I was never a huge fan of Michael Jackson, but on the other hand it would be foolish of me to deny that he was a force of nature for much of my lifetime, defining musical pop culture in much the same way Elvis Presley did for my parents' generation.

What… Read full post »

Every year, on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, I have a tradition: I watch the Indianapolis 500. I have done so for at least a quarter-century that I can recall; the first clear memory I have is of listening to the 1982 race on radio at my godparents' house in… Read full post »

I've been stewing on the controversy swirling around Carrie Prejean for some time now. More than I usually would with such a story, and I think it has to do with the fundamental disconnect between the actions Carrie Prejean and those like her take in the name of the same figure,… Read full post »

(There will no doubt be some minor spoilers here. Proceed at your own risk.) 

Nichelle Nichols' initial dissatisfaction with Lt. Uhura's lack of development and visible duties on the original Star Trek series has become something of a legend, albeit one that is perfectly true. According to… Read full post »

A continuation of where I left off. 

5. The Hudson & AMC Hornet

Hudson Hornet produced 1951-54

AMC Hornet produced 1970-1977

Okay, so I'm cheating a little here. The Hudson Hornet is a bona fide classic, its AMC successor...not so much. Hudson's iteration was a grandfat… Read full post »

As the discussion of the future of the American auto industry has waxed and waned since late last year, I have wondered...at what point did cars, and American cars in particular, become bland boxes? Chrysler did a good job combatting this in the 90s with the PT Cruiser and to a… Read full post »

The word "role model" gets tossed around and debated so much, it's become meaningless. Charles Barkley once famously caused controversy when he said he shouldn't be a role model just because he could play basketball. That controversy always puzzled me because Barkley was absolutely correct; at the he… Read full post »

It started when I posted a diary at DailyKos, basically a rant at a "gotcha" article that made the rounds of the AP wire knocking President Obama for stating that a 1908 Ford Model-T was more fuel efficient than many current SUV models. (You can read the article here.)

I got about… Read full post »

First of all, I'll let Stephen Colbert have his say. 

 I believe it was Charles de Gaulle who said that graveyards were full of indispensable men. Having read Atlas Shrugged (well, most of it--I made it all the way till about halfway through John Galt's interminable mono… Read full post »

In my most recent OS post, I talked about my dream of converting a classic Studebaker into an electric vehicle. Just the fact that that is a remotely realistic possibility, and something that can be done at less than the price of even a low-end new car, is something I find… Read full post »

We all have our dream cars. It shouldn't surprise anyone who reads my brain droppings here on OS that I'm particularly fascinated with Studebakers. Since at least my college days, I've wanted to get the 1951 Commander Fozzie Bear drives in The Muppet Movie and have it painted the same way Dr.… Read full post »

"We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president." 

Ah, Rush Limbaugh. It's so tempting to call you names, like "porcine windbag waste… Read full post »

My best friend in high school was British, and he was the one who turned me on to Doctor Who (he also took the picture above, of Doctor number six signing a book for me). But there's one aspect of following the show that can be bittersweet for a fan:… Read full post »

 (1963 Studebaker Lark Daytona)

For the majority of my life until I left for college I lived in South Bend, Indiana and I still consider it my hometown. And in South Bend, you live in the long shadow of two things--Notre Dame University and the ghost of Studebaker. If… Read full post »

I have two dogs, a Golden Retriever-Husky mix, and a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I love them both, but I hearby nominate the corgi as a candidate for first dog. They are smart, loyal, funny dogs, protective but not prone to bite (ahem, Barney), and once you have one, you'll be hooked. … Read full post »

Everyone's seen the picture. It's in every school social studies book. It's President Harry S Truman triumphantly holding up the most famously wrong newspaper headline in American political history--the Chicago Daily Tribune's declaration "Dewey Defeats Truman."

The election of 1948 has beco… Read full post »

It all started as, well, not quite a joke, but as a sort of campaign of benign harassment to convince a college friend to vote. My friend Jim emailed me and some others about a pressing concern. Our friend Rickey wasn't sure if he was going to vote this year. He… Read full post »

My in-laws and the majority of my wife's extended family live in and around Elkhart, Indiana, or nearby in southern Michigan. I hadn't thought that Elkhart, dependent on RV manufacturing and ancillary businesses, would have been unduly affected by the double-whammy of high gas prices, but it has.

The… Read full post »

I must begin with a word about my "blogfather," the blogger who has influenced me more than any other. It's not Markos Moulitsas, or Jeff Tiedrich, founder of The Smirking Chimp, which I used to frequent back in the day; it's not Joe Conason, Glenn Greenwald, Cenk Uyger or Robert Schlesinger,… Read full post »

That was what my son's babysitter asked me today, since he wouldn't be coming in next week. It broke my heart, and amidst all the news about bailout deals and whether they were on or off made me wonder if this is what we were coming to.

We are not phasing… Read full post »

In the midst of an ongoing debate about the presidential election, a family member forwarded a side by side comparison (completely unbiased, natch) of John McCain vs. Barack Obama. It lists McCain's 22 years experience in Congress against 170-odd days for Obama, though I'm not sure how they arrive at… Read full post »

I call bs on the story that Sarah Palin gave a speech, then waited nearly 9 more hours before reporting to the hospital near Anchorage to give birth to her fifth child. Her premature, special needs child.

Given that rumors regarding Bristol Palin being Trig's mother have been proven to be… Read full post »