pretty, as a bit of nature displayed with respect and reverence?

An aquarium today costs more dollars than my parents probably paid back 50 years ago. 20 years ago the science and technology of home aquariums had subtly advanced over the decades, introducing undergravel biologic filters that use bacteria to filter and cleanse the water, better understanding of water flow and aeration. Vastly more varieties of fish for community tanks. For those interested in a bit more vivid display, along with more demanding care, there are great salt mixes and products to make a saltwater aquarium, and saltwater fishes, available and enjoyable.

Will an aquarium today be a room decoration? Sure. A learning aid? Maybe. A fascination? That depends. A bit of wonder, come Christmas time? For many, I think the answer is yes.

When there are electronic or computer games that wrap around a family, or watching commercial TV has embroiled a home in the advertising-gimmick world of “find something *good*” means “on TV” – then the simple aquarium has a lot of competition for attention.

When you look at an electronic game, don’t think, “That is hours of entertainment”, think, “That is the result of efforts by many, many paid engineers, accountants, and generations of technology, all designed to capture my attention. What don’t they want me to pay attention to, that they devote so much time and effort to distract me?” When you look at your TV, it might be there to display DVD or Video movies. Or to access the internet or watch commercial TV. Again, the real question is “Why do I let the phalanx of advertisers marketing research scientists, communication and production engineers, producers and writers, all conspire to demand my attention to this program or that?”

Why should I settle for stories told with the sole purpose of being interrupted for three or four minutes at a time, ever seven minutes? Interrupted by carefully crafted short messages *intended* to distract me from whatever I was doing, thinking, or the story I was enjoying. Interrupted with a message carefully designed to be more memorable, more likely to direct me into some activity, than the story I had assumed I had chosen, for this regulated time interval.

Did I mention I watch movies, or read, a lot?

The aquarium is random, it is never the same moment to moment. Yet you seldom change channels. You could buy more plastic plants (in smaller tanks, and without special care, real water plants tend to decay more than grow, causing a risk to water quality), or air powered toys. Don’t put a souvenir star fish in an aquarium – the no-longer-living carcass of the starfish begins to decay, putting fish at risk. Don’t ask.

For the most part, aquarium fish are simple, unaffected by their surroundings, not needing change or entertainment. Keep the tank heater set correctly (about 78 degrees F for tropical fish), keep up with water changes and filter changes, feed appropriately twice a day (all food must be eaten within five minutes; anything after three minutes is wasted and likely to rot, causing water poisoning.) De-chlorinate water before adding, as the chlorine in the water poisons the fish and can disable the filter for a while. Don’t overpopulate the tank – figure about one inch of fish, measured from gills to beginning of tail, per gallon of aquarium. Pick compatible fish, you don’t want to watch them kill each other, if you put a rough (but colorful) fish with others that don’t do well defending themselves. When doing partial water changes, the water from the aquarium makes very good water for houseplants – wonderfully rich with micronutrients. There are good books, and kits for bowls, 10 (12) gallon tanks, and larger sets.

The visible part, the tank, is often the least expensive part of an aquarium. Expect to pay at least another fifty ($50) dollars for pump, gravel (about one pound per tank size gallon, half that if not using an undergravel filter), filter (using two filtration systems is recommended for 20 gallon and larger tanks – I like undergravel and one other), de-chlorinator, tank heater, thermometer, light, and fish food. Don’t put fish in, until the tank has been circulating and filtering the water for several days. Oh, and a friend. If possible, you really want a friend that has a tank, or has kept one. There are some severely expensive filter systems, that most home aquariums won’t need. There are also barely adequate or inadequate cheap filters that are difficult to use. Picking a spot for the aquarium away from direct sunlight (grows algae, heats the water), and away from cold drafts (may overpower the heater, set to 78 degrees fahrenheit), and away from traffic areas that might knock the tank over (bad for the fish). A cover on the aquarium slows evaporation, keeps the temp more even, and keeps energetic fish from jumping out, which can be fatal to the fish.

What happens for families living off the grid, or when the grid fails as is predicted? Goldfish and gouramis (a large family of larger tropical fish) tend to do well without “aeration”, without an aquarium pump, as they can “bite” air at the surface of their bowl or tank. Goldfish are cold blooded, and can tolerate lower temperatures with more temperature variation than tropical breeds. Without aeration, moving water so that the exchange of oxygen that happens at the surface can proceed to enrich the water environment, a shallower bowl or tank is better, and will provide for fewer fish.

Perhaps there is room for someone to work out a clockwork driven aquarium aerator, or other means to warm and circulate water in an aquarium. Maybe an exercise bike driven, large but low pressure air bladder capable of powering the modest needs of an aquarium filtration and aeration system.

Until we all go unplugged, and for those families not completely enwrapped in electronically served, merchant designed “entertainment”, an aquarium can be a rich and rewarding addition to the family. Even if I can’t recall how an aquarium in the living room was endowed with so much Christmas wonder.

UPDATE: About.com’s Freshwater Aquarium adviser writes about “Common New Aquarium Mistakes“.

Sharon Astyk writes on Casaubon’s book about “Toys R Not Us”

Abbie commented on the post,

This post really speaks to me. Both my mom and my mother-in-law can go overboard with presents, and I fear that next Christmas will be way overindulgent for our baby. I’ve spoken to each of them about guidelines for what will be appropriate, and spent time reminiscing with my brothers and my husband’s siblings about our favorite toys: blocks, sticks, cardboard boxes, dolls… and of course our favorite things to play with were our pets. So I think (hope) that the moms will understand and give presents that reflect our simple values. I don’t want an overwhelming sea of plastic for each birthday and holiday!

My reply to Abbie, as usual, is bigger than a simple comment should be. So here is my reply to Abbie:

@ Abbie,

The honor of the recipient of a gift is to use that gift in a manner that the giver doesn’t regret the giving. (I read that in a science fiction novel.)

That said, I think the issue of respect must be addressed. You might approach your mother and aunts, and state you are concerned there is a problem coming up for the holidays. Explain that you and your house have chosen to address meaningless values of things, vs. values of spirit and self esteem. Explain that you see much danger in commercial gift giving, that you are focusing on enriching the inner life, and reducing the distractions of clutter and overabundance.

Explain you would prefer gifts of a recorder and song book, to a popular CD or Guitar Hero add-on. Song books and instrument books guide one to the beauty of culture, history, and art. They take time to master, and have no arbitrary “end of game”. The perseverance of learning to play well or sing well is a justly earned discipline, and builds character – instead of merely passing time, admiring an arbitrarily assigned idol.

Don’t get me wrong, there is much to learn from music, whether classical (endurance?!), country, rock, rap, etc. Some lessons should not be learned, but knowing that such a message is false and to be avoided is a valuable lesson, too. Also books, drama, movies, even TV. But electronic versions tend to represent more commercial interest than personal growth. And I am convinced that it is the short, bright intrusions of advertisements into TV programs that largely explains the growth in ADD and ADHD diagnoses – ads disrupt and distract from story telling, which destroys concentration and persistence over the seven (7) minutes between commercials. Some computer games return to the epic story format, and engage for protracted periods of concentration, effort, and persistence. Yet there is little, oftentimes, to learn about people or life from computer games. There are exceptions, yet they require the player to be willing to transfer game knowledge to life skills, something computer users tend to disassociate very early on.

Accept that you can and should not impose your own beliefs on others. But watch closely what they do. Gifting is *always* about respect and responsibility. Pay attention to what your gifting, and the gifts you receive, say about each relationship.

Giving an unwanted gift should be a disappointment to the giver. Within reason the recipient should acknowledge the gift – that is being “polite”. Giving a child a gift in despite of a parent’s request is a clear and aggressive act of disrespect. Disrespect through inappropriate gifts might be a slander to the parent’s parenting skills, their lack of adequate assets to parent, or it might be a simple bullying of the parents (perhaps a continuation of the poor parenting skills the now-parent survived as a child.)

A well-chosen gift is an endeavor of love, not a trip to the “most popular” aisle of a store. Using the above example of a recorder – a first recorder should be a gift. It should be chose with the finger agility and reading ability of the recipient. A certain amount of knowledge is needed to find an instrument suitable for a beginner – not just the “beginner” model the local store happens to carry. It should be easy enough for a beginner to play, and play adequately in the ranges a beginner will manage first. Like ponies, horses, bicycles, books, etc., buying a professional, Olympic competition model is great – when the craftsman that will be using the tool chooses one that fits his or her needs. For a beginner, a hammer is indistinguishable from a concert-grade recorder, a sawhorse from a world champion race horse, jumper, or other performance horse. Buy what the beginner needs. For later acquisitions, enable the craftsman to acquire the tools needed for the next level of growth, next usage. Overbuying kills dreams, because the beginner doesn’t get the tools to begin, and cannot acquire the skills to advance to the advanced tools.

If you have someone bent on a mega-huge purchase – ask for a good, solid, used upright piano, maybe a couple of beginner books. And a visit from a good piano tuner to condition and tune the piece.

Actually, I think the piano is an insidious family endeavor. Because the practice advances from “hit a key” to “hit the right key”, everyone in ear-shot learns about correct timing, correct notes, phrasing, etc. Plus, old tunes get dusted off.

Where electronic games create a world of fantasy, music and music lessons return awareness of earlier cultural values.

I suppose threatening Mom with picking a third-rate nursing home, when the time comes, next week, would be a bit of over-reaction. Depending on Mom, of course.

The New York Times wrote, on Oct 11, 2009, a piece on property values and disputes over hanging laundry out to dry, “Debate Follows Bills to Remove Clotheslines Bans”

. . . Like the majority of the 60 million people who now live in the country’s roughly 300,000 private communities, Ms. Saylor was forbidden to dry her laundry outside because many people viewed it as an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values.

In the last year, however, state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns since clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumption.

The dispute is serious.

“It seems like such a mundane thing, hanging laundry, and yet it draws in all these questions about individual rights, private property, class, aesthetics, the environment,” said Steven Lake, a British filmmaker who is releasing a documentary next May called “Drying for Freedom,” about the clothesline debate in the United States.

The film follows the actual case of feuding neighbors in Verona, Miss., where the police say one man shot and killed another last year because he was tired of telling the man to stop hanging his laundry outside.

Tree ‘em.

But I have a solution. For communities with restrictions, and that don’t want to gaze, rapt, at the holes in the neighbor’s knickers flapping in the breeze – plant trees. Poplars, evergreens. Establish a wind-break zone about the homeowner’s association boundary, plant with wind and view-blocking, carbon dioxide-fixing, trees. Maybe hazel, pecan, or walnut trees for their annual bounty of edible nuts. Maybe apples and pears or oranges and plums. Cherries or peaches. A bit of gardening and landscaping, and in a brief time, watch the cycle of nature cover up those unsightly undies for four to six months of the year or more.

And all without bothering the neighbors. Or would the green-laundry types, intent on saving the air and the climate, object to the extra trees? Naw.

If the roof caves in.

If the homeowners association were to change it’s policy, the mature trees could double as clotheslines. They could use something like the Tuff Enuff Tree Saver to keep the rope from scarring the tree bark (could damage the tree or limb).

More on clotheslines at Project Laundry List.

Proof positive: Global warming

Project Laundry List is making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as simple and effective ways to save energy.

Look at the information and products at The Clothes Line Shop, LLC. Or shop clotheslines and clothesline accessories at Amazon.com.

Casaubon’s Book.

Hat tip to Sharon at Casaubon’s Book.

Wired.com occasionally does a chemical analysis of common consumer products. I was breezing through the contents of coffee, when I noticed something interesting.

Caffeine is a diuretic, so coffee newbies pee out the water quickly; java junkies build up resistance.

Diuretics are sometimes prescribed for people with water retention problems, sometimes associated with circulation (heart) problems. My father was. And my father was a life-long coffee drinker. As in, according to this analysis from Wired.com, a diuretic-resistant person, due to a caffeine habit.

Check out the article, read about coffee contains compounds that fight cavities and free-radical damage (antioxidants), provide niacin when hot enough (160 degrees Fahrenheit), and also provide tastes, smells and ptomaine poison components.