Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

In my day, never was longer.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Bark louder, little dog.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I really should read my own blog.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

This really is a full service blog.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: An Interesting Life

Open Thread: An Interesting Life

by | 188 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Subaru Diane has an interesting story to share.  As always!

Editor’s note: Why is she not writing a book?

Auto Draft 39

This is a picture of my mother, Elizabeth Cannon Lowry, standing next to President John F. Kennedy at the White House, in January 1962. Here’s a bit of backstory:

In March 1921, following the inauguration of Warren Gamaliel Harding, the new President was wandering around the White House, unable to sleep and looking for something to read. He found nothing — the Executive Mansion had no books!

Word of this reached the American Booksellers Association and they determined then and there to stock the WH Library with reading material for the President and the First Family. They selected 200 American books that had been published in the past four years, and in early 1922 they presented them to Harding in a low-key White House ceremony.

Every four years from that point on (the year following inauguration year) the ABA made a similar presentation, always focusing on American authors, publishers, and themes in their selections.

Presenters were usually members of the Executive Committee/Board of Directors of the ABA, and it so happened that my mother (who owned and managed our family bookstore) was on the Board in early 1962 and hence part of the WH delegation.

Of course JFK was probably the best-read POTUS since Jefferson or Lincoln and until Obama, and probably already owned most of the books presented! But the point is, the books were not selected with specific presidents in mind, nor to be part of their personal libraries.

Instead, the 200 books every four years were meant for a permanent, cumulative, ever-growing White House library, for the use and pleasure of the President, the First Family, and WH staffers during their four-year stint, then left in place for their successors.

I haven’t heard about the program in years. I hope it’s still operational. A few years ago I emailed the ABA asking about it, but never got an answer. I should try again.

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

188Comments

  1. 1.

    Leto

    Our Jackals have the most interesting lives. I wonder if the ABA simply skipped the last presidency and donated the books to a worthy children’s school, or another institution that would’ve appreciated them.

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Another vote for “Subaru Diane, Revealed at Last” only now I see it needs some backstory. I especially think the time spent inside Ayn Rand’s cult needs to be inked as a counterpoint to those pups still falling under the spell of her monstrous books. Also, Alan Greenspan stories.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    Editor’s note: Why is she not writing a book?

    She wastes all her time on some cockamamie blog that no one reads.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    I tried googling when Subaru Diane sent this to me, with no luck.  This will no doubt require the google fu of Steeplejack or Another Scott.

  7. 7.

    Yutsano

    @Leto: ​
    Remember: we can’t have a Sharpie gap! Ours must be bigger and better than DJYNA! or we’ll never have big beautiful factories again..

    Aww fudge. Even mocking him isn’t worth it anymore. Can we blame Biden yet?

  15. 15.

    Nora

    I find it a little hard to imagine Warren Harding as much of a reader. Not that he was as unread and unlettered as our former president, but he was kind of an intellectual lightweight from everything I’ve read about him. Still, it’s a charming story, and I love the idea of the White House Library. Is there a list somewhere of what’s in it?

  17. 17.

    Felanius Kootea

    I wonder whether the ABA program ended because our previous president doesn’t read.

    On a completely different topic – a colleague of mine sent me a video through WhatsApp yesterday with the caption “America the Beautiful?” and an image of a snow covered street. I remembered hearing about public health workers going from car to car giving people vaccine shots when they were stuck in a snowstorm, so I clicked the link thinking it was that. It wasn’t. It was video of a dispute over shoveling snow turned deadly. At first I thought “this can’t be real, why is my colleague sending me this weird excerpt from some low budget movie?” It was so disturbing that I went to google and found out that it was indeed real and happened in Pennsylvania Monday.

    I’ve been crying off and on since and I’m just saddened by how much anger there is out there and how no one seems to understand how to deescalate anymore. From the news reports, there’s a fifteen year old autistic boy who now has to navigate life without his parents and I can’t even imagine what he’s going through.

  18. 18.

    Mary G

    Yay for books and SD’s mom! Very exciting for your family, I’m sure. I’d preorder that book, and I hardly ever do.

  22. 22.

    West of the Cascades

    @tokyokie: In 2017 the ABA presented Trump with “Make My Pet Goat Great Again” and 399 copies of “Dreams From My Father.”

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    FYI, in case you haven’t heard, Nancy LeTourneau is no longer at Political Animal at the Washington Monthly, but she does have her own blog, which I have just added to the blogroll.

    I also read that she and Martin will both be blogging at Progress Pond, but a lot of stuff there is behind a paywall.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    @sab:

    My link refers to it as “retired” as of December 2020. The national trade show has probably become a bit of a dinosaur.

  28. 28.

    patrick II

    @jeffreyw:

    I was going to say the Trump collection was “The Art of The Deal’, and perhaps one other Trump “authored” book.  I went to look up what that book might be — and there were 29 books that have Trump’s name on the cover as the “author”, and there was a “next page” button at the bottom that I didn’t bother with.  I was amazed, Trump claims to have authored more than 29 books.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @craigie: You can bet it wasn’t Green Eggs and Ham, because Rethugs (Rafael in particular) can’t grok the moral of the story.

  36. 36.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Nora:

    Harding titled his review of Charles Beard’s Economic Interpretation of the Constitution “Scavengers, Hyena-Like, Desecrate the Graves of the Dead Patriots We Revere.”

    Contributed to my impression of Harding as the Pat Buchanan of his day.

    But, as you say, he seems charming in Siobhan’s story, possibly one of his finest moments.

  39. 39.

    patrick II

    @WaterGirl:

    Sorry WaterGirl.  I had mixed feelings about linking — but the level of bullshit just amazed me.  I won’t do something like that again.

    So, on a somewhat brighter note, Joe Biden is president, and I got scheduled for my Pfizer shot Tuesday! Both of those have lifted my mood immensly.

  40. 40.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    I’d add Theodore Roosevelt to the list of well-read presidents. He read two or three books a day and could discuss any of them weeks or months later. Hard to imagine Dolt 45 reading one a year.

  41. 41.

    WaterGirl

    @patrick II: Oh, don’t feel bad about linking!  I knew I was going to a list of his books.  I was just surprised at my reaction – total disgust and revulsion!

    Yay on your shot next week!

  44. 44.

    MagdaInBlack

    @WaterGirl: Something I was watching earlier put up a clip of him, and I had the same reaction. Just disgusted and  also “creeped out” a bit.

  45. 45.

    Mike in NC

    Pretty sure that some well-meaning person gave Trump a copy of “Presidenting for Dummies”, but of course he never bothered to crack it.

  46. 46.

    PsiFighter37

    @WaterGirl:  Martin founded Progress Pond after he closed down BT. I don’t know, I just can’t get behind the idea of paying for premium online commentary for political stuff. I have done it a few times for TPM, and there isn’t anything I read there that I felt gave me greater insight into any particular topic. Frankly, political Twitter often has better commentary (or can direct you to commentary where you don’t have to pay).

  47. 47.

    Tenar Arha

    The Wikipedia on the WH Library entry briefly mentions the initial ABA donation & located where the library is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Library

    Video Tour of the WH Library https://www.whitehousehistory.org/videos/the-library-white-house-video-tour

    Unfortunately nothing pops up using ABA or American Booksellers Association on the WH History website except it looks like the WH is a member of the ABA bc of their gift shop.

    I’ll keep googling;)

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    Good local Covid news: the county (Sacramento) positive test percentage has dropped below the overall average @ 6.5%. It had been flirting with 10% the last month or more. ICU Covid cases have also dropped to well below 100, from more than 100 for weeks. We’re a regional medical center so ICU count represents surrounding counties added to the local tally.

    Hopefully folks are smart with their Superb Owl parties. It’s warm and sunny, so do that thang outdoors, folks.

  49. 49.

    Bex

    Susan Bayh, wife of former Senator and Indiana governor Evan Bayh, has died at 61 of brain cancer.  Too young.

  50. 50.

    sab

    Everyone mostly hates Harding except John Dean, who wrote a book about him.

    I don’t much trust John Dean’s judgment. Harding isn’t the next Grant (utterly slandered for 150 years) but I am open minded to reconsidering him.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @PsiFighter37: Yeah, I was trying to be fair and give the whole story – that they can still be found at Progress Pond – without saying how much I dislike Progress Pond.

    I will be reading Nancy L. at her own blog, which I have added to our blogroll.

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    Great story, Subaru! Thanks for sharing.

    WaPo:

    By Nora Krug

    Staff editor for Book World with a focus on children’s books, memoirs, fiction, parenting, health and fitness

    November 28, 2017

    The president who boasts of having no time to read books has found a way to make use of them (the green ones, anyway): turn them into a very large holiday decoration. Photos of the White House library decked out for the holidays show an unusual selection of (mostly green) books organized into the shape of a Christmas tree. Constructed beneath the chandelier once owned by James Fenimore Cooper, this literary Tannenbaum has lofty aspirations.

    [ image ]

    The books were purchased especially for their decorative value, “based on their varieties of green color tones,” according to Stephanie Grisham, director of communications for first lady M****** T****. “The concept for the color of the room was red and green, hence the green books and red ribbons.” This palette is meant “to highlight FDR’s personal copy of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ which is bound in red leather and loaned from the FDR presidential library in Hyde Park, New York,” she added.

    But you know what they say about choosing a book by its cover — or in this case, by the color of its cover.

    […]

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: There aren’t enough bad words in the world to convey how much I loathe the T**** family, loathe the fact that they squatted in the White House for all this time, loathe their entire evil administration, and loathe everything they have left in their wake.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: WaMo has another Chris Matthews piece at Political Animal now.  Something about “The Smart way to use Reconciliation”.

    [ close tab ]

    (sigh)

    They’re going to rue the day they let Nancy go…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    BC in Illinois

    @sab:

    But check out Last Week Tonight on Harding.

    The John Oliver tribute to Warren G. Harding begins at 03:24.

    The Warren Harding Movie Trailer — featuring Anna Kendrick and Laura Linney — begins at 04:28.

  58. 58.

    citizen dave (aka mad citizen)

    Hot damn!  Just got dose #1 of my Fauci Ouchi 4 minutes ago.  What else would I do with my 15 minute wait but post on BJ?  I/we messed up again and thought my wife’s appt was today, but it turned out to be next Sat.  She’s on her lunch hour and was complaining about the waiting.  Kroger had one extra dose and gave it to me.  Thanks Kroger!

  59. 59.

    Ken

    @trollhattan: Teddy was also an indefatigable writer. I don’t know when the man slept.

    I’ve noticed a lot of characters in mystery novels from the 30s through the 50s don’t sleep much. Hammett and Chandler’s detectives get home at 3 AM and are back on the job by 8 next morning.  Even Perry Mason kept hours like that.

    Fiction of course, and one genre for that matter, but it’s not presented as being unusual.

  60. 60.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: I actually took Political Animal off the blogroll when I added Nancy.  If you read her most recent post on her own blog, you will see that Washington Monthly decided against bloggers, and now they are writing “articles”.  Opinion pieces.

    I am done with them.

  61. 61.

    Yutsano

    If we’re talking lives well lived you are hard pressed than the very first slave Lincoln ever freed. I’m sad and a bit shocked that this has never made it into the Lincoln ethos, especially considering this case solidified his views against slavery. It’s a heroic story with a sad ending that picks up at the very end. Longish read but worth it.

  62. 62.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Thanks for posting this, WG! Have been out most of the day (car maintenance/repairs/new battery) and haven’t read any of the comments yet, but I will very soon.

  64. 64.

    sab

    I am so boring I shouldn’t even be commenting. I think I will go wake my cat up and talk to him.

  67. 67.

    raven

    @Ruckus: Hey, we just watched Ford vs Ferrari and I had no idea Shelby’s plant was right off Imperial at LAX. My sis lives about 4 blocks from there!

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    Yeah, finally saw that. No problem. My phone battery was low and I forgot to take a charger with me, so I wasn’t checking BJ or my email.

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @Mike in NC:

    Why would “Presidenting for Dummies” be any different from any other book, his name as the author or not?

    Read it, maybe.

    Understand it? Nope.

  73. 73.

    NoraLenderbee

    @Ken: ​
      In one of the Nick and Nora Charles mysteries, the main characters are up all night and then order raw beef with onions for breakfast.

    The characters in Le Carre and Len Deighton spy novels get a little bit more sleep, but to make up for that, they down a huge whiskey during every waking hour.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    I have thought of writing a dictionary of words to use in describing shitforbrains. The only problem is it would have to be filled entirely with phrases that moms around the world would never, ever want their kids to see or learn, which of course they always do anyway, but it would mean that it would be difficult to find a publisher and printer.  And I get enough exercise in using these phrases daily, although that is dropping off after the election, with one jump after 1/6. Still, some with a modicum of verbal morals might blanch at the sight of such phrases.

  79. 79.

    Mary G

    So Nathan (11) likes to do puzzles with his mom.

    She got tired and went to bed, so he stayed up and (almost) finished this one.

    He left her the last piece with a note.

    Parenthood feels a lot like failure sometimes, but other times it feels like this. pic.twitter.com/pJmutnchcH
    — Brett Pransky (@BrettPransky) February 6, 2021

  81. 81.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Interesting note on JFK:  as a senator he would buy foreign research books and have Jackie translate them, who was fluent in french, spanish, and italian.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    @raven:

    My 4 1/2 yr old car’s battery died. Of course it was at the market after shopping, at 9:30pm, with frozen stuff in the trunk. At least it was only a mile from home. And then it started. Of course I could shift it, but it wouldn’t go into gear. The computer needed to be reset but how do you do that? Called the mfg hot line, was told they would tow it for free to a dealer so having not any other choice said sure. Then I shut off the engine and opened the door. And that reset the computer. Car got me home and I got a battery the next day. Now for the hard part, actually getting the old battery out of the car. Have to remove the airbox and dismantle the battery box (made for that) and it’s easy peasy! Last time I changed a battery it was on an E350 diesel box truck. Heavier but far easier.

  86. 86.

    Lapassionara

    @citizen dave (aka mad citizen): Where do you live? Supposedly our Republican “its not my fault” governor is going to have CVS and Walgreens start delivering vaccine shots.  I have had my first, but we cannot seem to get an appointment for Mr. LP.

  88. 88.

    TS (the original)

    @WaterGirl:

    They price themselves out of reality. I pay $19 per year for the Washington Post – and  paying more than that to access a political blog/news site will not happen.

  93. 93.

    raven

    @jeffreyw: When my old man came home from the Pacific that’s what he kept saying at the first dinner at home. His brother said “AL”!!!!

  95. 95.

    raven

    @Ruckus: I’m trying to change the fuel filler tube on my truck and the damn clamp is behind a panel. 

    I have the right size socket but it just kept spinning off. I finally took the grommet off the tube at the body and could just see down into the hole and see that I needed a universal on the socket to get it to seat. By the time I got back from Harbor Freight the rain had started. Of course the replacement tube won’t get here for a couple of days so I have time.

  99. 99.

    trollhattan

    @raven:

    I loved “Ford vs Ferrari.” Those were the ultimate classic race cars when I was a yoot and it swept me back to those days. (Even had them for the slot car track.) Thought Matt Damon did a good jerb not playing Yet Another Matt Damon. Christian Bale was great, also, too.

  101. 101.

    citizen dave (aka mad citizen)

    @rikyrah: Moderna, made down the road in Bloomington Indiana.  Not sure if they have other factories.  Was reading the other day this is their first product ever.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Yutsano:

    [The story of …] the very first slave Lincoln ever freed

    Very interesting, especially for Black History Month. I especially enjoy stories that are not about the people most commonly discussed.

    And this is fascinating:

    In addition to wanting to help his friend Bailey, he saw merit in the case, especially as it related to Nance Legins-Costley’s long fight for freedom. She and Lincoln would discuss matters of the case, which in time would push him toward a firm anti-slavery stance.

    I am really curious as to what they might have talked about.

    Good stuff. Thanks.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Thanks to everyone who commented and provided additional research. I was going by memory of my mother’s description of the WH Library history, and am quite willing to accept that either she or I got the year and POTUS of the first presentation wrong. Certainly, Hoover makes more sense than Harding as someone jonesing for a good book at 2:00 am!

    It was nice to see that the 2011 presentation included books for the Obama girls. My mother was a specialist in children’s literature, and I feel certain she would have insisted on including a selection of kidlit in 1962 for Caroline, John John, and their youthful successors (but I don’t know that for a fact).

    As for those of you who want me to write a memoir, that’s very kind, but I’m pretty sure my life is interesting only to myself. (I am, in fact, working on two books, but neither is autobiographical.)

     

    Thanks for all the nice comments

  105. 105.

    citizen dave (aka mad citizen)

    @Lapassionara: This is in Indiana.  I discovered Kroger’s way is not through their Little Clinic page.  They have a covid page that lists all 50 states and has links if they are doing vaccinations in your state.  I never tried CVS and checked the Walgreens site just briefly.

  106. 106.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: The party of personal responsibility blaming others, again?

    And also blaming them for something false — there is a COVID relief deal, it just doesn’t have any Republican input.

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott:

    Have one more volume of the Morris trilogy to read. Have loved it.

    It makes me appreciate the value of meticulously collecting correspondence, speeches, journals, etc. for detailed reconstructions of lives lived prior to the electric revolution. I’m not making any comparisons with more-recent presidents here, nope.

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    @jeffreyw:

    Posh.

    I must have had a different dinner table. When I was 12, sister told me to get my elbows off the table. The look didn’t deter her so she got louder. She didn’t like my second reply which was Fuck Off. She stabbed me in the arm with a fork. Fortunately for her she realized at that moment that 12 yr old me was bigger than 18 yr old her. By the time I got the fork out and ran after her she got the door to her bedroom shut. I didn’t get my fist all the way through but it did make an impression on her. A few yrs later we actually became good friends and remained so until her death 48 yrs later.

    Words were not the only things served at our household.

  110. 110.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @trollhattan:

    Another vote for “Subaru Diane, Revealed at Last” only now I see it needs some backstory. I especially think the time spent inside Ayn Rand’s cult needs to be inked as a counterpoint to those pups still falling under the spell of her monstrous books. Also, Alan Greenspan stories.

    I take no pride — indeed, I take a great amount of shame and chagrin — from my Randroid days.

    But I will tell you one thing about Greenspan. Andrea is not the only Mitchell woman he married. His first wife, who was part of the Randian inner circle, was an art historian named Joan Mitchell. After they divorced, she married Allan Blumenthal, a pianist and psychiatrist, and acolyte Nathaniel Branden’s cousin (Branden’s birth name was Nathan Blumenthal; BRANDEN, of course, is an anagram of BEN RAND, “son of Rand.”) It was all quite incestuous, although of course those of us not in the inner circle didn’t realize at the time just how incestuous it was. That all came out with the revelations at the time of the 1968 breakup, and later.

    By the way, AFAIK Joan M and Andrea M are no relation to each other. But curious that both of Greenspan’s wives had the same last name.

  111. 111.

    NotMax

    Libraries can pop up almost anywhere. The “tube stations” aren’t what you might think — they’re bus stops.

    As of June 2014, there were 357 tube stations throughout Curitiba and its metropolitan region. Inside some tube stations there are Tubotecas, or small libraries. Citizens can borrow books with no need to register and return them to any other Tuboteca, any time.… Source

  112. 112.

    Martin

    @raven: My son’s preschool teacher was Dan Gurney’s granddaughter. Tons of racing/modding here in SoCal. For good reason. We have a photo of him sitting in Alex Gurneys car, something they brought over for the kids to see, as one does when the garage is 5 miles away.

    Soon after I met my wife we went to a wedding for a friend of hers growing up. Gordon Kimball was a guest – the groom’s uncle. He was Ayrton Senna’s engineer, and was technical director at Benetton when Schumacher was signed. His son is now an IRL driver. He came up through Shelby racing. They lived up in Ojai.

    I don’t think people think of CA as a car place from the engineering side, but there’s loads of it here. It’s just everywhere, and it’s not declining. Mazda, Kia and Hyundai NA headquarters are biking distance from me.

  114. 114.

    zhena gogolia

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    A Russian writer I know said that we read Herzen’s memoirs not because he had such an interesting life but because he’s such a good writer. Do it!

  115. 115.

    Ruckus

    @raven:

    My boss has a number of older cars, he’s rebuilding another one now, a 69 Camaro convertible. About the only thing left when he gets done will be the outside bodywork. Custom made full tube frame, rear independent suspension with latest Corvette center, big block, aluminum heads, etc. It is pretty amazing to see it turning into a restrorod.

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    @Ruckus:

    My buddy’s ’67 Caddy convertible with a ZR1 drivetrain was hit by a tree limb (BIG one) in last week’s storm. He thinks it can be resurrected and not totaled, but considering the several years the project took it’s a damn painful blow.

  120. 120.

    NotMax

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Oy vey, Le Mans. Played for no less than six weeks at the movie theater where I was an usher*. Stumbled home nightly after work with a pounding headache from hearing amplified engine droning for hours on end.

    *Also a matron, but that’s another story.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    @SiubhanDuinne: ​

    I take no pride — indeed, I take a great amount of shame and chagrin — from my Randroid days.

    We’re all entitled to slack over our yootful indiscretions. I knew plenty of folks who became Jesus Freaks or Moonies, or $cientologists…it’s a long list that fortunately includes no Branch Dividians or People’s Templites or SLA assassins.

    My hope is enough is published about who and what Rand was, what she “believed” and how she acted we can stanch the endless stream of 16 year olds who become true believers.

    I recall the stories of how Paul Ryan once made interns and staffers read one of her books as a sort of indoctrination and only knocked that off when Rand’s militant atheism became an uncomfortable problem for a high-profile Republican (at least that’s how I understand it).

    She deserves a place in history’s trash heap.

  123. 123.

    TomatoQueen

    A link to the White House Historical Association’s page on the White House Library, with plenty of links:

    https://www.whitehousehistory.org/search?q=White+House+Library

    WHHA has had to tread with caution ever since their founding as the chorus of voices with an agenda has always had one button, set to “Too Fucking Loud, Braindead, and Proud Of It”. The last four years have been a particular trial.

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    Ouch.

    This thing is actually a full on custom rod, with a Camaro body. The bodypan was reworked to fit the frame, not the other way around. It’s still a ways off from being drivable, he’s maybe half done. One of the nicest, most functional builds I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen and worked on a few.

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    Don’t get me started on scientologists. They think they are scientific because it’s in their name. And their bullshit is presented as facts. But nothing is fact and nothing is science.

  126. 126.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: When I was in college in Chicago I was browsing the want ads in the Tribune one day around 1982 and saw a tiny ad:

    1969 Trans Am convertible.  White with blue stripes.  $2000.

    Pontiac made all of 8 of them.

    Of course, being a college student living at home, I had $0 so it was impossible anyway.  Still, what might have been…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  127. 127.

    trollhattan

    @Ruckus:

    I occasionally watch those projects roll down the line at Barrett-Jackson and ponder the vast amount of work they represent. Occasionally the seller can recoup their investment but they have to be for the love of the ride.

    Know a guy, very skilled with all matters of cars, who got two Sunbeam Tigers and turned them into one show and drive car (he races it but it’s street-legal) with the cockpit resized to fit his very tall frame. It’s a beauty and wow, does it sound great.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    Don’t get me started on scientologists. They think they are scientific because it’s in their name. And their bullshit is presented as facts. But nothing is fact and nothing is science.

    The “tology” is weak as well.

  129. 129.

    trollhattan

    @Ruckus:

    I think when you join they run a vacuum hose to your wallet and turn it on for that billion years on the contract you ink.

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: They’re Johnny-come-latelys.  My J’s grandmother on her father’s side was heavily into Christian Science.  He had severe scoliosis that was never treated, because she forbid it, and was in pain most of his life…

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  135. 135.

    Jay

    Back in ‘86, I had roughly $4k to drop on a car, to replace a $1 Chevy Vega.

    The choices were narrowed down to a ‘70’s TR6 needing a door painted to match,

    A ‘70’s Porsche 912 needing a bunch of interior work and brakes,

    An 80’s VW Rabbit Convertible, that needed a new top, ( duct tape) and as a former California car, the AC repaired.

    Went with the VDub and drove it for a decade. Never fixed the AC and always got a kick at the annual AirCare inspection as the Inspectors always wondered why the pollution controls didn’t match their diagrams and why the car always tested out super low.

    Stuck a subframe in it, Koni towers, cross braces and better rims/tires. Still miss it.

  136. 136.

    Another Scott

    @trollhattan: I read a lot of her stuff, and actually enjoyed AS at the time.  I don’t recall taking it as a guidebook for living, or something, as it was obviously just a novel.

    When I was around 30, my boss at the time recommended Barbara Branden’s biography of her.  It’s very well done and fills in some of the missing pieces about who she was and why she was the way she was.

    tl;dr – She was rebelling against being raised in Stalinism in the USSR.

    Seen in that context, and being forced to recognize that her idealized world cannot possibly work (“Who cleans the toilets in Galt’s Gulch?”), and recognizing that it became a cult rather than any sort of “objective” philosophy, is a valuable thing.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  138. 138.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    That’s a pretty cool story and memory to have, SD. I need to get on my youngest sister to digitize Mom’s pictures. There are a couple of nice 8×10’s of her with Sen. Henry Jackson in 1970 and Rep. Tom Foley in 1972, both at their Spokane offices where she worked as a secretary It’s interesting where some of our parents ended up at times in their lives.

    I’ll post pics if I can ever get my sis to get it in gear.

  139. 139.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    I work in a machine shop, and we build a wide variety of things, from high precision tooling and parts to parts for fancy boats. The boss is very good at making stuff, welding and fancy. So his restored and modified cars are rather nice. As well he seems to be interested in how things work as much as how they look. But none of those fancy cars are for making money for the owners. They rarely sell for what they cost, for some it’s bragging rights, for some it’s just a love of the end result. I’ve found over the years that the best projects are done for the love of the end result. Places like Barrett Jackson are the ones that make the money. And boats are worse than cars in this realm.

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    The do move a lot of the bullshit though, and the buyers often stay bought for a lifetime. I have no idea how though. I know people in the middle and they are not stupid, maybe just completely gullible.

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    The people I know work for them. One has for over 50 yrs and is in, lock, stock and everything else. They don’t make enough money to leave unless they have a profitable line of work from before the transformation from human to scientologist.

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: My dad had a ’55 Chevy that he always loved – had it most of his life (bought it around 1965 or so).  White over green.  Zooks that car got hot in the Georgia summer, and it was scary as hell, driving the narrow back roads home from Amicalola Falls State Park…

    I remember seeing a show about Jay Leno’s 1955 Buick Roadmaster.  He basically rebuilt it, of course, after leaving the Tonight Show, putting in a new crate motor, redoing the suspension, etc., but mostly keeping the body and interior as designed.  It was a beautiful car and very well done.  Probably cost him 3-10x as much as he could possibly sell it for…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  144. 144.

    J R in WV

    @trollhattan:

    Know a guy, very skilled with all matters of cars, who got two Sunbeam Tigers and turned them into one show and drive car (he races it but it’s street-legal) with the cockpit resized to fit his very tall frame. It’s a beauty and wow, does it sound great.

    I had the honor to be run over by a Sunbeam — I think an Alpine —  while still in the US Navy in Pascagoula, MS. The driver (son of a lawyer!) didn’t see me on a 10-speed bike in an evening Gulf Coast thunderstorm, turned left into my left side.

    I slammed into the car, damaging the left side of my skull, then landed in the street on my right side in a couple of inches of water — did I mention the Gulf Coast thunderstorm? It was rush hour, so plenty of people rushed to help me, call an ambulance, etc.

    It was a pretty British sports car, which I recognized because my cousin in Ohio had one. When Wife got to the ER I was on the same gurney from the ambulance outside X-Ray, between the scalp wounds and the rain there was a real sizable puddle of blood.

    I had a broken neck, no damage to my spinal cord, a pretty good concussion, NOW I also have bad knees, an event I won’t forget.

    I like sports cars, enjoyed Ford vs Ferrari a great deal — the last movie we saw before the plague shut movies down, IIRC…

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Exactly the same concept. With aliens added for that extra dose of how can you not believe! Updated bullshit from no science to centuries later of no science. The concept is far more the same than different. It’s like L Ron wrote a book that was a conglomeration between Christian Science and Aliens From Outer Space.

  146. 146.

    Jay

    @Spanky:

    when you get a “free car” here, you still need to have at least spent $1, to be able to transfer title.

    the Vega wasn’t bad.

    No rust, had it “given” to because the autotranny vacuum switch  rubber membrane had a hole in it, so the engine sucked in tranny fluid and blew out great clouds of white smoke everytime the tranny shifted.

    So I simply blocked off the vacuum line and shifted the tranny manually for two years.

    Eventually I replaced the valve with one from the wreckers and then sold it for $500.

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    @Spanky:

    OK, I’m laughing out loud. Had a friend, long lost touch with, had an early Vega and put a small block in the back seat. It wasn’t a better car in any way, just a lot faster.

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Jay has made enough money to set up a home workshop that basically beats anyone else’s. It’s so big it’s in a large industrial building not far from where I used to live, 2 places ago. I met him once while he was out ridding one of his extremely rare motorcycles. Nice down to earth guy. His Y Tube videos are often fun. My bosses cars are like a lot of Jay’s cars, they look really good, often look very close to stock, but are just as often anything but.

  149. 149.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: I kinda wanted a Cosworth Vega when it was new.  What’s not to like?  One of the few American cars with 4-valves per cylinder, light, etc., etc.  Of course, GM’s penny-pinchers couldn’t be bothered to put a decent exhaust system on it, so it made maybe 20 HP more than the standard engine.  And it was nearly as expensive as a Corvette…

    :-/

    The Vega was killed by GM’s bean counters.  They ran the assembly line too fast, quality was bad, they were determined to make the aluminum block concept work (when it used oil like mad the way they implemented it, so they put in an interlock so the car wouldn’t start if the oil was too low, infuriating the owners, etc., etc.) rather than looking at the real-world evidence.

    Even with all that, it was probably a better car than the Pinto – at least it didn’t turn into an inferno in an accident…

    :-/

    Ah, the good old days!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  150. 150.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    for many of the gearheads, it’s not the selling, it’s the buying.

    Toyota hasn’t made my base model of truck in 40 years. The new trucks are too large, too overpowered, the truck bed is too small and they are far too “technical.

    The cost of buying a reasonably clean and straight ‘60’s, 70’s or early 80’s truck, and building it into the truck you want, is quite a bit less than buying a new, loaded truck.

    The drawback is you need time and cash. No $0 down and $299 a week. Bad credit accepted. ( that’s the deal a local dealership is offering, all they care is if you have a job).

  151. 151.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Pinto’s didn’t turn into a bonfire in an accident. Dissimilar metal corrosion caused the gas tank straps to fail, easily solved with a two strips of rubber or plastic.

    Pinto’s were “oversquare”, so with proper mods, (cheap, cheap, cheap) they drove like gokarts. The 1600cc sidevalve was my favourite, balanced, blueprinted and properly speced, ( all stock parts), it could be tuned to 160bhp.

    it was my favorite racecar, because I could buy one for $100 and with lots of time and labour, and a couple hundred bucks, it was competitive with BMW’s and Datsuns.

  152. 152.

    NotMax

    Carwise, in the next lane while we were waiting at a red light yesterday was one of these which looked as if it had just been driven off the showroom floor.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Yup.

    A former neighbor down the street had an ancient (1950s?) 2-axle dump truck.  He used it to haul away the shingles and construction debris when he build a front porch and reroofed his house.  He probably smiled to himself every day when he saw people with their $80k F-150s…

    My mom had a 1970 GTO that I loved.  One summer I replaced the original 400 (with a small-valve 455 from a Bonneville) after it overheated and threw a rod.  I loved that thing.  The torque was ridiculous, especially with the 455.

    But it was an objectively horrible car.  16 MPG highway.  The suspension and tires couldn’t put the power to the road – wheelspin was almost impossible to control (especially in the winter).

    Cars are so much better now.

    And electrics are better still.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  154. 154.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Ebel’s Corner started racking up newer pickups and SUV’s from 2010 on. One or two a week in the winter, upside down, across the fence, into the middle of George’s cows. In summer, it dropped down to one every month or two.

    Didn’t figure it out until SWMBO’s Rav was in the shop, and we had a Ford Exploder courtesy car.

    Basically, the ATC, suspension and diffs were all computer controlled, so you could fly down the road, thinking you were a great driver, but the reality was, it was the computers keeping you on the road, right up until they couldn’t keep up to the inputs.

    There was zero road “feel” in the Exploder, where in my truck, I could drive over a coin and tell you what denomination it was.

    EFI is great, the engines are better, ( in some regards), but there are a lot of “features” that take control away from the driver.

  155. 155.

    Another Scott

    @Jay:  I was referring to this.

    […]

    Everything was going well until, deep into the development cycle, a problem was discovered in the fuel tank design. In low-speed rear-end crash testing, the fuel tank, positioned behind the rear axle and in front of the rear bumper, exhibited several flaws. Upon impact, the filler neck would tear away from the sheet-metal tank and spill fuel beneath the car. The tank was also easily punctured by bolts protruding from the differential and nearby brackets. One report later described the entire contents of a tank leaking out in less than a minute after an accident. These problems combined to create a serious risk of fire, so engineering teams proposed solutions. One was to borrow a design Ford already used in its Capri, a tank that sat above the axle and out of the way. Another alternative was installing tank shields to prevent punctures, and reinforcements around the filler to prevent tearing.

    In today’s environment, those measures unquestionably would have been taken. But at the time, management’s attitude was to get the product out the door as fast as possible. So, Ford did a cost-benefit analysis. To fix the problems would cost an additional $11 per vehicle, and Ford weighed that $11 against the projected injury claims for severe burns, repair-costs claim rate and mortality. The total would have been approximately $113 million (including the engineering, the production delays and the parts for tens of thousands of cars), but damage payouts would cost only about $49 million, according to Ford’s math. So the fix was nixed, and the Pinto went into production in September 1970.

    […]

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  156. 156.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Some people will always overdrive the conditions.  I’m fortunate to have survived driving very stupidly as a kid.  [Insert link to video of someone in a pickup driving much too fast on a highway in a snowstorm, losing control, crossingn the centerline and hitting a semi cab head-on.]  Death rates per 100 million miles are much, much lower now than they were in 1970 (roughly 30% as high, according to a graph that Google showed me).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  157. 157.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: That was the first tine I wondered aloud how it was possible that the CEOs and decision-makers could not figure out that it could be their wife/mother/daughter/sister/child who could be in an accident with one of those vehicles. I recall that the rubber piece that could resolve the problem would cost only 4 cents per vehicle, but their cost-benefit analysis told them it was better to pay for several people who died rather than change anything up.

    The answer: sociopaths.

  160. 160.

    NotMax

    @Another Scott

    Extreme fondness persists for the Mercury Capri. First brand spanking new car purchased. Consistently got 33 mpg, and that was in the early 1970s.

  161. 161.

    raven

    @Martin: It’s the motherload of racing engineering! The early days of hot rodding where guys with mechanical skills driving their cars to El Mirage taking the fenders and extra weight of and running like hell. I also remember all the motorcycle  hill climbs in SoCal when I was a kid.

  162. 162.

    raven

    @Another Scott: I was driving with 4 people in the cab of my 62 Jimmy and, on a long curve, the woman sitting on my buddies lap flew out of the door. My buddy reached for here and, luckily, he missed and she just bounced down the pavement. If he had caught her she probably would have gone under the wheels.

  164. 164.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: Until hybrids came along, it was pretty easy to make a nice linear graph between a car’s weight and it’s mileage.  And that makes sense – car engines and emissions were pretty-much perfected by 1980.  (They’ve gotten more complex over time to generate more power with even lower emissions, but since it only takes maybe 20 HP to drive at a steady 50 MPH…)  Your Capri probably weighed 1000 pounds less than a comparable model these days.  ;-)

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    it’s a YMMV situation.

    As a kid, ( yes, not even close to legal driving age), I was taught to drive to the conditions and gently use the ebrake when there was wheel slip. That’s what ATC does a couple hundred times a minute.

    And don’t get me started on touchscreens.

    When Toyota introduced ABS on their trucks, they quickly had to add an “OFF” button and a paragraph in the manual. Downhill on a gravel road, you couldn’t stop as the ABS would constantly cycle.

    If you arn’t a good driver, modern cars are great. They will parallel park themselves. They will warn drivers of dangers that they arn’t watching in the mirrors, because they don’t know how to use mirrors. They will warn you if you are tailgating or being tailgated. They will warn you if you are drifting lanes or falling asleep.

    Right up until they don’t.

    Nobody makes the car/truck I want, so I build it myself, something old, something new, IMHO, best of both worlds. Intercoolers, turbos, torroid axels, disk brakes, CI, neoprene bushings, etc,

    Manual windows, no AC, key locks, buttons.

  173. 173.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    the first Capri was a rebodied Cortina with rack and pinion steering shared across the Mustang/Capri/Pinto/Bobcat line.

    I am guessing your Capri was the rebodied Mustang II, based on the 2600cc V6. 5 speed, right?

  175. 175.

    Jay

    @raven:

    nice. 67 Chevy Turqoise Starliner Wagon in my case. Once we had the basics down, hundred miles of driving on gravel roads while Dad slept in the back after a hard day of fishing. Three phonebooks with the bench seat slid up tight.

  177. 177.

    NotMax

    @Jay

    Memory hazy as to whether it was a 4 or a 5 speed. Model year ’72 (first year they offered the V-6), although purchased in ’71.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    @raven:

    Alberta. Later, New Brunswick. Then later, BC.

    One trip, we drove north to the NWT from Edmonton over two days, in shifts,  on dirt roads so Dad could fish for Arctic Char, then back. A 5 day weekend. Dad fished for the day, my bro and I fought mosquitos.

  180. 180.

    NotMax

    @raven

    ’68 Chrysler T&C wagon had a 440 V-8. Sucker probably could climb a vertical wall. More than one mechanic who worked on it offered to buy the beast; not for the car but for the engine.

  181. 181.

    Jay

    @raven:

    Ford England, took the North American V-6 and reengineered it down to 2600cc’s, later 2800cc’s,

    like Rover did with V-8’s.

    The Gas Crisis resulted in a lot of US Manufacturers who could, bringing in the smaller European subsidiary motors.

    Once upon a time, had a Cogsworth/Ford 2L turbo motor set up in a Pinto.

  182. 182.

    frosty

    @SiubhanDuinne: Late to the thread but F vs F was the last time I was in a theater too. Me and a gearhead coworker went on a rainy Monday night. It was just us and two other people!

  183. 183.

    frosty

    @Another Scott: Yeah, my grandpa died too soon at 80 because of Christian Science. That was the church I went to growing up, but my parents went with real science and doctors.

  184. 184.

    frosty

    @raven: Dude, you need to write and illustrate an autobiography along with Subaru Dianne. So many great stories!

    I’ll get started on mine this summer. My grandma and mom both did one. Mom’s was easier, just chapters by subject. You’ve got a whole book on cars alone!

  185. 185.

    Mike G

    I doubt Trump has read anything not immediately work-related since he was a teenager with pulp paperbacks with titles featuring “hot” and “bouncy”

  186. 186.

    Josie (also)

    @Another Scott: I had a Pinto back in the day.  Stick shift. It took a lot of concentration to get it up to speed on the highway ramp.  Only had it for 2 years so never had the problems with rear end explosion.

  187. 187.

    Suzan

    In 2009 a friend of mine visited the Obama WH twice. She has a child with severe disabilities and is on the Board of a local organization that advocates for these kids. She was asked to participate in a discussion with Obama and about 15 other parents about what to include in Obamacare.

    A few months later, as an officer of the ABA she was part of the contingent to deliver the books to the WH. They were shown to a room and Obama stood at the door shaking hands as they entered. When it came Betsy’s turn, Barack shook her hand and said “You probably don’t remember me. . . ” My favorite Obama story.

Comments are closed.