"The actual magazine is worthless (in every sense of the word), but obtaining the name is going to cost you."
Yeah, it's on floormats and a bunch of stuff in the auto parts stores. I wonder if they'd be willing to sell just the website and magazine to Cars and Bids. Or license it, the way Sports Illustrated was done before it all fell apart.
If anyone is looking for an inexpensive OTS guitar that isn't a project, take a look at the Larry Carlton signature models. They're made in Indonesia, but apparently by people who actually give a damn. In a moment of irrational exuberance I bought one of the Les Paul styles as I haven't ever owned a LP style guitar and the fit and finish on it are absolutely lovely. The electronics in it sound pretty good, too...although I haven't run it through a tube amp yet, just digital modeling stuff so far. Would I prefer it was a Heritage 155? Sure. But as little as I play these days spending that kind of money didn't make sense.
Apparently the single-largest-selling electric guitar in the business right now is the PRS Silver Sky SE, which is made in Indonesia. I have a "real" Silver Sky and while I can tell the difference I'd have been very happy to have an SE if things had gone that way.
I'm lucky enough to have a Nineties 3-bolt G&L, a Fender American Elite Strat, and a 4-bolt G&L S-500 Deluxe for comparison. The Silver Sky is the best guitar of the bunch, with the finest workmanship. If you had to earn a living playing gigs, you'd want it. But I can absolutely see how it leaves people stone cold.
I think PRS guitars in general tend to be polarizing in a way other brands aren't. In my experience, people either love them absolutely or find them boring as hell.
I've never played one I didn't like (and I am an absolutely atrocious player, with no business picking up a guitar). I've only owned one - a second-hand SE Singlecut with Duncan Jazz and JB pickups. It was a screamer.
I've been fortunate enough to play a couple of high-end PRS' that were generously loaned to me. Loved them all.
Strats in general...at least in my opinion...tend to take more effort to get the right kinds of sounds out of them. They can be real finicky about dialing all the knobs and the amp right. I like a "good strat tone" but almost all "good strat tones" are running through some sort of overdrive. Also many moons ago I bought a Clapton signature strat because it has the overdrive pedal built into the guitar and it kind of spoils you when you pick up almost any other strat.
A full time professional guitar player that I know, Erich Goebel, can't stop talking about how good his SE is, other than the fact that someone apparently left a lock washer off of the output jack and things got wonky mid-set.
I kind of hate to like PRS because when I think PRS I think Nickelback because PRS was everywhere in the late 90's and early 2000's, but every one I've seen has been a very lovely thing. When I bought my Heritage I thought about a PRS instead but I really wanted a 335 style semi-hollow, specifically that tone they can get when the selector switch is in the middle a la:
...but if I was making the call on a more LP style guitar the PRS would have been the way to go. Gibson's inconsistent quality alone would have made the argument.
Seems to me that Gibson is trying to correct the course. They have new SG Supremes decently priced and some reissue 335’s that spec pretty well for a reasonable price.
I prefer the '50s and '60s GM sedans. Heck, I prefer the '50s and '60s everything. But our differences on this probably reflect the fact that I was born significantly earlier than you--during the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. Still, I don't think anyone, even those born during the 2010s, are going to grow up to like 2010s cars. That was the worst decade for automotive styling IMO.
In reference to DeMuro's comment, here's a time capsule Austin news report about the 1986 drinking age increase to fill you with nostalgia and/or _hireath_:
"Toledo, Ohio just posted an all-time high temperature for a single day in January. Does that make you want to take action on climate change?"
No sir, it makes me want to go ride a motorcycle. This warm streak has caught me truly off guard, I've been dragging my feet to put new tires on my now-downsized fleet of two older bikes (XS1100, Kawasaki Voyager XII).
The most honest and realistic answer I can give you is NO.
Guitars DO tend to be more resonant and sustain-producing after the wood in them has dried to 15 percent or less. PRS and other high end makers will kiln dry the wood. Others, like the overseas manufacturers, just expect that you'll let it sit in your room all winter for years on end and let your home heating system dry it out.
Every classic rock record was made with a guitar that hadn't celebrated its tenth birthday, with the exception of the Zeppelin albums.
what if you made a guitar out of some kind of engineering plastic
i imagine the trick would be to find something that has the correct stiffness and internal damping to make the tone you want but it ought to be ultra stable overtime and in various environments
"I’m still missing a couple of pieces: the “poker chip” switch plate and a back control cavity plate, which will likely be 3-D printed by the same person who bailed me out on the soldering."
Send me an accurate tracing of the control cavity plate and measure how thick it is, and I can probably cut you one on my laser, which will look better than a 3D print.
Cutting it would probably be more dimensionally accurate, too. Printed parts can be a bit off because plastic shrinks. Even ABS+ can shrink up to 3% so sometimes you have to fiddle with the exact size of the print to get things correctly. When I'm doing something like an interference fit for embedding magnets, I'll do multiple iterations, changing the diameter by 0.25mm at a time, or less.
Assuming the cover plate is something close to 1/16" (1.6mm) I can get black acrylic, or even cut you one out of basswood plywood.
You might have to chamfer the screw holes yourself.
DeMuro must have graduated from the same word salad masters class as Kamala Harris!
For the young guys in flyover country, it is hard not to recommend military service. If they are motivated and work hard they can work their way into an SF unit and work with some very intelligent and motivated people. The skills and knowledge gained in that occupation would be far more useful than 90+ % of the college degrees he would waste $100K+ on.
It certainly comes with some inherent risks. SF does most of the fighting whether we are officially at war or not. Their training and mission success rates are a magnitude better than a typical soldier.
When I lived in Charleston, I hung out regularly with some C17 pilots from the air wing based there and got to fly the sim once. Those guys loved their job. They got to do low levels, airdrops, and other tricky stuff with that big bird on a regular basis. Also it has a very nice power/weight ratio when unloaded.
The fighters are sexier but 99.9% of the pilots never do their real job (shoot an opponent down) whereas the airlift guys did it all the time.
My grandson joined the army, and it worked out well for him, because he’s an air traffic controller in Alaska. And there was nothing for him in Georgia.
I was DEVASTATED when a minor medical condition sidelined me from the Navy NUPOC program, for which I was an absolute shoo-in, back in 2011.
Today? I'm glad I'm not riding around in the belly of a SSBN or SSGN, tasked with responsibility for executing any number of doomsday scenarios on behalf of whichever animated corpse happens to be holding down the big chair in the Oval Office at any given time.
I've come to know quite a few Sub-Sea guys over my career and the ones who spent any real time in the tube, are a bit off. I never figured out if it was the higher levels of radiation, the pressure differential, or the simple fact that it takes a certain kind of person to willingly be crammed into a tube with 100+ other guys under the ocean for 6mo at a time. (Ok maybe 2 -7 females, as defined by reproductive organs, as well).
It seems like a job that is much cooler to talk about doing after it is over vs actually doing it, I don't think you missed anything.
I would recommend it to my sons (but maybe not my daughter) but there are two problems: wokeness permeating the current leadership and the possibility of dying far away for no real reason.
Having spent most of a week at a USASOC sniper course I would say wokeness was notable for it's absence. The leadership in many of the units that matter is well grounded.
The field grade officers have rarely been the problem in elite units. The missions and resources those units have been given often are problems. Even using Delta in Syria instead of Group is incorrect.
I had a very interesting discussion with some of the Cadre about play calling out of Washington DC vs from the field. Politics vs actual war fighting. It's a huge problem.
Less and less young men from 'flyover' country are going into the service. The current administration doesn't care much for those kinds of people and are making it clear. Most vets these days no longer recommend the military to others.
Buddy of mine was in both Gulf Wars. When his son said he was considering joining up my buddy kept cutting his steak and said "I'll break your fucking clavicles first." Most of the table laughed. "I'm not kidding. You're not getting in these people's wars. I'll break your clavicles and then break them again before I allow that."
Yup, what Biden did in Afghanistan was pretty much pissed on the graves of every soldier who died over there, including the ones he killed personally with his orders. Then there is the amount of political correctness and the now complete and utter disdain for religion. They threw a LOT of soldiers out over wuhan - ruined their lives with bad paper.
And now they're asking those people to come back (and they're pretty much all saying no). I think the gay furry colonel who was fucking (literally) his staff and going around in costume sums up the current stay of our military. There's no honor or professionalism anymore - just deviants and squabbling women who crash ships because they're not talking to each other.
I mean that's a little hyperbolic, but not much. Also, if you were booted over the 'flu, you can get your record changed to honorable.. https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/26744
Unfortunately SF units particularly have suffered the lions share of casualties during the “soft close” of the GWOT. Even in places outside of CENTCOM.
Not to be pedantic, but we're at ACF so I am going to be, SF = Green Berets. All JSOC units, from DevGru to JTAC have suffered disproportionately to the services as a whole, and of course it hasn't impacted the vast majority of the American people at all.
That said if you can sign up to be an intelligence-pogue that could be a good gig, and the (contractor) employment after military is decently compensated in the US, but extremely so on deployment.
Although some studies were done, side wind sensitivity was part of why Saab was reluctant to make a wagon version; see the letter from Björn Envall here:
If you're in Skokie, I recommend Ken's Diner, down Dempster. One of the best burgers that I've had. I use to recommend Slice Of Life for pizza, but the owner retired and closed it.
I had almost that exact car as my first ride about 24 years ago (Mine was an 89 in light green but same spec otherwise). Got it at the local auto auction for $1200 with 197,000 miles on it. I also had a 4 door 8 valve and a very cool 9000 Turbo. Very durable, but not reliable cars. You also need a guy who knows his way around Saabs to fix the thing because they do things differently in Trollhattan. For example, the engine is mounted "backwards" so all the belts are right up next to the firewall. Parts are also a problem now. Saabs and Volvos absolutely dominated VT until Subaru came in with their cheaper, AWD options. That example looks awesome and you could have a lot of fun with it puttering around. There's a few guys holding on to the Saab lifestyle up here. For example, I have a dude at the end of my road with about 5 of them in his driveway. Guessing he uses the combined parts of all of them to keep his one turbo running.
Parts availability is not really all that bad. Saab Parts was spun out as its own company. Although some things are unavailable, the Car Wizard on YouTube says he can't get certain parts for 1980s Camaros either, so I"m not sure if it's all that much worse.
The specialist mechanic thing has indeed gotten significantly worse in the last year or two due to a wave of retirements/closings. But as recently as 2020, it was a huge blessing: you could go to the local independent Saab specialist shop knowing that they were experts and honest, because there were not enough Saabs in the town to rip anybody off.
Good to know about the parts. We had a guy the next town over growing up known as the "Saab Doctor". Every once in a while I drive through that part of the county and his sign is still up. Surprised he's still alive because he was quite the drunk when I knew him.
‘Bradley Brownell would have been a safer pair of hands for this “hot take”’
Actually, he wrote a rebuttal to that take which I won’t bother linking to because I don’t want to give him more than one click. It’s written with exactly the level of quality and thoughtfulness one would expect though.
DeMuro's article looks like a perfect example of clickbait for sure - the title caught my eye (and a bit of my ire) and after I quickly skimmed it, I realized he had the exact same thoughts on the decade as I do - not a lot of good stuff in the early years but the last few years had some really good cars. That's not what I expected from the title.
I would've guessed he's already busy enough with Youtube, Cars and Bids, etc. to not want to take the time to write a column for MT (for $200, no less) but perhaps there is something to your theory that he just wants to be liked?
I can still remember the exact moment I figured out that MT could be bought. It was 1988, I was in college, and a special edition came out entitled "How Ford Became #1". It had articles on nearly every model in Ford's lineup and how awesome they all were - I had never seen Tempos described in such glowing terms. Of course I still have it - that's one copy that hasn't been donated to the rural Ohio car magazine library as of yet.
I'll add the 1989 Taurus SHO and 1985 Isuzu Impulse Turbo. Had and enjoyed both. Dumped the Impulse because of a head gasket leak, but that was a fun and good-looking car.
Edit: Oops, got the years wrong. I had a 1989 Impulse Turbo and a 1991 SHO Plus. But the SHO's first year was 1989 so it still counts.
A whole slew of Nissan/Toyota products: All-Tracs, Maximas, you name it
All the different mini-trucks of the era starting from the S10 (gimme a 2.8+5spd one with rally wheels) to the Nissan D21, Mazdas, etc
GM G-bodies (Monte SS, Cutlass Supreme in particular) B-body Caprice, squarebody trucks, the early GMT400s
Corsica 5door hatch with a Getrag 5spd and 2.8L (I'm weird like that, sue me)
A bunch of all-time greats from the Germans: W214, E30, GTIs, etc
I was born in 89 and maybe I'm just a nostalgic idiot, but I would truly be happy if I was "forced" to drive nothing but cars from the 80s for the rest of my life. Yeah yeah safety blah blah.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was a teenager for most of the '80s and "came of age" as a car guy during the decade. I've only owned 3 '80s cars: '86 Mustang GT , 86 911 Carrera and an '89 325i. I was surprised how many things were assembled with sheet metal screws in the first two :). I probably have 8-10 Ford cars from the decade that I'd have in my fantasy collection along quite a number of pickups and 4WD SUVs since I tend to gravitate to them.
The early 80’s were a disaster for the domestics. GM over did their down sizing across the entire line up, Cadillac put the HT-4100 in before any longterm testing and suffered thermal damage. They keep the Fleetwood in production little changed for 12!!!! model years because it was the only model that sold. Ford cheapened the Lincoln line into gussied up LTDII’s (sorry Tom K), Chrysler came out with the K-car and the Colt, nothing else needs to be said. No the early 1980’s almost destroyed the domestic manufacturing base. The only real breakthrough came out of Bolling Green with the 1984 Corvette that was miles ahead of the 1982 in bold quality and performance even with only 200 plus or minus horse power. Ok my take go ahead attack…😇😇
There's more 80s than 70s cars that I would want, but I also am not an American or Muscle car guy... I think a lot of that is just how much influence the templates created in the 80s have on today's current models of cars, and how easy it is to trace that thread straight back.
Of course if I look in paper today's BMW 540i is going to be better than the 535i I could get in 1985, but I know which one I'd rather have in my garage. Pre-80s cars had a much different classification and there's less of a straight model line back to where we are today. Think about your S4, there's a pretty clear line of evolution from the old 100//200 performance variants that became the first S4 in 1990 to your car. Not as much of that pre-1980
Agree. Each gen is better, it’s just what I happened to end up with. I would really like a C7 but that’s not in the budget, according to my “accountant”. Yeah I think the C8 is a hot mess styling wise. Too many notes. Im sure its fun like an ugly girl might be fun but then there’s the morning sun.
I have no explanation for this, but I like the C8's looks. I think it makes fun of the over-the-top "supercars" out there while providing a reasonable alternative. No plans for a Corvette, however. I don't think it would make it 500 feet down the dirt road I live on.
As for dialogue with the other side, I was just telling my like-minded coworkers (the only two in the building hahahaha) that all of us have a lot more in common than otherwise. It's hard to get into conversations with anyone about certain things, and I think a big part of that is how some people build their entire identity on being a leftie or a Reagan Conservative or whatever. For them it becomes physically painful to admit that part of your very being might be wrong, whereas just lambasting the other side as evil feels SO GOOD. I usually keep my opinions to myself. I live a pretty simple life and my big-picture logic is not so great (I'd have a lot more money if it was). And then places like here? It seems like so many people are so much more intelligent or experienced than I am that it's hard to know if my opinion adds anything or if it's just a discordant note throwing off the whole chorus. That said, I don't self-censor here so much because as Jack told me when I admitted to doing it I never know whether something say will spark something someone else.
...and he just plain disappeared from the scene when the Democrats figured out that they could donate directy to big law firms rather than use him for a go-between.
Yeah, I rely on everybody to say something even if it's not the perfect comment -- because when the perfect comments arrive, they're rarely without some sort of seed crystal in previous comments. We're like a bunch of musicians sitting in a room. A bad idea can create a good one, a good one can be fleshed out, a great one can be improved.
The comment section here is like sitting in a bar talking to friends and strangers, and I've never been in a bar where everyone agreed with each other. Good enough for me.
"I think a big part of that is how some people build their entire identity on being a leftie or a Reagan Conservative or whatever"
This is the real upstream problem to 95% of these conversations, and why we have this lament of the missing "adults in the room." When you go to have a conversation about politics/policy nowadays, you're questioning someone's core identity rather than their belief in how we should achieve a desirable outcome for society. When you replace religion (or another general moral belief system) with politics as the core of your identity, it's only going to get sectarian and ugly. The scary thing is just how fast we're approaching sectarian conflict in a country over politics rather than any sort of real identity.
Because we don't care about the actual outcomes anymore, never mind agree on which ones we want. It's about does it make me feel good because I am helping!!
I'm embarrassed that Chris Murphy is held up as an alum of my college, and was my senator for a bit when we lived in CT. The guy is the real embodiment of what you're saying and that clip proves it.
I think there is a very very small minority on one side that firmly believes that gender affirming care is the only way to solve such a problem. On that same side, we have 100x fold people espouse this, but probably are very indifferent on the outcome.
On the other side, I think we have a significant majority of people who want children to be children, and that the issue of gender dysphoria ought to be addressed in other ways besides physical alteration before a child is an adult. I generally think they do care about the outcome, but that reasoning is because the pushback was grass roots and outside of the political sphere when it started. Yes, politicians and media types have taken this up as an issue, but at the heart of it, the push, unlike many other conservative issues, was truly grass roots.
Respectfully, I think that there is more of a religious aspect to it than anything.
Big Government might require you to pay $150/year to register your bicycle, but would not encourage you to castrate & sexually mutilate your children.
Big Government would require foreigners to register (as in Japan), not completely abandon enforcing the border.
Big Government would frequently raid businesses suspected of employing illegal aliens, not tacitly encourage it while also actively encouraging the displacement of citizens in professional employment through the H-1B program.
That's the trap. Government can be benevolent and work for the interests of its citizens or against it, proportional to the degree of its power. Unfortunately, power corrupts, leading to where the US is now.
I'll put it this way: The fact that everybody gets freaked out about who is being appointed to the Supreme Court is an indication that there's entirely too much power in that institution. If a decision there is a rudder that can steer the economic, social, and cultural path of an entire nation for decades (as it has done) then it's way too fucking powerful.
"When you go to have a conversation about politics/policy nowadays, you're questioning someone's core identity rather than their belief in how we should achieve a desirable outcome for society"
I think we should be questioning people's core identity or moral code. Most people's beliefs in achieving an outcome are always rooted in a moral framework of sorts.
Unless if they aren't. And that I think is the bigger issue is we have leaders on both sides who say and act on things that I don't think they really have a true belief in. If they did, they'd make different choices and use all information possible. What they end up doing is just saying or doing whatever is the new hotness.
If we distill it down from Politicians and Media types to the common people, for example, do we really think all the suburban white women outside of large blue cities really care about bringing illegals here? Do they really care about the issues for minorities in the inner cities? Do they really care about trans-rights issues?
To my main point: How do I have a conversation with these folks when they really don't believe what they say? So yes, I am questioning their identity. If these folks truly believed what they say, would they be so offended? Wouldn't they be able to defend their position without being emotional about it or being triggered? My own observations lead me to think the issue is that people get their panties in a bind when their identity isn't rooted in any sort of moral framework.
I think some folks do want to have these conversations, regardless if they agree or not, it is just that they can't be seen as doing so from their friends or social group. This goes back to some so called journalists and media types slamming other media types for "platforming". So some folks who want to have those conversations can't because they are seen as "talking with a Nazi, sexist, white supremist....."and that's just not tolerated in certain social groups.
I agree, most people are more alike than not, but they are afraid to admit that, on both sides, and on the other side, simply discussing a topic is taboo.
Presumably, Chernin would need to purchase the entirety of TEN - The Enthusiast Network - to get its hands on Motor Trend, as MT is the crown jewel, of sorts.
BaT does well over $1BN in annual volume; Cars & Bids does $300-$400MM based on some back of the napkin math and some statements Doug has made publicly. BaT is the master of the house at the Hearst mags (R&T and C&D), the tail that wags the dog.
This is amid a backdrop of extreme contraction in the media business - The Messenger, Pitchfork, layoffs at the LA Times, etc. There is a new headline every day on the topic.
Which is ridiculous. You'll read every trashy vomit piece that Fat Brad and Warts Berk and Bi Neil shit out onto the page without so much as five minutes worth of research or proper driving, but you won't read Hemmings?
I just looked at the website. I don’t recognize the name of anyone with a byline.
I do believe that Brett Berk contributes to Hemmings (or has), but I don’t read him. I do enjoy Fat Brad’s hot takes, and I occasionally read Dan Neil.
Now, where is Lonny when we need him to opine on the state of Lucid Trend?
Hemmings isn’t immune from garbage either. They did a series with Mike Musto where he covered modding a new Dodge Hornet for SEMA. I’d rather read the latest installment of Never Stop Driving than watch someone modify a CUV.
Then you're missing out! They've had a lot of good content over the years, although I really miss Daniel Strohl's writing. He cranked out a lot of good historical articles over the years.
Would be interesting to see how much their sales dropped when Covid hit and magazine stands and airport shops stopped buying. That doesn’t equate with readership, but would give you a sense of how many magazines are sold to outlets which sell to casual purchasers.
The future of the written word feels like it's going to be more niche, and subscriber-driven rather than ad-driven, as all the new successful publications I've seen have been in that vein. Think a publication you can expense.
The Washington Post and the LA Times tried to copy the NYT's model, and failed. That model only works for the NYT with their dual strengths of being a lifestyle brand for anxious, upper-middle class liberals, and their diversification beyond their core news product, e.g. games, cooking, and now sports with The Athletic acquisition.
Look at substack, patreon, Onlyfans (yes, really), etc.
Would you rather view content for “free” that big tech feeds to you and then view ads, or directly support your preferred content creators?
What’s the ceiling on what an NYT writer with a following can command? $250K (outside of the superstar names) perhaps? Could that same person find 5,000 people willing to pay $5 / month on substack? Probably so … that’s $300K before fees, so it would basically be a wash. And if you 5,000 fans, could you not do a little hustling and self-promotion and find 5,000 more?
In my mid-size city, the local newspaper is in the process of being gutted by the new corporate owner. There are no more local features writers or critics. They have been replaced by freelancers and syndicated content. At least a couple of the former writers who have a following have started a Substack with a mix of free and paid content. In a metro of over a million people, it seems realistic to get enough subscribers to match or exceed their former salaries. Especially since the newspaper subscription price continues to increase for less content, and people are canceling their subscriptions in droves from what I have seen.
It is entirely possible that that could be (or, perhaps, is) the case.
In the absence of a model for writers with a legitimate following to interact directly with, ahem, patrons who support their work, they’d be working at Starbucks, and you and your neighbors wouldn’t have anything to read pertaining to local news.
Mustang SVO and 5.0, IROC-Z, C4 Corvettes, 944, MR2, CR-X, Fiero, GTI, RX-7, Maxima, Supra, T-bird Turbo Coupe, Merkur XR4Ti, nearly every BMW (even the slow-revving eta), every Mopar with a turbo 2.2 and a manual (even the vans), every GM compact with a 60-deg V6 and a manual, and all the crazy over-the-top exotics. Flawed but wonderful cars, and I love them all, but I must be wrong, because DeMuro is a millionaire automotive know-it-all and I'm an anonymous tech writer.
Keeping a faithful old daily driver means you're smart, not poor. I know a guy who bought a Cessna 172 rather than "upgrading" his XJ. Disclaimer: he lives in Phoenix, where XJs don't rust.
My grandad had a bronze K-car, that I remember to be a Chrysler New Yorker that had a turbo in it. I thought it was the cat's meow at 10 or so. I wonder if they are worth the nostalgia?
Someone who knows more about FWD Mopars will have to weigh in on whether they are worth owning now (Thomas Kreutzer?), but what I thought was cool was that they offered a manual transmission in nearly every K-car derivative, including the vans. My best friend was an Eagle Scout in the late 80s and his scoutmaster had a short wheelbase Caravan with a turbo 2.2 and 5-speed. I doubt they made too many of those.
I have heard that too! I met a guy once who had one and had swapped in the SRT-4 engine, apparently that's pretty easy to do. Funny how the SRT-4 have all been beat into oblivion. I wonder if that is the fate of all of these 392's that are currently running around.
Recovering Gen X bootstrap asshole here. I was of the mind that all a black family had to do was move out of the city to one that provided more opportunity. I was making it just fine out here in middle America by god with only a high school diploma and some community college credits. Then covid hit and the curtain was pulled back on the public education system. That was an eye opener. Black kids were already performing poorly in school but I would ascribe the reasons to things like culture and absent fathers. Those things are still a problem but it now seems clear that DoE, teachers unions and local school boards are intentionally trying to tie a boat anchor to black kids and hobble them for the rest of their lives. Covid video classes made it clear this was happening to everyone no matter what your skin color was. Poor blacks and poor whites being hit the hardest. It's also clear your average public school teacher isn't the most impressive intellect you'll find. I don't know what the answer is but I'd encourage black people to take full advantage of the current DEI infrastructure while they still can. Colleges are begging for them, Fortune 500 companies are begging for them. If you can keep your nose clean and put in the basic amount of work you'll be on the expressway to a comfortable life. That opportunity won't last forever though. If I were a black parent having "The Talk" with my child it wouldn't be about cops. It would be about milking white guilt for all it's worth.
P.S.
Fuck that polar bear. He shoulda moved to Florida.
If I had a biracial son with a 120 IQ I'm pretty sure I could guide him into being worth $50 million with a little effort and $5 million just by not abusing him.
For my white kid -- well, I hope Emirates is still hiring in 2035.
However, as you note, the vast majority of black kids don't benefit from that system. They're stuck in a culture and milieu that ACTIVELY sabotages their attempts to benefit.
I think you and Jonathan are overstating the appetite for DEI as a recruiting tool beyond the colleges. As a minority guy with a top tier degree and up there IQ, it's still a struggle to get into a really high paid, decision maker role where I'll be worth $10million+. I'll call out your view as being the Gen X old man yelling at clouds, versus my 30s millennial take, but I know it's gotten worse so it's easy to view it as you do.
Most of those Fortune 500 DEI recruits are shunted into HR and support roles and fight up as a side show, rather than inside of the real business where it's probably more cut-throat than ever. There also still lingers the specter of what Clarance Thomas or Thomas Sowell wrote about where that stigma of being a DEI admit follows you (and your degree) around since more people know how much the system was rigged in higher ed.
Less than you think for the actual decision makers. Sure it may help some at the bottom, but most of the time they know those folks will get churned through and be gone in 2 years from analyst/associate classes. Big time roles still get recruited the classic way through networking, and backgrounds.
DEI and all this talk of it, is more show than anything. It's a PR tax that these companies pay so that they don't get hunted by the activists.
"As a minority guy with a top tier degree and up there IQ, it's still a struggle to get into a really high paid, decision maker role where I'll be worth $10million+. I'll call out your view as being the Gen X old man yelling at clouds, versus my 30s millennial take, but I know it's gotten worse so it's easy to view it as you do."
I'm not saying that YOU are in a perfect position for it -- I'm saying that the kids who are 14 right now are in a perfect position for it
"Most of those Fortune 500 DEI recruits are shunted into HR and support roles and fight up as a side show, rather than inside of the real business where it's probably more cut-throat than ever."
There's a whole generation of female leaders of Millennial age; I know a woman who works for a top 5 investment firm and she has almost no men in her chain or any of the chains around her. Most of those women are white women, which is a separate discussion -- you can easily argue that many diversity slots have simply gone to hotties.
Maybe they are, but I think they're going to get shunted into side paths versus being given the actual levers of power. They'll be the HR or back office staff never the real faces of the place. I've been working on a new senior level role, and noone cares that I'm a minority it's the usual what are you going to do for me and what have you done before. I'll also add, that any firm that's visibly making these choices to hunt minorities versus outcomes is probably not somewhere you want to work because it's not going to end well if the focus isn't on profitable growth.
"There's a whole generation of female leaders of Millennial age; I know a woman who works for a top 5 investment firm and she has almost no men in her chain or any of the chains around her"
What does that woman do at the firm? Is she actual front office making the deals, or does she run a support department like Investor Relations or Marketing?
I will say the white women really ran the diversity racket for themselves the best, but haven't quite penetrated the core decision making spaces. When I go into talk to the money guys, the investment decisions are still majority men and mainly the good ole boys or whiz kid types you'd expect.
My beef has always been with the assumption that goes with race. I’ve told the story before, but I grew up in a SE CT neighborhood with a pair of skinny black brothers who lived down the street. We played with them just like every other kid. They, stereotypes aside, weren’t any better at sports, and they were mid pack in school. Their dad (married to their mom), if I remember correctly, worked for Pfizer along with my mom and half of the other parents. Last I knew the older brother went to UConn with about half his graduating class (year behind mine). In short, they had 95% the same upbringing as me. There is no reason to treat them differently than me. But to hear the current thing, they have the deck stacked against them, and I have all the advantages in the world. Anecdotes and data and all that, but I can see with my own eyes that wasn’t true. Help those who need help, regardless of skin color, but knock off “helping” those who don’t, just because of skin color.
Groton, CT area? Hopefully the Pfizer plant there is still running, my mother worked at Pearl River for Wyeth/Pfizer and would go up there a bunch.
I think a core of that for a lot of us was having the ability to relate to all the different folks in the neighborhood because our parents worked together. How different can the black kids down the street be if their parents work with ours? We really have to be taught that they are different, and that's what scares me most for the current generation. One of our friends actually pulled her kids out of school because the teacher tried to explain to them that they were different than the other kindergartners because they were half black.
I know had a very similar upbringing to those other kids in my neighborhood. but as a first gen hispanic, I'd say my upbringing was probably 125% of the other kids because I got a whole extra bunch of things that made no sense to them.
Yup Groton (although my mom worked in the fancy new building the built in New London, of Kelo v. New London fame, the building they shuttered after maybe 10 years).
Contrast your life experience with, say, Ralph Northram. He was the scion of actual privilege. Meaning black kids didn't go to his schools. That's why he's in blackface or a klan outfit in his college yearbook.
It's like these insufferable assholes going on the news now to talk about "opening their home" to illegal immigrants and without a trace of any self awareness saying how wonderful it is that they now have someone around the house to cook and clean. Super duper progressive upper middle class and upper class white people eager to get on TV and virtue signal that they basically have slaves again.
That's what real privilege looks like. If you grew up middle class or working class you don't do that shit because you haven't lived in a bubble floating above the rest of humanity all your stinking life.
It becomes a chicken or egg question. Which caused the other? I'd argue it started with the deliberate attack on intact black families with a double barrel of de-industrializing cities and "the great society" welfare boondoggles. Rob a man of his ability to be a provider and then undermine him by handing out checks to baby-mamas and there's no incentive left. People rightly understand that LBJ's programs (as LBJ was a fucking sociopath) didn't help anyone but they miss the deliberate de-industrialization in the cities as a key part of that program.
Hopefully everyone will remember Johnson's boast about having the n words voting democrat for 200 years, here.
Prior to the "great society" and the beginning of the destruction of America's industrial base, blacks had high literacy rates and intact families. In the injustice of segregation and Jim Crow, to be educated was an act of rebellion against that oppression. Black churches provided a moral center and vital community support. The black working class was the first target of Our Betters and even in the mid 1960's it was evident enough for Moynihan to see what was going on and forecast doom as a result.
Education has most definitely become much more awful over the years. In no small part that's because lots of "educators" have been intent on using the most vulnerable to experiment on...a time honored tradition among Our Betters. One example of how self-labeled "progressives" have substituted what sounds good to them for what works can be seen in their ridiculous "whole language" approach to reading:
Dalliance with the bright ideas from over-credentialed midwit moral busy bodies on reading hit pretty much all kids who weren't sent to private schools...but guess who it hit hardest? Precisely those kids who really needed those skills to have any hope of escaping desperate poverty and terrible cycles of dependency.
Of course, reading came later than other concepts like "social promotion", where children who could not meet standards were not held back so as to avoid the "stigma" of not graduating with classmates. In education at every turn you're going to find a habit of people who are often wrong but never in doubt substituting what they think for what is actually true and then having absolutely no accountability when it fails. It's not an idea, it's an ideology and because of that it can't be wrong because that would mean the person(s) pushing it are wrong, and that is so severely ego dystonic that it cannot be accepted because the foundation of their entire worldview is self regard.
They are the chosen. They literally *cannot* be wrong.
All of that happened and certainly played a role.
But even then, the continual lowering of standards on the theory that Because Oppression you can't expect, to quote the "most voted for" president in history, "poor kids to be just as smart as white kids." didn't come out of nowhere. The degradation in the life of the black family had profound effects that schooling alone could not overcome. It's difficult to get academic performance out of a child who is third or fourth generation government dependent, when just about every male he sees ends up in jail (sometimes for good reason, sometimes for not) and he likely doesn't share common paternity with his siblings.
You see the exact same patterns in more rural areas where manufacturing disappeared. The same crumbling family structures. The same increase in drug abuse, illegitimacy, criminality, utter hopelessness.
That's why King was doing his best to make common cause between poor blacks and poor whites before he was taken out. When he was just a civil rights leader he was tolerated by establishment power but when he started challenging it with populist ideas that rejected the world as conceived by Our Betters they killed him real quick.
What you're missing about colleges is that DEI doesn't actually serve any of the people it purports to. Colleges want black skin on the campus. They go to great lengths to recruit, but they do not go through the same lengths to ensure that those people graduate. They want the numbers, but have no more incentive to actual betterment than the k-12 institutions do.
The K-12'ers are busy patting themselves on the back for being progressive while they hold that it's racism to discipline a black child for any act. And it's racist to grade them. Essentially any level of accountability is racist because Oppression. Seemingly completely unaware that they're making the exact same argument that the Klanners made, essentially telling you that blacks are animals and can't be held to standards the same as actual people. Because oppression.
Colleges are not correcting that. Colleges are the origin of that kind of diseased thinking.
Martin Luther King today would be the black face of white supremacy because of his whole "content of their character" fixation. He flatly rejected identity ideology and that's why in our day he is "problematic" because he was insufficiently LBGTQ+ friendly for modern audiences.
Have you noticed how MLK day gets quieter and quieter as the years go by? That is no accident.
So, yes, I agree that education has played a significant role in dooming generations of black kids to short, brutish lives full of desperation and violence. But the destruction of their lives started with the destruction of their families.
Malcom warned everybody about the danger of the white liberal. And they shot him, too.
"The actual magazine is worthless (in every sense of the word), but obtaining the name is going to cost you."
Yeah, it's on floormats and a bunch of stuff in the auto parts stores. I wonder if they'd be willing to sell just the website and magazine to Cars and Bids. Or license it, the way Sports Illustrated was done before it all fell apart.
If anyone is looking for an inexpensive OTS guitar that isn't a project, take a look at the Larry Carlton signature models. They're made in Indonesia, but apparently by people who actually give a damn. In a moment of irrational exuberance I bought one of the Les Paul styles as I haven't ever owned a LP style guitar and the fit and finish on it are absolutely lovely. The electronics in it sound pretty good, too...although I haven't run it through a tube amp yet, just digital modeling stuff so far. Would I prefer it was a Heritage 155? Sure. But as little as I play these days spending that kind of money didn't make sense.
Apparently the single-largest-selling electric guitar in the business right now is the PRS Silver Sky SE, which is made in Indonesia. I have a "real" Silver Sky and while I can tell the difference I'd have been very happy to have an SE if things had gone that way.
I'm lucky enough to have a Nineties 3-bolt G&L, a Fender American Elite Strat, and a 4-bolt G&L S-500 Deluxe for comparison. The Silver Sky is the best guitar of the bunch, with the finest workmanship. If you had to earn a living playing gigs, you'd want it. But I can absolutely see how it leaves people stone cold.
FWIW Alan and Jack ;
Doesn't really matter how well or poorly you play as long as you're enjoying it .
-Nate
I think PRS guitars in general tend to be polarizing in a way other brands aren't. In my experience, people either love them absolutely or find them boring as hell.
I've never played one I didn't like (and I am an absolutely atrocious player, with no business picking up a guitar). I've only owned one - a second-hand SE Singlecut with Duncan Jazz and JB pickups. It was a screamer.
I've been fortunate enough to play a couple of high-end PRS' that were generously loaned to me. Loved them all.
Strats in general...at least in my opinion...tend to take more effort to get the right kinds of sounds out of them. They can be real finicky about dialing all the knobs and the amp right. I like a "good strat tone" but almost all "good strat tones" are running through some sort of overdrive. Also many moons ago I bought a Clapton signature strat because it has the overdrive pedal built into the guitar and it kind of spoils you when you pick up almost any other strat.
Aside from Angus and Malcom Young playing right into a dimed Marshall stack, I'm not sure there's a better sound than a Strat through a fuzz pedal.
A full time professional guitar player that I know, Erich Goebel, can't stop talking about how good his SE is, other than the fact that someone apparently left a lock washer off of the output jack and things got wonky mid-set.
I kind of hate to like PRS because when I think PRS I think Nickelback because PRS was everywhere in the late 90's and early 2000's, but every one I've seen has been a very lovely thing. When I bought my Heritage I thought about a PRS instead but I really wanted a 335 style semi-hollow, specifically that tone they can get when the selector switch is in the middle a la:
https://youtu.be/n02P-2K9TgQ?si=aQbwsYSm07HT9lEG
...but if I was making the call on a more LP style guitar the PRS would have been the way to go. Gibson's inconsistent quality alone would have made the argument.
Seems to me that Gibson is trying to correct the course. They have new SG Supremes decently priced and some reissue 335’s that spec pretty well for a reasonable price.
I prefer the '50s and '60s GM sedans. Heck, I prefer the '50s and '60s everything. But our differences on this probably reflect the fact that I was born significantly earlier than you--during the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. Still, I don't think anyone, even those born during the 2010s, are going to grow up to like 2010s cars. That was the worst decade for automotive styling IMO.
In reference to DeMuro's comment, here's a time capsule Austin news report about the 1986 drinking age increase to fill you with nostalgia and/or _hireath_:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP_GYY2MY78
Nice use of “hireath” 😁. Well played
Nice work on the Epiphone getting it done and wisely enlisting a soldering expert.
Yeah, if I'd done it there probably would have been some sort of house fire.
A relative of mine burned down the family house soldering pipe. Don’t want to be that guy!
"Soldering is dead easy !" .
Sayeth many to me .
Sometimes it is, others I make a mess of things .
-Nate
There’s a correct order to do things
Where I live, out in the country, apparently the preferred method of demolishing old houses is to burn them down.
As long as they're not up against the treeline.
I spent $250 on a hot air rework station for doing SMD work and I'm afraid of it. Guess I have to watch more Louis Rossman videos.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll give him a try and compare to my favorite mad Aussie, Dave Jones of EEVBlog.
"Toledo, Ohio just posted an all-time high temperature for a single day in January. Does that make you want to take action on climate change?"
No sir, it makes me want to go ride a motorcycle. This warm streak has caught me truly off guard, I've been dragging my feet to put new tires on my now-downsized fleet of two older bikes (XS1100, Kawasaki Voyager XII).
I'm curious if guitars are like cans (headphones) or speakers in that they need ~100 hours of use to break them in. Will the sound change with use?
I recently saw a gizmo that's supposed to vibrate a new guitar and give it that "played with" feeling.
I've got that "played with" feeling Ronnie.
! Did you date her too ? .
-Nate
kinda reminds me of the metalax stress relief company
i ought to try that out sometime when i build my engine
https://www.bonal.com/
The most honest and realistic answer I can give you is NO.
Guitars DO tend to be more resonant and sustain-producing after the wood in them has dried to 15 percent or less. PRS and other high end makers will kiln dry the wood. Others, like the overseas manufacturers, just expect that you'll let it sit in your room all winter for years on end and let your home heating system dry it out.
Every classic rock record was made with a guitar that hadn't celebrated its tenth birthday, with the exception of the Zeppelin albums.
what if you made a guitar out of some kind of engineering plastic
i imagine the trick would be to find something that has the correct stiffness and internal damping to make the tone you want but it ought to be ultra stable overtime and in various environments
The Dan Armstrong acrylic guitar:
https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/gear-search-gallery-1970-ampeg-dan-armstrong-guitar
hey thats pretty neat
thanks
came here to say exactly that.
"I’m still missing a couple of pieces: the “poker chip” switch plate and a back control cavity plate, which will likely be 3-D printed by the same person who bailed me out on the soldering."
Send me an accurate tracing of the control cavity plate and measure how thick it is, and I can probably cut you one on my laser, which will look better than a 3D print.
Well THAT I can do!
Cutting it would probably be more dimensionally accurate, too. Printed parts can be a bit off because plastic shrinks. Even ABS+ can shrink up to 3% so sometimes you have to fiddle with the exact size of the print to get things correctly. When I'm doing something like an interference fit for embedding magnets, I'll do multiple iterations, changing the diameter by 0.25mm at a time, or less.
Assuming the cover plate is something close to 1/16" (1.6mm) I can get black acrylic, or even cut you one out of basswood plywood.
You might have to chamfer the screw holes yourself.
Jack has lots of experience chamfering screw holes.
Hey-oh!
DeMuro must have graduated from the same word salad masters class as Kamala Harris!
For the young guys in flyover country, it is hard not to recommend military service. If they are motivated and work hard they can work their way into an SF unit and work with some very intelligent and motivated people. The skills and knowledge gained in that occupation would be far more useful than 90+ % of the college degrees he would waste $100K+ on.
Agreed, but with the demons who run this country making the decisions, you stand a good chance of coming home without a leg, or not at all.
It certainly comes with some inherent risks. SF does most of the fighting whether we are officially at war or not. Their training and mission success rates are a magnitude better than a typical soldier.
I'm hoping my son ends up flying a C-17. You rarely read
C-17 SHOT DOWN, PILOTS TORN LIMB FROM LIMB BY SCREAMING LOCALS
When are you going to buy him that re-pop P-51? https://www.scalewings.com/sw-51-mustang/
edit: I finally looked up the engine they have in that thing... talk about a tease. What a waste of an opportunity for a P&W turboshaft.
When I lived in Charleston, I hung out regularly with some C17 pilots from the air wing based there and got to fly the sim once. Those guys loved their job. They got to do low levels, airdrops, and other tricky stuff with that big bird on a regular basis. Also it has a very nice power/weight ratio when unloaded.
The fighters are sexier but 99.9% of the pilots never do their real job (shoot an opponent down) whereas the airlift guys did it all the time.
Keep him out of helicopters.
Reference to relevant scene in 'Lord of War' goes here for what is likely to happen.
My grandson joined the army, and it worked out well for him, because he’s an air traffic controller in Alaska. And there was nothing for him in Georgia.
Alaska is much more exciting than Georgia!
I remember reading about a Marine who won the Medal of Honor, but didn't want it.
When asked why he was refusing this highest of all military awards, he said that all it would do is remind him of the worst day of his life.
My kind of guy.
I was DEVASTATED when a minor medical condition sidelined me from the Navy NUPOC program, for which I was an absolute shoo-in, back in 2011.
Today? I'm glad I'm not riding around in the belly of a SSBN or SSGN, tasked with responsibility for executing any number of doomsday scenarios on behalf of whichever animated corpse happens to be holding down the big chair in the Oval Office at any given time.
Yes but you'd be halfway to retirement!
Plus I'd get all that sweet hero worship!
It's always the intangibles...
I've come to know quite a few Sub-Sea guys over my career and the ones who spent any real time in the tube, are a bit off. I never figured out if it was the higher levels of radiation, the pressure differential, or the simple fact that it takes a certain kind of person to willingly be crammed into a tube with 100+ other guys under the ocean for 6mo at a time. (Ok maybe 2 -7 females, as defined by reproductive organs, as well).
It seems like a job that is much cooler to talk about doing after it is over vs actually doing it, I don't think you missed anything.
I would recommend it to my sons (but maybe not my daughter) but there are two problems: wokeness permeating the current leadership and the possibility of dying far away for no real reason.
Having spent most of a week at a USASOC sniper course I would say wokeness was notable for it's absence. The leadership in many of the units that matter is well grounded.
That is good to know at least!
The field grade officers have rarely been the problem in elite units. The missions and resources those units have been given often are problems. Even using Delta in Syria instead of Group is incorrect.
I had a very interesting discussion with some of the Cadre about play calling out of Washington DC vs from the field. Politics vs actual war fighting. It's a huge problem.
Yeah, but that's on the enlisted side at a SOC course. GL with the rest of it.
Less and less young men from 'flyover' country are going into the service. The current administration doesn't care much for those kinds of people and are making it clear. Most vets these days no longer recommend the military to others.
Co-signed. I’m a vet, and I don’t recommend it to others outside of very specific circumstances.
I still think it's an organization that can build men of character and capability way out of proportion to what the universities are turning out.
I'm not so sure of that anymore. Not with some of the things I'm seeing.
Buddy of mine was in both Gulf Wars. When his son said he was considering joining up my buddy kept cutting his steak and said "I'll break your fucking clavicles first." Most of the table laughed. "I'm not kidding. You're not getting in these people's wars. I'll break your clavicles and then break them again before I allow that."
The laughter stopped.
Yup, what Biden did in Afghanistan was pretty much pissed on the graves of every soldier who died over there, including the ones he killed personally with his orders. Then there is the amount of political correctness and the now complete and utter disdain for religion. They threw a LOT of soldiers out over wuhan - ruined their lives with bad paper.
And now they're asking those people to come back (and they're pretty much all saying no). I think the gay furry colonel who was fucking (literally) his staff and going around in costume sums up the current stay of our military. There's no honor or professionalism anymore - just deviants and squabbling women who crash ships because they're not talking to each other.
I mean that's a little hyperbolic, but not much. Also, if you were booted over the 'flu, you can get your record changed to honorable.. https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/26744
Unfortunately SF units particularly have suffered the lions share of casualties during the “soft close” of the GWOT. Even in places outside of CENTCOM.
Not to be pedantic, but we're at ACF so I am going to be, SF = Green Berets. All JSOC units, from DevGru to JTAC have suffered disproportionately to the services as a whole, and of course it hasn't impacted the vast majority of the American people at all.
Very true, special operations in general
Military service today is not be recommended. We live in an age when conspiracy theories are the most reasonable explanations.
"DeMuro must have graduated from the same word salad masters class as Kamala Harris!"
And Trump!
:-)
Donald Trump is a non sequitur ninja of the first order, but at least he doesn't change dialect depending on the hue of the audience.
Would be agreed, but this is what anyone who signs up for combat roles will be headed to.
https://funker530.com/video/nsfw-insane-15-minute-international-legion-assault-near-avdiivka/
That said if you can sign up to be an intelligence-pogue that could be a good gig, and the (contractor) employment after military is decently compensated in the US, but extremely so on deployment.
This looks like a weird story, but potentially a good deal:
http://www.saabnet.com/tsn/class/900-93.html#23102552312apotk
You don't see many with miles that low anymore.
Oh man. I really, really want that car.
Jack that space pod on the roof would be useful I am sure, just wondering what a stiff side wind would do to the driving characteristics!!! 😆😆😆
Although some studies were done, side wind sensitivity was part of why Saab was reluctant to make a wagon version; see the letter from Björn Envall here:
https://www.saabplanet.com/uncovering-a-hidden-gem-the-story-of-a-16-year-old-saab-fans-revolutionary-designs/
That said, it's going to be much less than a "Toppola":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toppola
https://i0.wp.com/saabblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Saab-900-Toppola-1.jpeg
https://toppola.hu/download/toppola-catalog-web.pdf
I hate Illinois Nazis, but love that Saab!
the Nazis weren't _from_ Skokie, they went there to march "because that's where the Jews are"
Sorry I had to. Whenever I see Skokie all I can think of is the line from the Blues Brothers.
Made me laugh then and still does.
I have not progressed past 12 years of age mentally.
It was based on a real-life event, where the ACLU represented the Nazis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie
Gruppenfuhrer!
If you're in Skokie, I recommend Ken's Diner, down Dempster. One of the best burgers that I've had. I use to recommend Slice Of Life for pizza, but the owner retired and closed it.
Never went to /Slice of Life and regret not getting the chance now.
I had almost that exact car as my first ride about 24 years ago (Mine was an 89 in light green but same spec otherwise). Got it at the local auto auction for $1200 with 197,000 miles on it. I also had a 4 door 8 valve and a very cool 9000 Turbo. Very durable, but not reliable cars. You also need a guy who knows his way around Saabs to fix the thing because they do things differently in Trollhattan. For example, the engine is mounted "backwards" so all the belts are right up next to the firewall. Parts are also a problem now. Saabs and Volvos absolutely dominated VT until Subaru came in with their cheaper, AWD options. That example looks awesome and you could have a lot of fun with it puttering around. There's a few guys holding on to the Saab lifestyle up here. For example, I have a dude at the end of my road with about 5 of them in his driveway. Guessing he uses the combined parts of all of them to keep his one turbo running.
Parts availability is not really all that bad. Saab Parts was spun out as its own company. Although some things are unavailable, the Car Wizard on YouTube says he can't get certain parts for 1980s Camaros either, so I"m not sure if it's all that much worse.
The specialist mechanic thing has indeed gotten significantly worse in the last year or two due to a wave of retirements/closings. But as recently as 2020, it was a huge blessing: you could go to the local independent Saab specialist shop knowing that they were experts and honest, because there were not enough Saabs in the town to rip anybody off.
Good to know about the parts. We had a guy the next town over growing up known as the "Saab Doctor". Every once in a while I drive through that part of the county and his sign is still up. Surprised he's still alive because he was quite the drunk when I knew him.
‘Bradley Brownell would have been a safer pair of hands for this “hot take”’
Actually, he wrote a rebuttal to that take which I won’t bother linking to because I don’t want to give him more than one click. It’s written with exactly the level of quality and thoughtfulness one would expect though.
How did I not predict he would?
What happens when an unstoppable wannabe meets an immovable cuck?
Probably a lot of dorky bonding over Porsches if we’re being honest.
You beat me to it.. I made the mistake of clicking on his fuel economy rant thing on Jalopnik. I hate myself for it.
DeMuro's article looks like a perfect example of clickbait for sure - the title caught my eye (and a bit of my ire) and after I quickly skimmed it, I realized he had the exact same thoughts on the decade as I do - not a lot of good stuff in the early years but the last few years had some really good cars. That's not what I expected from the title.
I would've guessed he's already busy enough with Youtube, Cars and Bids, etc. to not want to take the time to write a column for MT (for $200, no less) but perhaps there is something to your theory that he just wants to be liked?
I can still remember the exact moment I figured out that MT could be bought. It was 1988, I was in college, and a special edition came out entitled "How Ford Became #1". It had articles on nearly every model in Ford's lineup and how awesome they all were - I had never seen Tempos described in such glowing terms. Of course I still have it - that's one copy that hasn't been donated to the rural Ohio car magazine library as of yet.
I could think of a dozen cars, including both the Gen 1 and Gen 2 Supra.
Hell. Who wouldn't want a 1984 Z28 HO in the two tone scheme, or a Mustang SVO?
I don't care who you are, Fox-body Mustangs are cool.
I'd add the Black Gold 280zx, Honda Accord LXi hatchback, E28 M5, and E30 as well. There is a lot of good in that decade amongst the bad.
1st gen RX-7, second gen CRX Si…. Alfa GTV-6 and Milano…
I'll add the 1989 Taurus SHO and 1985 Isuzu Impulse Turbo. Had and enjoyed both. Dumped the Impulse because of a head gasket leak, but that was a fun and good-looking car.
Edit: Oops, got the years wrong. I had a 1989 Impulse Turbo and a 1991 SHO Plus. But the SHO's first year was 1989 so it still counts.
The 300ZX came out in 1984 and is more 1980s IMO and IME.
3rd gen LXi Hatchback is absolutely choice. Bucket list car for me.
2nd and 3rd gen Honda Prelude, Civic/CRX Si
Mitsu Starion
A whole slew of Nissan/Toyota products: All-Tracs, Maximas, you name it
All the different mini-trucks of the era starting from the S10 (gimme a 2.8+5spd one with rally wheels) to the Nissan D21, Mazdas, etc
GM G-bodies (Monte SS, Cutlass Supreme in particular) B-body Caprice, squarebody trucks, the early GMT400s
Corsica 5door hatch with a Getrag 5spd and 2.8L (I'm weird like that, sue me)
A bunch of all-time greats from the Germans: W214, E30, GTIs, etc
I was born in 89 and maybe I'm just a nostalgic idiot, but I would truly be happy if I was "forced" to drive nothing but cars from the 80s for the rest of my life. Yeah yeah safety blah blah.
I'd be OK with cars from the 1980s numbered 900 - 911.
Oh, the b-bodies! I forgot about those and we just had an article about them right here. I like the 80s Cutlasses.
Mk1 MR-2
323 GTX
Scirocco
MAGNUM P.I. FERRARI
The first issue, Apr 86, of Automobile Magazine has a cover article written by DED Jr comparing the MR2 and 308.
Put me down for a 1980 De Tomaso Pantera GT5. That's cheating, I know. I don't care.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was a teenager for most of the '80s and "came of age" as a car guy during the decade. I've only owned 3 '80s cars: '86 Mustang GT , 86 911 Carrera and an '89 325i. I was surprised how many things were assembled with sheet metal screws in the first two :). I probably have 8-10 Ford cars from the decade that I'd have in my fantasy collection along quite a number of pickups and 4WD SUVs since I tend to gravitate to them.
I’d argue most look more like drywall screws.
They might be that too - in any case - not fasteners you see on modern cars.
The early 80’s were a disaster for the domestics. GM over did their down sizing across the entire line up, Cadillac put the HT-4100 in before any longterm testing and suffered thermal damage. They keep the Fleetwood in production little changed for 12!!!! model years because it was the only model that sold. Ford cheapened the Lincoln line into gussied up LTDII’s (sorry Tom K), Chrysler came out with the K-car and the Colt, nothing else needs to be said. No the early 1980’s almost destroyed the domestic manufacturing base. The only real breakthrough came out of Bolling Green with the 1984 Corvette that was miles ahead of the 1982 in bold quality and performance even with only 200 plus or minus horse power. Ok my take go ahead attack…😇😇
There's more 80s than 70s cars that I would want, but I also am not an American or Muscle car guy... I think a lot of that is just how much influence the templates created in the 80s have on today's current models of cars, and how easy it is to trace that thread straight back.
Of course if I look in paper today's BMW 540i is going to be better than the 535i I could get in 1985, but I know which one I'd rather have in my garage. Pre-80s cars had a much different classification and there's less of a straight model line back to where we are today. Think about your S4, there's a pretty clear line of evolution from the old 100//200 performance variants that became the first S4 in 1990 to your car. Not as much of that pre-1980
There are a lot of of 80s cars I would enjoy owning; in no particular order:
Testarossa
288 GTO
F40
G body 911
964 911
928
E30 M3
E28 M5
All obvious choices, but still.
I have an 80s Corvette. People rag on it but it’s fun, for me at least. The headlights pop up and the top pops off if you want popping.
Agree. Each gen is better, it’s just what I happened to end up with. I would really like a C7 but that’s not in the budget, according to my “accountant”. Yeah I think the C8 is a hot mess styling wise. Too many notes. Im sure its fun like an ugly girl might be fun but then there’s the morning sun.
I have no explanation for this, but I like the C8's looks. I think it makes fun of the over-the-top "supercars" out there while providing a reasonable alternative. No plans for a Corvette, however. I don't think it would make it 500 feet down the dirt road I live on.
The C5 is the high-water mark for Corvette styling.
To be fair, the Tempo really was the best long-wheelbase 1980 Escort anyone's ever sold in 1993.
That’s right - they were probably still selling those during your time at Fire!
Got one for my Mom. 1993 5-speed Topaz GS. $6990 plus tax and title. Brand new.
wtf - Ford, not Fire! Damn autocorrect.
He may have been around for the early Exploders!
Nope, I’m not going to launch into another Tempo/Topaz tirade….
As for dialogue with the other side, I was just telling my like-minded coworkers (the only two in the building hahahaha) that all of us have a lot more in common than otherwise. It's hard to get into conversations with anyone about certain things, and I think a big part of that is how some people build their entire identity on being a leftie or a Reagan Conservative or whatever. For them it becomes physically painful to admit that part of your very being might be wrong, whereas just lambasting the other side as evil feels SO GOOD. I usually keep my opinions to myself. I live a pretty simple life and my big-picture logic is not so great (I'd have a lot more money if it was). And then places like here? It seems like so many people are so much more intelligent or experienced than I am that it's hard to know if my opinion adds anything or if it's just a discordant note throwing off the whole chorus. That said, I don't self-censor here so much because as Jack told me when I admitted to doing it I never know whether something say will spark something someone else.
...and he just plain disappeared from the scene when the Democrats figured out that they could donate directy to big law firms rather than use him for a go-between.
Yeah, I rely on everybody to say something even if it's not the perfect comment -- because when the perfect comments arrive, they're rarely without some sort of seed crystal in previous comments. We're like a bunch of musicians sitting in a room. A bad idea can create a good one, a good one can be fleshed out, a great one can be improved.
I like and will treasure this flattering idea...even if it turns out to be utter bollocks!
The comment section here is like sitting in a bar talking to friends and strangers, and I've never been in a bar where everyone agreed with each other. Good enough for me.
Nicely said.
WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR userNAME
AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GLAD YOU CAME
NORM!
BUT THEYRE NOT SO GLAD YOU ALWAYS FLAME
"I think a big part of that is how some people build their entire identity on being a leftie or a Reagan Conservative or whatever"
This is the real upstream problem to 95% of these conversations, and why we have this lament of the missing "adults in the room." When you go to have a conversation about politics/policy nowadays, you're questioning someone's core identity rather than their belief in how we should achieve a desirable outcome for society. When you replace religion (or another general moral belief system) with politics as the core of your identity, it's only going to get sectarian and ugly. The scary thing is just how fast we're approaching sectarian conflict in a country over politics rather than any sort of real identity.
But the identities have gotten to the point where we can't agree on outcomes.
In 1984: Would Americans be better off with lower taxes or with more affordable education?
In 2024: Is gender affirming care for minors the highest form of compassion, or Holocaust-level evil?
(or from the recent clip: "How can we reduce illegal immigration?" vs "How can we help the people we care about most, which is illegal aliens?)
Because we don't care about the actual outcomes anymore, never mind agree on which ones we want. It's about does it make me feel good because I am helping!!
I'm embarrassed that Chris Murphy is held up as an alum of my college, and was my senator for a bit when we lived in CT. The guy is the real embodiment of what you're saying and that clip proves it.
I think there is a very very small minority on one side that firmly believes that gender affirming care is the only way to solve such a problem. On that same side, we have 100x fold people espouse this, but probably are very indifferent on the outcome.
On the other side, I think we have a significant majority of people who want children to be children, and that the issue of gender dysphoria ought to be addressed in other ways besides physical alteration before a child is an adult. I generally think they do care about the outcome, but that reasoning is because the pushback was grass roots and outside of the political sphere when it started. Yes, politicians and media types have taken this up as an issue, but at the heart of it, the push, unlike many other conservative issues, was truly grass roots.
the basic problem is that this situation exists simply because the government has gotten so big
Respectfully, I think that there is more of a religious aspect to it than anything.
Big Government might require you to pay $150/year to register your bicycle, but would not encourage you to castrate & sexually mutilate your children.
Big Government would require foreigners to register (as in Japan), not completely abandon enforcing the border.
Big Government would frequently raid businesses suspected of employing illegal aliens, not tacitly encourage it while also actively encouraging the displacement of citizens in professional employment through the H-1B program.
That's the trap. Government can be benevolent and work for the interests of its citizens or against it, proportional to the degree of its power. Unfortunately, power corrupts, leading to where the US is now.
I'll put it this way: The fact that everybody gets freaked out about who is being appointed to the Supreme Court is an indication that there's entirely too much power in that institution. If a decision there is a rudder that can steer the economic, social, and cultural path of an entire nation for decades (as it has done) then it's way too fucking powerful.
"When you go to have a conversation about politics/policy nowadays, you're questioning someone's core identity rather than their belief in how we should achieve a desirable outcome for society"
I think we should be questioning people's core identity or moral code. Most people's beliefs in achieving an outcome are always rooted in a moral framework of sorts.
Unless if they aren't. And that I think is the bigger issue is we have leaders on both sides who say and act on things that I don't think they really have a true belief in. If they did, they'd make different choices and use all information possible. What they end up doing is just saying or doing whatever is the new hotness.
If we distill it down from Politicians and Media types to the common people, for example, do we really think all the suburban white women outside of large blue cities really care about bringing illegals here? Do they really care about the issues for minorities in the inner cities? Do they really care about trans-rights issues?
To my main point: How do I have a conversation with these folks when they really don't believe what they say? So yes, I am questioning their identity. If these folks truly believed what they say, would they be so offended? Wouldn't they be able to defend their position without being emotional about it or being triggered? My own observations lead me to think the issue is that people get their panties in a bind when their identity isn't rooted in any sort of moral framework.
I think some folks do want to have these conversations, regardless if they agree or not, it is just that they can't be seen as doing so from their friends or social group. This goes back to some so called journalists and media types slamming other media types for "platforming". So some folks who want to have those conversations can't because they are seen as "talking with a Nazi, sexist, white supremist....."and that's just not tolerated in certain social groups.
I agree, most people are more alike than not, but they are afraid to admit that, on both sides, and on the other side, simply discussing a topic is taboo.
Presumably, Chernin would need to purchase the entirety of TEN - The Enthusiast Network - to get its hands on Motor Trend, as MT is the crown jewel, of sorts.
BaT does well over $1BN in annual volume; Cars & Bids does $300-$400MM based on some back of the napkin math and some statements Doug has made publicly. BaT is the master of the house at the Hearst mags (R&T and C&D), the tail that wags the dog.
This is amid a backdrop of extreme contraction in the media business - The Messenger, Pitchfork, layoffs at the LA Times, etc. There is a new headline every day on the topic.
E.g. - https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/is-the-media-prepared-for-an-extinction-level-event
I don’t think I’ve read a single word of Hemmings automotive content in my life.
Which is ridiculous. You'll read every trashy vomit piece that Fat Brad and Warts Berk and Bi Neil shit out onto the page without so much as five minutes worth of research or proper driving, but you won't read Hemmings?
hemmings is quaint
comfy reading
I just looked at the website. I don’t recognize the name of anyone with a byline.
I do believe that Brett Berk contributes to Hemmings (or has), but I don’t read him. I do enjoy Fat Brad’s hot takes, and I occasionally read Dan Neil.
Now, where is Lonny when we need him to opine on the state of Lucid Trend?
Hemmings isn’t immune from garbage either. They did a series with Mike Musto where he covered modding a new Dodge Hornet for SEMA. I’d rather read the latest installment of Never Stop Driving than watch someone modify a CUV.
Then you're missing out! They've had a lot of good content over the years, although I really miss Daniel Strohl's writing. He cranked out a lot of good historical articles over the years.
I wonder. They were pretty free-and-easy about selling the motorcycle magazines off.
The motorcycle TAM has to be … 10%? … of the car rag market, no?
That is increasingly not true as The Celebrated Man In The Street stops giving a shit about cars. A lot of MT issues were bought by filthy casuals.
Would be interesting to see how much their sales dropped when Covid hit and magazine stands and airport shops stopped buying. That doesn’t equate with readership, but would give you a sense of how many magazines are sold to outlets which sell to casual purchasers.
~500K motorcycle sales a year vs ~15MM vehicle sales (domestic).
There is a far higher percentage of enthusiasts in the motorcycle buyer pool, but still.
Is the magazine separate from the TV channel? The channel seems to be doing pretty well, in my house at least.
Unknown. I have the app, but only to watch the WEC.
The future of the written word feels like it's going to be more niche, and subscriber-driven rather than ad-driven, as all the new successful publications I've seen have been in that vein. Think a publication you can expense.
The Washington Post and the LA Times tried to copy the NYT's model, and failed. That model only works for the NYT with their dual strengths of being a lifestyle brand for anxious, upper-middle class liberals, and their diversification beyond their core news product, e.g. games, cooking, and now sports with The Athletic acquisition.
This is the future of content in general.
Look at substack, patreon, Onlyfans (yes, really), etc.
Would you rather view content for “free” that big tech feeds to you and then view ads, or directly support your preferred content creators?
What’s the ceiling on what an NYT writer with a following can command? $250K (outside of the superstar names) perhaps? Could that same person find 5,000 people willing to pay $5 / month on substack? Probably so … that’s $300K before fees, so it would basically be a wash. And if you 5,000 fans, could you not do a little hustling and self-promotion and find 5,000 more?
be kinda cool if the onlyfans hq got hit with a suitcase nuke
What a weird way to spell Mindgeek.
In my mid-size city, the local newspaper is in the process of being gutted by the new corporate owner. There are no more local features writers or critics. They have been replaced by freelancers and syndicated content. At least a couple of the former writers who have a following have started a Substack with a mix of free and paid content. In a metro of over a million people, it seems realistic to get enough subscribers to match or exceed their former salaries. Especially since the newspaper subscription price continues to increase for less content, and people are canceling their subscriptions in droves from what I have seen.
It is entirely possible that that could be (or, perhaps, is) the case.
In the absence of a model for writers with a legitimate following to interact directly with, ahem, patrons who support their work, they’d be working at Starbucks, and you and your neighbors wouldn’t have anything to read pertaining to local news.
The dislocation may end up being *good* overall.
Mustang SVO and 5.0, IROC-Z, C4 Corvettes, 944, MR2, CR-X, Fiero, GTI, RX-7, Maxima, Supra, T-bird Turbo Coupe, Merkur XR4Ti, nearly every BMW (even the slow-revving eta), every Mopar with a turbo 2.2 and a manual (even the vans), every GM compact with a 60-deg V6 and a manual, and all the crazy over-the-top exotics. Flawed but wonderful cars, and I love them all, but I must be wrong, because DeMuro is a millionaire automotive know-it-all and I'm an anonymous tech writer.
Don't forget the XJ Cherokee. Oh, and the Chrysler minivans for families. I'd add the Mark III Supra and FC RX-7, too.
My commuter is an XJ, damn thing won’t die. And I don’t care if people think I’m poor. I’m not.
Keeping a faithful old daily driver means you're smart, not poor. I know a guy who bought a Cessna 172 rather than "upgrading" his XJ. Disclaimer: he lives in Phoenix, where XJs don't rust.
My grandad had a bronze K-car, that I remember to be a Chrysler New Yorker that had a turbo in it. I thought it was the cat's meow at 10 or so. I wonder if they are worth the nostalgia?
They have plastic rsdiators.
Someone who knows more about FWD Mopars will have to weigh in on whether they are worth owning now (Thomas Kreutzer?), but what I thought was cool was that they offered a manual transmission in nearly every K-car derivative, including the vans. My best friend was an Eagle Scout in the late 80s and his scoutmaster had a short wheelbase Caravan with a turbo 2.2 and 5-speed. I doubt they made too many of those.
that actually sounds neat
I have heard that too! I met a guy once who had one and had swapped in the SRT-4 engine, apparently that's pretty easy to do. Funny how the SRT-4 have all been beat into oblivion. I wonder if that is the fate of all of these 392's that are currently running around.
Recovering Gen X bootstrap asshole here. I was of the mind that all a black family had to do was move out of the city to one that provided more opportunity. I was making it just fine out here in middle America by god with only a high school diploma and some community college credits. Then covid hit and the curtain was pulled back on the public education system. That was an eye opener. Black kids were already performing poorly in school but I would ascribe the reasons to things like culture and absent fathers. Those things are still a problem but it now seems clear that DoE, teachers unions and local school boards are intentionally trying to tie a boat anchor to black kids and hobble them for the rest of their lives. Covid video classes made it clear this was happening to everyone no matter what your skin color was. Poor blacks and poor whites being hit the hardest. It's also clear your average public school teacher isn't the most impressive intellect you'll find. I don't know what the answer is but I'd encourage black people to take full advantage of the current DEI infrastructure while they still can. Colleges are begging for them, Fortune 500 companies are begging for them. If you can keep your nose clean and put in the basic amount of work you'll be on the expressway to a comfortable life. That opportunity won't last forever though. If I were a black parent having "The Talk" with my child it wouldn't be about cops. It would be about milking white guilt for all it's worth.
P.S.
Fuck that polar bear. He shoulda moved to Florida.
If I had a biracial son with a 120 IQ I'm pretty sure I could guide him into being worth $50 million with a little effort and $5 million just by not abusing him.
For my white kid -- well, I hope Emirates is still hiring in 2035.
However, as you note, the vast majority of black kids don't benefit from that system. They're stuck in a culture and milieu that ACTIVELY sabotages their attempts to benefit.
Exactly. At that point you're enshrining behavior that only hurts the person exhibiting it.
I think you and Jonathan are overstating the appetite for DEI as a recruiting tool beyond the colleges. As a minority guy with a top tier degree and up there IQ, it's still a struggle to get into a really high paid, decision maker role where I'll be worth $10million+. I'll call out your view as being the Gen X old man yelling at clouds, versus my 30s millennial take, but I know it's gotten worse so it's easy to view it as you do.
Most of those Fortune 500 DEI recruits are shunted into HR and support roles and fight up as a side show, rather than inside of the real business where it's probably more cut-throat than ever. There also still lingers the specter of what Clarance Thomas or Thomas Sowell wrote about where that stigma of being a DEI admit follows you (and your degree) around since more people know how much the system was rigged in higher ed.
Less than you think for the actual decision makers. Sure it may help some at the bottom, but most of the time they know those folks will get churned through and be gone in 2 years from analyst/associate classes. Big time roles still get recruited the classic way through networking, and backgrounds.
DEI and all this talk of it, is more show than anything. It's a PR tax that these companies pay so that they don't get hunted by the activists.
"As a minority guy with a top tier degree and up there IQ, it's still a struggle to get into a really high paid, decision maker role where I'll be worth $10million+. I'll call out your view as being the Gen X old man yelling at clouds, versus my 30s millennial take, but I know it's gotten worse so it's easy to view it as you do."
I'm not saying that YOU are in a perfect position for it -- I'm saying that the kids who are 14 right now are in a perfect position for it
"Most of those Fortune 500 DEI recruits are shunted into HR and support roles and fight up as a side show, rather than inside of the real business where it's probably more cut-throat than ever."
There's a whole generation of female leaders of Millennial age; I know a woman who works for a top 5 investment firm and she has almost no men in her chain or any of the chains around her. Most of those women are white women, which is a separate discussion -- you can easily argue that many diversity slots have simply gone to hotties.
Maybe they are, but I think they're going to get shunted into side paths versus being given the actual levers of power. They'll be the HR or back office staff never the real faces of the place. I've been working on a new senior level role, and noone cares that I'm a minority it's the usual what are you going to do for me and what have you done before. I'll also add, that any firm that's visibly making these choices to hunt minorities versus outcomes is probably not somewhere you want to work because it's not going to end well if the focus isn't on profitable growth.
"There's a whole generation of female leaders of Millennial age; I know a woman who works for a top 5 investment firm and she has almost no men in her chain or any of the chains around her"
What does that woman do at the firm? Is she actual front office making the deals, or does she run a support department like Investor Relations or Marketing?
I will say the white women really ran the diversity racket for themselves the best, but haven't quite penetrated the core decision making spaces. When I go into talk to the money guys, the investment decisions are still majority men and mainly the good ole boys or whiz kid types you'd expect.
If black people are owed reparations by anybody, it's the Democrats that hooked 'em on welfare.
My beef has always been with the assumption that goes with race. I’ve told the story before, but I grew up in a SE CT neighborhood with a pair of skinny black brothers who lived down the street. We played with them just like every other kid. They, stereotypes aside, weren’t any better at sports, and they were mid pack in school. Their dad (married to their mom), if I remember correctly, worked for Pfizer along with my mom and half of the other parents. Last I knew the older brother went to UConn with about half his graduating class (year behind mine). In short, they had 95% the same upbringing as me. There is no reason to treat them differently than me. But to hear the current thing, they have the deck stacked against them, and I have all the advantages in the world. Anecdotes and data and all that, but I can see with my own eyes that wasn’t true. Help those who need help, regardless of skin color, but knock off “helping” those who don’t, just because of skin color.
Groton, CT area? Hopefully the Pfizer plant there is still running, my mother worked at Pearl River for Wyeth/Pfizer and would go up there a bunch.
I think a core of that for a lot of us was having the ability to relate to all the different folks in the neighborhood because our parents worked together. How different can the black kids down the street be if their parents work with ours? We really have to be taught that they are different, and that's what scares me most for the current generation. One of our friends actually pulled her kids out of school because the teacher tried to explain to them that they were different than the other kindergartners because they were half black.
I know had a very similar upbringing to those other kids in my neighborhood. but as a first gen hispanic, I'd say my upbringing was probably 125% of the other kids because I got a whole extra bunch of things that made no sense to them.
Yup Groton (although my mom worked in the fancy new building the built in New London, of Kelo v. New London fame, the building they shuttered after maybe 10 years).
Contrast your life experience with, say, Ralph Northram. He was the scion of actual privilege. Meaning black kids didn't go to his schools. That's why he's in blackface or a klan outfit in his college yearbook.
It's like these insufferable assholes going on the news now to talk about "opening their home" to illegal immigrants and without a trace of any self awareness saying how wonderful it is that they now have someone around the house to cook and clean. Super duper progressive upper middle class and upper class white people eager to get on TV and virtue signal that they basically have slaves again.
That's what real privilege looks like. If you grew up middle class or working class you don't do that shit because you haven't lived in a bubble floating above the rest of humanity all your stinking life.
Bless your heart. If no-one stirs the *race*pot, then the *class* pot might heat up.
And you know we can't have that.
stir both pots
It becomes a chicken or egg question. Which caused the other? I'd argue it started with the deliberate attack on intact black families with a double barrel of de-industrializing cities and "the great society" welfare boondoggles. Rob a man of his ability to be a provider and then undermine him by handing out checks to baby-mamas and there's no incentive left. People rightly understand that LBJ's programs (as LBJ was a fucking sociopath) didn't help anyone but they miss the deliberate de-industrialization in the cities as a key part of that program.
Hopefully everyone will remember Johnson's boast about having the n words voting democrat for 200 years, here.
Prior to the "great society" and the beginning of the destruction of America's industrial base, blacks had high literacy rates and intact families. In the injustice of segregation and Jim Crow, to be educated was an act of rebellion against that oppression. Black churches provided a moral center and vital community support. The black working class was the first target of Our Betters and even in the mid 1960's it was evident enough for Moynihan to see what was going on and forecast doom as a result.
Education has most definitely become much more awful over the years. In no small part that's because lots of "educators" have been intent on using the most vulnerable to experiment on...a time honored tradition among Our Betters. One example of how self-labeled "progressives" have substituted what sounds good to them for what works can be seen in their ridiculous "whole language" approach to reading:
https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Dalliance with the bright ideas from over-credentialed midwit moral busy bodies on reading hit pretty much all kids who weren't sent to private schools...but guess who it hit hardest? Precisely those kids who really needed those skills to have any hope of escaping desperate poverty and terrible cycles of dependency.
Of course, reading came later than other concepts like "social promotion", where children who could not meet standards were not held back so as to avoid the "stigma" of not graduating with classmates. In education at every turn you're going to find a habit of people who are often wrong but never in doubt substituting what they think for what is actually true and then having absolutely no accountability when it fails. It's not an idea, it's an ideology and because of that it can't be wrong because that would mean the person(s) pushing it are wrong, and that is so severely ego dystonic that it cannot be accepted because the foundation of their entire worldview is self regard.
They are the chosen. They literally *cannot* be wrong.
All of that happened and certainly played a role.
But even then, the continual lowering of standards on the theory that Because Oppression you can't expect, to quote the "most voted for" president in history, "poor kids to be just as smart as white kids." didn't come out of nowhere. The degradation in the life of the black family had profound effects that schooling alone could not overcome. It's difficult to get academic performance out of a child who is third or fourth generation government dependent, when just about every male he sees ends up in jail (sometimes for good reason, sometimes for not) and he likely doesn't share common paternity with his siblings.
You see the exact same patterns in more rural areas where manufacturing disappeared. The same crumbling family structures. The same increase in drug abuse, illegitimacy, criminality, utter hopelessness.
That's why King was doing his best to make common cause between poor blacks and poor whites before he was taken out. When he was just a civil rights leader he was tolerated by establishment power but when he started challenging it with populist ideas that rejected the world as conceived by Our Betters they killed him real quick.
What you're missing about colleges is that DEI doesn't actually serve any of the people it purports to. Colleges want black skin on the campus. They go to great lengths to recruit, but they do not go through the same lengths to ensure that those people graduate. They want the numbers, but have no more incentive to actual betterment than the k-12 institutions do.
The K-12'ers are busy patting themselves on the back for being progressive while they hold that it's racism to discipline a black child for any act. And it's racist to grade them. Essentially any level of accountability is racist because Oppression. Seemingly completely unaware that they're making the exact same argument that the Klanners made, essentially telling you that blacks are animals and can't be held to standards the same as actual people. Because oppression.
Colleges are not correcting that. Colleges are the origin of that kind of diseased thinking.
Martin Luther King today would be the black face of white supremacy because of his whole "content of their character" fixation. He flatly rejected identity ideology and that's why in our day he is "problematic" because he was insufficiently LBGTQ+ friendly for modern audiences.
Have you noticed how MLK day gets quieter and quieter as the years go by? That is no accident.
So, yes, I agree that education has played a significant role in dooming generations of black kids to short, brutish lives full of desperation and violence. But the destruction of their lives started with the destruction of their families.
Malcom warned everybody about the danger of the white liberal. And they shot him, too.