What Would Mr. Smiley Face Think?

First the scrambling Starbucks brought back its weird original two-tailed mermaid logo. Now, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is about to change one of the most familiar logos in corporate America.

After a very misguided venture into "upscale" two years ago, Wal-Mart redeemed itself by returning to its roots with "Save money. Live better."

Now, abandoning the familiar blue logo with a star "hyphen" bracketed by two red bars (building facades includes white letters on a blue background), the new look for signs and building facades features a burnt-orange background followed by a white starburst, according to an artist's rendering that the company filed recently with planning officials in Memphis.

The name will appear as one word: Walmart. When the company first started in 1962, the name was hyphenated by a dash. But in the past decade, the dash has been replaced by a star on stores and the corporate letterhead.

On the bottom of graphics accompanying the Wal-Mart application, the corporate logo is written in blue letters followed by an orange starburst.

It's difficult to understand the urge to mess with brands that work. One would think that "The New Coke" would have settled that question once and for all. The pressure to eke out percentage points in a tough market seems to be an irresistable force.

Starbucks actually thought we went to to their stores for the coffee. CDs, books, and reheated breakfast food were just "brand extensions". They didn't realize that what really floated our boat was the barista who knew us by name and knew what we wanted to drink when we walked in the door.

Wal-Mart has attempted in several ways to remake its image recently. First they showed Mr. Smiley the door. Last year, Wal-Mart also trashed bulky blue vests in favor of khakis and polo shirts. How's that for being out of touch with your core audience?

Here's the deal: Those of us who watch the Food Channel can figure out that Walmart and Sams are carrying quality food at a big discount off the corner grocery as well as other top end merchandise. I don't need a polo shirt to or an upscale logo to get me in the door. And Walmart risks alienating its core audience by once-again pandering to upper-middle income folks.

Praise Him in the Storm

"And I'll praise you in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise you in this storm."

From Praise You in This Storm by Casting Crowns

On Thursday, June 19th, I was listening to NPR's "Talk of the Nation" on a long drive back Downtown to my office. I heard this interview at the beginning of the show.

The woman being interviewed is a farmer who has lost most of her farm to the floods. I was able to record the interview, which is just over four minutes long. The part at the beginning, detailing the devastation from the flooding is interesting, but stuff that you've heard.

It's what the woman has to say at the end of the recording that is the "amazing" and truly wonderful part.

I sent a copy of the interview to my brother Pat, who is coordinator of faith formation and youth ministry for the Diocese of Davenport, IA. Over the years Pat has served in other capacities doing social outreach work for both the Davenport and Des Moine dioceses.

So when the floods came, Pat got out to see what he could do. The following is the story that he sent to me:

"Thanks for sending that sound clip along. It's a great report, all too typical of what's happened to so many farmers and others in our state. You're right... people hear the statistics, like that Iowa will take a $3-billion hit to our crops this year, or that thousands are homeless. But her testimony at the end is so powerful... She's bringing it strong about how God is big and will see us through and how everybody is putting their trust in God, and Robert Siegel responds 'Karen Schrock, Good luck to you,' and she comes back with, not in a corrective way, but just honestly, 'God's blessings to you.'

"I just got back from our Catholics in Action youth service retreat. It's a three-day experience we do every summer that involves over 100 youth and adults. This year, we really scrambled to help with flood response, which while the flooding has been all around us, was a real waiting game because the water has to go down and then homes have to be inspected for safety and for FEMA insurance purposes, so we mostly had to go upriver to Cedar Rapids to help out.

"The stories our youth were bringing back were incredible. I didn't get past the supply distribution command center on Sunday, as I had to help out with one of our kids who threw up. But on Monday, I went up and visited two of our crews that were cleaning out the home of a Laotian-American family in Cedar Rapids.

"The streets of the neighborhood were just lined with brown junk - couches and beds and appliances and other furnishings and clothes and just everything people owned. I spoke with the husband, who works for a printer, and the wife, who cleans hotel rooms. They'd lost pretty much everything, but their faith in God remained strong, and I really got the sense that our young people serving there gave them a sense of hope.

"I hadn't really planned well for this visit (my ministry during Catholics in Action is very much the 'behind the scenes' stuff) and I'd left my boots back at our home base. But I ducked down into their basement for about two minutes. I can only describe it as what one might imagine hell to be like... only wet. Fortunately, I'd experienced smells like this before in developing countries, so it wasn't so shocking to me, but it just didn't seem like America. I think it's more just a sense of 'how can this be Cedar Rapids?' It's just not right, but at the same time, it's up to us to make it as right as we can.

"This guy (the husband) who must've been in his late 50s and had this incredible integrity about him, just stood there and unloaded his pain to me in sorta-broken English, but it wasn't like a hopeless rant. He mentioned that he collected books (I can only imagine it was his only excess spending, as they raised 3 kids) and lost over 3,000 books, mostly history and religion books, in his basement. As a history and religion buff with far fewer books, I began to connect with the depth of his losses, not just home and possessions, but to some degree, sense of self.

"But again, the faith of this couple was incredible. I left our crews some N-95 facemasks and about 20 of my old T-shirts to give them, along with a new "Catholics in Action" shirt for the wife. I was gone by the time our crews did this, but I was told that the husband took the shirt, yanked off his dirty shirt and pulled this Medium-sized shirt over his body (he was built pretty much like Dad!). Everybody had a good laugh... wish I'd have seen that!

"Anyways, there is great hope here, and yet great need. Wheelbarrows and rubber gloves and strong backs will do much, but only faith will get us through."

Back Up the Kriek

Last week my friend David invited me over for cigars. When I arrived he was over the moon with what he had found at new mega-store called Friar Tucks'. The store carries thousands of bottles of wine, a great selection of Scotch and other distilled spirits, and several hundred beers. In the beer section David found something that he had been looking for over several years: A bottle of kriek.

Years ago, at a time when I was homebrewing, David returned from a trip to Michigan and presented me with a flat of gorgeous cherries. While they could have gone into a cobbler, a pie, or my mouth, I instead decided to pitch them into five gallons of Belgian ale. In Belgium, the lambic style beers are a blessed mixture of skill and serendipity. In the old Belgian breweries the hot wort, or unfermented liquor from malted grain, would be pumped into the rafters of the brewhouse to cool. There, natural yeast, bacteria, and other flora and fauna would float into the beer.

It was this combination of elements, which could be considered faults in a German pilsner, honed over time, that produced beers unparalleled in their complexity, aroma, and flavor. Unlike other ales and lagers that can become stale in a few months, Belgian lambics can be aged for years and actually gain in complexity and depth.

The style of lambic that I wanted to produce using David's cherries is known as a kriek. After the wort had fermented, I innoculated the carboy with a special variety of bacteria. The cherries floating on top became coated in a downy covering of what looked like mold. There are a lot of parallels in brewing Belgian beers and making cheese.

Anyway, the kriek made from David's cherries turned out to be awesome. And the older it got, the better it got. We found a bottle in my old basement about five or six years after the fact and it just blew us away.

Then came the sad part. I was no longer brewing, and for a while the initial bloom was off the rose on microbrew availability. So David could no longer find kriek. Sure, there was framboise (raspberry) and peche (peach, which you either like or HATE). But no kriek.

So David's find was definitely cause for celebration. It called for a glass of Kriek and a great cigar.

Here's to David and to Belgium!

In the "Green" World, Old is New

Who knew? Linoleum and pile drilling are hot new sustainable technologies.

At the "Greening the Heartland" Conference earlier this week, it sometime seemed as if everything old is not only new again - it's often environmentally sustainable. Greening the Heartland, a regional conference on green building and sustainability in the Midwest, is being held through tomorrow at America's Center in downtown St. Louis,. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) - St. Louis Regional Chapter is hosting this fifth annual event, which is geared toward people interested in greening their town, business, college campus or building.

In the event's exposition hall, Roger Gooch, south central regional manager for Forbo Flooring Systems, explained that his company has been making its "new" sustainable product since the middle of the 19th century. Linoleum is manufactured using linseed oil and wood "flour". It used to be made with cork, but the shortage of good cork is one reason why your favorite wine now has a screwtop. Another name for linseed oil - at least the kind extracted without the use of solvents is flaxseed, which you can buy at any health food store and put on your salad. The primary difference between today's linoleum and the product that readers of a certain age may remember, Gooch said, is the addition of UV coating, which seals the surface and improves durability and sheen.

At St. Louis' Subsurface Constructors, Inc. exhibit the sustainable product was "vibrostone columns". Subsurface has built a solid foundation (sorry about that) for a national business in the sustainable construction industry by combining a drilled, compacted piling system which reuses the onsite material and additions such as recycled railroad ballast. This system displaces minimal dirt on the site itself and piles on the points when an owner is seeking LEED certification.