Send in the Adults.

Today's Tids Issue 3,769

For obscurity:

Winter’s blanket dropped by last night. City streets of grey turned pure and white. The sun arose, glistening off snow covered trees; Wisps of flakes whirled like dancers in a gentle breeze. So, I’ll be tromping around, enjoying the beauty covering the ground. Loving the glorious sparkling day, until the cars turn rutted streets grey.

When I hear Trump embarrassing companies in public about their potential business decisions that would move plants out of country, it reminds me how I feel when a government tries to intimidate me into not drinking soda. It just makes me more distasteful of the tax paid public overlords, and I resist harder.

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way you’ll be a mile from them when you do, and you’ll have their shoes.

Yesterday, I put rather heavy bags of coins into the pockets of my parka and trudged off to the bank around the corner to use their coin machine. About half way there I distinctly noticed a definite, growing ache in my knees. This illustrated to me just how important it is to keep extra pounds off of declining joints. My gravy and Cheeto diets seem to be working ok, though.

I hate to consider the thought that the next four years will be dominated by childish name calling among our “leaders”.

There are so many ways to get news nowadays that it is hard to tell exactly what is really current. I get alerts on my phone as they happen. The newspapers are a day late generally, and the nightly news repeats what has been on cable news all day long. And some “news” outlets through their own priorities take days to get to old stories. So, when I see, for instance, a headline like “Bombs in Baghdad”, it is almost impossible to determine when it really happened, because it’s generally a daily occurrence, except when it isn’t, but just and old story reported late. Follow me?

Hillary Price notes the that chef who was forced to close his Italian restaurant died Penne-less.

The Question:

Who are the authors of these quote: 1. “Keep your eyes on the stars and feet on the Ground”. 2. “Quality is not and act, it is a habit”. 3. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” 4. “A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.”

The Headlines:

--Unemployment Rate Climbs; Markets Higher.

--JC Penny Results Add To Woes Of Retailers.

--US Diplomat Antony Blinken Warns That North Korea Nuke Technology Growing Every Day!

--Biden Tells Trump It Is Tie To Grow Up.

--CES Magic Astounding Visitors.

--Apple’s Tim Cook’s Pay Cut After Lackluster Yearly Performance.

--Former CIA Director Woolsey Quits Trump Transition Team After Prez Elect’s Slam’s On Agency.
--Britain’s Teresa May Expected To Meet Here With Trump In Spring.

The TV set manufacturers led by LG are pushing 4K, the latest super advancement in picture clarity. Frankly I don’t have problems with my current pic at all. 2.7 cm thick screens that are true pictures on a wall was the first big news out of the Giant Consumer Electronics Show held each year at this time in Las Vegas. I Think I will though be quite interested in the days to come as some other Buck Rogers gadgetry is revealed. Keep your eye on the name Nvidia which has come up with a new “Shield” boasting “full-fat 4K HDR capabilities”, whatever that means! It is all about streaming and is tied to Netflix and You Tube’s ability to step up to the potentially dominating 4K technology. I’m seeing that a lot of everything that’s going on will be about streaming, so keep an eye on that, and the doings of Roku, Google Chromecast, Apple and latecomer Amazon Echo. That is where the action is going to be as smart TV moves up to becoming the norm, and streaming diminishes the importance of cable. Also making a splash, are Panasonic’s new TV, HTC bolstering it’s Vive and Asus astounding attendees with its ZenFone. I’ll be honest with you, until I go back to engineering school I’m going to have trouble deciphering the nano-speed changes of our day-to-day devices. But, I’ll try.

Did I actually just say “Buck Rogers”?

There is no question that Trumps biggest potential Achilles heel is his debt now held by, according to the WSJ, over 150 entities. He and his people will have to figure  out how to manage walking the conflict of interest line. You know that his opposition is just ready to pull the net in case of a slip.

I really like Jae Crowder, just I case you are interested.

Do you get the growing sensation that investing in retail malls in the future will be a bad idea? Like, whoever thought that mighty steel mills of Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Bethlehem would ever become useless piles of rubble. After all, America was built upon steel, right? Things change and after this Christmas season it is becoming even more apparent that brick and mortar is changing rapidly to Bytes for orders. I guess in some ways, it boils down to shopping versus buying. It is incredibly easy to push a button and buy through an electric device. But there are still many who find walking the aisles to find bargains an important part of daily life – as long as the discounts are 40% or higher!

All that glitters is not gold, but duct tape is silver.

The shift is on, and is easy to see that it will become harder and harder to replace 10’s of thousands of jobs being discarded by the retail industries. Retail stores just aren’t as necessary as they use to be. I always have envisioned giant nearly clerkless warehouses displaying all brands of clothing, where potential customers could come in to feel fabrics, try on clothing and then use phones to find the best bargains on the Net. This or something like this is probably where we are going, unless retail chains can come up with some customers service idea so valuable that people flock to the stores again. To do that effectively, you have to find the clerks who are capable of fulfilling lofty ideals and paying them accordingly.

The new world Bully Pulpit consists of 140 characters.

Yesterday James Clapper was the ornery looking curmudgeon who assailed anybody who didn’t believe that Russia was behind everything during the election. This is the same crusty Clapper who in 2013 railed against the thought that Government agencies were spying on Americans, which was in the end an out and out lie. Beware of intimidators.

Tomorrow is the grand opening of this year’s historic Art Museum Speaker Series in which I am involved. We are sold out “Big league” as a well-known exaggerator might say. But now I hear of “bigley” snow on the horizon. Yikes! What to do? Glory becomes a conundrum. That’s life, I guess.

Every once in while I play Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony which was so perfect in the wonderful movie Breaking Away.

Reading between the Lines Movie reviews:

--A Monster Call will warm your hearts. Coming of Age movies are so frequent now that are tending to wear thin. But this one starring the young Lewis O’Conner with Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver and Liam Neeson as the voice of the Monster is a fantasiamagorical tug at your hearts strings as a lovable monster guides the lad dealing with a mother’s illness and bullying classmates on the journey where he will discover courage, truth and faith. Bring tissues.

--Another uplifting story is about three blackly mimetically capable genius women rising up and fighting a different kind of battle in the early sixties…at NASA where they worked in a white man’s world. I think you get the picture and you will appreciate the contributions and charm of these woman as they are a force behind the enormous achievement of launching of John Glenn into space. Hidden Figures connotes several double meanings, but one of them isn’t bodies in nun’s clothing.  

--Ardennes is affair movie about two brothers. In a robbery gone wrong, one bro scoots while the other is left behind to take the rap and serve 4 years in jail. Scanty cat bro has a life going well when the nabbed bro gets out. It’s about the relationship of the boys and the ex-cons desire to win back his old girlfriend.

The Answer:

Ok, number 1 Is Teddy Roosevelt. Aristotle gave us #2 and Walt Disney let us dream with #3. And #4, why that was Ayn Rand. Always think about what you can do, and do it. That was me.

Well, we made it through another good week, getting back to reality. Seemed to work out ok.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but two Wrights make an airplane.

Have a great weekend, E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y!