Convertible Season Over
Mike addresses how spring in Tennessee is short-lived. I agree. It’s the end of convertible season. I have two windows of time to enjoy my convertible, one in spring and one in fall. In the summer, it gets too hot, unless you drive in the evenings. Winter is just too cold. I probably only got to enjoy the top down this spring for about three weeks before the heat made it unpleasant.
And for the record, this is also the reason I haven’t been looking for bias on NPR. After all, it’s just not cool to drive down the road with the top down listening to All Things Considered but Israelis.
May 20th, 2004 at 10:43 am
Whycome your comments don’t remember my info?
Anyhoo, I’m annoyed because my little convertible isn’t due to be completed until the next week or so (I have to hurry up and order a top for it!) and I won’t get to enjoy it this spring. Those ’70s British sports cars were lacking in lots of areas, and one of those was air conditioning. If the heat coming from both the engine compartment and the sun can’t be blown away by taking the top down, you’re out of luck. That’s partially why I took great pains to eliminate black interior components.
May 20th, 2004 at 10:47 am
As for your info, different versions of windows/ie don’t do it. My office computer never remembers but my home one does. I’ve tried about 3 fixes and none work.
Good luck with the car. A friend of mine has a 1971 MG that he’s had since high school. Sweet ride.
May 20th, 2004 at 11:06 am
Bjorn: are you getting an MG? Are you in east TN as well? If you’re in the nashville area I’d have a great recommendation for a place to have it worked on..
May 20th, 2004 at 12:05 pm
Chris: I’ve had a pile of MG Midget parts for about 7 years. I finally got sick of moving the stuff around and am paying a garage here in Knoxville to put the whole thing together for me. The upside is it will be almost brand new, including wiring harness and most things electrical, mechanical, and trim. The downside is I have to pay the bill sooner or later. Heh. You can see more info on the car on my blog, or just visit http://www.midgetweb.com, but the site has only been updated like once in the last two years. Still, has a lot of photos there.
Nashville has a pretty good British car community, I run across those folks from time to time.
May 20th, 2004 at 1:39 pm
My first car was a used ’76 MG Midget. Lots of fun. I totalled it, natch.
May 20th, 2004 at 3:04 pm
Because everyone knows All Things Considered but Israelis doesn’t bother with the Israeli perspective.
May 20th, 2004 at 3:07 pm
Well, i wouldn’t know that since i haven’t been listening. Even you admitted a pro-palestine bias if i recall?
May 20th, 2004 at 4:30 pm
Not really. I conceded that they’d been accused of pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli bias (more than two years ago) and that they’ve made corrections to try to do away with that perception. Personally, I’ve never felt there was very much meat to the allegation, especially since it’s the type of emotionally-charged issue about which everyone is apt to perceive some bias, whether or not it’s actually there.
We discussed this at the Memphis Bloggers’ Bash a while back, as it pertains to the abortion issue. The dude from FishKite said that you could identify media bias on the abortion issue based on whether the outlet used the term “pro-Abortion” or “pro-Choice.” It was his opinion (initially) that use of “pro-Choice” belied a pro-Abortion bias. I disagreed, and said that the use of the term, by itself, tells you nothing. Rather, what’s important is whether they identify the groups consistently and in the ways in which the groups identify themselves. (They tend to self-identify as “pro-Life” and “pro-Choice,” not as “anti-Choice” or “pro-Abortion.”) If an outlet used “anti-Choice” together with “pro-Choice,” then that would indicate some real bias on the issue.
But if you use the self-identifying terms, this tends to make neither side happy. “Pro-Choice” people are apt to complain that “pro-Life” people aren’t really pro-life at all, since most of them support the death penalty, for example; meanwhile, “pro-Life” people are apt to complain that “pro-Choice” people care about abortion, not “choice.” The trouble comes in because there are no neutral terms to describe the relative positions. The divide runs that deep. There is no way to cover the issue without some appearance of bias because of the lack of neutral terms and the emotionally charged nature of the issue at hand.
The same concept holds true for Israel versus Palestine. Pro-Israeli folks want the Palestinians labeled as “terrorists,” but to cover the issue in that way minimizes any legitimate complaints that the Palestinians might have. But if you don’t label at least some of their acts as “terrorist” acts, you’re not accurately reporting the facts, either. There are no neutral terms to describe the issue.
All that said, I really haven’t seen any evidence (particularly recently) that NPR covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict any differently than any other mainstream American news source. A good example is the story I linked, where NPR actually interviews an Israeli who defends Israel’s recent actions in Gaza.
Sorry about the long-ish rant. š