Almost Wordless Wednesday: Cars In Parma

That's some tight parallel parking there.

While in Italy I noticed that the cars were nearly all quite compact. In Florence the roads were especially narrow, so small made sense. In Parma, the roads were less constricted, yet the cars were still small, in part because the high taxes on fuel as well as the cars themselves. What was especially prominent were motorcycles and motorbikes. I also saw a few one-man (or one-woman) Smart cars.

On one occasion in Parma I decided to take photos of the emblems on the hood of all the cars on a singe street near the city center. In this particular street I don't believe I saw two that were identical. Here are the photos I took.

There were other cars that I saw but including a cool Ferrari.

Evidently I failed to photograph the one Ford Fiesta I saw. 

This particular batch was lined up on one specific street.

As for big diesel pickups, I saw none.

Related Link: Car Logo Meanings

Kissinger's Shadow by Greg Grandin Presents Henry Kissinger in a Most Unflattering Light

I'll start by saying I believe it is wrong to hate. There are people, however, whom I do not respect. Some I even find despicable.

It's somewhat amazing how many dubious and dark events have occurred in my life that seem to have Kissinger's fingerprints on them. Let's start with Chile. Watch the film Missing, in which Jack Lemmon goes to South America to find his son. It's a film about when "the generals seized Chile,' which Arlo sang about on his 1976 album Amigo in the song "Victor Jara." Lemmon begins the film as a patriotic American, and ends up coming home home disillusioned by the lies, red tape and obfuscation of our State Department.

In the year previous to this story the Bangladesh massacre occurred. What began as a tragic monsoon that ripped a swath through East Pakistan ended up in a slaughter carried out by the West Pakistani government using American supplied weapons. Kissinger was in the thick of it, defending American non-intervention in the name of detente. When I was younger I believed that the Concert for Bangladesh (George Harrison and friends) was about the monsoon. There was much more going on, and it was much darker.

The bombing of Cambodia and the secret war we were conducting was yet another U.S. mess that Nixon's sounding board and advisor defended. Of course "secret bombing" is no secret for those whose homes and livelihoods are being destroyed. The massive destruction of North Vietnam for no purpose was another Kissinger "achievement." 

I could go on, but I'd only be repeating content I shared in July extracted from a book titled Writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Greg Grandin, who teaches history at Yale University, was recipient of the Pulitzer Prize this year for his book The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. He seems to specialize in Latin American studies, but not simply with regards to dates, events and places. His narratives explore the minds of those who decisions shaped their times.

That's what makes Grandin's book on Kissinger so powerful. The Amazon reviewer MM had this to say about Kissinger:

He was incredibly manipulative and exchanged one set of twisted truth and political position for another in order to keep himself on the inside of every administration from Nixon, to Ford, to Reagan and Bush I and the neoconservatives who hated him at the beginning of the Reagan years. He morphed and manipulated himself into them so they all eventually let him and Kissinger Associates into their inner sanctum, right through the George W. Bush Administration. Most recently he has had meeting with Donald Trump according to press reports.

What gets me is how this man who left waves of destruction in his wake was tapped for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Simply unbelievable.

When Seymour Hersh published his thoroughly researched indictment of Kissinger in the late 90s, the media defended Kissinger. A couple years later, Christopher Kitchens wrote The Trial of Henry Kissinger in which he details Kissinger's dirty deeds and calls for him to be tried for war crimes. 

* * * *

Why do I bother writing about these things? In part, I write in order to attempt a measure of understanding with regards to these matters. Also, I am making an effort to understand how Mr. Kissinger can be so applauded and heralded. Is it because he's a Celebrity in a Celebrity Culture? 

Voice 1: He's famous; he's a Somebody. 

Voice 2: Yes, but he behaved like a monster and hurt people with impunity.

Voice 1: Even so, when he dies he will be celebrated as a hero of our generation. 

Voice 2: (rolling his eyes) I think I'm going to be ill.

* * * *

Henry Kissinger was an American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The primary aim of Glandin's book is to show Kissinger's influence with regards to America's expanding imperialism during the past 60 years.

(Photo: Discussing Vietnam at Camp David. National archives.)

* * * *

This review at Chegg Books is well worth reading and digesting.

A new account of America's most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America's current imperial stance. In this fascinating book Kissinger's Shadow, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin argues that to understand the crisis of contemporary America, ”its never-ending wars abroad and political polarization at home”we have to understand Henry Kissinger. 

Examining Kissinger's own writings, as well as a wealth of secret recordings and government documents, many of them recently declassified, Grandin reveals how Nixon's top foreign-policy adviser helped to revive a militarized version of American exceptionalism centered on an imperial presidency even as he was presiding over defeat in Vietnam and a disastrous, secret, and illegal war in Cambodia. 

Believing that reality could be bent to his will, insisting that intuition is more important in determining policy than hard facts, and vowing that past mistakes should never hinder bold action in the future, Kissinger anticipated, even enabled, the ascendance of the neoconservative idealists who took America into crippling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Going beyond accounts focusing on either Kissinger's crimes or accomplishments, Kissinger's Shadow by Greg Grandin offers a compelling new interpretation of the diplomat's continuing influence on how the United States views its role in the world.

You can find the book on most websites where books are sold. Here is a link to Chegg Books, where you either rent or buy.

Solzhenitsyn Re-Affirms My Low Opinion of Henry Kissinger

My low regard for Henry Kissinger began when I was waking up to what was happening in the world in my later youth. Kissinger was an insider in the Nixon White House, end of story. I was biased, no doubt influenced by a strong feeling that Vietnam was an injustice, and that Nixon corruption was real.

Still, I knew little of the depth of Kissinger's badness. The movie Missing--Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek--gives a glimpse of the dark side of our State Department in Central and South America during the 50s and 60s. Kissinger was a major player in the Chile debacle.

Years later, reading Sy Hersh's autobiography Reporter added new dimensions to the kind of malodorous influence Kissinger was. The press seemed to love him, seduced perhaps by his sonorous accent. Yes, he projected something, much like our fascination with British accents and Irish brogue.

The manner in which Hersh was ambushed by Ted Koppel when his book on Kissinger, was released is eye-opening. The establishment, and mainstream media, still loved the guy, decades after the Nixon-Ford era. It's pretty revealing that neither Koppel nor either of the guests who lacerated Hersh in front of a national audience had read Hersh's The Price of Power, the topic of discussion. Hersh had dared to criticize this iconic figure and had to be publicly flogged for it.

More recently I found myself absorbed by Paul Thomas Chamberlin's The Cold War's Killing Fields and who should come up again repeatedly as a scoundrel? Yes, Henry K. When Bangladesh was suffering after a devastating cyclone, and West Pakistan did nothing, Kissinger advised that Nixon and the U.S. do nothing to alleviate the suffering because it would "make the Pakistan government look bad."

And because their government did nothing to help the traumatized East Pakistanis after the monsoons and flooding that caused so much death and destruction, the East Pakistani people voted for the opposition party in nearly every voting district. This pissed off the ruling party, so they sent in the army and slaughtered the masses using U.S. supplied armaments. Millions fled to India.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Kissinger's response to the behavior of West Pakistan toward its Bengali brethren.

Kissinger sneered at people who "bleed" for "the dying Bengalis" and ignored the first telegram from the United States consul general in East Pakistan, Archer K. Blood, and 20 members of his staff, which informed the US that their allies West Pakistan were undertaking, in Blood's words, "a selective genocide" targeting the Bengali intelligentsia, supporters of independence for East Pakistan, and the Hindu minority. In the second, more famous, Blood Telegram the word genocide was again used to describe the events, and further that with its continuing support for West Pakistan the US government had "evidenced [...] moral bankruptcy".

Makes one ill to think about it, but Kissinger was the influencer who again moved the hand of power.

* * * *

And so... As I was last night reading the Writings of Aleksandr Solzenitsyn, edited by Michael Loyd Chadwick, and once again came across some barb comments regarding this man. A chapter titled Henry Kissinger begins on page 75. It's not pretty, and only confirms what I have previously only sensed.

The style of this book is somewhat different. Solzhenitsyn divides each thought into a headline and then a little text, like a news story with more details. I am going to share here only the headlines from this four page article.

Failure of U.S. Judicial Authorities to Uncover the Real Assassins of Kennedy*
Need to Speak Bluntly about the Activities of Kissinger
Kissinger's Policy of Unending Concessions to World Communism Demonstrate THat He Is Anything But a Diplomat
Kissinger Attempts to Put Diplomacy at Its Lowest Level
The Art of Diplomacy Has a Wide Spectrum of Possibilities
The Great Diplomats of the Past
Kissinger's Endless Obscuring of Facts
Kissinger's Opponents Are Always Winning and He Is Always Yielding
Should the U.S. Surrender Its Position to the World?
Kissinger Does Not Possess the High Diplomatic Intellect Ascribed to Him
It Is Not Diplomacy to Negotiate Continual Concessions
The Vietnam Peace Agreement Prepared the Way for the Quiet Surrender of Three Countries in Indo-China
Kissinger's Nobel Peace Prize Was the Ultimate in Political Pornography
Disregard By Israeli Leaders of Kissinger's Shuttle Diplomacy in the Middle East
The Real Goal of Future Convergence of the U.S with the USSR Is Kept Hidden from the American People
Surrender of the West Approaches an Avalanche Stage
The U.S. Government Will have No Emergency Exit
Genocide In Cambodia And Vietnamese Prison Camps Is Not Peace
The Peace Aimed At by Kissinger and His Associates Has No Moral Loftiness

In short, Solzhenitsyn had a pretty low opinion of this "Golden Boy" who loved the spotlight in his time, and the Nobel laureate doesn't mince words.

* * * *
The title of this book of Solzhenitsyn's writing is World Communism: A Critical Review. It begins with an intro by Michael Loyd Chadwick, who edited this volume.

In 1975, a year after Solzhenitsyn had been exiled from the Soviet Union, the author had been invited to Washington D.C. to speak to the AFL-CIO. The became a grave problem for then sitting president Gerald Ford. Shouldn't this great advocate for freedom be invited to the White House? Should we not welcome the man who put his life on the line to reveal to all the cold brutality of Soviet totalitarianism?

But no, Henry Kissinger stepped in and beseeched President Ford to not do such a thing. Why? Because befriending Solzhenitsyn would be bad for detente, and evidently Detente was Kissinger's life force.

Not only did Kissinger interfere with (ultimately blocking) the White House visit, he also said it would be "diplomatically inadvisable" for the president to attend the banquet at which Solhenitsyn was speaking. Members of the State Department and NSC whom had been invited were quietly pulled away and did not attend either.

Much more can be said, but I think you get the picture. It's only a small section of the book but when I entered into it, the story leaped off the page.

Related Links
George Harrison & Friends: The 1971 Concert for Bangladesh 
Reporter by Seymour Hersh is a Must Read for all young journalists
*Murder Most Foul: Dylan Dishes Up a New Meal with a Feast of References
Solzhenitsyn Indictment of the West Still Stands

Hood Ornaments

There are probably dozens of reasons people love cars. For many it is simply the memories associated with them. Cars take us places we might not otherwise have been. Occasionally even over a rainbow.

Another reason people, usually guys, like cars is the power they emanate. Guys with muscle cars come to mind here... or the Fast and Furious tuner crowd.

Here at the NSRA Street Rod Nationals in Louisville, it is clear that cars used to be more than vehicles to take you places or extensions of one's machisimo... They exude style. From the lines and curves of the form itself to the embellishments, the vibrant colors and chrome ornamentation, there's really nothing like it in the world, a splendiforous breath taking, dream making wonder.

To me, one of the most fascinating elements on so many of the older cars, is the hood ornament. Many car manufacturers embellished their designs with a symbol which the car wore like a badge right on the front center portion of the hood. Along with the grille, the hood ornament often helped give a car its distinctiveness. Many used it as their primary brand identifier.

When we lived in Mexico, I purchased a hood ornament for my '72 Ford station wagon. It was not a great car in terms of style, but that chrome eagle in flight sure made it feel cool to me.

So for today I just wanted to share with you a couple hood ornaments which I saw yesterday. Feel free to click on each image to enlarge. And just out of curiosity, in what kinds of ways do we ornament our lives today?

Why GM is in a World of Hurt

I think the '64 Pontiac Catalina was our first GM car. We moved to New Jersey that year and it was one of those pretty aquamarine blue cars that were popular in that era. I remember the color because my mom and I used to argue about it. She said it was green and I said it was blue. Aquamarine is one of those colors you have a hard time pinning down.

The '54 Ford dad had that year was a little easier to peg as far as color was concerned. Robin's egg blue. I remember that car because when our house was being built, we lived in a rental property about a mile away. On one occasion mom was supposed to drive us over the hill to the house in that car. Dad was going to meet us there, so he left. I was packing the trunk full of stuff, and one item I dropped in the trunk wasn't supposed to be there... the car keys.

After a while, when we didn't show up, Dad eventually returned. He was not very pleased.

Out next family car was a Pontiac, also. Our neighbor next door had an Oldsmobile. Eventually mom and dad graduated to Buick's. My dad's youngest sister and her husband eventually graduated to Cadillacs. These were they kinds of decisions that made General Motors king of the hill in the auto industry. The gave the moniker Heartbeat of America to their Chev line, but the reality is, General Motors was the heartbeat of the auto industry, and the auto industry was the heartbeat of America.

But the world has been changing. American cars just ain't what they used to be. For a wide range of reasons. The quality of the merchandise is one of them. The old joke about hoping that when you purchased a car, it was "a Wednesday car" may have had a small basis in reality. While shooting a couple photos for an ad years ago, the perfection of the Toyota's windshield made the Corvette's window seam look amateurish.

On our last family trip to New York a few years ago I was astonished to see, as we entered the Lincoln Tunnel from Manhattan, that not a single car around us in any direction carried a U.S. nameplate. And so, Ford's strength has diminished, and GM is on the ropes. It's hard to imagine losing 74 billion dollars since 2004, and easy to see why they went to Washington for a handout. Now, this week's double whammy.

First, they announced they will be missing a debt re-payment. Evidently they don't have the money and don't have any more credit rating to get a short term package from the banks.

On top of these they are being forced to recall 1.5 million vehicles to fix a potential oil leak problem. This can't be a cheap fix and has to be a huge headache to execute. According to the announcement, "The recall affects various Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac models equipped with normally aspirated versions of GM's much-utilized 3800 3.8-liter V6."

Specific vehicle make, model and years include the following:
Buick Regal 1997-2003
Chevrolet Impala 2000-2003
Chevrolet Lumina 1998-1999
Chevrolet Monte Carlo 1998-2003
Oldsmobile Intrigue 1998-1999
Pontiac Grand Prix 1997-2003

These things no longer affect U.S. workers alone. While at a SEMA Show in Vegas a few years back I had breakfast with a fellow from China whose Beijing company employed 65,000 workers making parts for GM cars. Years ago I recall purchasing a tail light cover to replace a broken one on our '79 Pontiac and was told I would have to wait six weeks for the part to be shipped here from Korea.

For very visual summation of the forces, internal and external, which have crushed General Motors, check this out. My gut tells me this story isn't over yet.

Source for recall story: imakenews.com

Battle of the Brands

"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." ~Hedy Lamarr

About a month ago I read that Barbie turned fifty this year. In my opinion, she still looks pretty good for her age. A little nip and tuck along the chin line and some exercise to keep the muscle tone hasn't hurt any. She never seems to put on an ounce of weight, unlike a lot of other dolls, so apparently fame never led her to change her values, or or diet.

Back in the early Sixties my mom used to sew Barbie clothes for my cousins as well as other girls in the 'hood. For the purpose of fitting the clothes she sewed she had a couple Barbies we dressed for success, for the beach or for the ball at my mother's whim. Because it seemed unseemly to her, she eventually bought a Ken doll to keep her boys from playing with Barbie.

Barbie eventually became the unrivalled brand champion in the international toy category.

One of the hallmarks of capitalism is the manner in which companies battle for marketshare and top-of-mind awareness in consumers. In marketing, companies seek not only to define their brand, its name and assets, but also to place it in the center of the consumer's mind.

Branding is a way in which a company differentiates itself from the competition. You can see this in the variety of flavors in which rock and roll came to America in what is known as "the British Invasion." The Animals, Beau Brummels, Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Rolling Stones, The Who, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix were groups which crossed the seas to win the hearts of young Americans, with varying degrees of success. (Hendrix himself was from Portland, but his group originated across the big pond.)

Over time, with the onslaught of fame and the music scene tabloids, the individuals within these groups became brands in and of themselves, again with varying degrees of success. Each of the Beatles went this route, Eric Burdon of the Animals, Jimi Hendrix, Clapton. If you said Jagger, everyone would know what you meant. He was clearly defined -- the androgynous guy with big lips and hip walk -- and even became a caricature of himself. Keith Richards represented everything you didn't want your daughter to associate with. The Beatles played up their innocence and charm, though eventually their various personas emerged.

Brand images are not always a positive. The Standard Oil Company spent a great deal of money trying to come up with a unique company name that had no liabilities in any language. They came up with the word Exxon. Unfortunately for Exxon, the image that pops immediately to mind when much of the environmentally conscious public hears the word is Exxon Valdez. The 1989 oil spill off Alaska's Prince William Sound continues to rankle.

The top five global brands of 2008 were Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft, General Electric and Nokia, in that order. Number six on the list was Toyota, the highest ranked automobile company. In 2001, Ford was the world's top automotive brand, listed eighth, one slot behind Disney. But today, slotted at 49, Ford exemplifies the U.S. auto industry which has slipped badly.

When we say beer, Anheuser-Busch wants you to think of Budweiser, the King of beers. Ranked #33 in the 2008 list of Best Global Brands, Budweiser is now being challenged by a Chinese beer of all things.

Actually, Budweiser's number one seller is Bud Lite, which proves the company made a good move back in the Seventies when they saw the lite beer trend coming and fought hard to establish their cred in that arena. But SABMiller claims it sells more of its branded product Snow and has now become the world's best selling beer.

Well, back to Barbie, who in 2001 was ranked 84 in the list of Best Global Brands. Times have changed. In the current top one hundred, Barbie failed to make the cut. That's why she's recently been spotted in several Manhattan taverns crying in her beer. And rumor has it she's also been cited for drunk driving on Long Island. Twice. Fortunately, by keeping it out of the tabloids it hasn't done too much damage to her brand image... unlike some other ditzy blondes in the news, for better or worse, though in that celebrity culture, sometimes even bad news is good, as long as they're still talking about you.

PHOTO: While in Sedona we noticed that MacDonald's, home of the Golden Arches and the world's eighth-ranked global brand, was sporting Green arches, a very chic, New Age attire.

GM Suffers Unhappy 100th

Armchair quarterbacking from the sidelines, things are not looking up in the U.S. economy any time soon. A year ago I had dinner with a publisher who predicted a bad year in 2008, and it looks like he weren’t a-kiddin’. Unfortunately, the shakeout that hit the housing and financial markets has not worked its way through the system yet. More fallout is clearly in the cards as the auto industry staggers to remain the viable, reliable heartbeat of America.

Since the end of 2004 General Motors, biggest of the Big Three, began losing money in great rivers of red ink… 73 billion dollars now, and still flowing. GM, which should be celebrating in this year’s 100th anniversary, is sweating, hands outstretched, seeking help from the rich uncle who just finished throwing gobs of money at the banking sector.

Third quarter losses for GM were $4.2 billion. GM shareholders have seen the value of their holdings fall 82% this year alone. Many industry watchers have said that without federal aid, the company could collapse resulting in a loss of 2.5 million jobs (after factoring in those many businesses that subsist on sales to the giant automaker.)

Dennis Virag, president of the Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, told Bloomberg Television yesterday that "either the federal government provides money for a bailout and lets the industry retool, restructure, and move ahead, or the industry dies.''

How did this happen and how bad is it really? Did GM put itself in a bind by making cars that consumers weren’t interested in? The top selling cars last year again were Hondas and Toyotas.

I remember the Ford slogan two decades back, “Have you driven a Ford lately?” My 2008 answer is, "Have you driven a Honda lately?" No offense, but “Buy American” is not going to fix our woes unless American manufacturers pull their heads out of the sand and start making quality cars that consumers want.

GMs woes, howwever, are not all their own making. The banking collapse has been a devil of a problem for all the automakers. In 2007, more than 80% of people wishing to buy a new car could get financing as opposed to 33% in September this year. Tight money has left an already languishing U.S. auto industry in dire straits.

Yesterday, the drums began beating for a bailout. Too many people have a vested interest in keeping GM alive. But where does this money come from? I’m not sure I really want to know.