We Know This Post is Crappy, But It Has a Link to National Review
Jay Nordlinger’s mother spots an “only in Ann Arbor” bumper sticker: “I know my car is crappy, but I have a Ph.D.”
Jay Nordlinger’s mother spots an “only in Ann Arbor” bumper sticker: “I know my car is crappy, but I have a Ph.D.”
My husband always says “They can repossess your car, but they can’t repossess your education.”
posted by Chris on September 12th, 2006 at 1:25 pmI must say I’ve never seen a city in my life where it seems that city law requires you to sport at least one tree-hugger bumper sticker per axle. I don’t know why it annoys me, because if I saw most of these bumper stickers anywhere else, I think I’d be very “right on!” about the whole thing. I was leaving the Whole Foods parking lot the other day, and truly, every single car in the entire row had some sort of left-wing slogan on the back.
Along these lines, I think I may now need to put “I have BS in Sociology from 2nd tier Wisconsin Private School That Took Me Five Years to Get” bumper sticker on the back of my BMW….just out of spite.
posted by Sarah on September 12th, 2006 at 2:07 pmOoh, take that, Beloit College!
posted by Dale on September 12th, 2006 at 2:17 pmI expected to have my vehicle keyed for my “I (heart) capitalism” bumper sticker when I moved here, but two years in, no problem so far. Whew.
posted by Dave on September 12th, 2006 at 2:32 pmMy bumper stickers are purely structural not ideological - they’re holding my POS together (hopefully thru one more winter).
posted by Thomas Cook on September 12th, 2006 at 2:48 pmHaha!
Marquette, actually, Dale.
posted by Sarah on September 12th, 2006 at 2:51 pmRight, lefty bumper stickers at the Wal-Mart of natural foods. Were they on Hummers?
posted by Michael McC. on September 13th, 2006 at 10:08 amThis Demetri Martin joke seems appropriate:
posted by StinkFace on September 13th, 2006 at 10:24 am“A lot of people don’t like bumper stickers. I don’t mind bumper stickers. To me a bumper sticker is a shortcut. It’s like a little sign that says ‘Hey, let’s never hang out.’”
speaking from experience, ann arbor is definitely not the only city with an excess of leftist bumper stickers. anywhere where eco-yuppies converge, you will find them. vermont, with subarus galore, is particularly bad.
posted by rs on September 13th, 2006 at 12:41 pmArms are for hugging, bitches.
posted by Dave on September 13th, 2006 at 3:32 pmHope you all don’t mind me being rude by jumping in like this and starting over back at the beginning….
My venerable vehicle, you see, really isn’t all that crappy, even though I’ve been on academic probation for the past 20 years or so.
Except for the slowly growing exterior rust, and the not-all-that-quiet ride, it’s doing pretty well. The engine still goes strong and doesn’t burn oil. In transportation lifestyle points, I’d say that’s worth at least a +1 in favor of taking the undergrad drop-out route rather than driving down the long road to a successful thesis defense. Next year the car itself becomes chronologically old enough to begin high school classes. Although I do have some worry about the arrival of its rebellious teen years and what that might do to the alternator, carburetor or brake cables.
… Well, now you’ve got me working up the bravery to admit that the outside of my car’s not entirely clean & free of messages. Auto manufacturer logo aside, there is one of those magnetic peace thingies attached to it. Will promise you not to drive thru Vermont without removing the magnet; to speed past the OWS ASAP if it can’t be entirely avoided; and will shop at Whole Paycheck only under cover of evening darkness.
posted by hale on September 15th, 2006 at 11:31 pmI bet those bumper stickers could be holding it together!
posted by justme on September 16th, 2006 at 7:12 amMy favorite bumper sticker: I love animals. They’re delicious.
posted by AAMom on September 16th, 2006 at 10:21 am“I bet those bumper stickers could be holding it together!”
I wouldn’t have returned to this slumbering discussion thread, except that you’re so rudely presumptuous. Contrary to what you say, a simple, magnetically held peace thingy can do no such thing. Much more modestly, it holds the gas cap lid in place, keeping it from flapping in the breeze as I drive.
But now, since you got me back here anyway, it becomes just too tempting to make a sudden right turn near the National Review and meditate for a few moments on the sound of one jaw flapping….
That Jay — mygawd, he… er, Nordlinger (please see top of forgotten thread)… actually gets paid to write like that in the Review. He Gets Paid! By a Long-Established National Magazine! Where might the rest of us get compensated to spew forth like that — sign me up.
Growing up in the A2 area, he must have been familiar with columnist Bob Talbert. The Nordlinger approach is, at a minimum, vaguely reminiscent of the late Freep writer’s stylings. Bob once had his popular Monday Moanin’ column, where he simply rattled off a lengthy list of banal, unrelated, stream-of-consciousness thoughts — an idea that was copied by some columnists at other daily city papers once they saw how well it worked for him for so little effort. On one or two other days during in the week, Bob would cherrypick from his readers’ letters and strung these pieces together to fill the space. Jay, the Review writer, was likewise born a ramblin’ man.
Talbert, however, despite this profound slackerhood at the keyboard (amazing back in the day to read his “work” printed side-by-side in the Freep with columnist/intellect Sydney Harris of the Sun Times / Daily News), maintained public goodwill by being personally friendly, approachable, and outwardly devoid of celebrity ego. Not so true for Jay, as the Nordlinger ego seems more akin to, say, current Freep writer/celeb/scab Mitch Somebodyorother.
posted by hale on September 20th, 2006 at 12:01 ami think his name is mitch albomb
posted by tim on September 20th, 2006 at 12:36 amI had forgotten the gaping horror of that Monday Moanin’ column until you reminded me, hale. Thanx!
It was always loaded with clever observations like: “I like it when there’s melted cheese on something, you know?”
You could actually feel your I.Q. dribbling out of your ear as you read it…
posted by Nitro on September 20th, 2006 at 8:36 amOut of My Mind with Monday Moanin’: I despised that column with a passion…especially the gallery of hillbillies who participated in his letter-writing snippets…
i.e.: “don’t ‘cha just HATE the stickiness of the bowling ball holes at Bel-mar Lanes?”
Bob’s italic retort: Ooh yeah, but the deep-fried, cheese-stuffed, pig bellies they serve at the bar more than make up for it. Ho-ho-ho.
posted by OFWinsurgent on September 20th, 2006 at 11:19 amNow I’m remembering that around the time Bob Talbert died, the Freep reprinted select columns from his first year or two on the job at the paper in the late ’60s. The genuinely compelling writing in some of those pieces startled me. As I recall, he took on then-current topics such as the aftermath of the ‘67 riots, race relations, rising antiwar activism, and the diverse immigrant influences within the city — and handled these with intelligence, sensitivity, and a personal touch. After my startled feeling wore off, it then felt sad realizing what had become of his writing over the last 20 years or more of his career. Effort-wise, Talbert began increasingly to “mail it in.” Then he figured he could just reach for the Freep mailbag and let the readers handle even that for him.
posted by hale on September 21st, 2006 at 10:02 pmRemember, too, that the Freep was severely dumbed down during that period. Most people have forgotten this, but it used to be a paper that could be taken as seriously as the Boston Globe or the Chicago Tribune. The management made a deliberate decision to lower the reading level to third or fourth grade.
I’m guessing that Talbert was ordered to lay off the think pieces and lighten the tone.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on September 22nd, 2006 at 7:35 amI haven’t, Larry.
I read the Free Press damn near every day of my life from age 10 to 18. My dad took it to work and did the crossword; when he came home, I took it out of his briefcase and read it over dinner. So these weren’t really the good ol’ days of the paper - I’d read older articles and was blown away - but at least it was generally readable. Well, after one learned to skip Albom, Riley, and Ager columns.
I picked up one issue a few weeks ago. Front page was about how hard it is to be a single person in Metro Detroit. Seriously, it took up 3/4ths of the damn front page. I read the whole article, silently thinking “wtf” over and over in my head, and then resolved to not buy the paper ever again.
Damn shame.
Anyhow, Lessenberry has an article about the sad state of local daily papers in the Metro Times a few weeks back, if you’re interested…
Original Column:
posted by Jen on September 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 pmhttp://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=9565
Followup:
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=9594
Yeah, the Free Press has thrown it all away. It’s a rag.
I don’t think Bob Talbert got all stupid due to Editorial Pressure, though. I think the deep fat simply went into his brain.
posted by Nitro on September 22nd, 2006 at 2:48 pmOr, to speculate further, he began to revel in the lower-brow role that his editors may have required of him.
posted by hale on September 24th, 2006 at 6:15 pmJen, Did you always skip Albom? When he started back in the mid-80s, he was great. I think once he started writing books, doing radio, ESPN shows etc. his column lost something. The Rumeal Robinson article from ‘89 NCAA tournament remains one of the best sports columns I’ve ever read.
posted by PeteM on September 24th, 2006 at 9:08 pmI can’t stand Mitch Albom’s writing. The oft-repeating refrains he interts in italics to emphasize his pedestrian ranting drive me nuts…
Also, Tuesdays with Morrie was one of the worst pieces of dreck I ever read. Nice sentiment, but the prose equivalent of beating readers over the head with a clueless stick, as if he assumes them to be as callow and unfeeling as he paints himself to be in the early stages of the book. Ugh!
Now, Mike Downey was a GREAT sportswriter in the Freep. He didn’t treat his readers like dimbulbs, and he had a sense of humor to boot.
I also love the dry wit of political writer Hugh McDiarmond…I was in awe of his taking down of George Perles’ political powerplays at MSU as the acts of “the Pigskin Messiah” at MSU.
posted by OFWinsurgent on September 25th, 2006 at 2:32 pm