Japanese Sweep Consumer Reports, Autoweek

This is depressing and so frustrating. The Japanese have swept all automotive and truck categories in Consumer Reports and Autoweek. Forbes also agrees that US cars suck.

I disagree with that blanketing – There’s a few good cars that meet the metrics of excellence, but to no avail, Japanese relentless consistency has met the most important metric of all, that of perception.

They never abandoned quality, as did US companies after their brief flirtation with it in the eighties. At the end of the day, it’s the cheapest way to do business, but that day is way too long of a day for the dynamic ‘do’ American character that may always be shackled to a tactical business culture that must necessarily be overwhelmed by strategic cultures.

Been there, done that, with a company that spent $1.5B on quality consulting, but then threw more billions at another magic bullet, because quality wasn’t working from the bottom up, because its steps processed as waste to a ‘do’ culture.

(Sigh). Oh well.

Ed

99 Beetle. 03?/04? Volvo. No pickup – I do stuff, but don’t care bout wearin the identity – When I need a truck, I just rent, same w/landyachts – I don’t like to pay through the nose for crap that just lays around 99% of the time just suckin money and uglyin up the grounds. Plan to chop an airboxer VW camper, synergy drive, nothing fancy, just chopped, camping outfitted, iPod-Sat-DVD.

Freedom Is A Desease

My friend, Chris N (BTW, Try some of his coffee, Green Frog Roasting Company, the best crafted, yet – Be warned, there’s no going back, once you’ve had some ):

“Freedom is a disease which will conquer the world.”Spoken by a friend of mine in a conversation regarding world affairs, wars, rumors of wars, etc. At first the negative connotation of “disease” sounded strange and still does, at least a bit strange. Until, you look at it like a lot of other human nature issues which have limited scientific or logical explanation. i.e.- violence, genocide, love, hate…

His logic for this statement is to look at how many more people and nations have freedoms than when we were growing up in the ’50s & ’60s. One example, look at how China has developed with the help of the rest of the world and the application of free enterprise. Even the more socialist factions of the Chinese government cannot completely put the genie of freedom back into the bottle. His quote, “What happens when you let a caged animal out of the cage, does he go back in the cage?”

While realizing that wars will still happen, he believes that most of the world has experienced enough economic freedom to know that we all benefit from helping each other rather than fighting each other. He also believes that the seed of freedom will be planted in the middle east with Afghanistan and Iraq. The election won by Hamas must be respected by the west and that Hamas must also live up to its responsibility to conform to peaceable solutions to be accepted by the rest of the world.

Obviously, peace is not breaking out everywhere just yet. But, the world being shrunk down in terms of communication and travel and will this help further the spread of freedom in the near or long term?

So, is freedom a disease that will conquer the world? I hope he is correct.

Chris

My comment:

Kindasorta:It will conquer the world, but many of the results will remain the same – There will still be the wars, WMD-Weapons of MisDirection, Phalse Prophits, narcissism, greed, avarice, the Politiks of Scarcity, the Politiks of Experience, etc.

Freedom is a desease that will conquer a mostly ‘Homo Econonicus’ world; from jungle to Joplin, MO, from bedroom to boardroom, from Esalen to Evangelical Church of Sanctimony, from cosmonaut to commuternut; unheroically driven by expediency, disappointment, fear, anxiety, precognizance of death, mortality, entrophy, etc. Few are the Homo Sapiens, the heroes of the epic sojourn that was the birthright and life, so little realized by so few, of everyman.

So, freedom is a desease that will conquer the world, a world conquered by the metamorphosis of Homo Sapiens into Homo Economicus.

Ed

Shooshie’s brilliant comment:

The problem with mankind is that man is a pack animal, with pack animal instincts. The invention of writing gave man an opinion, and suddenly he decided that he was not like the others in the pack. History has been the play between individual dissociating from the pack when he’s got food, and trying to rejoin it when he doesn’t. Government has been the act of the pack trying to get the individual to share his food, while trying to promote his independence when he’s got no food.That behavior promises to be around for a long time.

Shooshie

Ed

Need Guy w/Pickup. Contact Democratic Party

The Democratic Party desperately needs a guy with a pickup truck to run for the presidency.

Americans only process strong identities, and a guy with a pickup truck would shout to America, “I DO things – I fish, I take my kids RTVing, I load up with cases of Cab for the cellar – I’m a simple guy but I’m not dumb. Au contraire, keeping it simple is how I built a multi-billion-dollar empire – I DO things. I can fix this.”

Unfortunately, Democrats just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, to an America that processes ‘do’ and not ‘think.’ Kerry talked about his war hero history to an America that doesn’t process history either. Luckily for GW, that was a bigger faux pas than Bush’s regular SNAFUs. But GW stays on track with what Americans want to hear. He might be vague and confused and a screwup, but he always promises to DO something, his way, no matter what. What exactly, doesn’t matter – He singlemindedly plugs away at “DOIN” this thang, and that processes. ‘His way or the highway’ certainly is offensive to many, but it’s very American and mythologic, especially in a contrived state of war.

Of course, there’s cracks, and stuff’s wearing thin (to the tune of historical debt and deficit by the “cut spending” blow smoke up your ass administration, Wiretapping/BigBrother will set you free, $284B in Iraq [as opposed to $150B estimate] and counting, lots of dead, burnt bodies, “nation building”, Halliburton, oil, WMD, etc), but it will be interesting.

If it’s not “tax and spend” Democrats, it’s “cut and spend” Republicans like crazed teenagers on a buying spree with Mommy and Daddy’s credit cards.

Ouch,

Ed

Just Do It

Those Portland, OR Nike guys were brilliant. They came up with that on their own, and didn’t need some fancy “headcase” guy to push an obvious hot button.

Americans “Do” things. We “do.” It’s our DNA, our history, our mythology. It’s what we “do.” We’re vital. We do things. We don’t screw around with impotent thinking. We don’t need to look before we leap – That’s for jack-offs that don’t get anything done. That’s what effete Europeans do, think, think, think, and all the while genocide happens in Serbville, and nothing happens, etc, etc. We get stuff done. We won world wars. We built the greatest industrial nation the world has known. We built Hollywood!!! We help our neighbors. We’re the good guys. We’re the great guys. You can do anything, be anything – Just do it.

“Just Do It” and live the mojo. Be the mojo.

Yeah, it’s just really a terrific fit, too, with the AMERICAN SENSE OF IDENTITY.

American Identity

Well, the thing is that Americans have a strong sense of identity. Everyone has one. Everyone is a Somebody. Any other way just doesn’t process. Bums, billionaires – Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s a unique Somebody, one way or another. We raise our children that way . . . our children’s children . . .

Well, there’s the great American mythology, too: The rugged individual (though the nation was built on rugged cooperation), the trailblazer, the Great American Everyman immigrant bootstrapped himself up as far as the vision of his Great American Dream. Nice stories. There’s a ton of them in the character DNA of Americans.

Well, anyway, Americans just don’t process weak identities. It’s not enough to just be a human being. In America, there are the phantoms, the vast unrecognized, and there are the real people, the people with identities, the Somebodies.

If you don’t have an identity in America, you can buy one. If you can’t afford it, you can get it with plastic.

And you’ll spend more of your plastic with companies with strong identities. They speak to you. They speak your language.

JUST DO IT,

Ed

Image-Narcissism

OK, this is just McLuhan, but bears repeating.

Close attention to the ancient tale notes that the Greek youth, Narcissus, was hopelessly infatuated with his image. This was not an unhealthy self-love as is erroneously believed today. His toxic love narcosis was with his image.

Today, many (often self-loathing) souls are relentlessly driven on, at any cost, in their chaotic pursuit of the images of their life.

It’s ironic, too, that a lot of the attempts with self-esteem are very bungled and only exacerbate the condition (and also, too, only exacerbate the hyperizing of the uniquely AMERICAN SENSE OF IDENTITY, but that’s the grist of another post

Ed

First Post: Delmondo Translation

I have delmondo.org as a domain, and so delmondo seemed to make sense for a wordpress subdomain.

Delmondo is Italian for ‘Of the World.’ Latin would have been preferred, but the Latin for ‘World,’ ‘Mundus,’ didn’t quite have the right sound.