Free Floormats Trigger New Cold War

Hyundai has been running a commercial where Japanese, German, and American car execs are running tests on a Hyundai SUV and becoming frustrated at how wonderful a vehicle it is.

That's, um, weird.  For one thing, it seems bizarre that they're so upset over a few cheap option packages.  Never mind the fact that they wasted so much money building that secret test facility in the mountains just to get information that's available on Hyundai's website.  I seem to remember Chevy did an ad along similar lines years ago, but that was for the Corvette, so it seemed a little more consequential than a midsize SUV.

But the biggest reason it stands out is that it's a pretty brazen use of stereotypes.  Of course, the German guy is no more German than the engineers VW uses on its own ads.  And it's always bugged me how both Japanese and German companies subtly use prejudice to their advantage by reminding everyone that it's not engineering, it's Japanese/German engineering.  And I also complained about American manufacturer's use of stereotyping earlier.

But this seems particularly unfair since Hyundai is from South Korea.  That country is relatively new on the world stage, so we don't really have many stereotypes about them.  If another company wanted to do a similar commercial against them, they'd have to have the Korean exec constantly eating kimchi.  And constantly remarking that it is kimchi, since I don't think I'd even recognize it.

They even seem to be rubbing it in at the end; normally I'd say the choice of 1995's "This Is How We Do It" would be a weird feature in a 2015 ad campaign, but in this case, we don't even know if they're out of touch, or maybe that song is just big in Korea right now.

VW toyed with making fun of it's competitors' nationalities a few years ago. They had a series of ads about former auto engineers - from various parts of the world - who had gone into other lines of work to avoid the stress of having to compete with VW.  They came across as quite mean-spirited.  Aside from how childish look-at-how-silly-our-competition-is ads are, they were kind of kicking people while they're down.  Was it really necessary to show a stressed-out British auto industry retiree?  And the Italian episode of the campaign was in especially bad taste, showing a guy named "Enzo" who supposedly couldn't compete with VW's GTI.  Of course, there was a famous guy at an Italian sports car company named Enzo, and I don't think he really worried about the GTI.

So hopefully we won't see much more of car companies promoting mediocre cars through overacting spoofs of its competitors.  But if Hyundai tries this again, I want to see somebody have the courage to turn the tables, and have an ad where all the Hyundai employees are doing Psy impersonations.

Mirror, Mirror

We have a tendency to think of the two political sides as mirror images. That is, they may have different goals and beliefs, but they go about pursuing those goals in the same way. This belief may come from the way we think of our political opponents: a wise person tries to see things from the other's perspective, whether that's an attempt at humanizing the other side, or a desire to know the enemy, Art Of War style.

But I suspect that a bigger reason we think of the political poles as interchangeable is that we analogize them to sports. Sports teams don't have an inherent way of doing things - a team that's all offence right now could be all defence in a generation, depending on the personnel they end up with. And similarly, we assume that a political party has a personality that's no more than a reflection of who's at the top right now.

But every now and then we get a reminder that the two sides are not the same. Different kinds of people get called to different beliefs and values, and systematically putting people with different ways of thinking on each side will make those sides act differently. We've seen an example of this in Canada over the last generation, as fate has conducted an experiment on us.

First, we had around a decade of government by the Chrétien Liberals. They were fairly popular - as governments go - but their real political strength came from the fact that their political rivals were splitting the vote between two parties: the traditional party that was close to the centre, and a newer, bolder party with more momentum and ideological purity. That was followed by about a decade of the Harper Conservatives. They're fairly popular - as governments go - but their real political strength comes from the fact that their political rivals are splitting the vote between two parties: the traditional party that was close to the centre, and a newer, bolder party with more momentum and ideological purity.

Okay, I admit there are at least a hundred ways the scenarios aren't the same, but as political experiments go, this is a pretty good opportunity to see how each side reacts to the same problem.

This is based purely on my recollections, but it seems to me that the merger talk on the right started much sooner. There was unite the right talk all through the Chrétien era, whether from Reform/Alliance officials, or from conservative pundits and politicians. Yet we're ten years into Harper, and the uncleft the left calls are still just a few voices in the wilderness. The occasional letter to the editor opines that there should be done sort of Liberal-NDP coalition, but not much serious consideration has been given. This election, both parties officially said no to working together, and the fact they at least cared enough about the issue to reject it seemed like progress to those of us who think a meter is a good idea?

So why was the right so much faster to embrace a merger? I'm sure many conservatives will seize upon this as proof they're just smarter, or at least more practical. But the flip side to that is that conservatives were also much faster to gloss over the ideological differences between a centrist party with a long tradition of governing, and a part born out of protest with no governing experience. I'd argue that the difference between the PC's and Reform in 1993 was greater than that between the Mulcair NDP and today's Liberals. Yet conservatives of the time were quite quick to dismiss those differences as long as our got them back in power. It seems that they are more likely to err on the side of having the better strategy than the preferred ideology.

Take The Pink Pill And Believe Whatever You Want To Believe

The "Female Viagra" is in the headlines. That's what the media is calling the first drug to increase women's sexual desire, which I'm sure the company's marketing department just loves. I've seen several stories on the drug, one of them just ten minutes ago, and I don't remember the drug's actual name.  I just know that the pill is pink, in contrast with Viagra's equally stereotypical blue.

Addyi (I looked it up) is controversial because it's struggled to get approval, and required a PR campaign by the manufacturer playing on the perceived unfairness of the huge number of drugs available for men's erectile dysfunction, to the complete lack of drugs for women.

I can't speak to the issue of whether it should be approved, but the thing that has bugged me about this story is that it is quite simply not the female Viagra. Viagra is a drug for men who want to have sex but find it physically difficult. This drug is for women who (presumably) are physically able, but don't want to.  It's a depressing statement about our attitudes towards sexuality that we confuse two things that are so different; it's as though we just file both ideas under this vague category of "sex stuff" and don't examine them further.

As such, it brings up a difficult ethical question. I'm not aware of any other drug that makes people want something. See, there is a small but significant group of people who consider themselves asexual, because they experience little or no sexual desire. And they seem to be reasonably happy, and bristle at the idea that they need to be "cured."

However, a person with no libido may still want companionship, and it appears that among humans, sex is a key part of that. Further, if you've lost your desire while in a relationship, that will cause tension. And that's the biggest practical argument I've seen for this drug: women in a marriage who are worried that if they don't provide sex, then their partner may go elsewhere for it. I can understand that predicament, but it makes the PR campaign take on an ugly tone: the claim by the ads was that it was unfair that men have their sex drugs, but not women. Yet, scratch the surface and you find that the main beneficiaries of the new drug are primarily the men married to the women taking it.

Still Waiting For My Blogging Trophy

Football player James Harrison has been in the news because he gave back his kids' participation trophies from sports, saying he believes such rewards should be earned. So, does the guy who gets paid millions of dollars a year regardless of whether he wins or losses have a point? It's made a lot of people angry, and earned praise from those who agree with his philosophy.

I think this is one of those cases where a few extreme incidents have pushed people to overreact. We get a few shock stories about kids' sports where everyone gets the same trophy or they only allow cooperative sports, and suddenly everyone demands no participation trophies at all. Really? You're saying that I shouldn't have gotten the three-inch participation trophy for minor soccer at age eight? Getting handed that little trinket just before the top scorer on the team got a giant trophy? That ruined my perspective forever?

But I also have another perspective on the rewards-for-achievement debate that I've never heard before, and that is, um, why? Look, I received very few trophies for sports, but plenty of the rewards for academic achievement (whether awards or high marks) so I've seen it from both sides, and I have to ask what good are either of them? Sure there are some awards that are difficult to win, and indicate genuine achievement. But we're not talking about the Superbowl or Nobel Prize here, we're talking about kids. Most of their awards are just the strongest kid getting a trophy, or the smartest kid getting an A. All those awards do is tell everyone who the strongest and smartest kids are. But everyone already knows that, so what's the point?  So unless we're talking about very high-level athletics/academics, those genetically blessed kids are getting their recognition for doing little more than showing up.  Essentially, they're just receiving their own participation trophies.

Sesame Street Has Been Brought To You Today By Selling Out To The Man

When the news came out that Sesame Street had a deal to go on HBO, this surprising news was received rather matter-of-factly. Some journalists just said vague things about income and downloading. Others joked about the incongruity of Sesame Street and HBO's other properties. Honestly, there are thousands of Muppet/Game of Thrones jokes to be made.

Apparently the show's finances weren't strong, since they were getting less money from PBS, and DVD sales have declined. Interesting fact I learned this week: currently, more kids watch the show online than on TV. As part of the agreement, it will still be available both on PBS and online, though only nine-months after its been on HBO.

I'm still uncomfortable with this. Yes, I've always been quick to say that progressives should be willing to use imperfect solutions to get real change in the world. This is using a disproportionately upper-class audience to pay for education that's accessible to all, which I would generally endorse. After all, Sesame Street isn't about current affairs, so showing your kids nine-months old episodes should really put them at a disadvantage. Having said that, the website Boing Boing points out that if getting the new episodes first wasn't an advantage, HBO wouldn't be paying so much for it.

What bugs me is that Sesame Street's raison d'etre was to level the playing field by making an avenue for education that everyone had equal access to. Even if it's a minor factor, it's sad that such a principle can't be maintained. For instance, the "street" in the show is portrayed as an urban street to career to poorer viewers that wouldn't normally see their lives on kids shows. Now we're entering a situation where largely suburban viewership will be funding a show set in an urban world they won't recognize.

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #26

Manchester United's shirts advertise Chevrolet. Juventus shirts advertise Jeep.

Donut Judge

I'm not feeling well, so I won't put pressure on myself to come up with anything particularly insightful.  I'll just observe that Tim Hortons is running its Duelling Donuts contest, where the public submits donut ideas, and celebrities and the public vote on the winners.  What caught my attention is that one of the celebrity judges is electronic musician Deadmau5. 

photo by Octavio Ruiz Cervera from Mexico, Mexico, used by Creative Commons

That seems like an odd combination, even if they are - in their own way - Canadian icons.  And then I had to wonder, did he wear the mouse head to the donut tasting?  How does he eat with that thing on?

Apparently he has a history with Tim's, doing a web series of going there for coffee with music celebrities.  And they thanked him for the publicity by sculpting his logo out of Timbits.  But it occurred to me that the association that I hadn't previously seen:

There seems to be a resemblance to that little guy they used to put on the Timbit boxes.  And if memory serves, they were using the Timbit guy in the early eighties, around when Deadmau5 was born, so this could be a baby picture.

Electioneering: No Surprises

In the U.S. election campaign, Donald Trump has been the big story. But now that Bernie Sanders is surging on the Democratic side, the big story is how two no-chance candidates are doing so well. The two don't have anything in common policy-wise, so pundits are seizing on their one commonality: neither one looks or acts like a traditional politician.

In trying to explain Trump, it had already become an article of faith that voters were drawn to his authenticity, with some talking heads saying that voters are so sick of artificial candidates that this was the main reason for his success. Although it wasn't usually stated, there seemed to a implication that his supporters were so desperate for authenticity, that they supported him in spite of his racist, sexist rhetoric, as long as he was speaking from the heart.

The problem with that explanation is that fake politicians are like attack ads: everyone says they hate them, many claim they don't work, yet they just keep winning. If authenticity was so important to people, how is comes filled with such pretentious, manufactured politicians. Even Trump himself has left plenty of clues that he's as fake as anyone. His initial attack on Mexicans was followed by a revelation that his own clothing line was made in Mexico. But his supporters - like so many people before them - chose to ignore facts that doesn't fit the narrative they wanted to believe.

I get the impression that the media is hanging on to the people-just-want-authenticity explanation because it’s hard to accept that so many people are attracted to Trump’s repulsive message. But really, the Trump phenomenon isn't hard to understand, intellectually or emotionally. He's polling what, 24%? That's 24% of Republicans, so about 12% of Americans in general. Is it really so hard to believe that there are 12% of Americans who are bigoted enough to agree with the content of his message?

This also helps to explain the other question pundits are struggling with: surely he can't win, so how is he going to lose? They either conclude that eventually he's going to go too far with his wild statements, or that his campaign with implode in confusion and infighting. Those things could happen, but there's a simpler explanation. Think back a few weeks; what were we making fun of before we had Trump to make fun of? We were joking about the huge number of Republican candidates. Here we are taking about a guy "dominating" with about a quarter of the vote. For him to win the nomination, he'd have to win over lots more voters, just like any of the other candidates. And that's his biggest obstacle: there can't be many supporters of Rubio, Jindal, Fiorina, et al who would go to Trump when their preferred candidate drops out. Really, Trump is a story only because there are so many candidates splitting the sane vote.

On the Democratic side, Sanders’ surge is not surprising or even unusual. There have been lots of election cycles where a party flirts with a candidate who seems to represent a purer expression of the party’s ideology. For a precedent, you only have to look to the first President Clinton. He was one of the few presidents who didn’t win the New Hampshire Primary. It was won by Paul Tsongas; remember him? Didn’t think so. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush didn’t win New Hampshire either; John McCain did. Say, why do we care so much about New Hampshire again?

Howard Dean and Pat Buchanan are other examples of party favourites who gave the eventual winner a run for his money. In each case, the party eventually voted for the less exciting but more mainstream candidate. Why? There are a lot of reasons, but I believe the biggest is that as the election process goes on, the members get a chance to look at their opposition, and remember who they are and what they stand for. After a while, everyone starts to remember that their main goal is to win the election, and the fantasy of having an ideologically perfect candidate isn’t as important. A few more weeks of Trump leading on the Republican side would be bad news for Sanders' campaign.

Tainted Love

Do you remember the "Hey" song they used to use at sports events twenty years ago? I remember one year both the teams in the Stanley Cup final (Pittsburgh and the North Stars, I think) were both using it as a post-goal celebration. I didn’t really remember where that song came from, but I vaguely remember it having some reference to Doctor Who. (Don't worry, non-geeks, this post will take a turn for the pop-cultural very shortly.)  Anyway, I saw a reference to it a few months ago, which was the first time in years I'd thought of it, so I decided to do some research.

I looked it up, and that song was called "Doctorin' the Tardis" and produced by a group called The Timelords. The Timelords were a novelty act; the same people would go on to form The KLF a few years later. (Gen-Xers will remember their songs "Justified and Ancient" or "3am Eternal.") Anyway, the song, "Doctorin' the Tardis" is basically a mash-up of the Doctor Who theme music and the 70's hit "Rock and Roll Part II." And that explains why you never hear it anymore: "Rock and Roll Part II" was by Gary Glitter, who has done jail time for child pornography.

Yes, I realize that trip down memory lane came to serious screeching halt. But it's something that happens an awful lot lately: media memories ruined by what we later learn about the creators as people.

An obvious example is with Bill Cosby. Lots of people have found that their memories of The Cosby Show are tainted. And with Hulk Hogan becoming personna non grata, I've seen a few folks of a certain age complaining that their whole childhood is now tarnished.

I wasn't so directly affected by these revelations. I was never a wrestling fan. I watched The Cosby Show, but really I spent most of NBC's Thursday nights waiting for Cheers and Night Court. But still, when someone had been a big part of pop culture for so long, they touch a lot of things. Forgive me for bringing this up, but: Fat Albert. Yep, he's ruined too.

What's depressing is that we don't know just what we might come across in our memories that turns out to be tainted. For instance, I never listened to the CBC Radio show Q when Jian Ghomeshi was hosting. But then one day I found myself humming "King of Spain" (By Moxy Früvous, of which Ghomeshi was a member) and realised that was another thing we'd lost. But the ultimate was when I saw a news report mentioning one of Cosby's increasingly ridiculous denials, and said to myself, "riiight." And I realized that I was referencing Cosby's own Noah's Ark routine. That was depressing, but seemed strangely fitting, as though Cosby's work was passing judgement on him.

And that leads us to one possible way of reconciling our feelings in these situations: regarding the person and their creations as separate, and trying to appreciate one while condemning the other. That's especially true if we can take ownership of our own experience of the work, and see whatever enjoyment we got from Cosby's career as belonging to us, not to him.

Hey Fern!

How influential is this blog? Well, I complained about the design of New Zealand's flag, and a mere three years later, they are changing it.

Good for them.  Canada was once in the same position, with an undistinctive flag containing the Union Jack and we changed it. But, if it hadn't been changed back in the sixties, I honestly don't think we would have the courage to do it now.

As I observed last time, the other similarity between Kiwis and Canucks is that we seem to have chosen leaves as our symbols. A lot of the designs use the Silver Fern, and many others use the "koru," which is apparently an indigenous symbol based on a curled up silver fern leaf.  But whatever symbol they go with, it looks like they will get a distinctive flag, since most of the designs go heavy on either curved lines or black, neither of which appears on many national flags. I'd go with one of the black-and-white designs divided by the fern.  It's simple but breaks the rules.

But overall, they're pretty good designs. As usual, some people are being predictably critical and dismissive, while others are making a big deal of some of the more amateur or humourous rejected designs, even though they really aren't that funny. After all, we've already had years to pour over our own rejected designs.

If New Zealand manages to dump it's old flag, there's a few more countries that should consider it:

Angola

A machete and a broken gear?  What kind of message is that supposed to send?

Georgia

If you're going to have a repeating design, why not go full fractal and have crosses in crosses in crosses in...

Mozambique

You have an AK-47 in your flag?  And you're surprised no one wants to invest in the country?

Cyprus and Kosovo

If the main thing you have on the country's flag is the country itself, it reminds everyone that you can't agree on anything.

I'm A PC, And I'm Also A PC

When people complain about Political Correctness, they could mean one of two fairly distinct things:

1. They believe that pretty much anything is fair game in conversation, and resent any curbs on their behaviour
2. They don't have a problem with more moderate requests, but are alarmed at some of the more extreme complaints

I'm liberal, but not radically so. Thus, I'm sympathetic to the second complaint. But I don't have much patience for the first.

(When I typed the first sentence of that paragraph, my phone interpreted it as, "I'm liberal, but not tragically so.)

Here's the problem. The term "Politically Correct" has declined in popular usage since its heyday about twenty years ago. These days, it mostly only gets used by people in that first group.

It's been over a decade since I've heard the term "politically correct," except as a strawman to rationalize mean-spirited behavior.

— Michael Okuda (@MikeOkuda) March 31, 2015

But several times I've seen people complain about "Political Correctness ruining X," meaning that second sense. They then find that moderate liberals who would be sympathetic to the complaint, instead dismiss them as far-right crackpots.

As with so many problems, stir in the Internet and things get worse. A lot of the people who are quick to take offence use the Internet to express their anger. That gives it a power it never had before. At the peak of Political Correctness, you heard horror stories of people taking great offence over minor things, but for the most part those with extreme views don’t have access to the power to do real damage. But the Internet has given us all a soapbox, and now anyone who takes offence for any reason can attack. Thus, people in that second group often grumble not only about Political Correctness, but also about the Internet.

Again, that send entirely the wrong message to people like me. That first group of people also relies heavily on the Internet to meet and organize, and to disagree rather aggressively with people have more reasonable requests for polite behaviour. So if you go around saying that you’re sick of Politically Correct people on the Internet, we are just going to take that as further proof that you’re one of the first group.

So please, reasonable people with reasonable complaints, find some way to rephrase your problems so you stand out from the crowd.

Could Take A Long Time, Working On The Pipeline

As a techie person concerned with social justice, I've always taken an interest in the drive to get more women working in technology. And one thing that's always bothered me about these efforts is the emphasis on changing the circumstances of tech firms. Often I'll see a story about the low number of women in tech, and they'll interview a few of the women who are working in tech, and they'll talk about the lack of acceptance they've received at work or in university.

My problem with this is that the core problem is that few women are choosing to study tech-related fields, particularly computer-related. I don't deny the problems women in tech have had, I'm just thinking that changing the workplace won't help if there are few women entering the field in the first place.

As it happens, a recent presentation by Microsoft made this very point, using the United States' recent victory in the Women's World Cup. Having now won three cups with largely different teams, it's clear their long-term success is not because the team itself is particularly well run, but because of the "pipeline" continually developing new talent. Girls are encouraged to play soccer at a young age, they have an opportunity to continue on high school teams, and thanks to Title IX, college programs are plentiful and well funded. Microsoft wishes there were a similarly strong pathway for women to get education in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields.

But recently, I've been seeing articles from women approaching the problem from the other side: they're sick of hearing people like me trying to fix the problem by getting more women to study tech-related fields, if they're just going to land in an intolerable situation in the workplace that will drive them away. Julie Pagano put it quite vividly, complaining that, "So many 'diversity in tech' efforts are about getting young women into the pipeline; ignore the fact that there's a meat grinder at the end."

It turns out they have a point. Research shows that women leave technology far more often than men, and far more often than women leave other fields.

So I've come to realize that getting more women in technology will take an effort on both fronts. The problem is that they are largely unrelated. One involves changing attitudes in workplaces, the other requires rethinking approaches in high schools or even elementary schools.

50-50 Relationships

There's been ads on TV for a dating site aimed at older people, called OurTime.  I was worried at first that I might be old enough for the service. The people on the ad all looked a little older than me, but then I remembered that people always see themselves as younger than they are, so they must be the same age as me.

But no reason to worry: it turns out they aim at 50+.  So I can continue to think of myself as young, while I strike out on mainstream dating sites.

I was also worried about how these people were talking about it:

• It's nice to be on a site where gentlemen are looking for someone my age.  Of course, referring to them as "men" or "guys" might help.
• You're matched with someone with the same likes and values.  Is there really a big cultural gap at age 50? Sure, there's a declining value placed on alcohol, but that happens fairly early in adulthood. On most issues, young people make more sense to me.
• I feel like I'm back in high school.  That was the real headscratcher.  Do they know how few people really liked high school?  Or did it occur to them that being lonely in adulthood may correlate with not doing well socially in high school. They then show a good-looking well-groomed man say that he got a "flirt" within minutes of joining, thus confirming that it is, in fact, just like high school. 

So it's a relief to know that I don't have to worry about the shortcomings of mature dating sites for a few more years, by which time I'm sure they will have fixed everything.

Hunting For Answers

I'm still not sure what what to feel about the killing of Cecil the lion. Like many people, I'm not happy about it. But I can't pretend to be a great friend of animals, as a non-vegetarian. That's a debate a lot of people have been having online: vegetarians questioning the integrity of those concerning the death of an animal. I don't have a real good answer for that. I guess it comes down to hunting itself.

I generally don't like the idea of killing animals, but have justified meat-eating to myself on the grounds that it's killing animals for something important and unavoidable: food. I acknowledge that this reasoning is flimsy, since a human can survive without eating meat, even if that's not the natural lifestyle for homo sapiens.

On the other hand, consider activities that are common targets of the animal rights movement: hunting, fur, and cosmetic experimentation. Those are trading animal lives for less-integral, more easily-replaced things. In the issue at hand - hunting - you're trading an animal's life for your own entertainment. That's a proposition I've always had difficulty buying.

In this case, at least some of the anger is that this was a particular lion. People had an attachment to it, so there's extra emotion. But that also begs the question of why we both allow hunting, but also pick out a specific animal as untouchable. After all, it’s hard to say, go ahead and kill any of these animals, just not that one over there.

It's weird how public opinion has turned here. If you watch politics, you see how sometimes a determined minority can hold sway in society. The most obvious example of this is the American gun "debate" (I put it in quotes because really there in no debate) where the enthusiastic and well-organized gun lobby always gets its way, even when it is on the less-popular side of an issue. But it seems like now we could be seeing two of those determined minorities face off: There's a wave of opinion against hunting at the same time, and in the same place, that politicians regularly make a show of going hunting as a way of proving their qualifications.

But a big part of the anger is clearly about the hunter himself. A lot of the coverage of the incident emphasizes that he's a dentist. Some of the anger is, I'm sure, due to widespread hatred of dentists. But I think more of it is the incongruity of a big-game-hunting dentist, and the transparent desperation for masculinity. That just accents the difficulty accepting hunting I mentioned above. This lion appears to have been sacrificed not just for entertainment, but to prove a man's virility. Or, to put it another way, everything we say about the Chinese when they drive an animal to the edge of extinction because they've decided one of its body parts is an aphrodisiac, all applies here too.

Another thing that’s happened recently perhaps explains the anger over Cecil, and that is the demise of Hitchbot, the hitchhiking robot. In a story that reaffirmed everyone’s national stereotypes, the helpless and immobile robot successfully hitchhiked across Canada and Europe, then got destroyed after only a tenth of its journey across the United States. No, I’m not claiming that the loss of a not-even-close-to-sentient robot is the equivalent of a living thing. But it’s the same sort of equation: one person decides that the enjoyment they get out of destroying something outweighs the enjoyment many may get from its continued existence. And that’s where the frustration comes from: it’s a pattern we’ve all seen throughout our lives, and feel unable to prevent.

Pickup Artistry

Earlier this year, Hyundai showed off a concept vehicle called the Santa Cruz at car shows.  It's a mini-pickup-truck, essentially a compact car with a small box at the back.  Oh, it's adorable.  And there are rumours that they may actually put it into production.

To people aged 40+, it may bring back memories of the old Subaru Brat, a mini-pickup that was quirky even for a Subaru.  That's a reminder that even though it may seem like car companies are afraid to try new things, they do sometimes put weird combinations of ideas together. It's just that mistakes are expensive, and no one wants to end up building a Pontiac Aztek.

I hope they do build it, if only because it's a refreshing combination.  Most of today's unusual car layouts are just more ways of making vehicles look like SUV's, or making SUV's seem like other vehicles.  And that's the depressing part of all this: It seems like now if a manufacturer is making a vehicle that's a weird combination of ideas, it's not for practicality; It's for pretend.  SUV's are a combination of truck and car created for people who want to pretend they're not driving a minivan.  Crossovers are a cross between cars and SUV's for people who can't commit to a full SUV.  Porsche's lineup has become an Island of Dr. Moreau of ungodly automotive splices trying to appeal to anyone who wants to pretend they're driving a 911.  Even pickups themselves - which were once the ultimate in utility and practicality - keep growing and bulging and looking ever more desperately masculine.

So it's actually refreshing to see an oddball automotive design that has some practicality.  No one would buy it to pretend it's a real pickup, because it's the size of a Tonka truck.  And no truck owner would buy it because it's small and a Hyundai.  It will have to live and die on its own usefulness.  Hopefully there are enough urbanites working on small bohemian construction projects to let it survive.

And Now Here It Is, Your Moment Of Absolute Panic

Jon Stewart is stepping down from The Daily Show next week. As you might expect from the style of this blog, I've been a fan, and have generally agreed with his perspective on things. Surprisingly, probably the biggest disconnection I've experienced has been in the last few weeks. And the issue is Donald Trump's presidential run.

(My keyboard interpreted that last phrase as "Donald Trump's presidential ruin.")

Stewart and others on the show have portrayed his campaign as a fun and entertaining side show. Essentially they're seeing it as the political equivalent of Sharknado: so bad it's harmless entertainment.

I don't find it so funny, and I think I can explain my feeling using another recent bad movie: Pixels. I'm sure i wasn't the only one who the ads for it and said, hey a movie about life-size eighties video games, that looks like fun, why I bet they... Oh god, Adam Sandler is in it, never mind. I'm guessing many conservatives had a similar reaction to Trump; a new candidate with business experience, from outside the establishment? That's great, is been... Oh god, it's Donald Trump.

But back to the explanation of why I don't find Trump funny. Imagine if you will that the premise of Pixels - aliens take the form of old video game characters to destroy us all - actually happened. I don't mean, you're watching this happen on TV; I mean you're minding your own business, when suddenly the guy from Dig Dug walks by and blows up the house across the street. You go outside to see what happened, only to be chased away by the alien fleet from Galaxian.

Now here's my question: would that be fun? I doubt it would be. Really, I doubt you would have any chance to assess your feelings at all. You'd be too busy dodging the alien abductors from Defender to think about it.

Superficially you might assume that being attacked by something fun would be better than just being attacked - say, by more evil-looking insectoid aliens - since you'll end up dead either way, you might as well have some nostalgic fun in your final moments. But really, I think it would be worse to go out at the hands of giant games, since you'd be denied any sort of dignity.

And that's my problem with Donald Trump. If he was polling three percent, he'd be hilarious. But leading the race for a major party, he's a threat of the impending collapse of civilization. The fact that he's a silly threat of the impending collapse of civilization doesn’t make him amusing. He’s a reminder that we'll be the first society to end not with a bang or a whimper, but with a rim shot.