5 Thoughts for August 4, 2017

1. Cognitive Dissonance of CSRs: CSRs -- Cost Sharing Reduction Payments -- aren't handouts to insurers. To the contrary, they're reductions that are indirectly handed out to Americans who take advantage of the marketplace's Silver-rated plans. By attempting to use it as leverage against Democrats, what Republicans and Donald are really doing is using their own constituents as pawns. KFF highlighted this before, as did Axios. A growing number of Republicans get it -- funding, at least temporarily, has been added into multiple versions of the GOP Repeal and Replace. Sadly for his own constituents, Donald may never figure it out.
2. Grand Jury Impaneled: Wow, this is moving at a fairly fast pace. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has apparently already requested a Grand Jury. While it still doesn't mean that charges will be filed, it does mean that Mueller's probe is larger than just Mike Flynn as that case was already covered by an existing Grand Jury in a different jurisdiction. Heck, who are we kidding? Of course, Donald's going to be charged with a series of crimes, as will other members of his campaign. Mueller's got the outline of possible crimes committed and now he needs a bunch of stupid people to lie under oath. If/when Donald is subpoenaed, you know his presidency will be on the line and he will fail.
3. Grammar Checker: There are spell checkers and then there are grammar checkers. I suck at grammar. Well, I'm not that terrible at it, but I definitely find a grammar checker to be extremely useful. I've been using Grammarly -- specifically its Chrome extension -- for the past two years or so. Grammar checkers check sentence structure and spelling, making them better than a stand-alone spell checker. Do you yourself a favor and use the free version of Grammarly -- don't let your ego get in the way of using these tools.
4. Design Language: Somewhat in keeping with a grammar checker, in design, one has a choice to make -- whether to create one's own design language or use someone else's language. It is unbelievably difficult to create one's own language then stick to it. Without that focus, one's work becomes obscured by the vast ocean of other designers and designs -- one structure looks similar to another even when they're designed by completely different firms and individuals. I'm on that road, trying to develop the core of my design language. This is where I'm at right now. I might never arrive at the place I want to be, but the process is very important to me. Designers never stop designing, even when they hit retirement age. Frank Gehry is 88 and wildly active.
   
   
   
5. Football Season: Last night I happened to stumble upon the Hall of Fame game -- the NFL's first preseason game. It's a bit startling and also exciting, that football season is upon us. I'm not ready; I've got far too many things to get through before weekends are full of football. Sigh.