Simplicity and Conservation Archives - Page 5 of 11

Officially Coming Out of the Shower

November 8, 2010 by David Mark Brown

Shower_Bath — A French soldier's shower contraption

A brave new exposé by The New York Times has revealed once and for all to the public that hygiene in America has gone completely OCD. Emboldened by the courage of the individuals who stood forward for the Times, I too am ready to be recognized as one of the “unshowered and unashamed.”

Reading the Times article one could be lead to believe that there are critical scientific reasons to forgo showering, washing your hair and wearing anti-persperant. But this is like admitting that you drink wine regularly for the health benefits – it totally negates the too coolio for schoolio factor. It makes the beautiful seem, well, dorky.

I need no edifice of scientific reasoning or lame-o excuses to do the right thing (preachiness intended.) Now that The New York Times as clumsily broached the issue, maybe the world is finally ready to hear the truth. The one you have all come to know and love as David Mark Brown showers no more than twice weekly, has not besmirched his body with anti-persperant since he was 13, and has only used soap for “the hairy parts” since 1996.

Appraisals, Home Sales and Green Lies

August 3, 2010 by David Mark Brown

800px-Mcmansion_under_construction — McMansion under construction by merfam

Remember when people where trending on such topics as “downsizing” and “simple living?” It seems like just yesterday. With untold McMansions listing in their weed-infested suburbs across the U.S. it would seem that the time was indeed ripe for reason to reenter our housing market and smaller footprints and more practical usage of square footage to be valued and rewarded. The only problem is that downsizing is easy to talk about and hard to do.

American’s love things big. As my wife and I have listed our 4 bed 3 bath, 1990 sq. ft. home in SLC for sale we have discovered that it is too small to demand top dollar (in our current crappy homes market). I thought such a home would be ideal for all the people who have been talking about downsizing from their 3,000 sq. ft. 3 bed and 3 bath houses. But, apparently there aren’t any such people. What there are, are people who are looking for their first home and finding that 2,000 sq. ft. just isn’t big enough.

Green Fads Inevitably Die, but How?

May 17, 2010 by David Mark Brown

Yeti_by_Philippe_Semeria — Yeti by Philippe Semeria

The only question in regards to the death of the current green enthusiasm is, “Will the new green fad die via popular adoption, or via wholesale abandonment?” Well, I guess this is the first question, not the only. The second one would be, “What will green living look like when it is either abandoned or adopted?”

An intelligent reader (I know you are out there!) would of course respond, “Well, economical solutions will be adopted while unrealistic and utopian greening will be abandoned.” And while making sense, this sort of reasoning with the American people is redonculous at best and dangerous madness at worst. Just look at corn ethanol, still going strong all these years despite its fairly wide-known economic unfeasibility. And we all know that the milk of the female Yeti could be a financial boon for holistic medicine if someone would just put in the hard work to create a Yeti milking program, or at least learn to synthesize the stuff.