p e n g u i n d e v i l

Taking advantage of the Netflix and Hulu.com streaming, we had a nice week of so of documentary watching. Of course, as we streamed them, their were some that we couldn’t get to much into and so felt quite free to halt. The ones that we completed though, consisted primary of these…



The King of Kong. Man, I’d been wanting to see this for a long. Time! The story of Billy Mitchell, the fellow who got the Donkey Kong world record (among many others) in the early 1980’s and another fellows recent attempt to defeat that record. Donkey Kong was one of the first games that I was “good” at (until that fateful day at the Red Robin on Burnside when punk-ass Jon beat me and I moved onto other games), so it was fun to watch this story… It was also somewhat gratifying to have them especially cover the difficulty of the Third Elevators as that level was my fatal downfall. What becomes somewhat surprising is the politics and cliquishness of the scene. The same major player have been around since the old days (including the fellow who is in charge of official records keeping) and they don’t seem to take to well towards new comers trying to unseat the champ.



Crawford. Uff. Man. The story of what happens to a small Texas town when the Governor of Texas decides to by a ranch in the town as he makes his play for President. I found that theme to not be as interesting as it was to listen to the things that these people have to say in general. Primarily non-analytical pro-government, pro-military, pro-god, anti-peace… I am always torn in that way that I do (or at least want to) appreciated the reputation of genuineness and community spirit shown by small town America, but also mortified by what they sometimes say in their attempts at honesty. I would almost rather that they behave in decent ways that are dishonest to themselves then have them believe that we can go and bomb all to hell any foreign country that we want for no legitimate reason. All in all, somewhat disturbing. In the few high-point’s to this town are a thoughtful teacher who tries to teach her students to think about things and be somewhat analytical and one youth who really does try to understand the truth and express it. By the end of the movie, neither of them are living in Crawford anymore…



Welcome to Macintosh. Now this is a good Macintosh documentary! Way better than that terrible Macheads that we watched a while back! It is a history of Apple, of the Macintosh and its development and of the followers of the mac. Covering Apple’s successes and missteps with interest and sincerity, it also has some good speakers, including Guy Kawasaki(!), Apple engineers, bloggers and a lot of people who were around Apple and the Mac in the old days. The filmmakers are obviously big fans of Apple and though they are strongly supportive of Steve and though they wisely tie the success of Apple to his vision, personality and his person itself, they aren’t blindly mired within his halo effect… Though some of the people interview in the movie are.



Forgiving Dr Mengele. This was an interesting and enlightening story. Forgiving Dr Mengele is the story of a woman who had been a prisoner in Auschwitz. Her and her sister where twins so they we, um, enlisted to be some of Doctor Mengele’s experimental subjects for his genetic testing. The women, now elderly, has decided that to continue on with her life she needs to put it behind her and forgive Dr Mengele. Not because his actions should be forgiven, but because she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life under that cloud. Of course her decision is not taken well by a good portion of the Jewish community. There are some interesting other side trips… In one she starts a holocaust museum in the little town that she lives in and goes about educating the local school children and, two, she takes a trip to visit Palestinians. I thought that was most interesting as they primarily wanted to talk about the harm that has been done to them by the state of Israel, and she was really quite disinterested in hearing anything about that.



Following Sean was alright. The story of a fellow who lived in the Haight area right at the peak of the hippie thing who befriended a smart four year old hippie boy who lived upstairs. At one point, he asked the kid some questions in front of a camera and Sean mentioned some things about drug use and other hippie stuff. When the filmmaker originally released that footage way back when, he got famous and his movie got acclaim and criticism. Now, many years later, he decides to go back to San Francisco to see what all of those folks from old days are up to. It really didn’t spark much interest in me and the results of his quest aren’t particularly surprising or compelling.



Ah yes, the Christmas time is here again and we have been doing our Christmas mostes this year. Including, of course, some movies. This is really the first year that Elinor can really enjoy some of the classics from my youth (which, of course, I would rather have her enjoy than the ones that have been put out most recently. Of course, I am speaking of the Rankin/Bass specials! The ones that we have watched this time around are Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Now, rightfully, Elinor really appreciates Rudolph, which I also think is the best of the bunch (probably one of the best Christmas specials of them all, right up there with A Charlie brown Christmas). Not only is there the endearing story of Rudolph trying to fit in, but we also follow Hermey the poor little elf who wants to be a dentist, Yukon Cornelius seeking his Silver and Gold and the great and scary Abominable Snow Man, all who are seeking happiness. Yes it is a corny story of trying to fit in, but it is really great! The Rankin/Bass stop-motion characters and environment are just great to watch… But the high-light is, of course, the Island of Misfit Toys and their rad King Moonracer! Even though the Abominable Snow Man scared Elinor a bit (oh, those teeth), this one is highly recommended!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town, on the other hand, doesn’t really strike my fancy. Yes, it is the origin of Burgermeister Meisterburger, but as “the story of Santa Claus” I don’t really by it. In fact, I don’t see why anyone would need to tell the story of Santa Claus, just let him be. Plus, he is rather obnoxious of a character in this one.

Without Elinor (as in, more adult entertainment) we again watched the George C Scott version of A Christmas Carol. I find this to be a quite good version. Though I don’t find Scott to be the most convincing scrooge, he is a fine actor and he is sufficiently blustery to pull it off acceptably. But the other actor to watch this for tis the great David Warner (of Time after Time and Time Bandits) as Bob Crachit. The Tiny Tim character though, I found rather too annoying.

And finally, tonight we watched A Christmas Story. This one always confused me. It came out when I was a teenager, and one who had no interest in Christmas movies, so I don’t think I realized that it was newly released. I never got around to seeing it and until a couple of years ago I had always thought that it actually dated from the 50’s or 60’s! Anyway, the good old story of a little boy who wants nothing in the world more than to get a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas It is quite fun and whimsical and stars Darren McGavin (the Night Stalker!) and a lamp that looks like a reject for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Plus, I think we can all relate to it. I certainly did have a Red Ryder BB Gun and I did hit myself in the face at least once with a ricochet… Though I neither lost an eye or broke my glasses and it didn’t hurt nearly as much as what I did to me thumb with it.

Ohh, shivers! Tonight we watched a documentary that was very through-provoking in a number of ways. It was The Business of Being Born
(which is a very accurate title for the subject matter) and it basically covers the difference between “regular” hospital births and midwife attended, both at home and in the hospital. As someone who was involved in a birth the straddled these lines, both in the sense of planning on a midwife attended natural childbirth, but having it be a conducted in a hospital, and who watched the progression of suggested interventions, this did ring quite close to home.

The Business of Being Born
is told mainly through interviews with OB/GYN’s (both American and European) and midwives, with lots of footage of births and birthing processes, both at home and in the hospital. It is very blunt, both in its message and its methods. Starting with the basic fact that the United States has: the industrial worlds highest rates of hospital births, highest rate of cesarean sections and also the most expensive births. From which this country ends up with about the worst rates for infant and mother mortality in the industrialized world! The filmmakers look at the smear campaigns against midwives in the early 20th centuries and some of the horrible practices used against women going through child birth in the decades since then (some of these are too much to stomach watching). There is one troubling segment where they discuss how once medical intervention is begun (generally under the guise of relieving pain for the mother), each step of intervention leads to effects that pretty much require a further step of intervention. All of which ends up in an unhealthy, expensive (and for some, quite disappointing) viscous circle of even increasing intervention.

They thoroughly point out that only in a small numbers of cases is there any reason for childbirth to be a surgical procedure or even a hospital event, yet in this country that it what it has become in the vast majority of cases. It becomes obvious that they are using the ever-present American tactic of “giving direction through fear” to keep childbirth a profit center (for many: hospital profits, insurance companies profits, ensuring enough highly billable work for doctors) and to undermine (if not quash) traditional, logic and natural means of doing that for which the human was actually designed to do. Of course to me it all brings to mind the old RIAA philosophy of seeing anything that doesn’t feed these good old boy profits centers as some kind of evil or ignorant foolishness.

Anyway, I digress. The Business of Being Born is a project of Ricki Lake (but no, she is neither irritating or obnoxious here) which she was inspired to make after undergoing a hospital birth. Conveniently, the director got pregnant while the film was in production and her experience was worked into the film. All in all, even for one as skeptical of the Establishment as I am, it was still quite eye-opening. And unsettling, and maddening. The fear that people are saddled with (to bring gain to the greedy), and the limits of what the Establishment will do to defend itself against reason can be a little hard to take in such potent doses.

I guess we feel the air of election time approaching, so last night we re-watched Orwell Rolls in his Grave. Part of the flood of political documentaries that sprouted up after George Bush was, um, elected in 2000, it is one of my favorites of that genre. An all-encompassing movie, as its subject is the control of the media, media consolidation and the role that the modern media plays in the government. As the cover says, it explores what the media doesn’t want to talk about – Itself.

It is a serious documentary, being primarily just interviews, but these are interviews with some great folks: Charles Lewis (formerly of 60 Minutes), Mark Crispin Miller, Bernie Sanders, Greg Palast, Vincent Bugliosi and more! Filmmaker Robert Kane Pappas continually reminds us of the dangers of the national dialog being not just presented in the forms that they are, but with the control of that presentation in the hand of too few corporations whose agendas are more and more hand in hand with the government, rather than serving the public interest to inform us about the actions of the government and corporations.

The movie has extensive quotes from both Nineteen Eighty-Four and from Joseph Goebbels, I imagine in the hope of shocking the viewers in either awareness or an actual sense of caring about any of this. But the people who would watch this aren’t the people who need to see it. But would those people care anyway? Probably not.

Orwell Rolls in his Grave goes into the deregulation of the media, the removal of the fairness doctrine, the FCC lack of interest in the public good and the effects of all of those. It is scary stuff, rather aggravating with some great scenes… Especially the FCC committee hearing where they are planning on basically throwing out all ownership rules, hearing one board member make an extensive and intelligent argument against relaxing these rules, and then having another one make an terrible argument for it (against the first amendment rights of the corporations, and some chatter about media ownership limitations deny the citizens their right to choose?)… They also look at the power of the Media’s lobbyists in Washington (personally, I’m not ever sure why any lobbyists are allowed at all).

As with most of these films, it is frustrating and maddening, but also filled with though-provoking and valuable insights and it is all something that is good to keep in mind. And a reminder that though we are made to read Nineteen Eighty-Four in jr. high as (I imagine) some kind of warning, some of those kids took to it as a “how to succeed” guide.

No, I don’t know why I watch these political documentaries either. Sure, the recent ones are bearable in that, “it’s all a lost cause, but at least everyone knows it” kind of way. But some of these? They hurt. Tonight I watched One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern. Man, what a harsh trip. Sure, there are endless documentaries about the good guys (those who actually uphold the laws of the nation and work to benefit “the people”) losing out to the bad guys (those who see the government as nothing but a device to funnel tax money into their own pockets and have no regard for anything except furthering their own power through whatever lies, misrepresentation and law-breaking are needed), but this goes farther back then most, as it is the story of George McGovern and his presidential campaign of 1972.

From the looks of it, had he and his group been somewhat more professional and prepared, then we quite possibly could have avoided: the last couple of years of the Vietnam War, the divisive economic “redistribution” of Reaganomics, the terrible selling off of America to foreign powers to pay for unconstitutional wars (that only exist to keep the masses in fear and stuff the pockets of the white house and it’s associated war profiteers), both of the “gulf wars” and the thousands of American lives snuffed out in the pursuit of oil possession and getting a second American possession in the Middle East to back up Israel… The mind boggles at how many hundreds of thousand of lives (or millions if we had prevented the dirty deeds of Kissinger) could have been saved and how many hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of American dollars could have gone to secure the people, industry and economy of the United States, rather than get laundered through the Department of Defense into the pockets of corporate interests. So much was at stake, and the good guys lost. I find it humiliating that in seven of the ten Presidential elections of my lifetime, the “average voter” has failed to even try to see through the spin and has been hornswoggled into voting against themselves to put a Republican into the White House. Maybe that would have changed with a McGovern victory, but then, maybe not.

McGovern tried hard, he meant well and he was fighting on the behalf of honesty, the people and doing the right thing. But a lot of people aren’t really interested in stuff like that. As Dick Gregory said, “once you’ve been in the dark for so long, the light hurts your eyes”. The title of this movie really sums up the feeling that you get watching it. I may be overly optimistic in saying that the despair, alienation, greed, dishonesty and general poverty of the 1970’s and 1980’s might have all been avoided had the McGovern group (and I don’t say the Democratic party, because you don’t get the feeling that the party wanted McGovern anyway) spent more time on thinking about how to win the election, rather than just win the nomination, but that is the feeling that I came away from this with. Of course, one might argue that they fell victim to Republican dishonesty, like the Democrat’s of 1968, 1980, 2000 and 2004, so it didn’t matter what they did anyway. But I don’t know.

Well, sure, Dickie and Kissmyassinger, but who’s that behind them?

Oh, him? I guess he learned from the best.

In One Bright Shining Moment we trace McGovern from his younger days growing up during the depression through his days as a bomber pilot in WW2, his brief stint as a minister, his time in the Kennedy white house (where he served as director of the Food for Peace Program), his time in the senate and his staunch and continual (well, except for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution) opposition to the Vietnam war and then forward to the great ups and downs of the debacle of the 1968 convention, Kent State, the seeming (yet fleeting) greatness of the 1972 convention, the missteps that followed it and his resounding defeat at the hands of Nixon. I do find it somewhat surprising, considering that I was five at the time of the 1972 election, that until this evening I knew nothing about George McGovern except for his name.

Told through lots of footage from the time and plentiful interviews with McGovern himself, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Gloria Steinem and the wonderful Dick Gregory, who has the best, most profound and boldest statements to make of all of them. This film is another re-eye-opener to how American politics really works, to the general corruption of our two-party system, a re-introduction to the pervasive power of greed and a testament to the self-induced ignorance of the average person. Though it was a bright and shining moment, it certainly wasn’t the light at the end of the tunnel. On the bright side, the grass-roots upheaval that lead to his nomination, four years later led to the election of the best president of modern times, Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately, Carter turned out to actually be too good and honest a person to be an American President… And with help from the Republicans once again (can’t they just win an election honestly?), this time conspiring with the Ayatollah Khomeini to keep our citizens hostage extra long to hurt Carter’s chances (strangely similar to Kissinger’s tactics of killing the Vietnam peace process to hurt the Democrat’s presidential hopes in 1968, a mere dozen years before), the Democrat’s were out for the next 12 years… And the office of the President would never be the same.

Ah, fear and loathing… Though the Airport is the only contact that I have with The Department of Homeland Security (could they have picked a more fascistic term?) and I don’t fly often, I still find the DHS to be annoying. All of that ridiculous stuff about water bottles and no liquids or nail files would be funny, if it wasn’t so funny. But I’ve been thinking about this stuff as I am in the process of getting a security pass for the airport, for work reasons, and I am somewhat wary about giving such a dubious organization access to about the only personal information I have that isn’t already on file somewhere, my fingerprints. I didn’t even know until today that fingerprints are taken directly by
scanning, ugh.

But then, to continue the practice of making matters worse, my always reliable new source, Slashdot, directed me to this unsavory piece of information today:

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers.

This bracelet would:
• take the place of an airline boarding pass
• contain personal information about the traveler
• be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
• shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes

That’s really great. Wearing control/shock bracelets just to take a plane ride. I don’t know why they don’t just make passengers unconscious and store them naked in locked caskets for the trip. Think of all the potential problems that would solve!

Anyway, you can read all about it here at the Washington Post:
Want some torture with your peanuts?

Not that I am completely anti-security… I think that metal detectors and lockable armored doors for cockpits are reasonable measures, but that’s about where I draw the line. All of this cataloging of people and excessive control measures can’t be leading us in a very good direction.

I guess I’m not watching enough movies lately, as I seem to feel the need to fill this space up with general complaints. Today I picked up the current issue of Street Roots (for non-Portlanders, it is the local “street newspaper” sold by the homeless) and while I was reading the article about how Oregon landlords can refuse tenants solely on the basis of them using Section 8 vouchers (that seems like it should somehow be against the rules), there is a review of a new movie that is another one of those “things you know about, but don’t really want to know too much”. The film is “Taxi to the Dark Side” and it’s by Alex Gibney, who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.. This one though is about the subject of Detainees.

The article states that there are 83,000 of these people, which I found to be a surprisingly large number. Probably 10 times what I had assumed. And it also covers the always charming subject of torture. Now, while I doubt that many Americans (though I tend to be proven wrong in these things) support the practice of torture (After all, even convicted felons are “protected” against cruel punishment, so why would people who haven’t been found guilty of doing anything wrong receive cruel punishment). But I wonder how many support the notion of detainees. I tend to assume that the vast majority of the detainees have done nothing wrong, otherwise, why would they need to be secretly and illegally detained with no legal recourse? I realize that most of these folks are “foreign” (though I imagine that some are US citizens) and it reminds me of what I think the low-point tends to be for American administration’s. Yes, we can complain about how bad the president treats the economy or health care or the middle class or the lower class, but the people who really suffer from American presidents are foreigners nationals. It seems like every administration kills (or is involved with “standing by and letting die”) thousands of foreign civilians. Yes, the Republicans tend to kill more (and I doubt that even the well-thought out and highly successful road to riches and power laid out by this 5th term of the Reagan Administration [aka GWB] has killed as many as did Nixon/Kissmyassinger with their “extend the Vietnam war trick), but all the president’s get involved in that dirty business… I guess it’s just part of being the chief of the worlds self-appointed fascist police force. It is funny how it works that even if you aren’t completely fascist in your homeland, you can still get away with being that way in other peoples homelands…

Here is an area where Obama could really show that he is a positive force for change.

I was over at Stupid Evil Bastard where I found him dissing on the anti-fluoride crowd. While I had to punch out a (not-too-brief, of course) comment to that, it also got me to thinking… What are my pet peeves with humanity. And could I come up with ten? Then, if I could, should I list them politely? Or not-politely? Anyway, as a last minute, late-night list, here they are in (approximate) order of precedence:

1)  Religion. No, I don’t mean “organized religion” or Christianity… I mean any kind of belief in: a supernatural world, a “creator”, life after death, reincarnation, omnipotent immortal beings, other planes of existence… Anything that ignores the reality of the physical universe or that insults or undermines the great (potential) powers and abilities of humanity. I don’t like it. I can’t stand it. Though I find it funny when used as a tool to control or profit off of naïve people… Go Trinity!

2) Violence and killing. By which I mean primarily war, but also any other stupid hostile antic that people do either for profit, glory, self-edification, or because they don’t know how to control their frustrations, from bar-fights to street gangs to organized armies. Of course, this also includes killing animals because you think that they taste better than things that don’t have to have their heads cut off and be bled dry (admittedly, this all relates back to my “insulting the potential of humanity” issue in problem 1. Well, I guess that all of these points do).

3) Non-personal pride: Nationalism, ethnic pride and stuff like that. The tiring debate between people on other sides of the hill saying “our side of the hill is better than yours, so we’re going to throw rocks at you” is very annoying, especially with how destructive modern violence has gotten.

4) Homogenization of business and culture. The lazy desire to have everything and to have it all the same everywhere you go (aka, the spread of Starbucks, and the demise of small-town businesses so that people can save some money on crap that they don’t need at Wal-mart).

5) Always kowtowing to the “official” line and then criticizing people who dare to question what those in power say. This goes along with letting the government and businesses engage in practices that are damaging to our people or environment and not at least questioning their motives. Especially relevant in the era of Bush Jr and his endless misleading of people, which seems to be eerily effective.

6) Official hypocrisy, by which I especially mean the American hypocrisy of “don’t question the government”, “the president is for jesus”, and all of that other crap that violates both the letter and the spirit of what the “founding fathers” put in place.

7) “Fashion”, fixation on entertainment celebrities, commercials and anything that makes pop culture the wasteland of irrelevant, irresponsible, mind-numbing, maturity-slowing crap that it is.

8) Unneeded movie remakes.

9) Racism, sexism, homophobia and anything that entails judging people on some made-up criteria that ignores who they actually are.

10) Homeless people who sit on the street all day (generally waiting for handouts that involve making them sit through christian sermons) and throw garbage down on the ground for others to pick up, when there are garbage cans just a few feet away that they could just put their crap in, if they had the respect for themselves and the society that they live off to actually stand up and utilize them.

As an added bonus, my remaining pet-peeve relates to so many issues above that I figured I’d just keep it separate. It is “colonialism” and “domination of already occupied territories”: Ireland, Tibet, Palestine, “Kurdistan”… I don’t understand the desire to go somewhere where people live and claim it as your own (well, I understand the motives behind Israel, but…). It leads me to understand why America was as thorough as it was in annihilating the native populations, because there isn’t really a large enough remaining native population to give the America’s back to, or to make a big enough stink about it. But it is a ridiculous and crazy idea, to go to someone else’s land and claim it as your own.

Well, some news browsing over lunch led me to some “news” stories that bear repeating. From my main news source again, Slashdot, there was a sad piece of information from my younger days… Gary Gygax has passed away (if you don’t know who he is, don’t bother looking him up, you probably won’t want to know who he is…). A pivotal influence over many of my teen years, and those of a good number of folks I knew. Its not a shock or a tragic accident, but I still felt the urge to bring it up.

Also and more sad and tragic, a legislator in Florida, recoiling from the state requiring the teaching of, of all things, the theory of evolution, is pressing for a bill that would allow teachers to have the “right and freedom to present scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution.” Basically, to be able to teach whatever they want. Of course, it shouldn’t allow that, since I believe that “scientific” is generally held to mean investigating through evidence and reasoning, both of which are missing from creationist dogma.

Read here: Will the battle on science and evolution move to the Florida Legislature?.

Sure, there may be some issues with the evolution theory, but the concept is quite undeniable… After all, many creatures have been observed to change in accordance with their environment in recent memory (flu virus, anyone?)… The truth is hardly deniable, regardless of its stature as a “scientific theory”, as opposed to a “stupid theory” like these “(ahem) intelligent design (amen)” fans keep wasting everyone’s time with…

Hmm.. I suppose every teacher should be able to teach every subject exclusively in accordance with whatever personal beliefs they have, or have made up. Personally, if I am going to live in a fantasy land, I’ll make it up myself (or borrow it from Gygax) and won’t be concerned with what the courts and the public schools say about it… And I certainly won’t try and force it on school children. But on the positive side, I like to take i.d. as a sign that the christian creationists have finally come somewhat to grips with reality. After all this time of saying that Adam and Eve and the garden where true stories (even though they were just taken from the Babylonian myths anyway), the i.d. factions among them have basically agreed that those stories aren’t true after all (or maybe they are trying to pull another fast one on us non-believers, like Jehovah did with those dinosaur bones).

And, then finally (as my lunch break should be over now) from the Sunday Herald, this tidbit on how email is for old folks and too formal… “For most South Koreans, email is fit only for addressing the elderly, or for business and formal missives.”…

Read here: Why e-mail is so old-fashioned.

Sure, e-mail may be for old people now, but I must challenge the “too formal” claim. E-mail is way too informal, to say nothing of the crud that gets texted. I already have a hard time with how sloppy and informal e-mail is (in a hundred years will capitalization just be a forgotten theory?), the thought that people are going to get worse and lazier…

While I see the truth behind their points, I think (of course, speaking as an old person) that those are some sad truths. But I guess that society always changes and moves forward (technologically at least) and those of us who have already grown up tend to like to keep things that way that they were. Like Still listening to classic rock radio now, 30 years after the fact…

In the midst of all of this hoo-ha about biofuels and electric cars, there is an eye-opening, yet strangely not surprising article at The BBC about a man who had invented a concept car that runs on compressed air, the Aircar! Well, why not, I would think. Of course, for long voyages it requires some fuel (at about 120 miles per gallon), but for tooting about town, nothing but air. It seems like a perfectly reasonable idea though, but is it one that would fly here, if it was given the chance? Maybe we’ll get to find out!

The Aircar

Of course, the plan is for it to be made by Tata Motors and available only in India, but maybe it will succeed and spread. It seems certainly like a step in the right direction. Plus, it will be even more fuel efficient the “the worlds cheapest car”, the 50mpg(?), $2,500 Nano, also available in India from Tata motors.

The Tata Nano

They might even be safe enough and roadworthy on our streets, if some people would stop driving those driving those giant Hot Wheels cars around that make the roads more dangerous for everyone.