Form vs function

I receive catalogues from many different sources, for products that I have absolutely no interest in.  Furniture vendors in particular.  I guess I clicked on something one day and BAM, I was on their radar as a sucker potential customer.  Now I do like (soft) contemporary architecture and furniture, but much of it just looks downright uncomfortable.  Obviously (to me) whoever designed it placed form over function.

Exotic automobiles are often conflicted by this "form vs function" conundrum, too.  Lamborghini's are decidedly gorgeous, sleek cars....

....but have you ever tried to get into or out of one?  *groan*

The Amish, by contrast, don't even recognize the concept of "form".

Some people are impeccably stylish.  You rarely see England's Prince Charles in anything other than his trademark double breasted suit, and then he's either wearing his polo attire or one of his dress military uniforms.  Do you think he ever just puts on some shorts and a t-shirt and gets in a quick game of croquet out back with the guys?

Donald and Melania Trump's New York apartment is I'm sure considered by many to be Architectural Digest perfect, but if he invites Sean and his pals over to watch the game, where would they sit?  You think he has a man cave no one ever sees where he goes to let his hair down?  (pun intended)

Most of us fall somewhere in between.  We like form, but we like function, and comfort, more.  I can't imagine buying a sofa or a chair from a catalogue.  I insist on sitting on it first.  If it isn't comfortable, I don't care how good it looks, I'm not buying it.  I have an old, decidedly worn looking oversized leather chair in my den.   As I recall it had a pleasant "form" when I purchased it 20+ years ago, but since then it has decidedly conformed nicely to butt, making it's original form almost unrecognizable today.  It will probably join Archie Bunker's chair in the Smithsonian some day.  *snort*

As I look around our apartment I'd have to say I lean 90% +/- toward function.  I own very little that anyone would consider "stylish".  Not our furniture, not our "art", and certainly NOT my wardrobe.  My car, a Mazda, is currently parked in our garage between a Mercedes and a Maserati (no joke).  I wonder if either of those people ever say to themselves, "Doh....I coulda had a Mazda!"  (They probably do, actually, when they're looking out the window of their respective dealer's service departments and see me puttering by.)

How about you?  I'm not saying there's anything at all wrong with being stylish.  To some it's worth the effort.  How would you rate yourself....be honest now....on the "form vs function" scale?

S 

Do I know you? No? Great....let's keep it that way.

Have you noticed how UN-social we've become?  People are withdrawing, to one degree or another, from social interaction.  It's been a creeping thing for years, but now it seems to me it's becoming a stampede.  The most obvious example of this....

Texting

Given a choice, people....young people in particular, would prefer to not talk to other humans, ever.  Instead of going to see our neighbor two houses down the street, or calling them, we text them.  People go out for dinner, and then spend half their time texting, sometimes to the person sitting right across the table from them!

Shopping

It's estimated that 20% of American shopping malls will close within 5 years.  People are just not going out shopping like they used to.  Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Circuit City, and Blockbuster, among many others, are long gone.  Sears and Kmart are dead men walking, JC Penny isn't far behind, and even big chains like Macy's are closing stores as fast as they can.  Yet online retailers are THRIVING!  (OK....guilty.  Just this week I placed online orders with Amazon, LL Bean, and REI.)

You can even buy a car online without ever speaking to a live homo sapien!  That is, those who still want to drive can.  I recently read that the average young person doesn't even bother getting their driver's license until they're 19 years old.  In my day (as we old farts used to say) we were at the DMV at 6 am on our 16th birthday to be first in line to get our license.  Auto makers are seeing a trend of "car sharing", where a number of people will buy a car together, then take their turn driving it on the increasingly rare times they have to venture out of their house/apartment.

It wasn't long ago that if you wanted a meal of a slightly higher caliber than a drive-thru joint, you had to go INSIDE, be seated by a human, tell a human what you wanted, and pay a human on your way out.  

Today we have home delivery via Grub Hub and Uber Eats.  Just place your order and pay online, in half an hour open your door up just wide enough for someone to slip your food to you, then slam the door and lock it again.  No eye contact necessary.  *sweet!*

Many local grocery stores are now making home deliveries, and they all allow you to order everything from beans to toilet paper online, then just pull up curbside where they will hand you your assembled order.  (Coming to a complete stop is appreciated.)

If you're feeling puny, you can call any number of online doctors who will examine you long distance (?) and in many cases send you a prescription from a mail-order pharmacy.  (Just hold your camera phone up to your open mouth and say 'ahh'.)  Why go out to see a doctor or to a hospital (oh, many hospitals are closing, too) when you can sit at home and get fixed?

Will dermatology eventually become an extinct medical specialty?   Today dermatologists are in their heyday, treating all of us who regularly went outside when we were younger and now have skin cancer.  Soon we won't go outside enough to absorb any of those evil rays that give us problems 30 years down the road.  *note to self:  sell all suntan lotion stock*

Are we just getting lazier, or just more scared to interact with others?  Gee thanks Gates, Jobs, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.  *sigh*

S

That's all folks!

  
Do we dare hope?  Is Robert Mueller about finished with his investigation?  Please?

With congressional mid-term elections just a little over 3 months away, Special Counsel Robert Mueller will either have to wrap up his investigation soon, or hold it over until after the election.  A final report out immediately before the election is not going to happen, particularity after Comey botched a similar situation back it '16.  The Democrats are probably hoping for the former.  Both say their position, whether pro or anti Trump, will be vindicated.  I predict....only Robert Mueller knows. *wink*

Seriously, it seems to me Prez Trump's only hope to avoid the political guillotine is for the economy to continue to boom.  "It's the economy, stupid" has never been more true.  That's overwhelmingly what the 40% who avidly support him tout about him.  Truth is, he has indeed helped the economy stretch its 10 year rebound from the Great Depression of '08, but he is really just riding the recovery coat tale.  Not that Obama fixed it either....the economy had little place to go but up after our $%^&# crooked bankers nearly tanked us all.

I think Trump and his team will be in a world of hurt when Mueller makes his findings known publicly.  There is ample evidence that at least some of those around Trump were duped by Putin and his intelligence people.  The Russians originally recruited Trump's team, not the other way around.   Still, Trump's team didn't walk away, and may have even taken the Rooskie's bait to Trump personally, and when the "implied" offer of help was accepted....BOOM!  Putin has likely been reeling him in ever since.  Or Trump's vulnerability may go back several decades with Russian money financing his businesses after US banks told him they'd had enough of his fast-and-loose financial shenanigans.  We'll see.

And if Mueller does in fact indict some of Trump's team, or his family (Jr, Jared?)....well, the plot thickens.  With something like a 95%+ successful prosecution record, the smart money will be betting on Mueller to win this one, too.  And that's IF Mueller and the DOJ (Rosenstein) agree a sitting president can not be indicted.  If they puncture the presidential shield of prosecution....YIKES!....Watergate redux!  Look for popcorn sales to skyrocket!  *snort*

But not to worry.  We'll survive this, too, whatever happens.  I'm pretty sure.  :)

S

What has happened to the Republican Party?

It wasn't that many years ago that the "Republican Party" and "Ronald Reagan" were synonymous.  Conservatives were proud to say they were "Reagan Republicans".  He would bend and compromise if necessary, but NEVER when it came to the Soviet Union.  He stood firm, gave them no quarter, worked with and within NATO, and eventually backed them down.  Ronald Reagan was tough!

The USSR officially collapsed on December 26, 1991, on GHW Bush's watch, but it was all due to Reagan's perseverance.  Reagan very famously said, when talking about our arms control treaty with the Soviets, "Trust, but verify."  He did not say, "Well, they said they were abiding by the treaty, and that's good enough for me."

Early in his Presidential term a very naive George Dubya Bush once met with Vladimir Putin and said, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy....I was able to get a sense of his soul."  Later, a much more experienced and worldly Sec Defense Robert Gates said after he met V Putin, "I....looked into Putin’s eyes and I saw a stone cold killer."

It's now said the GOP has become Donald Trump's party as [brilliantly] designed by former advisor Steve Bannon.  Rank and file Republicans rarely say anything negative about Trump.  His brag, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters" has been proven essentially true.  President Trump met with Putin in Helsinki recently and fawned all over him.  He had just been briefed on the 12 Russian intelligence officers who were indicted for meddling in our 2016 election with Vladimir Putin's express approval, but said he believed Putin's denial instead.  

Republicans began to stir uncomfortably, Trump backpedaled his sweetness weakly, and his faithful seem to have gone compliant again.  Their stock, canned comeback to any criticism is "well, Hillary did a lot worse."  For the record, Hillary's emails, Watergate, Teapot Dome, etc, were all criminal scandals, no doubt, but none of that has anything to do with the way Donald Trump is behaving today.  A bank robber can't use as his defense, "well, I only got $500....Hillary got $1,000."

I have many very intelligent, good friends who resemble the description of the Trump Republican I just described.  I encourage them to continue to present their positions on health care, immigration, tax reform, etc.  Those are all things we can reasonably debate.  Kowtowing to Russia and the thug-killer Vladimir Putin should be beyond debate.

I suggest you refresh yourself with the Steele Dossier (here) that was in the news last year.  The jest of it was that the Russians/Putin had some incriminating evidence on Donald Trump that they could someday use to blackmail the new President.  Given the recent strangely cozy US/Russian relations, I expect you'll see this topic soon re-enter the news.

S

We can reasonably debate many issues, but kowtowing to Russia is NOT one of them!

I wish this was funny....

....but it isn't.  It's scarily accurate.

President Trump meets with Russian President Putin in just a few days.  Putin is right now most likely huddled with his personality profile psychologists determining exactly what he can say to get Donald Trump to fetch, roll over, and sit up and beg.  Trump is right now most likely propped up in bed skypeing with his BFF Sean Hannity.

Trump is in no way intellectually or cunningly Putin's equal.  Putin has been laser focused on returning Russia to its former glory ever since the USSR was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991.  Trump was completely unprepared for his office, and was as shocked as anyone when he was elected on November 8, 2016.  Putin was trained as an intelligence officer in the KGB, eventually becoming a Lt. Colonel, and later heading the KGB's successor, the FSB.  Trump kept his dad's slick lawyer on retainer to keep him out of trouble.  Bone spurs *wink* kept him out of the military.  Putin has a honed, long-term strategy.  Trump just says and does whatever pops into his head.  Trump slanders and belittles his opponents.  Putin kills his.

Vladimir Putin will destroy Donald Trump, and we'll all be collateral damage.  No, this is not funny at all.

S

Kickin' a$$ and takin' names

Democrats and Republicans conducting the People's business in Washington.

I recently saw a news clip of a Republican congressman giving the acting Attorney General hell because the Mueller investigation is taking so long.  "If Mueller has something, take it to the damn Grand Jury.  This is tearing the country apart."  He was upset because the investigation has so far taken one year.  For the record, the Nixon/Watergate investigation took TWO+ years, as did the Clinton/Lewinsky investigation and the House Benghazi investigation.  Why can't Mueller have the time he needs, too?

Here's what Congress should, but won't, do:  Both parties should ban all talk about Mueller's investigation.  They should zip their pie holes.  Don't respond to the latest tweet or leak.  Wave the press off.  Just go to work.  Let Mueller do his job, AND MAKE CONGRESS DO THEIRS.  

On a good day, many reports say, the typical congressman and Senator spends half his time fund raising so as to build up his campaign chest for his next election bid.  Then they spend most of their remaining day strategizing how, when, and at who they will poke another sharp stick in the eye of, and of course primping for their next TV appearance so they can lie to us about how hard they work blah blah blah.  That leaves them just a few precious minutes a day to actually DO anything.  If anything actually gets done in Washington, it's purely by accident.  You and I would get fired on our second day of work if we were that unproductive!

No foreign overseas frolicking at the taxpayers expense. No spring/summer/fall/winter recesses.  They need to go to their offices and WORK.  Figure out what to do about North Korea, trade with China/Mexico/Canada/Europe, immigration, how to cyber smack Russia, fix our decrepit roads and bridges and air traffic control system, etc.  No one can go home, no one can get paid, no one is eligible for re-election UNLESS they work out something with the other party.  There is no shortage of projects that needs urgent attention.

Kickin' ass and takin' names.  Who's with me?

S