MR NATURAL
One of my role
models has been Crumb's 'Mr Natural'. You younger folks probably
don't know of him. Early in my professional career I became enamored
with him and consequently have acted on some of his principles. The
first inkling my friends had that I had come out of the Unnatural
Closet was I wanted to grow my beard and forever (it turned out)
never to feel the razors edge on my facade. Now that every guy model
in Vogue and on the courts and diamonds of major sports has a Micky
Mouse rendition of facial air, it may not sound so radical, but in
1960 I outraged the Laguna Beach social circles by such out behavior.Come to think of it, my morals were pretty close to Mr. Naturals also, Zero!
THE GREAT POSTAL
SERVICE
The USPS is
currently getting bids from major auto manufacturers to design &
build a upgraded version of their current vehicle. It seems it is
too small, doesn't have air bags, etc. (How many air bags do you need for a
rear-ender?) . They have set aside $6,000,000,000 ((That's BILLION)
for a fleet of 180,000 mini trucks with big clutch and right hand
drive. I hope they do better with the design than Grumman did with
the current one. If anyone asks me, I would contract out to a Italian
Industrial Designer for a design first, then put it out to bid. Electric drive would be a no brainer here. Maybe they could also just stop printing new styles of stamps every week, forget about the serrated edges (these are not tear off anymore.
GREEN REVOLUTION
Recently we had
a new hospital (Sutter) built here in Santa Rosa and they are
spouting their new 'Prestigious energy and environmental' rating from
the U. S. Green Council. As you must know by now, I am a rabid
opponent of these wonderful awards. but wait, lets take a closer look
at this one.
First of all,
you have to hire a 'Green LEED Consultant’ to the tune of several
thousand dollars , mostly to fill out a bunch of bull-shit forms
required by the government. And maybe you don't have to do anything
special (Other than hire this guy) so let's take a look at the
details.
- They had to upgrade all the plumbing fixtures to low-flow units. Well, the Building Code requires this so what's the big deal?
- 2. They got some credits because there was a water well on the site.
- They did use some kind of Fuel cell technology, (I have to look that up).
- Greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by stopping all vehicles that were idling more than 10 min. How much did they pay someone to monitor all that?
- They used some recycled content in flooring as it reduces impact on landfills. All that takes is use a more expensive floor.
- They controlled rain run-off into Swales (Landscaped) before dumping into the storm drain. WOW!
- This probably took about a thousand pages of documentation to accomplish all this, that by the way, was mostly required by the current codes.
SPORTS
“ Welcome
back to another few hours spent watching adult men play a simple
child's game, all the while being paid more than the President”
