Obamauto Discards Hummer Like A Truant.
Like saloon liners, the Hummer was never anything but happy. Did you buy a first or second class ticket on a Cunarder or the White Star Line because you wanted to go across the ocean? Now Hummer is doomed by the castor oil sales force in the White House. Sales are down more than half (just half??) and GM, newly acquired by the Obama administration, will end Hummer as if it is a truant who was caught at the circus. But Hummer was never about a sense of proportion, or thrift, or the bottom line -- or this new mania for bailouts that pay. Who believed in Hummer as a necessary machine? Hummer was the Big Toy among us. Some folk miss their toys when they grow up. Some people regard toys as immature and wasteful. Some people are toys. The Hummer will live on as an idea -- in Hollywood movies, in iconoclastic Max Max remakes, in the driveways of the Ummah and the BRICs and the newly liberated. Hummer was meant as a symbol, never a vehicle, and the symbol was that we are alive, we are goony, and we feel way awkward in our toy bodies, but it's a new day, the road is wide and endless, let's go. Hummer, we hardly knew you, but we miss you already. The smugness of the NYT underlines the imminent nostalgia:
A Dealer's Big Bet Is on the Line as the Hummer Falls From Favor
Sales of Hummers over all have fallen so far -- 51 percent last year, the worst drop in the industry -- that General Motors is trying to find a buyer for the brand. Without one, the company might close Hummer. An announcement about Hummer's fate may be made Tuesday.
"It's a brand that represents a lot of what people want to get away from," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with the research firm I.H.S. Global Insight.
...
If Hummer is closed, it would be phased out "rather quickly," G.M.'s president, Frederick A. Henderson, said last month.
But I see by way of the New York Times that they are the hottest thing on 4 wheels in Iraq? http://therunningmule.blogspot.com/2009/03/al-sultan-for-trading-cars.html
oHNo! What becomes of our beloved JEEP? Their Jr Hummer looking model had just come on line>>> Oh well, back to the basics with the doomdayers and survivalists. CJ anyone? At least they have retained some of their value.
Who's out there trying to keep tally of the oopsies? OOPC now hiring full time- Will train- Must be physically fit and be able to function in highky stressful and mentally demanding positions- Pllease apply in writing ASAP to:
Mr. Languor Languishing
#7 WishUWereHere Road
MyWry River, BO 12121-12121
No phone calls please!!
Besides being fun, toys like Hummers, yachts, backyard swimming pools, ski vacations, etc. also represent a cushion; a layer of subcutaneous fat that acts as a shock absorber against viral aggression. Without this, a body would be vulnerable, like osteoporosis riddled wind chimes which would likely shatter when facing their first inevitable storm.
In hard times everything that is non-essential hits the auction block. It's easy to call military spending ‘waste’, especially if you don't expect to use your military for its intended purpose: to kill and to break things. Cut the waste and, again, one leaves oneself open to aggression, ideological and otherwise. As we go down the road of trimming the fat, it might be wise to ask ourselves: What, after we've trimmed everything down to the bone, is there left to cut?
Having seen or ridden Military Hummvs on 4 continents, I never saw what the fuss was about. When they were new back in 1988-9, they were uncomfortable and hard to maintain.
The more un-PC Hummers become the more I want one. I would like to drive down the street in one as a statement of how much I think Al Gore and his supporters are a pack of morons.