What Happened to My Profession?

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Car journalist were – once upon a time – car guys. They were not Safety Nags, indistinguishable from Ralph Nader or Joan Claybrook.

Today, they are indistinguishable. Might as well be Ralph. Or Joan.

Keith Crain, for example. He is the editor of Automotive News – which isn’t really. It would be more accurate to style it, Automotive Hate – because Crain doesn’t much like cars or driving them.

He likes saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.

And wants more of it to be mandated. Automated emergency braking, for instance. This is technology which uses radar or other proximity sensors to detect another car or object within the orbit of a vehicle; if the driver does not brake when the computer/programming thinks he ought to brake, the computer/programming will apply the brakes automatically. Peremptorily. Usually when there is no need to do so – the object in the path of the vehicle being (typically) astronomical units distant.

The system is set up to brake like a glaucomic old lady with no depth perception or capacity to judge time-distance relationships might.

For saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.

This, of course, is all accompanied by frantic flashing lights and beeps. The system cannot be switched off.

Crain writes:

“This technology has not only been developed, but it is offered on many vehicles today. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety have a voluntary agreement with 20 automakers to standardize automated braking by 2022.

The problem is that automated braking is mainly sold as an extra-cost option or as part of a cruise control system, i.e., adaptive cruise control. IIHS estimates that only 1 percent of registered vehicles on the road today have automated braking.

In my opinion, if an automaker has developed automatic braking and can install it as an option, then it can make the technology standard on all its vehicles.

If it adds to the cost of the vehicle then so be it. Just raise the price of the vehicle!

I don’t know of any company that offers as optional equipment seat belts or airbags or any of the other life-saving devices that have been developed over the years.

There is something wrong with a company having the ability to save lives and choosing not to do so. The driving public deserves all the latest safety systems available.

The government will eventually mandate such systems anyway. Car companies that do not offer these systems as standard are making a big mistake.”

Italics added.

This Clover isn’t satisfied that the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety technology he personally would like to have in a car is freely available to those who would like to purchase it. He is demanding everyone be forced to buy it – and if “it adds to the cost of the vehicle, then so be it . . . just raise the price of the vehicle”!

Of course!

Not exactly Cannonball Run material.

Try to imagine a car journalist – Brock Yates, for instance – urging such a thing. As opposed to this porcine pile of authoritarian collectivism.

The most amazing thing, though, is how unconscious this Crain guy is about his Coercive Wet Nursing. It is a measure of just how saturated the culture has become with both coercion and wet nursing.

The casual insolence of the dude is absolutely halting.

You don’t get to choose. Crain, et al will simply decree. You, of course, get to pay.

How does he differ from other coercive utopians, such as Ralph and Joan? What is the point of having “journalists” such as Crain, who might as well be Public Citizens like Ralph and Joan?

The ironic thing – which probably does not occur to Crain, et al – is that their amen-cornering of coercive utopianism is why the car industry is dying. Why their jobs will go away along with it.

If you haven’t read this book, you should . . .

Coercive utopianism has sucked almost all the joy out of owning and driving cars; it has transformed them into anodyne appliances that are burdensomely expensive to buy and repair and beyond the ken of most people to tinker with.

They’re not much fun anymore, second-guessing almost everything you do. Buzzers beepers, cautionary warnings. Intervention when you don’t want it and didn’t ask for it.

They are suffused with peremptory, least-common-denominator idiot-proofing of the sort urged (at gunpoint) by guys like Crain, who then wonder why people are losing interest in cars as well as reading about them.

I may be the only car journalist left who likes cars – and loathes guys like Crain. Who does not view them as things to be sucked dry of all personality in the name of saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.

Who figures that if there is a market for something –  then the market will provide it – and at a price that those who want it are willing and able to pay. That it ought to be up to you – not me. That it is most definitely not the role of tubby not-so-little busybodies like this Crain character or anyone else to make those decisions on your behalf and without your consent; much less contrary to your consent.

As Crain himself observes, “. . .  only 1 percent of registered vehicles on the road today have automated emergency braking.”

What a car journalist looks like…

What does this tell you, Keith?

It tells me that most people do not want automated emergency braking.

Hello?

Just as – some 40 years ago – most people did not want air bags, either. Back then, it was Ralph and Joan who were furious about that – and urged that people’s decision to say “no, thanks” be rescinded and countermanded; that they be forced to accept a different decision – and pay for it, too.

Today, Ralph and Joan have been replaced by guys like Crain.

There is no car press anymore. There is a metrosexualized echo chamber for the EPA and NHTSA and the insurance mafia. Ralph and Joan and Keith are the same hermaphroditic homunculus.

It is of a piece with the transitioning of the car industry itself from a business that was in the business of designing and selling cars and driving to one that sells “transportation.”

God, my teeth ache today.

. . .

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98 COMMENTS

  1. So I’m late to this party, but I do wonder what in the hell happened myself

    Can’t go on the mainstream sites without mention of Electric this, hybrid that like it’s a good thing, and Road and Track, which use to be my favorite, no longer seems to do any competitive testing and is just a glorified Carthrottle.com, just without the brits.

    Such a shame, whats going on that anyone can just become a Journo without a love for cars?

  2. I would like it more if Ralphie’s teeth would start hurting, but it would be my luck that he probably has full dentures now.

    I’m becoming more annoyed with the way this cabal is driving the individuality out of cars and trucks. I used to recognize the sheer distinction of the small, rear-engine cars like the Fiat X1/9, the Toyota MR-2, and event the Pontiac Fiero. In fact, I used to have all three of these! But I guess it didn’t make sense to continue these when the price suddenly spiked to over $25,000.

    But where does one go for a good 2-seater today, not counting used cars? I guess the Mazda MX-5 and its Fiat cousin might suffice, now that the others have ceased production. But they still run into the mid-high $20k range.

    I never thought I’d say it, but it’s becoming more obvious every day. They’re taking all the fun out of driving.

    • Hi Travis,

      Yup. Lately I have been wrenching with my protege on his ’72 Beetle. The car is underpowered, cold, a handful. But – got damn, it’s a fun little SOB! Always an adventure. And different – for once!

  3. You hit this one on the head, Eric. I grew up on Brock Yates, David E. Davis, Pat Bedard, et al. Can you imagine any of today’s candy-ass journos like George Notaras (Motoman on YouTube) entering the Indianapolis 500. Here’s Pat Bedard’s 1984 crash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXxr-cRBjL0 My Buddy and I read Yates’ book Sunday Driver when it was first published in ’75 during our senior year in high school. It inspired us to average 105MPH for fourteen miles in a Triumph TR250 on Soledad Canyon Road (filming location for the movie Duel). And yes, the 105MPH was a two way average.

    Today, automobile writers lecture me on the environment and infotainment. I’m gonna hurl.

    • Those guys were great, but to me the all-time greatest automotive writer has to be “Uncle” Tom McCahill. Father of the modern postwar road test, he spun out wonderfully politically-incorrect commentary the likes of which nobody would dare do today. (If the social justice warriors ever take note of McCahill he’ll probably be made an unperson and tossed into the memory hole.)

      • Jason, I recall Tom’s “testing”. He’d check their handling and the pics would be hilarious. Old Detroit iron turning hard, tires(esp. the outside turning tire)would be doubled up inside the wheel, one side of the bumper in the air the and the other nearly on the pavement.

        I liked the way Tom would cuss and diss cars that were clearly inferior. When he got one that had something wrong with it that definitely shouldn’t have been, he’d take the maker to task over it.

        • He didn’t hold back, that’s for sure. Sometimes it seemed like he must have gotten a bonus every time he used the word “Chinaman” in his reviews!

  4. This excerpt from the foreword of a book written in 1935 is an illustration of the view of reporting that was once standard:

    “This story of the victorious ride of the Red Shirts in
    South Carolina, one of the most vitally important episodes
    of the history of the state and country, is told by a news-
    paper reporter who is not a literary person. Therefore, it
    is given here as it was written, reporter-fashion, from per-
    sonal observation and knowledge, for the Charleston
    Evening Post and Columbia State in 1926-27, just fifty
    years after the occurrences described.
    As the fundamental requirement of the old style reporter
    was accuracy, I am glad to be able to say that while the story
    was being published in weekly instalments through more
    than six months and read and studied by thousands who
    lived and did throughout the Hampton campaign, but two
    of the statements were questioned. One contradiction was
    justified by a blunder of my own. This error was corrected.”

    The author’s observation that the reporter isn’t a literary person (writer of opinion) is telling. Today, reporters are writers of opinion who may present facts, but always frame those presentations in their own interpretation. That kind of writing was once reserved for the editorial pages, but now is the standard style for writers pretending to present the facts while actually crafting a narrative to be taken as fact.

  5. Another great piece eric. Coming in from the west oil patch yesterday I was bummed by the incompetence of the people on the road and goddamn companies like Swift with their 60 mph trucks out there blocking everybody’s way. The cars, where do I start? They all look like the same turd in a different color carrying the same no-driving a-holes who want to speed but don’t have the huevos to do so.

    I regularly drive I-20 at 79 mph, in a pickup and big rig both and pass countless radars and haven’t been stopped for a traffic cause in 30 years…….but the DOT doesn’t need a reason. These holiday drivers don’t dare go 79……by themselves…..but will hang on your ass if YOU will drive that fast and then finally pass you as some semblance of guts happens to get into their system…..for a moment. I got so damned tired of being passed and then having to pass the same damned vehicles.

    Once, I thought to my self, Self, I used to love cars. There were every type and distinct styles and colors and capabilities but now I hate cars. They all look alike and are driven by the simple-minded.

    When I was a kid we didn’t sweat speeding and if you saw a cop you could just slow down for his radar beam…..when one existed…..and then speed back up and be done with it. We’d have a yearly trek of the extended family to the Davis Mountains for a July 4th holiday or some other and 90 mph would be the average speed for an entire line of cars with families. Nobody was screaming about “danger” and I’d be saying stuff like “If we don’t speed up we’ll be driving all day”. We never got cars mixed up since they all looked different and so did the others on the road. 12 miles before I got home a car(some “thing” that was small and tall and white, came to a virtual stop in the road in front of me….in a 75 mph zone. I did a bad thing I only realized as I was doing it and passed them on a double line although why it was a double line when you could see a mile has always been a mystery to me. But what I did was illegal and nearly deadly and I kicked myself mentally for doing it even as I did it. Yep, I passed them, no turn signal so either way I went could have been deadly and had I killed these fools I would have been at fault due to the double line. Right after going by them…..on the left, they made a hard left turn that a second before would probably have killed us all. This is the type of shit you have to deal with on the open road these days. Oh yeah, it was Hispanics, the no-driving scourge of west Texas. The more of this I see the more tempted I am to buy a bus and haul people to their destination. And these are the type of wrecks you see these days, easily avoidable by half-ass decent drivers. And lately I’ve been hearing on the radio news about people getting run over by trucks.

    The John Boy and Billy Show has all these public service bs spots paid for by me and you. One goes like “Big rigs doing 60 mph take 6 seconds to stop and a 100 yds to do so” Be careful and blah blah blah. 6 seconds eh? News to me. More like twice that.

    Last year I came on this wreck where a woman in her late 30’s pulled right in front of a water hauler doing 30 mph. The Mack had a big front end guard and didn’t appear to sustain any damage but it hit the car broadside and flipped it a few times before it stopped rolling. They found her cell phone intact and still in a game playing mode. That was her last game……idiots…….

    • I just got off the road myself driving from Houston to Oklahoma City. The interstate hardly had any cops on it, but the roads were so jammed with people that you had to slow down to parking lot speeds for a 30 minutes on I45. Other times, speeds were cut to 50-60 in a 75 mph zone. At least one of those times were for a Buckees (which is a Wal Mart Sized gas station, “convenience store”), as people flocked the place (I hate it) and the other time was pretty the entire 20 mile stretch north of it to where I exited I-45. About halfway to Dallas, I decided to jump off I-45 and take some back roads to press north. Nirvana. Absolutely empty roads, unenforced, with speed limits ranging from 65-75 mph. I cranked up to about 110 in short bursts and otherwise kept it at 75-80, which felt safe and comfortable as a cruise on a two lane road. I would have gone faster, but my eyes and line of sight were the limiting factor. I let the morons take the interstate.

  6. I stealing your phrase “Coercive Wet Nursing”.

    Brock Yates… takes me back to the days when “Officer Bob Speed” from Maryland always used to write letters to the editor of Car & Driver to taunt those of us who had a heavy foot. And then the good folks would write back and trash-talk back at what a useless turd this pig was. I’m getting misty eyed right now the good old days when a ticket was under $50.

    • Graham, I remember Occifer Bob well. What a dick, but I’d trade what we have now for him since his claim to fame wasn’t shooting people. As far as fines go, you can thank that immoral cabal that resides in the state legislature for a plethora of laws designed to collect revenue and feed the private prison system. What used to be a ticket and maybe some piece of mind from a cop is now most likely a felony. Amazing how doing 81 mph where eric lives is a felony and 79 is only a fine. Yeah, that makes sense.

  7. All of these saaaaaaafety features do is lead us into a false sense of security–that is, we don’t have to think or act because the car is already programmed to do that for us.

    What kind of ethic does that teach young drivers–that they don’t need to exercise responsibility and judgment by paying attention to traffic and other things around them; that the car will automatically make decisions for them? How sad and tragic.

    • Yup. The logical nxt step is to talk and/or text at will, hands on. WHy not? The stupid CARdoes everything for me, so I’m a useless decoration sitting behind the steering wheel.

  8. This is why I enjoy helping my 33 y.o. son restore his 1984 Toyota Pickup, itself a treasure since we know it as “Mike’s Truck”, Mike being the late former marine buddy of his whom was tragically murdered post-service some 5-1/2 years ago. Though it has some emissions stuff and computer controls, it’s nothing like today’s X-Boxes on four wheels. And the best part…it’s a TRUCK. A 22R engine with a five-speed, requiring one to know how to handle a “stick”. It was retrofitted with the 22R Fuel-injection as it was originally had a carburetor, but somehow it’s “gotten past the Dragon” (i.e., passed the “Smaug” inspection in Californi(cate)). This vehicle isn’t a “trailer queen”, it’s a daily driver that serves my boy and his family well.

    • Jut had my trusty and oh so useful Ford van smacked into by a runaway car whilst mine was parked. Not drivable. I HAD to have sometning, NOW< and no money till the insurance folks paid off. Friends had a 1985 Dodge D 50 with the Mitsu 2.3 litre turbodiesel. COuld not get it to run, they'd had it since almost new, but had not used it for some time. They asked me if I wanted the truck… hadn't seen it yet, but I said I don't jave any money. They said no, please come and get it out of my driveway. Break my arm off and beat me to death with the thing already!!!! Had signficant fuel system issues leading to no fuel feed to the injector pump. I speak diesl fluently, had it running in a couple hours. Replaced al the fuel hoses, been driving it now for three weeks, well over a thousand miles. Lots of spunk, drives well, lean and straight, I had to put four tyres under it to get it home as the others were genuine antiques….. starts and runs, holds 70 easily, returns near forty miles per gallon on diesel. This has turnd out to be a solid nice truck. And no they don't build them this way any more. I've been around Nissan, Chev S 10,Rangers, the newer (95 and newer) Toyotas, Mazdas, and NONE of them are built as solidly as this one. I think I've stumbled into a keeper.

      Oh I'll put the van back on the road once I gather the bits and spend a couple of days. I need something to tow a 14,000 pound trailer, and haul a BUNCH of stuff secured inside. This little pickup can't do that. But when I don't need something as big and strong as the van, I'll be tooling about in this one.

  9. Damn I miss Brock Yates and even Hunter S. Thompson.
    One “safety device” I would propose for Herr Crane’s vehicle is an “enema needed” sensing device that automatically…Well, you get the picture.

  10. “Coercive utopianism has sucked almost all the joy out of owning and driving cars…”

    Coercive utopianism has sucked almost all the joy out of all living.

    Those whose teeth are not aching are the problem.

  11. To paraphrase the George Bernard Shaw quote, “Those who can do, those who can’t write about those who can.”

    This is one of the things that seems to creep in over time. Back in the beginning there weren’t any doctors, lawyers or engineers. There were people who happened to gravitate toward a profession. Many were just there because they liked doing the activity. Many more were looking to cash in, but put in the time to learn the business because of their morals and ethics, or because not killing your customer makes business sense. And a very few thought they could bluff their way into the business and get out before being discovered as frauds.

    This third group was a problem. The market didn’t quite offer a solution to personal damaged caused by inept professionals. Insurance settlements and lawsuits were imperfect fixes, if you lost an arm due to a poorly designed machine no amount of cash will bring your arm back. So it was decided that groups of peers would certify your abilities to perform your duties. As these peer groups became more entrenched eventually schools sprung up that catered to people who wanted to enter the professions. Again, more peer-based certification. Eventually there was enough of an establishment in place to lead to legislation putting government in place as the ultimate certification authority.

    These certifications served another function because they verified a new entrant understands the minimum knowledge to perform a task, even though he might not have a resume’ or past (or at least that was the intent). So schools started offering other certifications, like journalism, so that potential employers could assume that a given candidate who has a sheepskin is better than one without. When enough people with degrees came looking for work it was pretty easy for the employers to just demand a degree to try to weed out lessor candidates. You can see where this all ends, in that employers hire people who specialize in sorting out qualifications (AKA human resources) who have to have special certification.

    What is missing of course is that journalism schools can’t teach for specialized subsets of writing, or teach about specific industries. A discipline like engineering or physician has enough business to allow for a lot of specialization. Journalism, up until recently, had no need for specialization because there wasn’t enough variety in delivery. Only one newspaper per town, a few dozen magazines on a rack, 3 or 4 TV stations. But now that anyone can be a blogger that will lead to greater specialization. It will take some time for institutions to figure this out but when they do it will just be a given that someone will get a degree in “transportation journalism” or “medical journalism” or perhaps “sports journalism.” There are already professional organizations devoted to these subsets of journalism, one of the best known examples being White House Correspondents’ Association. Unless the AI writers take over before the schools have time to get ramped up.

  12. Did it ever occur to these safety mavens that a car automatically slamming on it’s brakes in an emergency might actually cause more accidents than it prevents? How does the car tell the difference between an empty cardboard box, or a plastic bag, and a real threat? Can you imagine the rear ender collisions if one of these auto-braking equipped pieces of techno-rubbish slammed on its brakes for a drifting plastic bag in rush hour traffic on a freeway?
    Another point is what happens to drivers who get used to letting the car brake for itself in an emergency? What happens if they have to drive an older car? The driver gets into an emergency situation, and thinks the car will brake for him… Then what?
    What happens on an icy road?
    What happens when there is a sudden choice? Do you hit the stray dog that ran into the street, or slam on the brakes & maybe kill the occupants of the car behind you? The car will make the choice for you.
    My suspicion is that these systems are being installed to work in tandem with the “driverless cars” Uber and the rest of Satan’s engineers are coming up with. And, the auto-braking systems will not work well at all, so the humans will be blamed. Suddenly the push will be on to eliminate the humans, because humans are a curse upon this world, and cn’t be allowed to actually do anything. My suspicion is these robot cars will end up being either directly controlled by the government, or by one of its corporate minions…

    I’m sticking with my 2011 Crown Vicky P-71 Interceptor for as long as I humanly can. It’s the last one of the full sized Fords with no connection to the internet. Plus, I can still fix it myself.

    • I’ve brought up these issues and more. Even how auto braking can be gamed in traffic to get ahead. I’m just told I’m a kook. Which of course tells me these things will happen.

    • My “Lotto Wish” would be to buy a surplus tank (one can actually get a running Russian T-34/85 or T-54 for about $60K, though if sourced overseas the shipping and demilitarization costs can run twice that alone), equip it with the appropriate “Saaaaaf-Teee” lighting (and tracks that won’t eat up the asphalt), hot rod it as much as can be done, and apply on the rear in stenciled letters: “Yea, though I clank through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil…for I am the BADDEST MOTHERFUCKER in the Valley!”. Imagine pulling that bad boy through a drive-thru (and the T-54 has a turret height of “only” 7’10”, so it’ll clear most canopies), swinging the main armament to face the drive-through window, pop my head out the driver’s hatch and say, “I advise you not to fuck up my order THIS time…” At least the twits at the DMV and the DOT couldn’t criticize the tank’s crash-worthiness!

    • The designers of these things always think that stopping or going slow is the answer to every problem. Only thing is, its not. Take for example that robot bus in downtown Vegas. It got in the way of a truck. It stopped. The truck driver couldn’t see it because it was in his blind spot. So it got run into.

      So truck driver gets the blame. But he is no more to blame then the designer of the robot.

      A human driver would have either blown his horn, or backed up or maybe both. But the robot bus doesn’t do that, it just sits there becomes a paper weight. I bet they had trouble getting it to even move again.

      Stopping isn’t always the answer, sometimes gunning the engine and steering around is. But I doubt any robot vehicle will ever do that. It will always be stop.

      • My first thought when I read that was “I wonder if the truck driver is a Teamster?”

        Accidents happen. It’d be a shame if your fancy new robot car were to have one…

  13. if only we would have been able to keep government out of the car business. it seems as though our current predicament with the car industry started in the early 1950’s that is when they decided to get rid of the real competition. both ford and chevy went on a binge that literally strangled the independent automakers. they really wanted to get rid of hudson because they were producing automobiles that were proving there superiority. they tried to force the middle 4 automakers into a merger that would have created a 4th big automaker. you know, much easier to get total control of 3 or 4 companies then it is 50. the studebaker / packard merger came to an end in 1966 and the hudson / nash merger ( AMC) came to an end in 1987. chrysler is another sore point as far as i am concerned. how in the hell did the tiny company get awarded more WW2 government contracts then the thousands of others combined ? if you look at the amount of stuff they made it is absolutely overwhelming.

    there have been very few new comers to the field since WW2 and zero success stories. i had great hopes for elio, but it looks as though we will never see one… UHG

    • i forgot to mention. cars just are not what they once were, mechanical and easy to work on. now they are bloated electronic government mandated over priced indistinguishable and disposable. no wonder the guy’s who write about cars have also gone down the drain. i like to tell people that i am the voice of opposition ! you are to eric ! keep up the good work…..

    • In recent times Chrysler indeed has gotten fat Government contracts that more than saved it ass. In the “olden” days, they got contracts thanks to producing superior products…for example, when asked to develop a tank engine that could run on 80 octane gasoline (in UK parlance, “Motor Pool gas”) for the M4 Sherman, as its then-engine supplier, Wright, who’d developed a radial engine derived from their aircraft line for the Sherman, needed to focus on aircraft engine production for the war effort, Chrysler in a short time developed the A57 “multibank” engine, which was an amalgamation of five Dodge six-cylinder truck engines, which were also used on the Dodge-built WC214 truck, dubbed the “Beep” (big Jeep), so there was parts commonality. Chrysler boasted that if even as many as 12 cylinders, two banks’ worth, were out of commission, the engine would still run and move the tank.

      The Big Three did indeed do some underhanded things, not only to Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, and Packard, but also to Preston Tucker, whom created the famed 1948 Tucker (Torpedo), though Tucker’s own mismanagement and somewhat questionable “venture capital” efforts were also to blame for the maker’s demise. Following WWII, in order to avoid a post-war Depression, greatly fear, the Government pushed for redevelopment of the huge factories that cranked out tanks, gun, airplanes, and other military items. Naturally the Big Three used their influence to get sweetheart deals, in some cases being given factories they’d already occupied and were using and actually being PAID to do so, and denying same to their competitors. However, the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson to form American Motors, which itself acquired the Jeep line from Kaiser, and was in turn bought out by Renault in 1980 before Renault’s share was acquired by Chrysler in 1987, mainly for the Jeep line, as only a few of the AMC passenger cars were continued under Chrysler’s “Eagle” brand into the mid-1990s. As for Studebaker, it’d acquired Packard, but cheapened the Packard line, driving away its loyal following. A shame too, because many of its best products were put out in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

      • Don’t forget that Kaiser-Frazer managed to get hold of the huge Willow Run plant. Unlike most other post-war startups (Tucker, Playboy, Davis, etc.) they actually managed to go into series production.

        It was Packard that bought out Studebaker, unfortunately on a wink and a handshake without proper due diligence as to the state of Studebaker’s books. Studebaker was in much worse financial shape than was realized and Packard was dragged down with it. The last Packards were dressed-up Studebakers out of necessity due to lack of funds. Studebaker-Packard never actually went out of business. The company had become a mini-conglomerate using profits from the early Lark and decided that building cars was a money-losing proposition. The company got out of the car business to follow other pursuits. (There are plenty of detailed histories out there.)

  14. No one should be allowed to write about cars unless they can replace a starter and have been car jacked and mugged. This guy just can’t imagine a car that won’t move because the electronics have locked up the brakes. He also can’t imagine a car jacker pulling in front of him and slowing down.

  15. “”porcine pile of authoritarian collectivism….”
    “Coercive Wet Nursing…”
    “metrosexualized echo chamber…”
    “Ralph and Joan and Keith are the same hermaphroditic homunculus.”
    It’s writing like this that keeps me coming back to read MOAR. Your comments are more accurate than a laser guided smart bomb. Shoot from the hip and aim for the face, Eric.

    You think things have gotten too far downstream with cars and saaaaaaaaaaafety? Try heavy equipment on for size! Zero turn mowers have so many safety switches, low oil sensors, cut-outs, shut-offs, etc. that they are prone to sudden failure at any cold start. Modern tractors have so much computerized crap on them that it takes a Millennial geek with a smartphone and some college coursework to operate them. Gone are the days of mechanical anything.

    • I got hurt and have a bum shoulder for my troubles.. at work. Needed a replacement lawnmower, got a free one given me at a garage sale that did not run. Tecumseh engine, all of which were born with a built in weak point: hit anything of any resistance with the blade, it shears the soft key that holds the flywheel to the crank. I keep them about, changed it and had the thing running. BUT.. with the stupid fed mandated (whereever did FedGov get the authority to say ANYTHING about LAWNMOWER?) auto shut off/blade brake mechanism… whenever it was time to empty the bag, it sould have to get its tail yanked again to start it up. I finally got fed up with it, removed the air cowl, found the switch activated by the dead man handle, shorted the switch, put it back together, then yanked off the stupid dead man handle. Now it starts, and stays running until I, MYSELF, shut it off. Now mowing the lawn does not trash my already hurt shoulder.

      Stupid Feds can go pound someone else’s sand. Leave ME alone. I’m smart enough to keep various body parts out of the blade.

      • Bought a new mower a couple years ago. It has a switch that doesn’t allow “reverse” unless you turn the switch key back to another position. I wondered out loud how long that would last. I had my answer fairly fast. I haven’t even tried to wire around it. I’m worried I’ll have to replace the entire switch key.

  16. Alas and alack, Eric, people can be trained to want that which they reject at the moment. Air bags are the perfect example of this, but all the rest of the gadgetry, gimcracks, and gewgaws the driving public accepts now are further instances thereof. The lack of electric cars right now means nothing to the driver 20 years in the future who will be gladly motoring–or is it humming?–and defending his O’Brien-mandated Oceania vehicle.

    • Hi Ross,

      I’d like to think otherwise, but . . . the crescendo just seems to build. It’s not organic and natural (i.e., market demand) but the push from above seems to be accepted from below, no matter what “it” happens to be – whether it’s Iraq attacked us on 911! or The future of transportation is electric!

  17. someone, and I wish I could remember who, once stated “any organization not explicitly conservative will inevitably trend to a leftist state.” They seek power. Jerry Pournelle’s (RIP) “Iron law of bureaucracy” states why-

    Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:

    First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

    Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

    The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

      • Ross, it’s entertaining to me to see historically illiterate republicans bemoan what they see as the leftward drift of the GOP, when the GOP was the first socialist party to gain power in the US.

        The pubes who are not libtards have been lured into the GOP’s big tent by a little bit of anti-socialist rhetoric by a few judas goats in the party. When anyone who is actually anti-leftard manages to gain office under the GOP’s wing, the rest of the party’s office holders band together to ensure that his efforts come to nothing.

        It was the democrat party that made a left turn to join the pubes long ago. The pubes have never really had to turn left. They just casually betray their own rhetoric in order to stay in line with their “loyal opposition across the aisle”.

    • I just heard on a Tom Woods podcast that the military has 1 officer for every 4 enlisted. That’s insane! They have to be spending more time processing orders than they do actually giving them.

      Of course that enlisted number probably doesn’t include contractors, which is where the real money (for former officers) is. There are probably plenty of officers who have no military personnel under them, just contractors. I imagine these are the plum positions within the Pentagon since you get the people reporting to you to wine and dine you. I know when I was a supervisor I milked the contractor companies for all I could get, and was very aggressive when QCing their work. Because I really didn’t need to care about the contractor techs (but realistically when I got a good one I tried to keep them around, and even brought a few of them in house). I can’t even imagine what the military contractor deals are like.

  18. Back in the day when newspapers and magazines were at their height back in the 19th century and early 20th, the writers and reporters were ordinary people. There were no college degrees in “journalism”. Almost nobody in a newsroom had a college degree in anything. You started at the bottom and moved up.

    The writers and reporters were just people who happened to end up in the profession. It wasn’t glamorous or particularly well paying. Staffed by people with either natural talent or were self taught but more likely mentored by a more experienced person. The only requirement was that you could do your research and write well.

    So most were a variety of people, they could be a simple blue collar guy to someone who had a english degree from a college. So a wide swath of people, with different life experiences and viewpoints. So ironically a far more “diverse” profession (at least in viewpoint) then now. And if your politics didn’t work with your boss, there was likely several other papers you could work at instead.

    There is a reason why there aren’t any more Mike Royko blue collar type people (well known Chicago newspaperman) in the business anymore. They would never get looked at, let alone hired by anyone anymore. He never earned a college degree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Royko

    I think the downfall began when college degrees in “journalism” became more important then writing skill.

    Many people disliked the free wheeling and sometimes quite crude newsrooms of old. They wanted to be “professional”. It cost them the character that people actually liked and it represented a wide variety of people. Now there is forced generic-ism, a fake taking no sides. Nobody stands out, at least for a good reason.

    • Rich, maybe it all started with the increased control of the narrative. The kind of people who will slog through years of college just to get a degree of some kind, any kind, in the expectation that they’ll get a job of some kind, are the kind of people who have no imagination or talent anyway.

      Once assholes like that become the bosses of the newsroom, which is an intentional move by newspaper owners who want job holders who will produce a narrative on demand, they will eventually fill the newsroom with the kind of mindless turds we have now. Requiring a degree is an excellent way to weed out anyone with integrity or talent.

    • I am supposed to read someone that doesn’t know the difference between then, a point in time to than a condition? The English language is meant to be read. The person reading it should not have to translate inept writing. The reader will have much more respect for the writer if they take due care to make sure that they post is legible to all. The familiar and the non. When you use then when than is proper you confuse the reader who has to read the phrase a second time to understand what you meant to say.

      Now, I do not mean to be a English Nazi, I just point out when people see improper use of terms they tend, as i do, to avoid your post. Use the correct term, then means when, than means other. I have posted this more than once in regard to your in appropriate uses of then and than and you have ignored it. Any other post will be summarily ignored.

    • Royko was an oddity who was a Democrat who ragged constantly on the GOP but routinely destroyed liberal idiocies. I miss his writing.

        • He certainly wasn’t impartial and as a true-blue Democrat too liberal for my taste. But he was blunt, funny, and had no problem taking liberals to the woodshed, particularly as he got older. Remember that he blew the lid off Mayor Daley’s endless corruption. Even fellow columnist Clarence Page, typical Tribune lib, was discomfited by Royko and felt he had to smooth over some of his anti-liberal stances.

          • He would at least break ranks once in a while, unlike today when nobody in the Chicago press does. Daley Jr’s corruption was virtually ignored by the local press, only looked at a little by outsiders. Royko of course passed in 1997 so he wasn’t around for the final scandals of the Daley Jr regime. Daley should be in a room with striped sunlight instead of the lecture circuit.

      • I remember his famous rant against the 55 mph speed limit. Although he was a liberal democrat, he was an opponent of nannyism. I don’t know how come he couldn’t reconcile his position on gun control.

    • The mainstream media has always been dishonest. From the “yellow journalism” of the late 1800s and early 1900s to today’s “fake news, journalism has shown its true (communist) roots.
      From the lies about the Spanish-American war to the New York Times’ walter duranty hiding the truth about and denying the artificially engineered and forced communist “famine” in the Ukraine, to the lies about the 1968 Viet Nam communist Tet offensive (a military victory for the South Vietnamese and American troops) reported by walter cronkite as a military defeat, cronkite and his ilk were successful in prolonging the Viet Nam war for years, giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy, who bragged about being supported by the U S media.
      Look at NBCs doctoring of GMC truck gas tanks, rigging them to explode, and the deliberate mischaracterization of George Zimmerman’s conversation withe the 911 dispatcher, deleting a key phrase, as well as showing Trayvon Martin as a 12-year-old rather than his more recent “thug” facebook picture.
      The media has become a “fifth column” of the government and is not to be trusted.
      To our advantage, we now have the internet, which gives the ability for ordinary citizens to be real “journalists”, quite often getting and reporting the story TRUTHFULLY before the mainstream media.
      In fact, there are calls by “mainstream media” to “license” journalists, in an attempt to keep these “citizen journalists” out…twenty years ago, any journalist suggesting such a scheme would have been thrown out on his ear, but nowadays…

      • True, anarchyst. It does indeed go back as far as you say, if not further. If this siteware included an upvote widget, I would just give you an upvote.

  19. I thought you’d enjoy this column, which moved on the wire today. Either this columnist reads you or you are not alone. I was very happy to see a libertarianish idea moving on the AP wire services.

    Car buyers lose when government tells them what to buy
    By Merrill Matthews
    Tribune News Service (TNS)
    DALLAS — For a century carmakers built the cars and trucks their customers wanted. That’s changing. Increasingly they’re building cars and trucks the government wants their customers to have — and that means electric vehicles (EVs).

    CNN reports that China, France, Great Britain, India, Norway and Germany are considering banning the future production and sale of gasoline and diesel-powered engines.

    Norway wants all its cars to be zero emissions by 2025. India wants all car and truck sales to be electric vehicles by 2030. France hopes to achieve that goal by 2040, and Great Britain by 2050.

    Those are ambitious goals, considering only 750,000 electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2016.

    Eight other countries — Japan, Korea, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland and Spain — are only setting EV sales goals. In addition, 10 states want an EV sales target by 2025.

    President Barack Obama also tried to push more electric vehicle sales. How’s that working out?

    Automakers sold 1.93 million vehicles in the U.S. during October — one-third of them were cars and two-thirds trucks and SUVs.

    Of that number, Chevrolet sold 2,710 of its all-electric Bolt. Nissan sold a whopping 213 of its all-electric Leaf. And Tesla sold an estimated 1,120 of its Model S, according to the website Inside EVs.

    Normally, a manufacturer would eliminate such a poor-selling product. What gives?

    Government mandates and taxpayer dollars, that’s what.

    While Washington hasn’t banned gas and diesel-powered cars and trucks — yet — it is forcing manufacturers to make EVs and subsidizing consumers who buy them.

    The corporate average fuel economy standard, or CAFE, is a 1975 law that requires each automaker’s lineup of cars, light trucks and SUVs to meet a government-designated fuel economy goal.

    The Obama administration raised the standard to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

    The problem automakers face is that consumers want SUVs and trucks — especially when gasoline prices are low — which fall short of the CAFE standards.

    So they make money-losing electric cars to lower their overall average mileage, which allows them to sell less fuel-efficient but moneymaking SUVs and trucks that consumers want.

    In addition, taxpayers subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles and hybrids — up to $7,500 per vehicle. For example, the Bolt’s webpage sets the car’s starting price at $37,495, adding that it is “$29,995 after federal tax credit.” The Bolt featured on the web page is $42,760.

    That’s a lot of money for a middle class family making the median household income of $59,000.

    Then there’s Tesla, a beautiful EV that many people would love to own, but the Model S begins at about $70,000. Most middle class taxpayers can’t pay that — but their taxes will pay a portion of the $7,500 credit that subsidizes wealthy people who can afford them.

    Defenders fear if the tax credit were phased out, EV sales would plummet. When Hong Kong ended its $12,500 tax credit for Teslas, sales tanked. Apparently, Hong Kong residents only wanted it if the government helped pay for it.

    There is nothing wrong with automakers churning out EVs if that’s what their customers want. And the day may come when improved technology, longer driving ranges and lower costs create a real demand for electric vehicles. But for now the large majority of Americans want trucks and SUVs.

    The car or truck of your dreams may not be the car or truck of the government’s dreams. Remember, these are the same folks who designed Obamacare insurance the way they wanted it, required everyone to have it, and assured us it would be the best health insurance ever.

    Don’t let Washington do to our cars and trucks what they did to our health insurance!

    ———

    ABOUT THE WRITER

    Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in the greater metropolitan Dallas area. He earned a doctorate in Humanities from the University of Texas. Readers may write him at IPI, 1320 Greenway Drive, Suite 820, Irving, Texas.

    This essay is available to Tribune News Service subscribers. TNS did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of TNS or its editors

    ———

    ©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

    Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

    —————

    PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194):

    _____

    Topics: t000047103,t000002537,t000047405,t000002676,t000046807,t000205123,g000362667,g000224489,g000362690

  20. Speaking of Brock Yates, in his monthly Car and Driver columns in the 1980s he often expressed suspicion of the likes of self-driving and automated vehicles and road networks.

    Many of his criticisms still stand, such as this one in particular that references Bob Lutz’s recent wet dream:

    You have a line of automated driverless vehicles including trucks going 100+ mph on a highway. Suddenly a truck in this line loses part of a load in the highway, spraying debris all over. What do you suppose is going to happen next? If you think those driverless cars will all react in time to stop or avoid that debris, well, you must be related to our dear Clover…

    The current crowd of “journalists” dare not question these “miracle” whizbang technologies—but someone needs to. Keep plugging away, Eric.

  21. That picture you used shows what a sanctimonious bastard Keith Crain is.

    He looks a child molester, too. I could definitely picture him hanging out with Dennis Hastert….sharing hot dogs.

  22. Crain…Crain…I know that from…YES! It’s on the front of his desperate attempt at manliness golf cart, AUTOWEEK. Correct me if I’m wrong but, isn’t that Crain Publications that put out Autoweek & Competition Press?

    I used to read it religiously in the 70’s and 80’s but, stopped getting it about 20 years ago.

    Eric, you write about what the automotive press was like “40 years ago”, how about 44 years ago?

    It was in AUTOWEEK that an article appeared that was my epiphany from apolitical car guy to, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore”.

    In 1973 airbags were just a Nadir[sic] Claybrook wet dream. Autoweek had an article that talked of research on these dashboard claymores that was done in Sweden. Of the 24 piglets that were positioned in front of the bags as they deployed, 8 of them died from the concussion alone. No contact with the bag itself, just the explosion was enough to off them. The others were injured but, not killed.

    It was at that moment that I realized Nadir and Claybrook cared not a whit about safety but, that it was just a bunch of authoritarian busy-bodies that were trying to get their way at my expense.

    Long ago I realized that in situations like this it comes down to people like Nadir, Claybrook and now Crain, that they’re either stupid or evil to promote such insanity. When their ideas fail and the “stuff’ hits the fan it’s “stupid” they’ll claim but, evil is their game.

    John 12:31

    • uf by Nadir you mean Ralho Nader, the ‘”unsafe at any speed” hit man on the Corvair, and the later pickup truck saddle tank explosion on collision scam, he is nothing BUT a rat and liar. I’d like to see his finances laid bare enough to determine whther he had any financial interest in the developing air bag technology. My bet: he did/does. WHY ELSE would he so rabidly promote them? THe question always is “cui bono?”

      • Automakers developed airbags in the early 1970s. They were options on some models. However in this process they found various issues and they didn’t sell very well. So after a few years they disappeared from the market. Regulators, do-gooders, and control freaks of course didn’t much care about such details.

        • they also cost like $600.00, which was about 10% of the cost of a vehicle in 1975. I would love to see how much our “saaaaaaaaaafety” systems cost us today. They have to add about $3k to a car’s retail price. That would be the 8 airbag systems. That doesn’t include things like back up cameras, stability control, additional side impact and rollover “protection” and other nonsense. The fact is, that the high CG crossover cars “need” roof protection because of their tendency to roll over. I don’t think that any equipment should mandated. It is simply too expensive. I bet that we could save about $5k per car if we took off the additional requirments imposed since 1990 and about 3k if we got rid of airbags. Add another 2k for eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemissions requirements.

      • Exactly. They are all in on it to one degree or another. Why is that? Who is directing their efforts or rewarding them for pushing this crap?

        • Hi King,

          I hear that. I have been punished for not pushing it… I used to be a columnist for AOL Autos, The Car Connection and cars.com – major MSM outlets for car writers.

          Not anymore.

          Guess why…

  23. A thought hit me today – that modern cars, with their all-consuming focus on safety, are like toys intended for small children that’re too young even for regular toys.

    Too big to swallow, no sharp edges, brightly colored, made from non-toxic materials, etc.

    No self-respecting 8-year-old boy wants to play with Duplos – those giant Legos intended for toddlers – he wants proper Legos. I know – my nephews are 7 and 5.

    And I don’t want a car to drive for me, or bury me in airbags if I get in a crash, or beep at me about my seatbelt.

    I’m an adult. I accept the risks of living.

  24. Looking at the first 3 photos, I think I know an affordable way to feed AND shelter the starving & homeless at the same time. Considering how fat stores excess energy….I think the same solution would end any energy crisis we may be facing as well!

  25. Same thing that’s happening in my line of work, Eric. Only not just limited to computerizing the crap out of the car itself anymore. The whole business of auto repair is being integrated into the “instant gratification”
    culture created by the internet. For all the garbage being used to boost sales, yadda, yadda, yadda, I am still seeing cars come in here continually misdiagnosed, damaged by bungled, sloppy repairs, and customers having been defrauded nearly everywhere else. It’s the age of “information” alright, but there isn’t anyone applying “reason” to the recipe any longer. Either that, or the reasoning involved is so screwed up and distorted from rampant misrepresentation, I can’t separate the two! Nothing is getting safer, only more infinitely obscured by the “technological voodoo” being used in this profession.
    Bottom line, Eric:
    We Are Dinosaurs. Our extinction is drawing nigh!

    • This is why I’m scouring the land for a decent VW Beetle, pre-1976, so it won’t be subject to California CARB emissions regs. Not merely as a collector item, though I will faithfully restore it, but as a DRIVER, for around town and those few trips to the Bay Area. There will be a few performance “goodies” so the car can cruise at 80, and perhaps, if the appropriate gearbox can be sourced, the original transaxle kept but the service unit will be out of a Porsche, as the matching Porsche box is a five-speed overdrive unit. Sure, I’ll have to faithfully adjust the tappets every six months, so I’ll have a box of valve cover gaskets on hand, and perhaps keep spares of the fuel pump, distributor, pulleys, and a few generator brush kits. In time, I’d even acquire a spare engine, and it’s light enough to keep in the attic! But that and having to scrape the points with each oil change (my 83 y.o. Dad gave me his old points file) will be part of the FUN. So will actually DRIVING the thing, and besides having a cheap aftermarket stereo mounted under the seat (so I can use my SmartPhone to play tunes via Bluetooth), I’ll just listen to my usual talk radio and sports (SF Giants) on the stock radio. Air Conditioning? It’s calling rolling the windows DOWN and enjoying some fresh air, and if it’s a real Northern “Kal-Lee-Forn-Ya!” scorcher, carrying a cooler with ice and liquid refreshment!

  26. Am I the only one that thought Keith Crain looks like Captain Kangaroo? Maybe that is why he has a juvenile mentality. LOL!!!

  27. This is the reason the youtube hoons and jalopnik writiers have gained popularity. They are young guys with a car passion and pursue achievable and dreamable car projects and cars.

    • Sorry but not all Jalopnik writers are car people. It has a whole lot of articles touting Self-Driving cars, Electric Vehicles and Government control of CO². Many times they cite distorted or outright lies supplied by the Government or Insurance Industry.

        • I quit reading Jalopnik after DeMuro left. David Tracy was still there last time I looked, and I liked his projects, but there was to much crap to scroll through just to get something interesting that he was doing that I just quit reading it. I do quite like Regular Car Reviews too, but every other car writer just talks saaaaaaaaaaaaafety and MPG. Nothing that people who are passionate about cars cares about.

          • Regular Car Reviews used to be good, but the guy decided to stop being funny.

            And he should really knock it off with the songs and the deep retard voice.

            • i like regular car reviews but i agree the deep voice and songs killed it for me. I could only be entertained for so long before i was overly annoyed. The other part is that he likes to bash the car culture of the car he reviews but his real reactions at the end show him loving the car like the SRT4 neon review.

    • Jalopnik would be better named “The People’s Glorious Democratic Automobile Website” or something to that effect.

      The site is awash in urban hipster Marxism.

      Every time I decide to stomach a trip to Jalopnik, I get to click through a roadblock asking me to turn off Adblock (No. Not happening.), after which I get to view a selection of links to delightfully-unhinged articles written by the man-hating lesbians of Jezebel, or the despicable racist loons of Very Smart Brothas, or the Trump-Derangement-Syndrome-infected “journalists” responsible for so much of Jalopnik’s tiresome screeds.

      And that’s before I even hit the comments section.

      • Hi Ice,

        Yup. I have become – it seems like it just “happened” – a kind of Aurochs. A beast from long ago, nearly extinct or headed that way. Guys like me used to be the rule – and the people you describe, we made fun of. It was not that long ago, either. Well, maybe it was. The world pre-2000s seems like a fantasy, almost. And yet, it was real. I was there, goddamn it!

        • Car and Driver magazine was the last holdout of good mainstream automotive journalism. They still have one or two of the older crowd there, but they are fading fast. I liked it when Brock Yates and David E Davis Jr. were at the helm along with Pat Bedards and Casba Csere. I met Casba. Great guy. The only one I didn’t like was William Jenes. I always liked C/D because they were very supportive of the National Motorists Association, the group that, without them, would never have gotten rid of the 55 mph speed limit.

        • Right you are, Eric, but don’t forget.. there is one thnig that clearly sets YOU apart from any other automotive writer I’ve ever ween, and over my life that’s quite a few. YOU tend to also get into some deep political issues that are only tengentially related to the car scene, and sometimes not related at all except that those things suffer from the same terminal illness we see continually manifest as runaway unconstitutional government continues to intrrude more deeply into every aspect of life here in these new ninety states….. You continually go for the jugular, the root of the car woes… runaway government and a comatose population who are too busy attending to their devices to bother to face reality of life. Such folks as voters are why we’re even IN this mess. What will it take for some group torise up and run FedGov out of this area, cars, where dey gots no bidniss pokin dey nowses inta…..

          Folks forget WHY those militia men were out that April morning at Lexingtin and later the same day, Concord. they had had enough of the brits telling them how they should live, and their arrival to disarm the Colonials was over the top intolerable… so they fired back. And kept it up until they drove those silly Brits onto their ships and back home, at Yorktown.

    • Jalopnik is dominated by politically correct know nothing 20 somethings. The greater gawker decides what they put forth. There was even a new urbanist writer on the staff whos articles got cross-posted to jalopnik. They’ll also eventually shadowban people who challenge them too much in the comments section.

      The comments section is also dominated by school conditioned repeaters. That is they repeat what they were told by authority and attack those who disagree with authority.

      • Hi Brent,

        Yes. I can speak to this. My public skepticism of “climate change” has been enough to preclude my being hired by major car media; the degree of orthodoxy expected is absolute. This is why even “cool” car sites like Jalopnik hire the 20-somethings you reference. They all (cue Ernest Angley voice) believe.

        And must – if they want to work!

        • But that wouldn’t matter if automotive publications were still independent operations. But they aren’t any longer. They have largely been absorbed by bigger concerns, at least anything approaching mainstream or general automotive journalism has been.

          6,000 years go by and nothing really changes. It’s still a cult of authority enforcing belief systems that maintain and grow their power.

        • I haven’t been to Jalopnick in 10 years. They were writing some stupid article on speeding and said something that pissed me off. I think they were citing IIHS propaganda.

      • Gawker outs Thiel. Thiel sues Gawker. Gawker folds.

        Then its most virulent components rise from the dead like a vampire – the original type I mean: A self-propelled corpse causing trouble for the living.

  28. Eric wrote:

    “There is no car press anymore. There is a metrosexualized echo chamber for the EPA and NHTSA. Ralph and Joan and Keith are the same hermaphroditic homunculus.”

    Bravo man, another great line worth repeating.

    It’s not just the automotive press, it’s the press in general. They march lockstep in the Government Uber Alles echo chamber, most likely the result of four or six or eight years of overpriced brainwashing called “university”.

    But who are the ones that actually sell, that people want to read or watch?

    You, P.J. O’Rourke, Clarkson, May and Hammond are some great examples.

    Guys like you are what sells, surprisingly, which only goes to show that maybe all hope is not lost.

    • You’re right, Anti-Fed, it’s the entire profession of “journalism.” It has become feminized — more women in leadership roles — and that has affected everything. I used to work for a Crain Communications publication (not auto-related) and saw the evolution firsthand. As male editors and publishers retired or moved on, they were often replaced with women and, like it or not, women bring a different outlook and create a different atmosphere. On top of that, journalism schools are notoriously leftwing and are themselves becoming feminized. Whether it’s a religious denomination or the old Soviet medical system, when women are the majority in any profession or organization, that profession or organization is changed.

      • I’m usually not one to throw around bible verses to make my point, but in this case it fits so well I cannot help myself:

        Isaiah 3:12 (KJV)
        12 As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

        In this chapter, the prophet Isaiah is lamenting Israel’s fall back into bondage, and a sign of the decline, is a society that has come to be ruled by childish tyrants and women.

        Flossie wrote:

        “Whether it’s a religious denomination or the old Soviet medical system, when women are the majority in any profession or organization, that profession or organization is changed.”

        And not for the better. Woemen and their fellow travelers and orbiters now run most every institution in this society. They have the power, with just one phone call, with just one tearful press conference, to fuck a man’s life up, forever.

        Which is why I think men should avoid long term contact with woemen as diligently as they would cops. It would be nice to think that men could find enough of backbone to perhaps seize the initiative and turn this around, but I don’t see that happening.

        The only option now, for men, is not to play.

        http://www.mgtow.com

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