Fractured Friday

My wonderful wife is a big fan of John Mellencamp’s music and has been for a long time. Me not so much, but he did earn my respect for what he said during part of his speech at his recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’ll quote part of that speech, “Fuck antisemitism.”

With the horrifying increase in antisemitic sentiment coming from all sides and from all types of people, famous and otherwise, it is heartening to see people like Mellencamp make a public stand in opposition. He also said that silence is complicity, which is very true.

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This CNBC article quotes Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, as saying, “If the lesson was learned from Ukraine, we need cheap, reliable, safe, secure energy, of which 80% comes from oil and gas.” Dimon is right, in my very strongly held opinion, and the eco-mentalist (thanks, Jeremy Clarkson) zealots are wrong. A modern, industrialized country/society will not be able to have its power needs completely met by “renewable” energy sources for decades to come, if ever.

I probably won’t be around when the folly of the zealots manifests itself in a diminished standard of living and would laugh when the earth’s temperature continues to rise (although not as much and not as fast as the lemmings claim) because less than half of whatever is happening to the climate is a function of human activity. For these blind patrons, the issue is not one of science, but of punishment of what they believe is evil behavior.

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My wonderful wife sent me a link that, ultimately, led me to this story about a very valuable concept car that is about to be sold at an auction. From that Robb Report piece, a picture of said vehicle.

The 1957 Chrysler Ghia Super Dart 400 concept car.

This is 1957 Chrysler Ghia Super Dart 400 concept car that will be on the block at the Bonhams auction in Scottsdale, Arizona next month during “Car Auction” week. Of course, the car is very much of its time with the exaggerated fins and nod to the burgeoning Space Age, but is still an interesting example, in my opinion, of an era when regulation and lack of courage had not yet dampened imagination.

I don’t know if famed designer Virgil Exner actually drew this car or if it was done under his auspices, but this is–of course–a classic Exner design and an example of the Forward Look design, with its continually rising beltline, that he introduced to the Chrysler lineup in the late 1950s. Many people don’t know that Exner worked for General Motors and for Studebaker before going to work for Chrysler in 1949.

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Is this report the end for asshole NFL owner Snan Dyder? While I think Congress probably has more important things to do than to investigate an NFL team, the report titled “Conduct Detrimental: How the NFL and the Washington Commanders Covered Up Decades of Sexual Misconduct” is not a good look for the league and is probably, hopefully the final nail in Dyder’s NFL coffin.

Dyder, who is Jewish, is an example that anti-Semites use to conclude that Jews are evil, like Bernie Madoff. All groups of people have evil members. One of the paradigms that really makes me angry is that so many people want to judge others based solely on that they are part of Group A or Group B. People should be judged as individuals, on their collection of strengths and weaknesses, NOT because they are an A or a B. That’s why I am vehemently opposed to affirmative action schemes. First earn, then receive.

#FracturedFriday

#JohnMellencamp

#JamieDimon

#ChryslerGhiaSuperDart400

#VirgilExner

#FirstEarnThenReceive

#somanyCARSjustonelife

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Wandering Wednesday

This “rant” is from Peter DeLorenzo of The Auto Extremist. Sorry, but the site is not secure so I am not embedding the link.

-Now that we are firmly entrenched in this era of “everyone has ‘rights’ but no one wants the responsibility that comes with them,” it’s no wonder that where we go from here is fraught with peril. In fact, the tone and tenor of our society at large has been a burgeoning nightmare for years, and it continues to negatively reverberate through every aspect of our life as we know it. The chatter hanging in the air and permeating social media is all about “what we deserve,” “what we’re owed,” and oh, by the way, “you suck.” Reasoned, intelligent discourse is for the history books, a quaint notion from a bygone era that’s as obsolete as pay phones. And hand-wringing about it seems to be a fool’s errand as well, because no one cares and everyone wants “what’s mine.”-

F’in Amen!

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The two pictures above were taken at the Four Seasons resort where my wonderful wife and I had a lovely Valentine’s Day lunch. We comfortably dined outdoors in mid-February. Yes, it will be hot later this year, but the weather sure is nice now.

I just love the coloring in this pic. Sorry for the artifact at the bottom of the photo. Lesson #1: try to take these photos outdoors. Still having a hard time believing that view is from our house, though. Actually, that view and the room from which it can be seen (the second floor “bonus” room) are the major reasons we bought the house. Even after pouring a lot of money into it, we don’t love this house, but we sure love that view.

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Apropos of a comment dialogue between me and Dirty Dingus McGee is this photo of a 1970 Charger from the recent Concours In The Hills.

Of course, 1970 was the last of the three model years of the second generation Dodge Charger. This is an iconic car and I included the 1968 model in my Ultimate Garage 3.0. (Incredibly, that was published seven months ago.)

I seriously doubt I will continue blogging long enough to publish Ultimate Garage 4.0. I am not thinking about that topic, anyway, but trying to decide which makes will be used for the rest of the Cars A To Z series that still has nine letters remaining.

I have also been thinking about cars that didn’t quite make Ultimate Garage 3.0, but cars of which I am quite fond. Cars like this:

See the source image

This is a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. It was the ultimate American luxury car of the time with a price of more than $13,000 (about $130,000 in 2022 dollars), eclipsing the $10,000 price tag for the Continental Mark II (another car that I really like).

These are often seen at Barrett-Jackson and/or Mecum auctions. While none was offered at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale last month, two were offered at the Mecum auction in Kissimmee. Both were from 1958, the second of the two model years the car was offered. (Only 704 were produced in total.) One sold all in for $104,500 ($95,000 hammer price) and the other sold all in for $121,000 ($110,000 hammer).

I could be wrong, of course, but both of those prices seem much higher to me than results from the slightly more distant past. The rising tide of collector car prices is lifting virtually all boats.

#WanderingWednesday

#AcuteSelfishnessIsAPlague

#FirstEarnThenReceive

#SecondGenerationDodgeCharger

#1957CadillacEldoradoBrougham

#somanycarsjustonelife

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Monday Musings 72

I must admit that I often have the feeling, “What good does any of this do?” I often feel as if I am spending too much time preaching to the choir. I actually think it’s almost impossible to do anything else these days.

Due in large part to the scourge of “social media” too much of the world’s population is firmly entrenched in bubbles of thought, never considering that their “favorite” ideology is filled with dangerous inconsistencies and is woefully inadequate in dealing with real-world complexities.

In the current debate over infrastructure one truth that is being left out is simply how difficult it has become to actually get such projects completed in a timely manner. Consider that it took four years to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the 1930s whereas it took two decades to repair one-third of it after the 1989 Bay Area earthquake. Here are some words of wisdom, IMO, from George Will:

“Can today’s nation — divided by the politics of envy and race-mongering; with “leaders” too timid to ask 98.2 percent of Americans (those earning less than $400,000) to pay for the gusher of new government benefactions — perform great feats?

Last month was the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s speech summoning the nation to send astronauts to the moon in the 1960s. Ben Domenech, publisher of the Federalist, says of the speech: “It seems like it comes not just from a different time but from a different country.” Kennedy’s challenge required accomplishing 2 million tasks, a million of which involved then-uninvented technologies. He did not stoke racial or class divisions; he spoke of a national identity receptive to great and uncertain exertions. He did not pander to particular constituencies, promising union jobs and racial “equity” throughout the space program. Instead, he asked the nation to take gigantic risks for the nation’s, and humanity’s, benefit.

Whereas “Kennedy called the nation to dare,” today, Domenech writes, America is where “schools can’t fail kids for giving the wrong answers, where teachers refuse to teach even with precautions and vaccinations, and where local authorities won’t put down riots.” A different country.” (My question: would Kennedy be considered a traitor by today’s Democratic party? He also played a major role in a large tax cut.)

The US is headed for dissolution, which is not surprising when such a large segment of the population does nothing except harp on differences. Whatever happened to “first earn, then receive?” Yes, I suspect I am preaching to the choir as people who think differently from me don’t read this blog. However, just as the rest of the world laughed at me in the 1980s–and was wrong–when I said baseball teams eventually would use data as the linchpin of their decision-making processes, I am more certain than ever that the US as we know it will not exist in 50 years. Unfortunately (maybe not), unlike in baseball where I lived to see my predictions come to fruition, I will not live 50 more years.

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Yesterday marked 31 weeks that we moved into this house. We decided to make a real dent in the mess in the room that is supposed to be, eventually, our guest bedroom.

Let me repeat my belief that the interstate moving business is a racket. Anyway…many of the items in this room were packed pictures. Opening one of them made my heart sink. The glass for a framed picture of Secretariat had broken and one of the shards had left a six-inch long scratch on the picture.

We have already “settled” on our damage claims, so we cannot be reimbursed for this. It’s not as if this piece is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, but it has/had tremendous value to me.

While I am happy to be in Arizona, this move was even more stressful than my first cross-country move when I left the area in which I was born and raised. Not only does the financial bill seem to increase without end–you cannot imagine how much money we have had to spend on this house already–but it seems as though I am suffering from sort of a delayed stress syndrome.

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OK, I had another strange dream. Yes, I know that dreams often don’t mean anything, that they are–supposedly–the brain filtering and sorting information without the intent of that information being interpreted. However, I think dreams are often an expression of fears and wishes. Anyway…I had an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. My appointment was in room S151; yes, the room number was very prominent.

After a long and angst-inducing search, I finally found room S151 and its large sign that read “Room S151.” However, I heard people calling my name and after another stress-inducing interval I saw three people, each sitting in a separate chair with plexiglass partitions, on the other side of the wide hall. They were the ones calling my name. I then woke from this dream. All I can write is WTF?!

Sorry, no cars today.

#MondayMusings

#FirstEarnThenReceive

#MovingStress

#MoreStrangeDreams

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