Baggy Paragraphs

“Taken,” the second-highest-grossing movie of 2008, is a not particularly thrilling thriller starring Liam Neeson as the retired CIA guy and one-man killing machine Bryan Mills, who goes to Paris (onboard the Falcon tri-jet belonging to his ex-wife’s new husband) and hunts down the Albanian mafia who have kidnapped his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy). With her mother’s complicity, Kim has deceived her father as to the real purpose of the trip. Amanda has already been to France and can practically, like, speak French. The two young ladies say they will be spending the entire summer in the Louvre, comparing the brushwork techniques of Baroque painters. Of course, their real mission is to follow U2 from show to show: “Uno, dos, tres, catorce.” Meanwhile, the Albanians’ racket involves the kidnapping of western girls, hooking them on drugs, and employing them as sex slaves. Kim’s value is particularly high because she’s a virgin. (We’re supposed to believe she grew up in Beverly Hills and made it unscathed through high school.) Going to the apartment where the girls had stayed, Bryan finds Kim’s phone. From its memory card he downloads photos showing where to start his search. He commences a singularly ruthless dispensation of the entire Albanian mafia, including the electric chair for one a chief perp. It’s remotely amusing to watch and goes by fast enough, but what’s lacking is any clue about Kim’s internal state. A couple of scenes showing her predicament would add some snap, but instead we’re just presented with Bryan’s monomaniacal pursuit. (Maybe it was decided not to go this route because none of the supporting cast seem to have any acting chops whatsoever.) He eventually finds Amanda OD’d and intercedes just as Kim is auctioned to a lascivious sheik, and it’s a shame his lovely yacht gets shot up like that. Showing no sign of yearning for the narcotics the other girls succumbed to, Kim is returned to her mother in L.A.  

“Taken” Tokens:

Date night value: Not very high

Best attribute: It goes by quick

Least endurable aspect: Neeson’s continually dyspeptic, scowling face

Bob Lutz addressed the Automotive Press Association at the Detroit Athletic Club. 

To be admitted, Kirk Seaman and I put on ties and jackets. We looked great!

Kirk’s take on Lutz’s oration is first:

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It was Thursday, May 28, 2009, and General Motors was balanced on the brink of bankruptcy. Outside the entrance of the DAC, the air was perfumed with the scent of gently exhaled mildew.

Inside, GM product guru Bob Lutz was about to address the APA for the first time since he announced his retirement in April. The fact that the lunch was not standing room only speaks either to the irrelevance of what news Lutz might have to share or the inability of tapped-out expense accounts across southeast Michigan to pony up the requisite $40 event fee. Or both.

Unless they are huge fans of the DAC’s Chicken Vermont and rice pudding (count me among that number), those who did not attend did not miss much. First, Lutz softened up the crowd with a few lines about gathering items for his impending retirement: bumper stickers. Let him among us who does not appreciate the universal appeal of bumper-based humor such as “Some Mornings I Wake up Grumpy. Other Mornings I Let Him Sleep In” or “At My Age, Flowers Scare Me” throw the first stone.

But after that, the presentation was more or less warmed-over GM speak—a tune we’ve heard before. To summarize Lutz’s speech briefly, and with apologies to the Who: “Meet the New GM; Same as the Old GM.” In other words, “We’ve got great product in the pipeline and just wait until it hits the showrooms. GM will return to its rightful place in the pantheon of automotive glory.”

And Lutz may be right. There is some good stuff on the way. The Cadillac CTS Coupe is an example, and Lutz related the story of previewing the upcoming product portfolio to the members of the federal government’s automotive task force. “They loved the CTS Coupe, but I told them they wouldn’t be interested since it would have 560 horsepower, and I kept trying to show them the fuel-efficient models we have coming. But they kept asking me about the CTS and when it will be out. It just shows that normal people get turned on by great cars.”

But will the good stuff get to us? The glaring omission in Lutz’s speech, and the major hurdle between now and said good stuff, is bankruptcy. Lutz stated at the outset that he wouldn’t address the issue since he knows nothing other than that something momentous is about to occur. But until the bankruptcy issue is resolved—and who knows how long it will take for GM to emerge-the great products such as the Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon, Chevrolet Volt, and the Pontiac Solstice Coupe won’t be enough to pull GM out of the ditch it has spent the last 30 years digging for itself.

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Here’s my take on Lutz:

Car sales stink. But people will eventually have to buy new ones. How much longer can you ride around in your old Grand Am? Lutz didn’t say whether the government might have to subsidize those future purchases. He did say some foreign governments have already subsidized our present purchases through their monetary policies. What a dreadnaught, that weak yen!

I expected to hear Lutz blast the federal takeover of Detroit or to launch a tirade against GM’s impending forced bankruptcy. Instead, still towering above us in his late-70s, he danced around Obama’s policies like a metallic blue morpho in the rain forest. The Auto Task Force is regarded as a blessing. “Finally,” he said, “for the first time in history, [carmakers] have the ear of the Administration.” No more chasing down the odd elected representative in the hall of the Congressional Office Building to make your case.

Obama recognizes a wealth-producing industry when he sees one, according to Lutz. The goal isn’t to run Detroit but to get it back on its crosstreads. That’s why, with the industry and the administration getting along so well, the new tag line is, “GM—Yes, We Can!”

Meanwhile, Lutz insinuated a plea for a national energy policy, which will help carmakers know the future of gas prices. “We will pass through the cleansing fire of a radical restructuring, in or out of court,” he said. The result of this cleansing is to be liked. Hey, GM’s past of “brilliantly executed mediocrity” is over. Design reigns supreme. A blind tasting of current cars reveals consumer preference for the company’s products. Now to reinforce that conviction once the labels are revealed.

Lutz says that carmaking is a “highly resilient” business. Now is “a great time for transformation.”

And don’t worry, because car buyers will continue to have good choices.

New CAFE requirements? Global competition? B-b-b-r-r-ring ’em on.

Transcript of testimony by the Duckling Savior, of Spokane, Washington, in his appearance before the Truth Commission, as established by the United States House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on Divers and Dabblers:

 

Commissioner Merganser: Mr. Duckling Savior, according to the report submitted to this commission by the Justice Department, you have now saved two broods of ducklings that jumped off the second-story ledge of your office building, first in 2008 and again in May of this year.

Duckling Savior: That is correct. In 2008, the mallard hen built her nest on the ledge. Everyone in the office watched the process and was aware of it. The night after the eggs hatched, I lay awake worrying about the ducklings. First of all, how would they get down? Directly below, it’s just a concrete sidewalk. This is downtown Spokane we’re talking about. The concrete is very, very hard in Spokane. And I lacked any previous experience in mitigating animal instincts. I’m a real estate loan officer. There was also the second question of how they would get across Riverside Avenue.

Commissioner Merganser: So in 2008, the mother duck flew down to the sidewalk and—what would we say?—beckoned her ducklings to jump off the ledge.

Duckling Savior: Also correct. And the first one jumped. I mean, it just clobbered the sidewalk. That’s when I ran downstairs. The second duckling was almost ready to heave itself off the ledge. I caught it with my bare hands and set it down. Then the process was repeated with ducklings three through nine.

Commissioner Merganser: And for this you abandoned your duties as a loan officer?

Duckling Savior: Well, I had to call a widow about refinancing her home, which was paid off, in order to get her some cash for a Vegas trip. But it could wait.

Vice-Commissioner Scoter: Mr. Duckling Savior, I’ll just point out the photos show ten ducklings in all. Had you checked with the EPA or your state department of fish and wildlife there in Washington about the necessary permits before getting involved in this?

Duckling Savior: No, I hadn’t.

Vice-Commissioner Scoter: Had you played outfield in the minor leagues, at least.

Duckling Savior: Ma’am, I was on the baseball team in high school but honestly didn’t get into very many games. Mostly, I was just a pinch runner.

Vice-Commissioner Scoter: So you had never played at any professional level?

Duckling Savior: True.

Commissioner Merganser: Let me proceed with the questioning about events of that day in 2008. Is it true that after all the ducklings had jumped and you had caught them, you put them into a box that you then carried two entire city blocks to the Spokane River?

Duckling Savior:  There was a significant amount of traffic.

Commissioner Merganser: Could you tell us what the box had contained when it was full?

Duckling Savior: Copier paper.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: Mr. Duckling Savior, had you given any thought whatsoever to using a box that had contained, say, a shipment of luxury gardening tools from Smith & Hawken?

Duckling Savior: Do we have a Smith & Hawken in Spokane? I don’t even know.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: You might have ordered from the catalog.

Duckling Savior: Aaaaaahhhhh…

Commissioner Merganser: Mr. Duckling Savior, you are directed to answer the question.

Duckling Savior: No, I hadn’t given that any thought.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: Did former Vice President Dick Cheney supply you with that box?

Duckling Savior: Absolutely not. The only time I’ve been anywhere near Dick Cheney is when we took the family skiing at Jackson Hole, and I believe he was at his place there for the holidays. It’s hard to say we were near him even then. I think you’d call that proximity, at best.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: If not Cheney, was it Scooter Libby who supplied the box?

Duckling Savior: No way.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: Were the ducklings hooded while you traversed the distance between the sidewalk and the river?

Duckling Savior: Again, absolutely not.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: But photos were taken of the captives.

Duckling Savior: Yes, you see them, but the ducklings weren’t hooded.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: Was there ever the attitude, either of your own or among the office staff, that this was some sort of holiday or even a joke?

Duckling Savior: The entire staff was deeply concerned—except for one person in the commercial department who came out with everyone but went on down the street to Starbucks.

Commissioner Merganser: All right, let’s move forward to this year’s episode. Please tell us what happened.

Duckling Savior: It was pretty much the same thing. The mother duck returned to the ledge in late March, I guess.

Vice-Commissioner Scoter: Was any attempt made to dissuade her?

Duckling Savior: One of the security staff said something about setting out poisoned oats. But the office manager pointed out that ducks don’t really eat oats in the first place. Or even millet.

Vice-Commissioner Scoter: Do you know if this statement about oats was made after the security person had met with the CIA?

Duckling Savior: I do know there were some meetings with the FBI, but I thought those were about money laundering.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: Mr. Duckling Savior, sometimes this commission has found you less than forthcoming.

Duckling Savior: I’ve told you nothing but the truth.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: Can you explain why, if you never had any professional baseball experience, you risked catching the ducklings barehanded instead of using a net?

Duckling Savior: If it means being out of compliance, then next time I will.

Vice-Commissioner Eider: You mean to tell us that you contemplate allowing this to go on again in 2010?

Duckling Savior: Birds tend to return to the same nesting site year after year.

(Here, the commissioners confer about recommending a Treasury Department infusion of TARP funds into the bank and a replacement of the board of directors and CEO. The gallery becomes quite agitated and Commissioner Merganser finally bangs his gavel.)

Commissioner Merganser: Once again, the ducklings weren’t hooded?

Duckling Savior: Once again, Commissioner, you have pictures that show you they weren’t.

Commissioner Merganser: But the mother duck was allowed to lead the ducklings through the busy streets to the river.

Duckling Savior: It’s because the streets were closed for a parade.

Commissioner Merganser: No thought was given to the possibility that bagpipers might tread upon the ducklings? Mr. Duckling Savior, I’m afraid we find you quite negligent in this. And add to all of it the fact that you allowed your actions to be videotaped for national broadcast… I fear that this commission has no other recourse after this hearing than to turn its findings over to the Justice Department for additional investigation. That will be all today. We will honk—call you—if anything else is needed.

My wife heard me say on Sunday morning that Castroneves would probably win the Indianapolis 500, but my heard was with Danica. The race had its boring periods—what long race doesn’t? That’s when you flip through a magazine. Meanwhile, the play-by-play was often useless when something noteworthy did happen on the track or in the pits. Marty Reid & Company were several ticks behind and had difficulty identifying cars. How can they spend three weekends at the Speedway and not instantaneously recognize any given car? I might be one of the few who appreciates Scott Goodyear as a commentator. But Eddie Cheever is like the human appendix, a vestigial organ that serves no important purpose and can be removed with no measureable effect. He makes me long for broadcasting comeback by Bobbie Unser.

As for Castroneves’s sobbing, yes, he went through a lot with the trial and all, but you’d never see A.J. Foyt do that. As soon as the checkered flag waved, the National Weather Service put out a flash flood warning. (Oh, to have been in the same room as Tony Stewart during the Victory Lane deluge!) But Castroneves isn’t the only tearful Brazilian. When Emerson Fittipaldi won his first 500 he blubbered that he had wanted to win Indy since he was a wittle boy. (When he won his second 500, he drank OJ instead of milk, which was pretty rude.) I wonder if an Uruguayan would shed as many tears as a Brazilian. The only Uruguayan I know who has ever raced Indy cars, Gonzalo Rodriguez, died in a 1999 crash at Laguna Seca. It’ll probably be a while before the next Pampas-to-Brickyard crossing.

The race was a bit on the boring side because no car had an advantage. The IRL formula is tuned too fine. There used to be significant variations between cars, between chassis and engines; hey, an entry or team with a clear advantage adds tension and drama to the race. (“Watch Murphy in the Havoline/Valvoline/Vaseline Twin-Engine Special work his way back through the pack after that unplanned stop for hemorrhoid removal.”) Danica finished third because of her pit crew. Not to say that she didn’t drive a perfect race. She’s amazingly steady and rarely makes a mistake. But she gained positions exclusively through her team’s efficient pit stops.

So many crashes! Why is it unsurprising that Marco Andretti didn’t last a lap? His brash comment about Mario Maraes was deeply arrogant and self-serving. Sorry, Marco, but trying to pass someone on the outside in the short chute between One and Two just seconds after the green flag’s fall is the epitome of imprudence. For anyone who disparages Danica, just compare her results to Marco’s. And Graham Rahal’s declaring himself one of the cars to beat but slamming the wall on Lap 55 goes into in the annals of unsupported braggadocio.

Meanwhile, how Tony Kanaan merely limped away after clobbering the wall was mind-boggling. Justin Wilson’s slide into pit lane could have ended much worse. And poor Vitor Meira! Raphael Matos was evidently going to storm to the front, executing a grand (or grandiose) pit strategy, but being outside Meira at the entrance to One was just crazy, and Meira took a Cedar Point coaster ride. Here’s wishing him a full recovery. This year’s race saw the rookies and youngsters causing more mayhem than ever. In comparison, Milka Duno (last among those running) sparkled like a jewel. In tribute to the fastest woman from Venezuela, I just might purchase the “I am a fan of Milka Duno” license plate frame from her website.

“Broken Wings,” published December 1900 in Century Magazine, deals with Henry James’s common theme of love squandered through human folly. Pride has been at work here. Happily for the reader, this time, it isn’t too late to salvage things:

 

Stuart Straith acknowledges himself as the déclassé member of a weekend party at Mundham (“the immense house all seated aloft in strength, robed with summer and crowned with success”). Straith represents art, while among the group of five-and-thirty were some great persons. So far he hasn’t spoken to literature’s Mrs. Harvey, whom he once knew well, and wonders whether she has moved up the social ladder. He sees her during the afternoon seated in a bower with the Ambassador. At dinner, she is placed across the table from his Excellency (his own request). When Straith’s eyes finally do meet hers, she seems “strange.”

That evening, Straith was “reduced to a vigil unalloyed”—Jamesspeak for going off to bed alone—but Mrs. Harvey, a novelist, is sought out by young Lady Claude. Nothing sexy, though: she’s an aspiring author. It is Mrs. Harvey’s privilege to disabuse her of the notion that any money is to be made through literature, at least, any that can be kept. In fact, she confesses her own destitution, with but two dresses for the three days at Mundham and a maid who’s actually her cook, disguised. She can’t even say why she’s invited here, except that London is “wild” and such things happen. Lady Claude then happens to mention Stuart Straith. She’s hot for such a “good-looking, distinguished ‘sympathetic’” fellow. Now the secret is revealed: a decade earlier, after Mr. Harvey’s death, Straith could have had Mrs. Harvey “if he had lifted a finger.” But influenced by the steady rise in value of his paintings, he saw a grand future for himself. She was too small for him. That is why she supposes he belongs among these great people.

Sometime afterward, Straith and Mrs. Harvey find themselves seated together at a theatrical performance. He chides her about the ambassador. They feint with each other about the reasons for having been at Mundham on that weekend. He asks if he can come to see her. She prefers going to his studio instead. Then they reveal their reasons for being at this play. She is stunned to learn that he has designed some of the costumes. “For the fee,” he explains. He is equally stunned to learn that, whereas her books used to bring in several thousand per year, she currently writes the “London Letter” three times a month for the Blackport Banner. “The new books, the new plays, the new twaddle of any sort—a little music, a little gossip, a little ‘art.’”

She shows up at his tidy studio with a notebook in order to get a column out of her visit. She isn’t good at this sort of work and anticipates being fired. She receives three pounds and ninepence from the Banner, whereas his commission on the costume design brought him four pounds and sixpence. “But I’ve only done, as yet, that one. Nothing else has offered.” Neither can deny being unhappy; Mrs. Harvey says she will accept his pity. The boy brings them tea, and when all is settled he tells her how hurt he had been by her rejection. She had been so successful, he so small—a revelation that causes her tears.

Because of pride “their estrangement had grown like an evil plant in the shade.” They had striven to enforce deceptions about themselves. Visiting Mrs. Harvey in her new apartment—she has just downsized—he “raised the heavy mask and laid it beside her own,” and after so many years “they began really to feel themselves recover something of that possibility of each other they had so wearily wasted.” He confesses that he hasn’t sold a painting in three years. This “final abandonment of pride … was like changing at the end of a dreadful day from tight boots to slippers.” They agree to avoid Mundham from now on. A price is paid as one gives the rich what they seek. They take the imagination. “As they have none themselves—” Mrs. Harvey points out. Keeping up with the rich is impossible, so why try, as they were beaten together? They permitted themselves a long and close embrace before “recover[ing] themselves enough to handle their agreement more responsibly…” They agree that they will resume their work.

My friend Susan H. was Susan G. until her second marriage and Susan H., but a different H., before the first one. Susan HGH must not have come to understand in our nearly 30 years of friendship that I will go to any length in order to avoid reading a book with an adverb in its subtitle. I opened a package from her and found a book titled “Work and Other Sins: Life in New York City and Thereabouts,” by Charlie LeDuff. On the one hand, I was pleased Susan HGH thought of me. On the other, I groaned at the responsibility of receiving yet another book from a well-meaning friend.

“Ronald, I thought you would enjoy this,” Susan HGH penciled on the first page.

She also thinks Michigan is a northeastern state. I’ve never heard of Charlie LeDuff, but what I’ve just turned up about him makes me leery. Evidently, he was exiled to Detroit after a plagiarism scandal forced him out at the New York Times. A witty commentator named Dexter writes: “He’s your typical suburban detroit [sic] douchebag reporter, in this case trying to stage a comeback as a hardboiled gonzo Charles Kuralt swooping down from his safe white suburb into the dark, black city to write about all those crazy colored people and their hilariously offbeat ignorance.”

And of course there’s the matter of the lazy sounding title and its adverb “thereabouts.” It just doesn’t have the same kick as the collection of stories by another New York writer, J.D. Salinger, namely, “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor.” (What a wonderful title!) And something more: “Work and Other Sins” is 357 pages of LeDuff’s Times pieces. With the exception of those penned by Mark Twain during his Washoe days, I have no interest in reading a collection of old newspaper columns or articles.

What my benefactress, and others like her, underestimate is just how slowly I read. Ten to 12 pages per hour is my usual rate, the result of being too careful, too much like a crawling Googlebot, which indexes an entire text. It doesn’t work for me, but obsessiveness rules. Another issue is my inability to stay awake after 9.00 p.m. My eyelids close as inevitably as the “Axiom’s” airlocks in “Wall-E.” Frothy books about sports or entertainment subjects provide the rare eye-opening exceptions.

I’m currently in the third week of enjoying a Swedish mystery novel by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, the wife-husband team whose detective, Martin Beck, flourished in a series during the 1960s and 1970s. Many readers would dispense with this thriller in two or three sittings. (Some people read a book a day.) My struggle with Herman Melville’s excruciatingly dull novel “The Confidence Man” extended over a three-month span early this year before I ground to a halt 80 pages from the end. My ambition of fully deconstructing this important work—the second time I’ve read it—has been cruelly thwarted.

Finishing about a dozen books a year is my reward. Other people glide through books as easily as the dog glides through a serving of Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy. My friend Teri S. goes off on weekends to her little cottage in the woods east of Fairbanks to consume a book or two while watching the river ice break up. She sends many thoughtful selections my way. She must really have dug William Manchester’s “A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age.” It does look enjoyable. Problem is, I’m bogged down at page 154 of “A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen,” by Joe Jackson.

Laura in Texas gets quite a kick out of David Sedaris and sent one of his collections. I’ve perused a few Sedaris offerings in the New Yorker. Maybe it’s because one needs to have at least a 0.10 percent reading of National Public Radio in one’s bloodstream, but I consider him as engaging and hilarious as ditchwater.

Laura also favored me with a copy of “Running with Scissors,” by Augusten Burroughs, but painful childhood memories are in ample supply inside my own head. I seek escape by reading about a couple of imaginative boys floating their raft past a town “peacefully sleeping, beyond the vague vast sweep of star-gemmed water,” as Mark Twain put it in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

They come from everywhere. One benefactress in Denmark supplied two illustrated volumes of H.C. Andersen’s fairy tales. Another Dane gifted me with the fat little “Design Directory: Scandinavia.” The latter is occasionally useful as a reference; some day I’ll get to the tales. For a few years I hosted a biennial luncheon for art directors and the production editor from Automobile Magazine, and for my 50th birthday one of them gave me a cookbook devoted to cookie recipes. Nearly four years later, I’ve just had my first real spin through those pages: oatmeal-raisin looks like a good starting point.

Even my dear subversive wife lays the occasional book on me. The anthology of stories by contemporary Nebraska writers delighted this native Nebraskan until the actual reading was undertaken. Opening up with three miserable tales about white trash forces the concession that, indeed, every place has its seamy side. But why dwell on it? And what’s ahead in the next 340 pages? Are there the wise, understated, admirable Nebraskans? A random sampling from an upcoming story yields this nugget about a man watching a horror movie during a party: “…Gary, lost in his own private world of the macabre, is listening for the next rising moan, the next victim, when Linda, joint in one hand, vodka tonic in the other, tells Gary that she’s pregnant.” As badly as I yearn to know how things work out for them, I find myself—not for the first time—with Italo Calvino’s “Cosmicomics” open over my knee.

Now for the glaring contradiction. Coming soon to the Knoxville address of Andy and Jamie is Wilma Dykeman’s “The French Broad,” her cultural history of the Appalachian river of that name, along with a bonus guidebook to North Carolina’s mountains. I acquired them a few years ago in Asheville. Jamie’s parents live not far away from there. Good stewardship will likely prevail, and the books will make their way into the hands of someone who will cherish them.

And now I seek a recipient for “Roadside Geology of Idaho.” The title’s narrow appeal could be widened with a Sharpie: “Roadside Geology of Idaho and Thereabouts.”

Sequel: http://baggyparagraphs.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/little-women-and-a-seagull/

I lay awake at 3 a.m. worrying about the new CAFE standards. The environmentalist groups see fuel economy figures on hybrids like the Prius and say, “Well, that’s it, then. End of discussion. Everybody should drive these.”

Something they don’t take into account: loopholes are eternal. The law of unintended consequences will prevail. Remember that the original CAFE requirements that killed off large station wagons created the Jeep Cherokee and Ford Explorer and their host of imitators that performed the same functions as station wagons. (Light trucks enjoyed special exemptions from CAFE standards, thanks to the farm lobby.) People will figure out something. There already has been a minor trend among those who tow horse trailers to use medium-duty commercial trucks.

As for 35 mpg CAFE, I would love to see cars so efficient. I grew up hearing about Colin Chapman’s Lotus and “build in lightness.” On the other hand, I still see hybrids as a gimmick, a terribly complicated answer to a problem.

The administration’s social engineering won’t change how people behave. Large roomy vehicles will continue to be in demand, and towing campers and boats will continue as a necessary part of a vehicle’s performance envelope. Maybe someone will figure out how to make a carbon-fiber SUV that tows 8000 pounds but only weighs 1800 pounds and needs but a 1.4-liter turbo four to get down the road. If so, Obama and the eco-guys get lucky, because they have no idea what they’re doing.

Reports out of New York and Washington, D.C., indicate that an executive recruiting firm is searching for at least six new General Motors board members who will aggressively push the company’s management. I want to be considered among the candidates.

My extensive car-guy credentials include knowing how to change tires on various passenger vehicles and even on a Baja 1000 racing buggy. And I once replaced an Austin-Healey Sprite sports car’s fuel pump.

In addition to those impressive accomplishments, I gained policy and administrative savvy while serving 10 years on a public library’s board of trustees. (Deciding whether to cut the budget for mystery novels in favor of adding DVD titles will wring a guy inside out.) And here’s something most candidates won’t be able to boast: I’m well enough acquainted with GM’s history to explain how the early Buick sales manager Carload Collins and the one-time GM president Engine Charlie Wilson got their nicknames. (Long stories.)

I’m campaigning on the Quattrovalvole Party ticket with my car-guy pal Andy, who’s a doctor. During his days as an assistant professor at a teaching hospital, Andy became adept in management when he supervised union nurses. He says their average weight was pretty high, so he’s also used to manipulating overinflated assets. 

As for cars, Andy owns a Ferrari 308GTSi and can sort out the electrical gremlins. Even more useful, he points out that he can maintain the outward appearance of his cars even while the mechanics are subpar, which would prove very useful in raising stock prices.

Andy’s mom, Claire, also fancies herself a potential GM board member because she once sat opposite Jimmy Hoffa in a Toledo restaurant. The whims of union bosses are nothing new to her.

However, I suspect the profiles of successful candidates will look more or less like this sampling:

1. Corporate architect who specializes in building from the roof down to the foundation, conforming to the practice of bees or spiders—a useful method as the company will have only a few remaining assembly plants, stamping operations, and foundries.
2. Inventor of the plug-in hybrid gas-electric toaster, which accepts not only the usual bread slices, bagels, waffles, or English muffins but also takes a whole live turkey, feathers and all, and after just three minutes on the high setting yields 200 pages of CO2 emissions regulations.
3. Anthropology professor who has studied mobility patterns among central African pygmies and proposes that Western peoples drive the Ebola BSE, a neighborhood electric vehicle that suddenly and thoroughly emulsifies after 10 years or 100,000 miles, leaving no trace of its existence, even in the minds of its owners. (Drawback: every three months it must go to an authorized dealership for a time-consuming delousing procedure.)
4. Labor philosopher who asserts that the only aspects of reality that are imaginable are nouns, and therefore future union contracts should avoid the use of verbs, adjectives, or other parts of speech except inevitable prepositions. Example: “Overtime in factory with shift on layoff from body-in-white of benefits before exclusion until paintshop.”

The first result of this new board’s pushback against the staid corporate managers could be the Purity thru Justice Cruiser, a 140-inch-long people’s car with a hydrogen fuel cell powering an electric generator to rotate the shaft of a variable-pitch propeller that serves either to launch the vehicle into the air or to bore through the ground, as directed by a Department of Treasury-provided navigation system working in concert with forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This brainchild of the bureaucracy will be priced at $49,995. Buyers will take delivery at the factory after working a week of midnight shifts. Color availability will be restricted to red, symbolizing the industry’s persistent financial losses.

Knowing my competitive instincts, losing the board seat to some egghead is really going to sting. Then again, I don’t want to be lolling around the proving grounds when a “chipped” version of the PtJ Cruiser that’s designed to surpass 100 mpg goes haywire and mows down the visiting dignitaries. It’s hard to believe enough funds remain in the Troubled Asset Relief Program kitty to recompense my widow.

The first-annual Jackson Road Cruise was held yesterday. Jackson Road is the boulevard in my neighborhood just west of Ann Arbor.

Car events are great for making everybody loosen up. This ardent enthusiast had checked out a Ferrari 308GTSi and decided he felt right at home in it.