Dear friends,
Welcome to autumn! The leaves are only hinting at the changes to come and my tomatoes tenaciously insist that it’s still August and they’re still going to ripen. But the 40 degree nights and yesterday’s pictures from Montana Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Thanks for your patience. The end of July and beginning of August brought a bunch of challenges.
This month’s issue has a lot of interesting content; just not quite so much as we’d planned. With luck, we’ll shift the vast bulk of it to September.
MFO Premium offers a ridiculous wealth of information for a Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to July! You shouldn’t be here.
Welcome to the Observer’s annual “summer light” issue in which you point out the obvious: you need some time away from the headlines, the daily howling, the apocalypse, the partisan glee, the certainty of boom, doom or gloom (to borrow from the name of Marc Faber’s thoughtful reports).
Setting aside the overtly political headlines, here’s a Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Stand back!
Be ready!
Augustana just launched another flight of cheerful, broadly-educated graduates in your direction. Don’t worry too much: it’s the 158th time we’ve done it. Continue reading →
Dear friends,
If you’re ever had cause to poke around MFO, perhaps “About Us” or “Support Us,” you’ll have spotted the younger me and the younger version of my son, Will. We were poking around England seven years ago, around the time we launched MFO, and we wanted to give folks a peek at the people behind the text. Continue reading →
Dear friends,
It’s spring.
It’s snowing.
Happy Easter.
Or Happy Eostre, if you prefer. The timing of Easter appears to be another instance of religious plagiarism, as early Christians borrowed a pagan spring festival as the (endlessly variable) date on which to celebrate the Resurrection. We don’t know that Eostre actually was a pagan goddess, since only the Venerable Bede testifies to her existence. Still, it makes sense and would be a great time to be hopeful.
So, Felices Pascuas and/or chag Continue reading →
Dear friends,
I’m often a bit confused. Sometimes it’s as simple as the stuff in my pantry. Why, for instance, is cranberry sauce canned upside down? Look! The part you’ve supposed to open is on the bottom.
Sometimes it’s the challenge of figuring other people out. What was Snap’s board thinking when they gave their CEO at $637 million (an amount equal to 75% of the company’s revenue) bonus? Someone named Kylie Jenner shared the following 19 words on Twitter: “”so does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me? Ugh, this is so sad.” How on Earth did that convince investors to trim $1.6 billion in Snap’s market value in 24 hours? Continue reading →
Dear friends,
It’s a Tale of Two Parties, one rather healthier than the other. My students, slowed by a surprisingly cold month and end-of-term stress (Augustana is finishing a Winter trimester that began a bit after Halloween and ends near Valentine’s Day), have taken to launching spontaneous little parties in hopes of gathering that last burst of energy needed to make it through a last set of research presentations and reflective essays. Lionel Ritchie (whose name they barely recognize) captures the late winter moment: “Party, Karamu, Fiesta, Forever. Come on and sing along.” On whole, that strikes me as joyful, appropriate and, ultimately, productive.
The other party rather Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to the New Year!
And to an odd question: why is it a New Year? That is, why January 1? Most calendrical events correspond to something: cycles of the moon and stars, movement of the seasons, conclusions of wars or deaths of Great Men.
But why January 1? It corresponds with nothing.
The short version of the answer is Continue reading →
Dear friends,
It’s finally fall, my favorite season of the year. The heat abates, the garden quiets, the apples ripen. Chip and I will soon venture north to Wisconsin for leaf peeking and visits to orchards. You’d be amazed at the variety of flavors found in apples; there are about 200 varieties grown in the US, with the average grocery store stocking just a half dozen (including that flavorless favorite, Red Delicious). You’ve still got time to do better. In the Midwest, anyway, October is the month for Haralson and King David, Golden Russet and Creston, Enterprise and Voyager. Heck, you might find a few Lura Red or Wolf Rivers left, if you’re Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people in Houston and the surrounding Gulf Coast. The receding flood waters end one phase of the disaster and exposes the next.
Several mutual fund families have headquarters, or significant presence, in the Houston area. Those include Ascendant, Bridgeway, Crossmark Global (formerly Capstone), Invesco, Kerns Capital, Salient, Sarofim and Continue reading →
Dear friends,
For those of us who teach, August is a bittersweet month. Each year we approach summer like a gaggle of penitent drunks. This time, we promise, it’ll be different. We’ll do better. Trust us: we will revise all of our courses for fall. We will catch up on that mountain of books heaped beside the chair. We will finish that book manuscript (Miscommunication in the Workplace, 2d ed., in my case.). On top of which, we’ll see our children without the use of small electronic devices, we’ll be out there running at 6:00 each morning, we’ll get our roughage and Continue reading →
