talent show of 12 performances

From a yearly contest of numerous high schools in middle Michigan, here are images from each act. The young people have plenty of amateur talent and sometimes pour a lot of time and money into their love of expression. For the mostpart the audience of peers was quiet and respectful, with occasional chit-chatting or hub-bub breaking through the spell of the performers. Students on stage came from Ovid-Elsie, Breckenridge, St. Louis and Birch Run schools.

And here are a couple of video clips from the same event.

church selling second-hand goods

For dozens of years this Congregational church has helped raise funds for projects by inviting donations of used materials to organize, assign prices, advertise and open for sale to the public. The past 15 years, though, some things (such as clothing) have been excluded and the quality of donation is supposed to be a little higher than a typical residential Yard Sale, Garage Sale, Rummage Sale or Porch Sale.

Most years the proceeds total a couple thousand dollars. So this big effort is valued for the results in addition to the shared work and fellowship it creates among the volunteers who organize and the people who offer their donated things for sale.

lobby of high school - highest levels of competition

entrance lobby at high school in the morning before classes begin

Students and parents are greeted in springtime with the special decoration at the main entrance to encourage teams and clubs that rise above peer schools to reach regional and finally state-level competitions.

"farmers' market" at newly rebuilt Lansing City Market

24 April thronged with the great and small: a slight consciousness about knowing one's food sources and makers is growing. And the conversations along the way are an added quality of life issue for more and more people who make time for driving, biking or walking to the City Market in Lansing, Michigan. Credit Michael Pollan in large part for this public interest, www.michaelpollan.com, with his several books about food and society these days.

big box foodstore takes local business away

Local grocery chain of six supermarkets closes another of its locations in middle Michigan, USA.

closed for business

Across the road is a Midwest chain of really big stores that buys in greater volume and negotiates with vendors more stringently than the locally based food stores. Perhaps shoppers will one day deliberately do business at small but more expensive places for reasons other than price tag, such as supporting local owners and workers: less automation may appear less economically efficient, but then there are other factors in a person's livelihood than dollars and cents.

menu this week at rural high school

Monday: chicken nuggets, green beans and mushroom soup
Tuesday: bacon cheese burger, curly fries
Wednesday: pasta bar, garlic bread, Caeser salad
Thursday: Scalloped potatoes and ham
Friday: 7 inch round pizzas

Menu reflects the continental scale of food production, promotion and distribution.
Little of the elements will ever touch human hands along the cycle from seed to digestion.

University community changes on campus

While attending a performance at my alma mater, the University of Michigan, I picked up the on-campus list of events and communications (not the student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, but the university source, www.umich.edu/urecord). The overall impression, compared to the middle 1980s, was of status consciousness and displays of hierarchy fading; of established routines and expectations eroding, and of a general increase in the amount and variety of campus events outside of classroom instruction.

Perhaps this impression comes from my middle-age vantage and my collection of life experiences in various organizations and projects where the Ivory Tower has become shorter and less rarefied. And perhaps the diffusion of personal computing over the Internet has supported and indeed stimulated diverse small interest groups and projects. Whatever the origins, the impression stands out at the periphery of my vision and understanding: present but not quite focused.