At some point during the HBO broadcast of Obama’s inaugural celebration — I think it was when Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi, of all people, took “A Change is Gonna Come” to a new place — Alan expressed relief that Obama had won the election. Otherwise, he said, we might have been watching Kobe Teeth, Hank Jr. and other Sarah Palin-approved entertainers kick out the jams for the Real America.

Say whatever you want about Democrats, but we generally put on a better show.

I’ll shut up now.

But I thought the “This Land is Your Land” performance was fantastic.

OK, now I’ll shut up.

My favorite verse in “This Land is Your Land”

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

Woody, you old Commie, you. Now I’ll shut up.

But where were the Dixie Chicks?

OK. Shutting up now.

Why should I shut up, after all? Out of sensitivity to my half-dozen Republican friends? Knowing they’re seething, watching all this? Their gloom is something to behold, after all; I look around at the blogs and see a range of emotions from grim resignation to outright hostility (with a few outliers like Jeff TMMO, who has the audacity of hope). Here’s my problem: I have empathy. I know just how they feel, although I like to think that if I were Peggy Noonan, and had previously embarrassed myself with a toe-curling passage about the beauty of Ronald Reagan’s foot, I’d hold off writing that presidents are just men, after all, and those feet turn out to be made of clay. For a while, anyway.

It’s no fun to see the wrong guy win. So now they get to see what that’s like. Although I wonder about their perception, frankly. The other day I noticed the Journal Gazette, the other paper in Fort Wayne, the one I didn’t work for, has a Facebook page. I was reading its Wall posts, and came across this comment from a reader:

To be honest, I am not really a big fan of this newspaper. The editorial board is a throwback to marxist ideology.

I checked the Marxist editorial page. In a random sample, I found approval of two police shootings of civilians, approval of the Republican governor’s State of the State address, and… oh wait, here’s some Marxism — an endorsement that lawmakers consider residents’ opinions in setting school policy, and disapproval of administering the death penalty to a batshit-crazy multiple murderer (who was, of course, found fit to stand trial).

In other words, I don’t trust these folks’ baseline brain power.

Oh, well. Let’s enjoy these special few days before we can return to the utter delamination of our economy and individual job situations.

So, bloggage:

Farewell to abstinence-only education, and good riddance. I mean, I hope the other drivers on the road are safe operators, but I still wear my seatbelt, too.

Michael Kinsley asks the whimsical question: Just who is the voice of God? Answer: James Earl Jones, with Morgan Freeman as an understudy. Hollywood always has fun with God depictions, at least post-”The Ten Commandments.” Look, God is George Burns, a little old man with a little old man voice! And so on. Tell me, though: Won’t you be disappointed if you go to heaven and discover God’s voice is that of Bradley Schlozman?

I know what it’s like to be out of work and I empathize, so this is reported straight-up: The Wingnut Welfare Train is fully booked, seek alternate transportation. That is all.

I’ll say this for 8 below zero — when the temperature finally rises to 20 degrees, as it’s forecast to do tomorrow, it’ll be time to go for a walk in shirtsleeves. Nothing like relativity to reset your head. Don’t ever say, “It can’t get any worse.” It can always get worse. (I learned this in the newspaper business, and look what’s happening — it’s getting worse.)

Today, after dropping the carpool off at school, I swung by the lake to see what sunrise looks like over fresh water at minus-8. It looks beautiful, it turns out. There was some sort of light-distortion effect going on, with a second, weaker sunrise in progress a few degrees north of the actual one. I groped in my coat for my camera, and discovered I’d forgotten it. Groped for my camera-equipped phone. Forgot that too. So no picture of this remarkable phenomenon. But it could have been worse — someone could have rear-ended me while I gawked, and I wouldn’t have been able to call for help.

Of course, sometimes it could be worse. Ask all those people standing on the wings in the Hudson River yesterday: Will you be seeking a claim against the airline for the ruination of your shoes? I was reading the accounts of the non-disaster in my daily pile of newsprint, and reflected for the millionth time what a pleasure a well-edited newspaper is. When breaking news is doing so, most editors throw everything into the mix, flood the zone, and to some degree this is what you should do. But every battle needs commanders, and in situations like this, editors are more important than ever. This is one reason I’m not looking forward to the thousand-eyes-on-the-ground future of journalism; it reminds me too much of working for a lousy paper, when the main story went on and on and on with quote after quote after quote, and at some point you just didn’t care about another eyewitness account, you wanted information. I got more from this passage in this story than I did from all the yakking heads on CNN yesterday:

Ditching can be tricky. The first step is to extend the slats and the flaps, the movable surfaces on the front and back edges of the wings that allow the plane to fly more slowly and to descend to just over the water’s surface.

Another step is to hit the “ditching button,” which seals the openings in the plane. One is the intake, where the engines grab air to pressurize and force it into the cabin, essential to high-altitude flight. Another is the valve at the back that lets air out.

When the plane is flying low enough, it will generate its own cushion of air, a phenomenon called “ground effect,” that lets it fly even more slowly.

I have no particular interest in aviation beyond the obvious one of hoping my flight doesn’t crash, but that was interesting. I never knew of the ditching button, and now I do.

Yesterday Wolf Blitzer, that giant dirigible of atomized bullshit, asked a question of one of the passengers. It ran something like this: “Now that you’ve been through this incredible experience, crash-landing in this icy river, going through this rescue, seeing it all, a thought?” (It went on much longer, however, and droned in that Blitzerian way.)

A thought? The passenger said: “Wow.” Somewhere in heaven, Shakespeare weeps.

(The best after-a-near-crash quote I ever read ran something like this: “Two hundred fifty-three people on this airplane, and it wasn’t anybody’s day to die.” And that came from a regular-joe passenger, not a poet. So it’s possible.)

Speaking of regular joes, let’s segue to the bloggage with a Medal of Valor to Roy Edroso, tracking Joe the Plumber’s perambulations through the Middle East. By my count Joe’s handlers have now compared him to Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway and now, Roy discovers, Abraham Lincoln. I only wish I were kidding. My thought: Wow.

Via Jezebel comes word that Amy Poehler’s new sitcom will have her playing “a mid-level bureaucrat in an Indiana city parks and recreation department who’s looking to get ahead,” and who “finds her love of the democratic process tested as she faces defensive government workers, selfish residents and real estate developers.” Actually, that could be pretty funny. I know some people who would sign on as technical consultants in a Hoosier minute.

Finally, while I love Anne Hull’s work in the WashPost, I have to say this: Must every visit to rural America only serve to underline what Barack Obama meant when he made that “clinging to guns” comment? Tell me what you think.

I have a phone interview in five minutes. Later!

People tell me I should get Netflix. They’re always Netflixing some cool movie I can’t find at Blockbuster or on my eight million cable channels. It’s so easy, they say. I was a charter member and wouldn’t go back for anything.

What about the pop-under problem? I ask. They stare blankly.

I can’t support a company that is trying to kill me with stealth advertising, I say. Several times a night when I’m working, my laptop fan shrieks with fury: Too much Flash! My processors can’t take this! I hit F9, which instantly tiles all open windows, and find six Netflix ads, which I then have to close down one by one. Click, click, click, I, hate, Netflix.

There has to be a better way to do internet advertising. Disposing of the slicks that come with the Sunday paper is a pain, but it doesn’t feel like an encroachment. Also, it doesn’t feel stupid. Part of what I suspect investors in internet companies like about the whole business model is how hands-free it is. Set up a blog entirely without human help. Set up your blog to do your blogging for you, even. With the right scripting you can buy a book, participate in an auction, do all sorts of things without any unnecessary face-to-face, or even voice-to-voice contact. In the business world, this is known as efficiency, cutting those imperfect human beings out of the production process. What good are they? Computers don’t ask for health insurance.

And so it was that I was checking the forecast the other day, and noticed this:

Note the line under the green bar: Stay warm on the links. Weather.com is a virtual cavalcade of linky goodness, its main page clickable nine ways from Sunday, but that one took me aback. For one thing, 22 degrees hardly qualifies as golf weather. For another, every golf course within 100 miles is covered with several inches of snow. For yet another, even the ones that aren’t covered with snow generally aren’t open in the winter. Turf can’t repair itself when it’s dormant, and it doesn’t pay to staff the pro shop for a handful of lunatics who want to play golf in extreme conditions. Dude, unless you have tickets to Florida, the season is over.

But I couldn’t resist. I clicked:

I was taken to a page of “content” so thin as to make a standard Gannett tip box look like a PhD curriculum. How to stay warm on the links? Dress in layers. Make sure you spend extra time warming up before you swing. And what tips page could be complete without this line: And since body heat escapes through your head—Grandma was right about that—wear a wool hat. It’ll help keep your whole body warm. Wow, thanks.

There has to be a better way to do commercial material on the web. There better be. This is worse than junk mail.

Bloggage:

Sadly, No tracks the perambulations of the Mission Accomplished lie, but I’m more interested in the language issues. “We were trying to say something differently,” the president said. Did he mean “different,” and added the extra syllable to sound extra-smart? Or does he understand that “differently” is an adverb that modifies “to say”? Your call. And note his lackey’s usage: ““[That's] why he endears so much loyalty from people like myself and others who had worked for him.” You don’t endear loyalty, do you? He meant “engender,” right?

Steve Jobs does not have a “hormone imbalance,” he has something “more complex,” requiring a five-month medical leave. Apple stock doesn’t fare well and I don’t blame the market, for once. Surely Apple is more than Jobs, but how’d you like to hold stock in Martha Stewart’s corporate entity and discover Martha’s not feeling so well? There’s a fine line, in the business world, between a strong public face and a cult of personality. The solution: Replace Jobs with “Steve Jobs,” a virtual figure created by Pixar. Orville Redenbacher and Colonel Sanders have already paved the way.

Another charming essay by Roger Ebert, this one on goodness on screen.

Minus-one at the moment. Kill me now.

Sarah Palin neologism of the day: alikeness, n. the quality of, so to speak, sharing a characteristic or, I don’t know, maybe, trait with another. SYN: similarity. USAGE: “I would think we all tear up during the national anthem at the beginning of a baseball game, don’t we? That’s an alikeness between Alaskans and New Yorkers.”

If this lady keeps giving interviews, we might be able to make this a regular feature.

Current temperature: 9 Fahrenheit. Forecast: Light snow, followed by colder temperatures, with an overnight range of 4 above to -2. Just a warning: Mommy’s in a bad mood.

When you’re feeling this way, it’s interesting how everything you read in the papers seems to underline it. It’s really interesting to me how many of these Wall Street scumbags are opting for the Frankie Pentangeli exit, although, comically, some screw it up. There was an interview on NPR a few days ago with a financial historian who said the infamous suicides of 1929 are an urban myth, that close examination of newspaper reports and other contemporary records show no change in the suicide rate around the time of the stock-market crash, and the whole myth seems to have been based on a single report, later retracted.

Doesn’t surprise me. Bra-burning was the same way.

Anyway, this year it seems the fallen “wealth managers” of the Tarnished Age are convinced it hurts a lot less to fall on your own sword than to fall on some guy’s wand in the prison shower, I guess. Marcus Schrencker, the Indiana wussypants, crashed a perfectly good airplane before he was found trying to die in the ignominious venue of a KOA campground. He has one foot in the club of the successful suicides we discussed a few days ago and my guess is he’ll someday come to see he’s better off alive, but you never know. Just once I want to see one of these shitheads take a more medieval view of permanent redemption, cover his head with sackcloth and ashes and spend the rest of his miserable life in repentance, maybe dishing up beans in a soup kitchen.

I mean, Michael Milken gave up his toupees. Now there’s a sacrifice.

A bit o’ bloggage:

Ryan Seacrest tries to high-five a blind guy.

Someone asked the other day if I read that Albom thing in Sports Illustrated. Answer: Some of it. My eyes crossed when I reached the line, “(Detroiters) celebrate Sweetest Day” and I couldn’t go on. So no comment.

Leads that do not inspire confidence:

Timothy F. Geithner, the man tapped to lead the nation out of the greatest economic crisis in decades — and who would oversee the Internal Revenue Service — trekked to Capitol Hill yesterday to explain to senators how he made almost $43,000 worth of mistakes on his own tax returns.

These people cannot leave Washington fast enough for me. If only they were pursued by pitchfork-wielding mobs. More here, if you can stand it.

And now out into the cold and snow and too-much-to-do. At least I feel fortified with bitterness!

Joe the Plumber shows his crack:

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, ‘Well look at this atrocity,’ well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.”

Sarah Palin makes moose jerky:

“I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year and Katie Couric’s ratings have risen. And I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don’t know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration. That’s a little bit perplexing, but it also says a great deal about our society.”

I know people frequently fall apart when a microphone is on. I know not everyone is glib and polished and can reel off coherent sentences with subject-verb agreement at the drop of a hat. I know the rest of the world hears people like Palin and Plumber and thinks, “why, they’re just like me” and that anyone who would say otherwise is an elitist. OK. I’m an elitist. I’m old-fashioned enough to think the ability to express yourself clearly, on the page and in spoken words, is a basic skill everyone should have. But how is it possible that an adult who doesn’t have a gym membership is seen as lazy and unserious, but an adult who hasn’t read a book in the past year is simply busy and hard-working?

Palin is one of those public speakers who thinks extra syllables = extra smart. I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don’t know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration. Remember the “use fewer words” resolution? Let’s see if we can boil this down, eh? [Cartoon device lowers over sentence, lights flash, smoke puffs. Device lifts.] “I was exploited.” See how easy?

Joe we can’t help. He’s just a moron.

Much work to do today — starting with shoveling snow, quel surprise — and not enough time to do it. So just a bit of bloggage:

Via Defamer, “Marley & Me” spoilers for those dim enough to not have figured out the ending.

After the Golden Globes I keep hearing that Mickey Rourke’s face is the result of his ill-starred boxing career. You know: He earned that face in the ring. Oh, I don’t think so. This man is a plastic surgery addict.

Hey, California! Join the club! Love, Michigan.

Off to fire up the snowblower. Today’s predicted temperature drop: 25 degrees. Groan.

Here’s how the morning was scheduled: Take Kate to school, then home to repack the mojo bag (mobile journalism), swing by the mammography center for the annual you-know-what, then break free in time to catch the unveiling of the third-generation Prius at Cobo. And it all would have worked if there hadn’t been a fire alarm at the cancer hospital where the mammography center is located, which threw the proverbial monkey wrench into things. But it was probably useful, as there’s nothing like standing out in 20-degree cold with a bunch of cancer patients to make you decide things like Priuses (Prii?) aren’t all that important.

I considered bagging the m’gram entirely; I hadn’t been called yet, and so wasn’t in the position of the woman who’d gone in just ahead of me, left standing in her winter jacket over the gown, her bra and shirt in a plastic bag. But I couldn’t leave the company, and I’m not sure why. There was a woman trying to calm a young girl who obviously had a host of serious disabilities, quietly having a panic attack over the honking of the alarm. There was an old man in a wheelchair, heaped with blankets. And last out of the door serving our stairway was a young woman holding a baby, escorted by two others who were carrying an IV stand. The tube ran into the heaps of blankets and fleece keeping the two of them warm, and I didn’t know who it was attached to, but from the way the little party was acting, I suspect it was the baby. Do babies get chemo? Is it even possible for a kid not even a year old?

It cleared my head, certainly. The alarm was silenced after about 15 minutes, and after about five more, we were able to return to our individual appointments, but by then the schedule was FUBAR. I was freed from the Big Squeeze exactly 15 minutes before the Prius was scheduled for unveiling, and even I can’t drive that fast.

Fortunately, others were there. The new Prius looks a lot like the old Prius, but it’s supposedly bigger, faster, this-er and that-er.

As a consolation prize, how about a Tesla?

This is the Silicon Valley supercar, the all-electric totally hot totally green sports car. You need Steve Jobs’ salary to buy it — it costs well over $100K — and, well, it’s had a few problems. Daniel Lyons wrote about the car in Newsweek a few weeks back:

Tesla Motors didn’t just set out to build an electric car. It set out to teach Detroit a lesson. Back in 2003, when these guys from Silicon Valley were launching their company, they didn’t apologize for knowing next to nothing about the automotive industry. In fact, they took pride in this. They were rebels, disruptors, technogeeks operating at Internet speed—and they were convinced they could do better than the lumbering, clueless Big Three. Tesla’s lead investor, Elon Musk, a charismatic Web entrepreneur who made a fortune as a cofounder of PayPal, last year boasted to BusinessWeek that “Silicon Valley is the best in the world at everything it does.”

They must sell hubris in bulk at Whole Foods. Today, the Tesla, in Lyons’ words, is:

…a classic Silicon Valley product—it’s late and over budget, has gone through loads of redesigns, still has bugs and, at $109,000, costs more than originally planned. Tesla’s first 40 roadsters went out of the factory with a drivetrain that needs to be replaced. (Tesla will do the rip-and-replace for free.) Its second car, a sedan, has been delayed until 2011. Tesla, based in San Carlos, Calif., has raised $150 million and burned through almost all of it, plus millions more put down by customers in the form of deposits (the company won’t give an exact figure). Now, hit by the downturn, Tesla has laid off 20 percent of its staff, closed its Detroit office and borrowed money to stay afloat.

“The best in the world at everything it does.” I love people willing to say things like that on the record. You just know the followup stories will be even better.

Jalopnik really is the go-to source for auto-show blogging, at least for photos. (The Free Press and News provide a more holistic picture for Detroiters.) You can see the foxy model from my picture yesterday on Jalopnik’s, taken at the reveal of the Maserati Quattoporte. (Quattroporte means “four models.” No, wait. Let me check.)

I don’t know if I’ll make it back downtown after all. Things wrap up tomorrow at lunchtime, and then it’s Industry Days, the Charity Preview and finally the hoi polloi gates open Saturday.

A few people have asked about the pictures. Yes, they were taken with my new camera. (If you click the photos, it takes you to the Flickr page, which tells you the exact model, and if you click that, you get taken to another page that gives you everything from the price range to a selection of other Flickr pix taken with the same model.) Yes, most of them were shot on point-and-shoot settings. (I did a few on the Sports setting, to raise the shutter speed for moving rollouts.) Yes, it takes very nice pictures, but — don’t fail to consider the show floor is engineered to produce beautiful pictures, with artful lighting, lovely staging and an army of polishers who stand ready to banish any dust mote that dare show its face. Which is to say the camera is great but it’s not just the camera.

OK. I still have some paid work to do today, so I’d best get to it. A good afternoon to all. Be back whenever.

Before I pack it in for the night, howsabout a bunch of pictures?

Here’s Honda’s late run at the Prius — the 2010 Insight:

It’s head-to-head competition because it, like the Prius but unlike the Civic Hybrid, comes only as a hybrid. Remember those stories last year that pegged the Prius’ popularity over other similar (and frequently cheaper) hybrids to the fact that its owners wanted to make a statement? They didn’t want anyone to look at their cars and wonder whether it was a hybrid. Well, that’s the Insight for 2010.

Car models — that is to say, pretty human women standing next to vehicles — used to be standard equipment at the auto show, but now it’s mainly the European luxury brands that use them. Three brunettes stood by three Maseratis all damn day, in stiletto heels no less, striking poses at random. They find their excellence through passion:

I am so glad I’m only working for myself this year. This is no way to do journalism, friends:

Somewhere in the middle is Rick Wagoner, I think.

Talk about some sweet wheels. My dogs were barking after a few hours, and I could have used one of these:

You want to know the difference between old and new media, there it is. The News or Free Press would never accept a perk like this, but I guess Gawker Media figures if it’s transparent — and there’s a strip somewhere on there that acknowledges Chrysler’s courtesy — it’s not an ethical problem.

Some sort of concept from the Toy people:

I think the birdies and flowers are pushing it, but that is the overwhelming impression given by electric vehicles; the pollution is somewhere in Kentucky or China, and the driver wears only a halo.

Finally, I don’t covet cars as a rule, but I covet this one:

I took one look at it, and my brain said, in a British accent, “That is one beautiful motor car.” A Bentley Azure T. They served champagne after their press conference. (I declined.) As long as we’re on the subject, here’s the payola disclosure, for transparency’s sake — I accepted a mini-burger from the Smart people, a Diet Coke from Chrysler, a cookie from Bentley and one beer, with an accompanying foam cozy, from Kia, even though I thought the car they were celebrating — the Soul’ster concept — looked like it was constructed from plastic. One of the designers took a bow; he had “creative” facial hair, a closely trimmed chin with voluminous side pieces. I was so rattled I grabbed a Corona.

Back tomorrow (I hope). Now to the showers, to wash off all the fabulousness.

Halfway through Day One, we seem to have established a theme:

But I’m wondering: Until electricity is generated by converting your bad karma into good vibes, aren’t we simply transferring our energy demands to things like coal-burning plants (the standard in my part of the country), river-destroying hydroelectric or, gasp, nuclear? I mean, I’m all for zero emissions, but at some point it’s like squeezing the toothpaste around in the tube. Oh, well. Life is the journey, not the destination. Speaking of electric, here’s Chrysler’s concept:

It’s the 200c EV, another range-extending mostly electric hybrid like the Volt — the first 40 miles are all-electric, etc. What makes this car special — or horrifying, depending on your outlook — is its unprecedented digital FunPak, which includes onboard wifi, and I only wish I was kidding, but you’ll be able to access FaceBook from your car, and your car will have “mobile buddies.” I look forward to the status updates: Taking Fat Ass to Domino’s again. I’ll bet she orders the lowfat cheese. The Chrysler executive sketched out a scenario where you’d start your car via your iPhone, and if it gets stolen? You pick up the same phone and tell it to come home immediately, young man, and while it won’t exactly do that, you can disable it wherever it stands and take a picture of the thievin’ driver. It also has something called “teen mode,” to rat out your kid.

Signs and wonders.

“No laser light shows” seems to be the theme at the post-crash NAIAS. GM relied on people power — its own employees:

Go ahead and laugh, but these folks are nothing if not sincere. I told you this was a company town. They cheer without irony.

The cool news of the GM press conference was the introduction of the Cadillac Converj concept, and no it’s not a typo. The Converj is the luxury version of the Chevy Volt, the gas-electric hybrid which, if it lives up to its hype, will make the Prius look like a Hummer. It has a 40-mile all-electric range, with a miniscule gas engine that will kick in after that. It’s designed to be your “city car,” the short-hop vehicle. It’s also set to cost $40,000, a lot of money to pay for a lifestyle statement, so you could argue the need for a luxury version is sort of questionable, but never underestimate what people will pay to tell the world, “I’m green.” I’m assuming the idea is to see if the public warms to the Volt, at which point the price could fall like all new technology. The Converj is a concept, which means GM hasn’t committed to production. I tried to look at it and strip away all the car-show cool that won’t make it to the street — the low-profile tires and those snaky mirrors — and I still liked it. Lousy photo; as you can see, there was a bit of a scrum:

Jalopnik got a wider shot as it came down the runway. That’s Bob Lutz in the passenger seat.

GM also unveiled the Orlando, a seven-seat don’t-say-SUV — check the Freep for that pic, and a “microcar” called the Spark, a rebadged Beat:

You don’t know whether to drive it or pat its wee head.

Off to stake out a seat at Chrysler, and see how their sackcloth-and-ashes act will play.

One of the things the exit of Nissan did for this year’s North American International Auto Show was free up a bunch of exhibition space. A lot of companies that had been in the Cobo basement came up to the main floor, which left the basement open to become…

…the Enchanted Hybrid Forest!

You come down the escalator, and the first smell you get is mulch, an odd thing to smell in the iron grip of winter around these parts. And then you step around the corner, and there it is: A little test track winding through a grove of real trees, flowers, a fountain. In the pit area, a number of vehicles available for drives:

That’s a Ford Escape. Must be a prototype.

The Enchanted Hybrid Forest has everything but hemp-wearing fairies and magical squirrels. And, at the moment, drivers — the show’s just getting underway. More in a bit.