2 men try to carjack a Corvette at gunpoint, but can't make it go, because it's a stick shift.

The owner of the car — one Mr. Bean — even tried to explain it to them. 

"I had to tell him four different times to push in the clutch... My first thought was I guess we don't have driver's ed. in school anymore... And my second thing was, don't shoot me because you can't start the car," Bean said. "I'm trying to help you out here, you know. Thankfully they didn't."

"I will buy a pink Segway before I spend a nickle on any goddamn government car.."

"... Including a ZR-1. U.S. OUT OF DETROIT."

I had to Google ZR-1. Then, I screamed.

But I've got to say: If the Segway hadn't already been made, the Obama administration would have funneled hundreds of millions of public money into developing it. And it would still only be ridden by that one guy, and as he scoots by, everybody who sees him thinks: No way!

Get up in your grill/grille.

I'm reading the transcript of the oral argument in Summers v. Phelps — the First Amendment case that we were talking about yesterday — substantively! — here and here. This post is about the English language. At page 40, Margie Phelps, arguing in favor of the right to express outrageous opinions in the vicinity of a funeral, is quoted as saying:

I think approaching an individual up close and in their grille to berate them gets you out of the zone of protection, and we would never do that.

(Boldface added.) Then, at pages 47-48, she's quoted saying:

Your body of law about captive audience... where they, by the way, specifically said at footnote this isn't about content. You've got to be up -- again, I will uses [sic] the colloquial term -- up in your grill. The term I think the Court used was confrontational.

And page 49:

I do think that you could have a public event where there was not an element of vulnerability in the people going in. You might even let them up in their grill.

So what is it? Grill or grille?

You cook on a grill (perhaps in a “bar and grill”), but the word for a metal framework over the front of an opening is most often grille. When speaking of intensive questioning “grill” is used because the process is being compared to roasting somebody over hot coals: “whenever I came in late, my parents would grill me about where I’d been.”

All right. So when you get up in somebody's grill/grille, what's the image: getting very close to the front of his car or somehow snuggling under the lid of his Weber? I Googled "what does get 'get up in his grill' mean" and – the world is so strange! — the second hit was to my blog:

k*thy said... I'd have no problem if she'd get up in his grill and then gone after his cycles with a bat.

Well, I didn't write that, and I think it's "grille." We're talking about the car, aren't we? Or do you think it has to do with that hip hop-style jewelry, worn over teeth? But what is that a reference to: the car part or the cooking surface? Wikipedia spells that "grill," but Googling around, I see a lot of pictures of Corvettes with "grille teeth." I even found one that I took:



Have I resolved it yet? If not, I submit the truly humble and unexceptionable request that spelling should be consistent within the transcript (and, if it's not too much to ask, all of the work of the Supreme Court). So pick one. I say "grille." (And I love those old Corvettes!)

Should bloggers who review books have to make a point of saying that they got them free?

Scott Stein writes:

The FTC recently announced that bloggers who review books that they received for free from publishers should make readers aware that the books were provided for free....

Newspapers and print magazines don’t provide disclaimers or tell readers that reviewers get the books for free. Newspapers and print magazines don’t announce that their reviewers often keep the free books or sell them on eBay. There is no presumption on the part of the FTC or readers that a newspaper book review is dishonest just because the reviewer was given the book for free....

[T]he government has no place weighing in on the battle between traditional and alternative media and conveying legitimacy on some and denying it to others....

Readers should base their opinion of the honesty of a review on the quality of the review and the track record of the reviewer — the body of work — and should not assume that a “professional” is somehow more honest or less likely to be bribed than an “amateur.” (And with what little money major publications usually pay book reviewers, really, we might as well all be amateurs anyway. I got free books when I reviewed books for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I didn’t suddenly become more honest because the Inquirer also sent me a small check for my work. ).

I've written book reviews for The New York Times and The New York Sun, and I didn't do it for the money. It's not enough money for all the work it takes. In fact, once the NYT had me review a book, paid me, and then never published it. That irked me no end, because I would never have done that much work for the amount it paid. (Maybe $700.) So I certainly wouldn't read a book and write about it just for a free book. Think about it. It's like when people give you a book for a gift. Don't you think, oh, great, now I have to read it. It's way easier to buy somebody a book than for them to read it. Imagine if when you got a book for a gift, you had to write about what you thought about it. You'd be saying to anyone who threatened to send you gifts, please, no gifts!

Now, some of these other gifts are more potentially corrupting. If companies were sending me steaks or cases of wine or .... hey, remember the time I tried to get Chevrolet to send me a Corvette?

"Imagine an America with no more Corvettes! No more Caddies, Trans Ams, Camaros or Mustangs."

"No Ford or Chevy pick up trucks; no Jeeps or Suburbans. Not one PT Cruiser. All gone, our shared national automotive legacy and collective memories stretching back a century, and millions of jobs, all looted by ultra-conservatives eager to punish generations of American workers for the sin of not voting for the GOP in acceptable numbers. Gone forever. In their place will be rice burning Nissons [sic] and Toyotas, maybe the occasional German model. Models that legions of newly unemployed Americans, standing on the precipe [sic] of Bush's Depression, will never be able to afford."

IN THE COMMENTS:1jpb said...

Who cares about the iconic appeal?

Losing Duesenberg and Packard (the early Packards, like mine) that was the loss of icons.

Don't get me started. My family's tragedy was the death of Pierce-Arrow!

Music for driving.

As you can see from my last post, I took a long drive yesterday, driving for the sake of driving, and I wrote: "Propitiously, the radio played 'Radar Love.'" A commenter — aptly named Skeptical — challenged me:

Sorry, I don't think "Radar Love" on the radio can count as propitious. That's a song about somebody who isn't driving just to drive; he's driving because there is somewhere that he definitely has to be.

That's a pretty subtle point about the close interpretation of the lyrics. If it's a song about driving and you're driving and the music feels great for driving, does the stress on reaching the destination make it not a great driving song? Of course, there are some great songs about driving that don't stress the destination. I'm thinking of all the songs that rave about the car itself — like "Little GTO" and "409"— or the songs that are using driving as a metaphor for sex — like "Little Red Corvette" and "Mustang Sally." But stressing the destination creates an urgency about the forward motion that makes the song great for driving even when you are driving just to drive. Don't you love to drive to "Six Days on the Road"?

But I'm not so sure "Radar Love" is about the destination. It's in the now. It's about extrasensory powers enabling the singer to hear the voice of his "baby" without a phone or radio at all. "She sends her comfort, coming in from above. Don't need no radio at all." Via radar love, he's able to feel good again, driving now.

Anyway, driving yesterday, I needed a radio. I like the chance combinations of song and landscape. I like it when they fit and I like it when they don't. Here I am driving across the Wisconsin River on Route 14:



"Radar Love" has ranked well on some lists of best driving songs. We could try to make a list, but most people end up with songs that mean something to them, that are from their era. Let's try to transcend that. "Radar Love" is not from my era. I just happened to have the 70s channel on the radio, where I go when the 60s channel is playing one too many Supremes songs. Here's a VH1 list of Top 10 driving songs. There are a lot of things to object to about that list. #10 is something that would make me instantly change channels. But I'm not going to object to the fact that #1 is a motorcycle song. I'm going to use that as an excuse to embed this:



And now that the topic is movies and motorcycles, I have even more of an excuse to put this up, which I was going to put up anyway, because of the way it expresses the idea of driving for the sake of driving:



One last thing. This is my choice of best driving song:

Corvette pics.

1954:





1964:







I get lost in the reflections....



... the relative perfection of a car:

At the auto show.

Yes, there were many beautiful cars, like this 1954 Corvette:



But before we get to the cars, let's consider the people who go to look at the cars. Who are they? What do they wear? First off, one lady takes first place. Compared to her, no one else seemed even to be trying:



But there's a subtle elegance that -- to my eye -- is just as alluring:



And yes, ladies, accessorize...



... perhaps with a dog named Peanuts.

So, the women were beautiful, see:



Ah, but the car! The car!



I'm much more attracted to that.

It's a 1966 Corvette! Mosport Green -- a color that was only available in 1966. Doesn't that break your heart?

"These people are extremely well-suited, by personality and training, to deal with the stresses of being in space..."

Back on earth... not so much. And those "Right Stuff" days are over:

Today’s astronauts find themselves in a world much less glamorous than the original crews. While the Mercury Seven raced Corvettes, today’s family-oriented fliers are likelier to tool around in minivans.

Isn't the Space Shuttle itself sort of a minivan?

They spend much more time in suburbia than in orbit, and there are no more ticker-tape parades for the returning heroes.

Some former officials of the space program said that romantic thoughts and even love triangles were not unknown to the program but that it was up to management to watch carefully and intervene.

Mr. Abbey, the former Johnson Space Center director, said, “You’ve got some hard-charging people...

Hard-charging, in diapers!

"... and you need to manage them.” Problems like this “don’t happen overnight,” and so “you have to be sensitive to what your people are doing.”

Now and then on his watch, he recalled, “I stepped in, and people weren’t happy about it,” he recalled, but it was important to tell them that “what you’re doing is not a personal thing for you — it’s affecting a lot of people around you, and affecting your performance.”

Oh, so it's one big soap opera with them? I await the TV series: "Desperate Astronauts." The possibilities are endless, both on the ground and in the orbiting giant minivan.

Is there no dignity left for that archetypal American figure, the astronaut? Now, they are reduced to whimpering to the media: "we call them urine collection devices."

Is she judging you by your car?

Great topic for an article in the big, thick, advertising-padded "Special Section: Cars" in today's NYT.

And yet... cars do say something about you, don't they? I mean, something more than just how much money you were able and willing to spend on a car. But if you're concerned about your sex appeal, what should you drive? One woman says:

First, an expensive sports car, like a red Ferrari, should raise a red flag. "Something's lacking," she said. "It could be an appendage, but it could mean he has a void in his social skills."

Second, a dumpy car is O.K., but only if the driver makes up for it with something else, like a dazzling personality. Third, a funky car is not only all right but also sexy (like the refurbished taxi owned by a guy in her apartment building) because she thinks it shows a man's passions and interests.

My observation: Most people drive unbelievably boring cars! But what does that say? They need transportation and are not that interested in cars. Still, there is an irrational effect: boring car, boring person. You can overcome that, but you do have to overcome that. The reverse is true. We may think: exciting car, exciting person. But the presumption is easily rebutted.

Bonus info:

The idea that there are "chick cars" and "guy cars" is real to many people, said Joe Wiesenfelder, 37, the senior editor of Cars.com, a Web site that reviews automobiles and is affiliated with the NPR program "Car Talk." The radio show did an unscientific survey of favorite chick and guy cars, based on thousands of e-mail submissions from listeners. The survey found that the Top 5 Ultimate Chick Cars of All Time are the VW Beetle, VW Cabriolet, Mazda Miata, VW Jetta and Dodge Neon; the Top 5 Ultimate Guy Cars are the Ford Mustang, Chevy Corvette, Chevy Camaro, Ford F-150 pickup and Dodge Viper.

Roberts and prescience.

The NYT reports:

In 1984, [Supreme Court nominee John] Roberts twice wielded his wit to stop other White House staff members from writing letters for Mr. Reagan lauding Michael Jackson for charitable work.

"I recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough," he wrote in a memorandum in June 1984, using the approximate Latin for "voice crying in the wilderness." He added, "The Office of Presidential Correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson's P.R. firm."

Three months later, Mr. Roberts was batting away a new request. "I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson's records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter." He noted that a press report said that some young fans were turning from Mr. Jackson "in favor of a newcomer who goes by the name 'Prince.' "

Mr. Roberts asked, "Will he receive a presidential letter?"

1983 was pre-"Purple Rain," the time of "Little Red Corvette," "1999," "Delerious," and "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" ("Some people tell me I got great legs/Can't figure out why u make me beg"). Meanwhile, Jackson was at the peak of "Thriller" idolatry. Recognizing back in 1983 that Prince would overtake Michael Jackson — that's nicely prescient.

Nowadays, it's so obvious, Chris Rock gets a huge laugh saying:

"Remember back in the day when we all would argue who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Well, Prince won!"

Someday, maybe we'll be saying, remember back in the day when we all argued whether John Roberts would be as good as Sandra Day O'Connor? Well, Roberts won.

On buying a product that makes you think of a song.

Back when I was contemplating buying a Corvette, I thought about how, if I had a Corvette, it would make me think the song "Little Red Corvette" every time I got near it. But I love that song enough that I think I'd always feel good about it. But I do not like the song "Kodachrome" enough to want to have it run through my head every time I pick up my new D50:

I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph

I really could do without that.

Ever had an object that kept making you think the same song?

Or maybe you met a person with a name that's in a song. That might ruin a relationship. I wonder if anyone's ever even changed her name because she (or he) got tired of having people croon that song to her. I wonder what the worst name for that problem would be. And what would be the best one?

What is the first name equivalent of Corvette? (And don't suggest that there probably are some kids out there actually named Corvette.) I remember back during Beatlemania days being jealous of a girl lucky enough to have the name Michelle. But would I be sick of it by now if every boyfriend had sung it to me? I don't know -- depends on the boyfriend.

Shopping.

Nina has a nice post commemorating our shopping trip today, complete with photos of: the black Corvette that passed us, cute kids at the Apple Store children's table, and the two of us as photographed by a really nice digital movie camera at the Sony Store. By the way, I don't agree with her interpretation of the mentality of the man in the Corvette. I think he just wanted to hang around with another cool car. Nina was convinced the car looked "like a gun." In the Sony Store picture, you can see the carrying case I bought for my laptop. It's orange with three-dimensional dots!

Car shopping!

As you know, I wrecked my car. I don't know if it will be declared a total loss yet or not, but whether it is or not, I'm going to get a new car. If the old one is to be repaired, I'll repair and sell it. It is time for the new car. I blogged about replacing my cosmic green New Beetle not that long ago, but then I decided to keep it. I'm getting some email saying now I can get that Corvette. I know people are into the idea of my buying a Corvette. Do you really want someone who just squashed a Beetle driving around in a Corvette? I think it's time for the Audi TT. If you think I'm making a mistake, now's the time to stop me.



Nina was kind enough to give me a lift to work and is coming back to pick me up later, when we will head out to the Audi dealer. Not only do I need a ride to the place, but I am well aware of how having a shopping companion helps overcome inhibition. Remember when Tonya, Nina, and I all went into Tiffany's and caused each other to buy jewelry, when, it seems, if we'd been alone, we'd have browsed around a bit and breezed out. I tried to get Tonya to come with us car shopping too. Wouldn't it have been cool if we'd all gone to the car dealer today and come out with spiffy Audi TT coupes? It would be just like us with our matching Paloma Picasso zigzag hoop earrings.



UPDATE: A reader writes: "Consider that here in Madison the two newest car dealerships are: (1) Hummer; and (2) Jaguar/Land Rover." That doesn't sound like the Madison you non-Madison readers have been picturing, now does it? Maybe I do need something up off the ground to get through the deep snow? What do you think?

Another thing I'm not keeping up with.

I'm not keeping up with the snow shoveling and exam reading, as the last post shows. I also cannot properly keep up with my email. I lost my grip on it yesterday. The only other time I lost my grip on all the email from my readers was when I was debating the relative merits of keeping my Beetle (seen, kept, in the photo just below) or replacing it with either an Audi TT Coupe (the car I really want) or a Corvette (an absurd fantasy brought on by a brochure that came in the mail that many readers decided to encourage me to plunge insanely into). Yesterday, I lost my grip on the email because of two posts that were, apparently, highly provocative.



The first was the little thing about "crazy old aunt in the attic." I've done two updates, and really, that's that. I don't know why it provoked people so much. Maybe, they've been saying "crazy old aunt in the attic" and they need to feel that it's a good expression and here I am forbidding it, repressing them. But then James Taranto is repressing people who want to have fun mixing metaphors like mad. People who write safirically about language are such party poopers. Okay! I'm sorry!



The second thing that unleashed the email was the set of posts yesterday about beauty, and it's easy to see why these were provocative. I appreciate all the comments, but can't answer all the email personally. I'll post on this subject again in the future. I know it is something people really want to engage with. The feminist position that everything is patriarchal culture is offset by an extreme sociobiologist position that everything is evolution. I'll just say for now, in answer to all the people who emailed to tell me the sociobiology side of the story: I find both extremes highly implausible. Quite aside from email: I liked reading responses to those two posts in other blogs, especially this one in The Sheila Variations (which, speaking of beauty, is a really nice looking blog).

Drawing of the day.

Here's a photograph of a drawing that I like in part because on the left side you can see through to the drawing on the previous page. Another thing I like about the photograph is that red background, which happens to be the Corvette brochure that got me blogging about cars a while back. That gives me a good opportunity to save readers the trouble of sending any more "so are you buying the Corvette?" emails and say there was virtually never any chance I'd buy a Corvette (even though it won on the blogpoll)). So am I buying the Audi TT? That's what I'd buy if I were to buy a new car, but right now I'm keeping my Cosmic Green Beetle (to which I recently added a spectacular dent).

A Saturday plan.

It's nice to have a Saturday. The carpenters who have been yanking out and replacing pieces of the exterior wall to my house are off, and I can sit at my dining room table this long morning, idly reading the New York Times, intermittently blogging or reading email, and inking in the crossword puzzle, without feeling the cold air pouring through gaping window frames and without having to hear the carpenters' radio. They keep it tuned to a Wisconsin Public Radio station, even during the fund drive parts, but most of the time it's classical music that I hear along with their hammering and sawing.



It's a clear, bright day today. I haven't left the house yet. I'm just getting to the end of my NYT-and-blogging session, which has stretched out as it always does on Saturday. I do have two pressing household tasks to accomplish today.



First, I've got to rake the leaves in my front yard out into a pile by the street. I only rake the front yard. I've been relying on a self-serving theory of mulching for the backyard for the last decade or so. My backyard is ruled by a 200 year-old oak tree named Agatha, and in her domain, lawn is banished. There is only ground cover and whatever else she deigns to preserve. But the front yard leaves must make it to the street before the first snow falls, and today, with the temperature at 30, has chosen itself as the day when the task must be done.



Second, I need to put the new blinds up on the five six-foot windows in my bedroom that look out on Agatha's domain. These blinds have been lying on my bedroom floor for several weeks. The paint-splattered step ladder is right there by the first window, and the power drill is in the spot on the desk where I put it shortly after the blinds arrived. I keep thinking I'm about to put the blinds up, and all these things in my room are there night after night, mocking me. It's a wonder I can sleep at all.



And I've also got a non-household task to accomplish. I have forty law school admissions files to read. I'm thinking if I just start one thing, then, when I need a break, switch to one of the other things, I can generate energy and endurance out of the three distinctly different things that need to be done. I'm also hoping that blogging about this plan will create some crisp commitment to the three-task plan. I'm envisioning an update here later saying that it has all been done and an excellent night's sleep, after a hard day of mental and physical labor, in a newly darkened room with a clear floor.



UPDATE: No, this isn't the update I was envisioning. Scroll up for the description of my level of progress on the three tasks. This is an update to include an email:

I had no idea that carpenters in Madison were so educated. I would have thought they would be listening to classic rock, or sports radio. How very frou frou of them. Your life sounds so... so... I don't know. Like a wine commerical sort of. A leisurely Saturday reading the NY Times, sipping Celestial Seasonings or riesling, and trying to decide whether to get the Corvette or the Range Rover while the carpenters (who have all graduated Harvard and are slumming) carefully add a new wall and deck and wine cellar. In only a matter of moments, the educated and single man next door will look out his window and see you looking out yours watching him make Berilla pasta. I'm only too sure he will next ring your doorbell and you, carpenters and hunky neighbor will sit down to pasta with shaved truffle sauce, and discuss methods to reduce your massive 10,000 property bill (which must mean you live in a $7 million dollar home....though, math is not my strong point either).

I don't think it's math so much as Madison politics that this guy lacks knowledge of. Let's just say the property tax rate is about 14 times what he thinks it is and see if you can calculate the assessed value of my house. And if I am really so rich, why am I driving a five year old New Beetle, hanging my own blinds, and raking my own leaves. But as for the tea, it was Twinings Lady Grey!

So what about that car?

You may remember my "Should I buy a new car?" post, and you may have even voted in the poll, perhaps as one of the 805 who produced the winning choice: buy the Corvette! I hope you didn't imagine that I agreed to be bound by the poll. I notice Chevrolet has thus far failed to pursue the fabulous PR opportunity of giving me a Corvette. The fools! Don't they realize I would blog about it?! I would drive all over the U.S.A., taking digital pictures of the mythic landscapes, many of which would include the Corvette, and I would post these pictures prominently on my popular blog?!



I see that theCarblog, discussing my little blogpoll, simply assumes I have the money on hand to buy a Corvette. Didn't I just tell you about the carpenters I've hired to rebuild the exterior wall of my house? I may be a tenured law professor, but I'm also a tuition-paying parent, and I live in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, which is about to mail me its annual property tax bill for well over $10,000. Yeah, yeah, I know that inspires absolutely zero pity. Nor should it. But buying a Corvette is quite irrational. If everyone who voted for me to buy a Corvette would click on that Amazon Honor System button over there and make a $75 contribution, I'd buy the Corvette!

Car choices.

A while back, spurred on by a brochure for Corvette that came in the mail, I asked whether I should buy a new car or keep my old car. I did a blogpoll that a lot of people voted in, and I wrote later commenting on how impractical it would be for me to have a Corvette, but also talking about my personal history with Chevrolet. I noted that the only cool car I'd ever had was the 1961 Chevrolet Impala convertible that my father passed on to me, and that, when the time came to buy my first car, I chose a Chevy Chevette (the lesser 'vette). Chevrolet had a place in my family's story. I neglected to tell the older and more important family story that involves Chevrolet. In the 1930s, my grandfather, George Dewey Althouse ("Pop"), was a car mechanic with enough money to start his own business, faced with the decision which make of car to work with, a decision that came down to Chevrolet and Pierce Arrow. He chose the Pierce Arrow. That is the perfect example of making what is simultaneously exactly the right and exactly the wrong choice. Pop worked on beautiful cars before he went out of business.

What car did Pop drive when I knew him? A Pontiac. And it was a Pontiac that my father bought when he handed down the Impala to me. Before the Impala, the previous two cars my father had owned were both Nashes. I particularly remember the day he brought home a new car in the mid 1950s. The old car had never been a new car to me, so it was the first time I had ever experienced the event of introducing a new car into the family. Though it was the same make as the car it replaced, the new car was much bigger and flashier, in the style of the 1950s. It was a fleshy tan color with a white roof and the spare tire mounted -- who cares if it's ridiculously inconvenient? -- in front of the trunk. I remember being fascinated by the big fold-down armrest in the middle of the back seat. Another amazing feature of this car was the gas cap, which was hidden under one of the tail lights. Of course, in those days, people didn't pump their own gas, and my father used to get a kick out of pulling into the gas station, saying "fill 'er up" to the attendant, and watching the poor man search in vain for the gas cap. The light actually pulled out and up. But the most amazing thing about the car was the hood ornament. Scroll down on this page and you'll see one that's quite close to what we had. All the kids on the block were fascinated by this hood ornament. You think a Jaguar has a cool hood ornament? You should have seen the hood ornament on our Nash.

About that Corvette ...

I had thought politics was the subject that drew the most traffic to a blog. I was wrong. It's cars! Cars! Cars! Cars! People love their cars. I've gotten by far more email on that car post than on anything else I've ever written. And that was true even before it was linked on Instapundit. But I'm not much of person to be writing for car buffs, because I've been driving the same car for five years. And it's a relatively modest car, a New Beetle. It's certainly a sensible car. My previous car, which I kept for twelve years (including some years of overlap with the Beetle) was the most sensible, modest car possible, a Honda Civic. The only other two cars I've ever bought were a VW Jetta (in 1983) and a Chevette (the year Jimmy Carter was elected President). No, the Chevette didn't last from 1976 to 1983. I sold the Chevette (which at least was red) after less than a year and moved to New York City where I lived without a car. It was perfectly fine not having a car. So my lifetime car story is an amazingly modest and dull one. The only cool car I ever drove was the 1961 seafoam green Chevy Impala convertible that I drove to school every day when I was in high school, and I have my father to thank for that. And how little I appreciated that -- and just about everything else about my father -- in those days!



Now, I know the traffic -- good word for a car post! -- that has come to this blog over the "Should I buy a new car?" post was largely stimulated by the prospect of my buying a Corvette, the Audi and the Beetle being obviously much more sensible choices. It is the very lack of sensibleness that excites people. (It's like voting for Nader ... and, uh, Kerry's the Audi ... no, Bush is the Audi ... no, Bush should be the Corvette ... analogy abandoned ....) And the idea of buying a new car at all sprang up because of the Corvette brochure that came in the mail last week. And if you look back over that car-buying history of mine you can see that there's a Chevrolet theme. My father gave me the fabulous, classic Impala and, much as I rejected his values and believed in buying a small, fuel-efficient car in the depths of the fuel-shortage 70s -- the Impala got 6 miles a gallon -- I still bought a Chevy. (Hey, I still remember the Chevette jingle: "Chevy Chevette, it'll drive you happy!")



Doesn't it seem that some mystic force larger than myself wants me to get the Corvette? There's just one more thing I'm waiting for: Chevrolet, Oprah-like, gives me a Corvettte!