Man, I wish I had a credential for the auto show. I wish I’d seen this up close and personal:
Somewhere in the middle of that herd is the 2009 Dodge Ram pickup. Although the stunt was a hoot, the Freep said the press had a hard time concentrating on the truck. As the press conference commenced, the milling herd found its own fun “mounting each other.” Flickr photog Vigo74 has a nice set here.
I’m glad NAIAS is going on this week, because the primary, just a day away, isn’t doing much to hold anyone’s attention, or even catch it. The GOP is said to be in a tight three-way race, with McCain perhaps holding a margin-of-error edge over Huck and Mitt. Michigan is supposed to be Romney’s walkaway, but as more than one Michigander has noted, all the people who remember George Romney fondly are now registered voters in Arizona and Florida. Slate’s Daniel Gross points out that Romney 2.0, besides being an expat, also represents everything a contemporary Mitten Stater should despise — a free-trading, private equity-lovin’, Muslim-hatin’ empty suit in a state that’s been badly bruised by the first two and currently holds the nation’s largest concentration of assimilated Muslims who don’t like being lumped in with Osama bin Laden. He’s also not only Romney 2.0, he’s a carbon copy of Dick DeVos, a rich-kid son of privilege (Amway) who tried to sell the same message to Michigan last year and got his head handed to him.
We’ll see. Maybe the Democratic vote-for-the-worst crossover will amount to something. I said last week that I’m a crossover voter of long standing; in Indiana, the only way to feel not totally irrelevant in many contests was to vote in the Republican primary, and I did so, many times. Some people think this is wrong, but I never lost a moment’s sleep over it, as I know in my heart that if the tables were turned, those folks would do it to the Democrats in a nanosecond. No prisoners, not this time.
So how was everybody’s weekend? Mine was eventful. I started a class in video editing at the Detroit Film Center. Of eight people in the class, five are journalists looking to update their skills; here’s guessing our group project will turn out to be a documentary of some sort. We watched some student shorts to get ideas, two of which were portraits of crazy people. There’s a time in your life when the ravings of people off their meds are interesting, but that’s in my personal rear-view mirror. I guess making short films about people who claim to get sustenance from drinking their own urine beats burning them at the stake or making them saints, however.
Friends, I have a week of furious work, with houseguests in the middle. Expect short shrift, but expect something. I’m still showing up this week, but you may have to carry the conversation.
Danny said on January 14, 2008 at 10:01 am
I live (edit: I mean, “love”…whew) the comment on this photo.
There was a, ummm, pile up…
Classic.
Oh and then there is
It may have even been a rear ender….
Oh, and the children were confused photo.
421 chars
Connie said on January 14, 2008 at 10:05 am
I still have fond memories of Governor George Romney. He always came to march in the Tulip Time parade when I was a kid. Doesn’t mean I would ever vote for Mitt.
163 chars
Dorothy said on January 14, 2008 at 10:18 am
The photos were great, but the captions were even better. Doesn’t look like many cow patties were left as souvenirs. Just that little bit at the end of the photo set. Man the span on those cow horns is positively astounding.
227 chars
MichaelG said on January 14, 2008 at 11:07 am
The man said “Mount Up!” and the critters took him seriously.
61 chars
LAMary said on January 14, 2008 at 11:07 am
In one of the debates I heard Mitt refer to those who have no health insurance as people who have opted out of the system.
122 chars
MichaelG said on January 14, 2008 at 11:48 am
Here’s yer video. Warning: Includes graphic scene of cow pie and gratuitous bovine bopping.
http://jalopnik.com/344260/detroit-auto-show-slow+moving-steer-steal-the-show-from-the-2009-dodge-ram-1500
203 chars
nancy said on January 14, 2008 at 11:59 am
I just compared Jalopnik’s video to the Freep’s, which featured no shots of the pile-ups and rear-enders. It had fewer jump cuts and smoother audio, but managed to leave out the one thing that had people laughing. (And the Chrysler guy even ad-libbed a funny line! “The bulls want to see the truck!”) So much for journalism.
BTW, Michael, as an ex-Cali farm hand I’m sure you know we weren’t seeing actual bovine bopping in those scenes, just standard herd-dominance behavior. Right? I mean, there’s no way a sane person would take an uncut male into a crowd like that. Please tell me I’m right.
598 chars
Julie Robinson said on January 14, 2008 at 12:38 pm
A good mid-day laugh, MichaelG!
There was an NPR story on Morning Edition about the presidential candidates own health insurance, as well as whether they were offering it to their campaign workers. I only heard a bit of it, but several candidates refused to answer the questions, and Romney was one. The story made the point that under the Massachusetts law Romney signed, he would be required to carry health insurance. Also, that as cancer survivors, three of the candidates (Giuliani, McCain, and ?) would find it impossible to buy health insurance on the open market at any cost.
589 chars
MichaelG said on January 14, 2008 at 12:51 pm
All I know about cows is what I see in the supermarket. I never owned any. The next door neighbor had a couple of (maybe) steers and they were OK on the other side of the fence. They ended up in the freezer. Chickens and a couple of goat sisters were my speed and even the goatie girls were pushing it. All that mating stuff is a little organic for me. And that “uncut male” talk sounds a bit creepy.
Jalopnik is a fun site. I used to spend a lot of time in Alameda were “Murilee” shoots old cars. Nice place.
522 chars
Sue said on January 14, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Several months back, Ana Marie Cox of the Time Magazine Swampland blog wrote an entry about the Boston Globe/Mitt Romney dog-on-top-of-the-car story. Comments were in the hundreds, I think, and I laughed out loud at dozens of them. The level of snark that day was monumental, and I actually felt hopeful after reading the entry and comments. This country will not be made great again by Republicans or Democrats or Theocrats or Humanists or whatever. Who’s going to take the country back? People with a sense of humor, that’s who. The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert had better get up to speed, quick. We got a country to save.
633 chars
Kim said on January 14, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Longhorns: the next companion animals. Who knew?
48 chars
Jolene said on January 14, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Julie, the other cancer survivor among the candidates is Fred Thompson. He’s had non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which is reported to be in remission.
142 chars
joodyb said on January 14, 2008 at 5:00 pm
the fact that there are 3 cancer survivors among the GOP hopefuls is a jarring stat. i’m interested in the open-market comment, too – because an employer would be forced to pick them up, as the law now stands, right? that was the case in our family, though it was more than a decade ago.
287 chars
Dave K. said on January 15, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I know cancer is not a laughing matter but Jolene’s comment made me think of Larry David on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, asking, “Isn’t that the ‘good Hodgkin’s’…?” Thank goodness for HBO.
186 chars