Davison Online

History
After a variety of health woes, my parents downsized from two vehicles to their one Honda Accord in 2006. They generously offered us their high mileage 1991 Honda Civic and, as I recall, we somewhat hesitantly accepted. Erin and I figured we’d drive it for a year, buy a new car to replace it, and all would be fuzzy bunnies and rainbows. Well, I think the reliability of the Honda, especially after the nightmare that was the Mazda 626, plus the lack of a monthly car payment, was compelling. We’d occasionally talk about upgrading to a new(er) car, but the Civic just kept chugging along and saving us money, so we kept driving it.

Here’s the thing: The late ’80s/early ’90s Civics with those little VTEC 4-cyclinder engines will run until the car literally falls apart around them. I don’t know what magic pixie dust Honda sprinkled into those things, but our 1991 Civic has 321,000 miles on it, and the engine, frankly, shows little sign of distress. It was rebuilt at some point (my dad says at 200,000 miles, but I think more recently), but it keeps going and going like an automotive Energizer Bunny. Meanwhile, the interior lights don’t work. The trunk leaks when it rains. The back doors won’t open. The radio doesn’t work. The crankcase leaks oil. The dashboard light is out (fun for night driving!). And more. So I’d been waiting for the day when the guys at Valley Specialists, the local Honda/Acura master mechanics who I highly recommend, would just tell me it was time to get a new car.

But it turns out they’re master mechanics for a reason: They can fix darn near anything, and they happen to be fairly affordable. So whatever problems I’d encounter would be inexpensive enough that I always thought I could eke a little more life out of the car. The turning point came in the Civic’s last visit, when the office manager Jim grimly informed me that Civic needed a $650 repair plus another $250 if I wanted to fix that oil leak. I dare say that my enthusiastic response was not what he expected; I knew this was the major car repair bill that would finally prompt me to upgrade.

The Honda Fit had been on my radar since it was introduced. The subcompact received rave reviews and seemed the perfect replacement. Although I occasionally need to drive a 120-150 miles in a day for work, mostly it’s a car Erin will drive about 5 miles to and from school. I looked a little bit at the all-electric Nissan Leaf. It would work well for Erin’s daily commute, but in talking with my soccer buddy Steve who owns one, I found that he was seeing a range of about 65 miles before needing to plug-in and charge up (for 30 minutes or more). I think that electric may well be the automotive future, but I don’t think it’s quite here yet. I also don’t know where I’d get it serviced, and not just because it’s electric—because it’s not a Honda. Since we moved back to Salem in 1999, I’d gone through four mechanics—one went out of business, two I didn’t care for, and one I didn’t think was competent. Getting a Honda meant having mechanics I knew personally (from soccer) and who I trusted. That alone was a very big incentive for me to stick with Honda/Acura.

Buying a Car
Here’s the process that I went through to buy the Honda Fit. I’m not saying I did it perfectly—in my defense, I’d never purchased a new car before—but at the end of the day, I’m pleased with the results. I feel like the parts of the auto buying experience that I could control actually went pretty well.

First, I started exploring used Fits. Well, that quickly led me to new Fits because great reviews, high demand, and the Japanese Tsunami had led many used Fits to sell for more than their original sales price. Traditionally cars lose 10% of their value as soon as they’re driven off the lot. Here, it seemed like the Fits were gaining 10% because nobody could get them.

I began by looking at the Honda web site and repeatedly using the “Build your Honda” tool. I must have tried dozens of different permutations of Fit and Civic and maybe a few other vehicles as well. I found it fun, and it was free. I also felt like I came away with a good sense of what options were available and what the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) was on those things. I continue to think this is a good starting point for potential buyers.

Second, I knew that I had no desire to negotiate with car salesmen. I don’t haggle for a living, I’m not particularly good at it, and I have little desire to learn. That leaves me at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the normal car buying process. (I did briefly entertain the idea of engaging our neighbor across the street, an attorney, to negotiate on our behalf.) Eventually, I looked at two car buying services, USAA and Costco. With these services, they contact a dealer on your behalf, negotiate a price somewhere below the MSRP, and send you the offer which you are free to then accept or reject. Both USAA and Costco services have a “build your own car” web site tool. I found that Costco’s had more of the accessories I wanted on the Fit whereas the USAA tool was lacking some. This is literally why I choose to go with Costco, and it was based on a misunderstanding.

Honda ships the Fit from their factory in Japan (new plant to open in Mexico soon) in a Base, Sport, or Sport with Navigation configuration. Those configurations can be either manual or automatic, so effectively there are six different models of Fit coming out of the factory (though in different colors, admittedly). All accessories—from floor mats to splash guards—are dealer installed options. I didn’t know it at the time because I didn’t see that on the Honda site. I assumed that Honda put all the accessories on at the factory. (But if they did, then what would the dealer overcharge us for?) So it didn’t matter that USAA’s site didn’t include all the accessories. The dealer would just be adding the ones I wanted after the car arrived. I’m satisfied with the $250 no-haggle discount I got via Costco; however, I don’t know if I could have saved more via USAA. If I were doing it again, I would certainly try USAA service as well to find out.

Costco’s car buying service simply put me in contact with the local Salem Honda dealer of dubious reputation. I filled out the online Costco forms on a Saturday. The local dealer’s rep called me Sunday afternoon with the name of a person to talk with at the dealership the next day. He told me they even had a Fit on the lot—it’s a car in short supply thanks to strong sales and a certain Japanese Tsunami of which you may have heard. Up to this point, things were moving smoothly, and I was pleased.

Arriving at the dealership, I was told the person with whom I had an appointment wasn’t in. They handed me off to Tony, a junior grade salesman with, as it turns out, no real decision-making authority. Tony was a nice enough guy, and I don’t want to understate that because being nice is important, but it was not a promising start. Oh, and the Fit they had for me to test drive? Sold. (“Overnight?” I wondered.) Then while sitting in Tony’s office, I heard on the intercom the name of the guy I was originally supposed to be meeting. Excellent. Of course he was in the building.

That’s what it took for me to understand what we had here: a classic car sales showroom. And I mean that in as disparagingly a way as possible because relationships are built on trust, and I go in ready to trust. But when you don’t have the car you say you have, when you make an appointment then change it when I arrive, and when you hand me to a junior grade fellow when the guy I was supposed to meet with is still in the fricking building, you’ll excuse me if my shields go up and I henceforth don’t fully trust a damn word you say.

Does that sound bitter? It’s not intended to because that’s not how I feel. I find sales shops like these, whatever the product line, to be unfortunate. I feel experienced enough now to deal with this sort of thing, but I hate that I have to. Why do Apple’s official retail stores have the top sales per square foot in the United States? Because they are the exact opposite of this type of buying experience.

Don’t think that I wasn’t cordial or that I wasn’t interested in doing business. It’s just that when you can’t trust who you’re doing business with, it’s a lot more work and it’s not pleasant. Tellingly, if these people were my clients, I would fire them.

For what it’s worth, Erin had her guard up from the very beginning. I don’t know if she has a fear of being taken advantage of, if she’s naturally more intuitive about these types of things, or if she’s just not quite as trusting of people in sales circumstances. Regardless, I tried to shield her from as much of this process as possible, because dealing with people you don’t trust isn’t fun, and she, quite understandably, hates it.

When Erin and I both visited the dealership in early August, we were told that we could reserve a 2012 Fit Sport that would be delivered in October. They would be getting four of them in: one was already sold (a classic sales technique, so no idea if it’s true), two were manual transmission models, and would we like this one here, a Silver Sports Fit with automatic transmission? Why yes, yes, we would. $500 down would reserve it for us.

The dealer didn’t have a firm MSRP from Honda on the 2012 models—a fact I knew from checking online previously—so I insisted that the deposit be fully refundable. If Honda was going to jack the price by $500 or $1000—the Fit is in high demand after all and the strong Japanese Yen is hurting profit margins—maybe I didn’t want a 2012 Fit. I had Tony write “Fully refundable” on the $500 deposit agreement we signed. The take-away here is that you should always feel free to modify a “contract” to your liking. If you don’t like it, don’t sign it. This wasn’t asking much of the dealer: If we didn’t buy the Fit, in no time they’d surely find someone who would.

We also looked at accessories. It turns out that there is the Honda price and the dealer installed price, and they are not remotely the same. Because your helpful Salem-area Honda dealer will charge you $75 to install…floor mats. I wish I were kidding. The cargo tray, a large plastic piece that literally drops into the hatchback area of the vehicle, is a relative bargain with an installation cost of $20. To be clear: I don’t mean that the floor mats were $75 and the cargo tray was $20. I mean that they cost whatever Honda charges plus the dealer charges $75 and $20 respectively to install those items. Ultimately, we decided to decline all accessories and packages through the dealer. We’ll be buying parts through College Hills Honda and having Valley Specialists install them all. Trust me, they won’t charge $75 to put in floor mats.

So we rolled on through August with our 1991 Civic. While we were on vacation in California, a received a call: They’d received a final shipment of 2011 Fits. Was I interested? At this point the specs and the pricing on the 2012s had not been released, so I had to take a leap of faith. Cars generally are improved at least slightly from one model year to the next, and I was willing to hope that I’d be rewarded by waiting 60 days. I knew there was no major revision scheduled between the 2011 and 2012 models, but I declined to take a 2011 Fit. I ended up being right about this—the 2012 was $50 more and added noise reducing glass and few other minor features—but this was just me getting lucky. Honda could just have easily followed Subaru’s lead and jacked prices 7%.

September came around, and I received a voice mail from Tony with the exciting news that “the 2012s are in, and oh, by the way would you like blue?” Blue had been our original color choice. We’d settled on silver since it was an acceptable alternative and, more to the point, actually available. Now I was being offered blue again.

“Hmm…Okay, sure…Pick up tomorrow morning? Great.”

I ran upstairs to tell Erin the news, and just after telling her, the phone rang.

“Uh, I’m really sorry, but the blue one was pre-sold to a lady in Alaska.”

Now that may well be true—indeed, it’s a weird enough excuse to have a ring of authenticity to it. But it’s also the type of thing you can hear as sales manager saying to a junior grade: “Just tell him you sold it to some little old lady in Alaska.” Erin took this, I’m sure, as further evidence that car dealers can’t be trusted, or at least that this one can’t, and she may be right. I’m inclined to think that Mr. Junior Grade got excited about having actual cars to sell and get a commission on, and he made a mistake. Ultimately, I didn’t care. Silver was fine with me. Junior Grade Tony, in the most wonderfully indicative phrase of our brief association, ended our phone conversation by thanking me “for being understandable.”

Getting the Car
Erin and I hauled the kids with us down to the Honda dealer to get the car. I hung out with them in the spacious upstairs guest lounge while Erin took a test drive of the Fit—the first for either of us—with Tony. She seemed to like it. It’s funny about women and cars. I think all she wants is reliable transportation from A to B and a radio to boot. Me? I’m stoked that the driver has 3 cup holders, that the iPod will play through the stereo via a USB jack in the glove box, that it’s got crazy-awesome fold down seats, and on and on. She assures me that she’s excited about all those things too, but surely we’ll agree I’m more demonstrative in my enthusiasm. Anyway, successful test drive.

Then the paperwork nightmare. Our $500 deposit? Not on their paperwork. The $250 Costco discount? Not on their paperwork. So Tony fixed it all up. Purposeful omissions or incompetence? I don’t know where Occam’s Razor comes down on this one.

We verified all kinds of information for them. They even ran a credit score (803—Woot!)—and tried to offer us financing at least three times. I was very happy to have set up financing through USAA previously. The dealer’s 3.99% APR offer from our August visit was beaten by USAA’s 3.25% APR. Now, when I’m just about to buy a car, they’re telling me that they can “save me some money on financing.” Well, if that were true, they should have started with their best offer. But they’re not going to give their best offer first, because if you’ll take 3.99% so much the better for them. Who is the dealer looking out for here? Right. Not the customer.

Finally Tony turned us over to the sales manager, Mark (who Tony called “The Bossman”), who proceeded to come over and talk at us with the speed of an auctioneer. Blah-blah-blah-and-all-you-need-to-do-is-to-sign-this-paper-here-saying-you-agree-to-buy-the-2012-Sport-Fit-at-this-price-and-you’ll-be-ready-to-go. It was, on some level, a truly remarkable performance. The very force of his words and personality left me momentarily stunned. I kid you not, I would almost be willing to pay the man to talk at me again just so I could feel that wave of confusion wash over me one more time.

Up to this point everything, however occasionally distasteful, I’d seen with perfect clarity; I knew what was going on. The Sales Manager does 15 seconds of rapid fire babble and, literally, for 5 to 10 seconds, I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s almost like he could have been talking in Greek. As I say, I’d almost like to experience it again just so I could try to figure out what he did.

I’m pausing here to expound on this for the following reason: I’m a business person, and I deal with people and money frequently in the course of my work. If I could be thrown into even temporary confusion, I pity the souls who don’t have any business acumen. This guy could fleece them like sheep, which he probably does. If you ever find yourself in any contractual situation where you don’t understand what is going on, take a timeout. And make sure that the paper you’re about to sign says what you think it should.

Because, interestingly, the Bossman’s paperwork didn’t have our $500 deposit even though Tony had supposedly fixed that. And the $250 Costco discount wasn’t in the paperwork either, a fact which, when we pointed it out, led to the following spectacular exchange:

Mark (gruffly): “The Costco discount doesn’t apply to 2012 models. It’s only for 2011s.”

Ty: “That’s not what we were told.”

Mark (aggressively): “Who told you that?”

Ty (looking at Junior Grade Salesman Tony): “Oh, hi.”

Mark storms off.

Tony, running off after Mark: “Don’t worry. I’ll fix this.”

Honestly, it was like being part of a real life comedy show. Mark was clearly just so disgusted that Tony couldn’t upsell us anything (financing, accessories, warranty, etc.) and that he had to give us a $250 discount on top of that, that he just walked off in a huff. I don’t think we even saw him after that. Which was OK by me. I don’t think he likes people. Hell, I don’t think he likes himself.

Importantly, Erin and I were in immediate accord: If we hadn’t gotten the Costco discount at this point, we would have walked. The $500 deposit was on a VISA, so I could have still disputed it if necessary. But I think it was clear, to Tony at least, that if he wanted the sale, he was going to have to give us the Costco discount. And what’s more I’m not sure that they would’ve had a lot of choice: Costco’s auto buying service has to be worth something, or why use it? If I’d walked out, I’d be sure to be talking to Costco and they’d be talking with the dealership and, potentially, Honda itself.

After the Mark episode, we were handed over the finance guy who made us officially decline all the warranties, protectants, sealants, and every other possible upsell. He filled out the DMV paperwork and took care of the final contracts which included the official sales price. As you might have guessed by this time, the price was incorrect and did not include our $500 deposit (though it did, interestingly, include our Costco discount). The finance guy told us that even though the number was wrong, we could go ahead and sign. “We’re not crooks,” he said, and I remember thinking (1) it’s always bad sign if you’re forced to make that claim and (2) that sounds mighty similar to Nixon. We insisted that the finance guy print up a new contract, a correct one this time, which we reviewed carefully and signed.

At the end of the day, I really love the car. I continue to think Honda’s engineering and design are amazing. If you’re a member, I recommend checking out the USAA and Costco auto buying services. I recommend buying your Honda accessories through College Hills Honda and having them installed by a trusted mechanic. I trust and recommend Valley Specialists. I would not use again and do not recommend the Honda automative dealership in Salem. But I do really love the car.

Tags: Honda

Consider me opposed to the United States’ latest military endeavors in Libya. As I’m already on record against our invasion of Iraq and have long thought our lingering stay in Afghanistan pointless at best, this should surprise no one. The establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya lacks proper justification, has no satisfactory exit strategy, is an unaffordable waste of money, and won’t achieve our presumptive goal of advancing democracy. As noble as our intentions might be, war against Libya is a terrible idea.

Much like Saddam Hussein was, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi is a genocidal madman intent on holding power in his country through any means necessary. This makes him not unlike any number of other tin-horned dictators in the world who rely on force of arms to keep their citizenry cowed. It’s despicable and often heartbreakingly unjust. It also has nothing to do with the United States in terms of security or national interest which should be the overriding principle for engaging our armed forces in any hostile action. If you’re going to ask soldiers to die for their country, it should at least be for their country. Tellingly, this principle is how history tends to judge wars as well. “Good” wars—the quotes are there for a reason—involve national security and immediate threats to the nation (the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II) while “Bad” wars (the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq wars) are fought for more abstract principles. This latest conflict with Libya easily falls in the latter category.

That the Bush Doctrine of preemptive assault has not been invoked this time around, one can only be thankful for and hopeful that its brief day in the sun is over. If ever there were a flawed military justification “we had to hit them before they might have hit us” is it. But the pledge President Obama campaigned on was this:

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Those are his own words, and since Libya presents neither an actual nor imminent threat, one can rightly judge the president to have repudiated this stand. This is deeply disturbing to those of us who think peace, prosperity and freedom for the world is typically best achieved by not dropping bombs. I have never been more disappointed in this president.

Even without an actual or imminent threat, one must ask, “Why Libya?” We did not intervene in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Yemen, Bahrain, and so on. One is tempted to guess “oil”—Libya is the 10th largest petroleum producer in the world—and “because we can” (“with minimal casualties to ourselves” being the corollary). The reasoning put forth by the administration, that military intervention is driven by humanitarian concerns, seems spurious given that we’ve done nothing in similar instances. (See Andrew Sullivan’s Standing By As Massacres Occur for an elaboration of this point.) In light of this, that we’re choosing to engage Libya here and now borders on inexplicable.

A great country does not wage war by halves.

—Pierre Paul Cambon, French diplomat

Cambon was talking about securing a British naval presence for the French at the outset of World War I. He believed, rightly, that the British could not make war only on the seas but would be ultimately forced to commit their army on the side of the French. In Libyan conflict, I’m not sure that anyone believes that Gaddafi will be stopped with airpower alone. If that is so, how can we hope to topple him without committing American ground troops? And if we don’t ultimately remove him from power, how is he anything but emboldened to pursue additional terrorist acts like the Lockerbie airplane bombing? (Not to mention the reprisals he’s sure to undertake against the rebels in his country.)

If we make the shaky assumption that western forces “win”—even through airpower alone—who exactly is going to pick up and put back together the pieces of a broken Libya? If Gaddafi is removed as despot, a position he’s held since 1969, who takes over? What is the military exit strategy and what constitutes victory? Basic questions like these are meant to be asked before we start shooting. That they’ve gone unasked and unanswered seems to me to be a further abandonment of the Powell Doctrine and the Weinberger Doctrine and an enormous threat to the world. Creating doubt as to why and when the US military will be called into action does not make the world safer or the American public any less nervous.

Financially, this no-fly zone endeavor is estimated to cost the US $15 billion a year. That’s assuming we don’t send ground troops. This is on top of a $685 billion military budget that does not include our wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. By contrast, the local school district in Salem, Oregon will be laying off hundreds of teachers next year, closing schools, and upping class sizes for the want of $50 million. I can’t say this more plainly: We are literally bankrupting our communities and imperiling our future through unnecessary foreign entanglements and military expenditures.

As heartbreaking as doing nothing can be in the face of a bloody civil war, limited intervention can be the best response. Look at Iraq, Libya and Egypt and tell me who has the best shot at birthing a true democracy. Why might Egypt succeed where Iraq has failed and Libya probably will? The answer, interestingly, is also the US military: We trained many of the Egyptian officers here in US military colleges. When the Egyptian military wouldn’t attack its own citizenry, President Mubarak’s game was up. This is US military intervention of the best kind, and it requires no cruise missiles, UN mandates, or hundred billion dollar expenditures. It does require political engagement and a country receptive to democracy. It won’t work everywhere, but it’s also not meant to. Democratic reform can only spring from the people; as we’ve discovered in Iraq, it cannot be imposed. In short, the US can help create democracies but we should not be, and frankly cannot afford to be, policeman to the world.

In 1995 I traveled across America via Amtrak, whose dismal on time track record and other failings led critics to call for their shutdown and to brand them (thanks to their logo) “the pointless arrow.” Not one of my trips on Amtrak was less than two hours late, so I knew exactly where those critics were coming from, though I quite liked train travel generally.

One particularly outrageous delay, though I might add not the longest, afforded me a valuable life lesson. Helpful, since it was otherwise just another example of Amtrak’s ineptitude. I was going to visit my friend Sue, a grad student at Purdue, and see how she’d spent her time since we hung out together as undergrads at the University of Portland.

The train was 20 minutes out of Chicago when it stopped dead. No warning. Just chug, chug, chug, stop. We stayed on the tracks there for something like six hours. This being the pre-cell phone era I had no way to call Sue to tell her what had happened and that I was unlikely to make the scheduled 10 PM arrival. Not that I knew anything anyway since Amtrak never gave an explanation. I heard from another passenger that a freight train had stopped on the tracks ahead and that because their union crew had worked their maximum hours, they had shut it down right then and there, and Union Pacific (or whoever) was having to round up another crew. I had no idea if any of that was true, but it was a guess that fit the facts—the main fact being we were just sitting there—and it was a fair bit more than Amtrak ever told us.

After we finally got rolling again, the engineer was playing like Casey Jones in looking to make up for lost time. We’d whip into a station, virtually throw people off the cars, hustle the appropriate people on board, and -boom- we’re outta there. Pity, sort of, for any smokers on board. They couldn’t smoke on the train and here they were being denied enough time to take a smoke break at stop after stop. And this after sitting still for six hours.

As it turns out, they weren’t the only ones who had to worry about the short station stops. Lafayette’s train station was being renovated or rebuilt or something, because it was closed. I did not know this. So the train that was due in at 10 PM, arrived in a West Lafayette gravel parking lot at 4 o’clock in the morning. The conductor pulled up the step stool I used to get off the train, said, “Have a nice stay!” or words to that effect, and -boom- the train was gone. I remember literally turning around to ask the conductor where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do and the doors closing while the train pulled out. It could not have been more than a 20 second stop.

I was already sleep deprived, but now I was stunned too. I was thinking, “Oh my God. Oh my God. This can’t be worse.” Sue’s obviously not here—where was here, anyway? Since Amtrak didn’t tell the passengers anything, I could hardly expect that they would have told anybody waiting in a gravel parking lot about a train delay. Sue wisely and rightfully went home to bed. I was hoping she didn’t think that I blew her off. In the spill of the single overhead street light, I saw a ’70s Cadillac that I was pretty sure was not Sue’s get-around vehicle. Other than that, gravel. Emptiness. Desolation. There was nothing else there.

Only two others got off at the stop with me, a portly fellow in my train car who headed toward a woman waiting for him at the Caddy, and some other guy to my left who exited a few cars down. I didn’t see a phone booth and as far as I knew, I was in the middle of nowhere. Actually, it didn’t matter where I was. What was open at 4 AM? “Oh my God. Oh my God. This can’t be worse.”

Then I glanced over again at the fellow to my left. What was he doing? It was a little difficult to see at first in the dark. “Oh my God. Oh my God. It can be worse. He’s tapping a cane. He’s blind!”

I still don’t know what I or, perhaps more interestingly, the blind fellow would have done if not for the kindness of the husband and wife team with the Cadillac. They gave us both a ride to the local Steak ‘n’ Shake, an all-hours joint particular to the Midwest and after a few hours I was able to call Sue and the blind guy was able to contact his party.

It’s not always possible for us to see life’s lessons as they are generated. Usually I think that if we’re open to growth, we tend to absorb things over time and they become a part of who we are. Occasionally, though, life smacks us full upside the head, and we learn important things about perspective, about how things really could be worse, and about the kindness of strangers. For me in 1995, the “pointless arrow” made it possible.

Tags: Amtrak, Travel

Because I’m going to be fairly critical I want to start by stating flatly that Scott Kurtz’ Player vs. Player (aka PVP) was my favorite comic, web or printed, for years. Kurtz’ has a wonderfully developed sense of humor and comes from a Gen X background similar to my own, which is to say that we share many of the same cultural touchstones (Star Wars, Star Trek, Dukes of Hazzard, etc.). He’s not just brilliant in the comic format, either. If you’ve not heard him on the audio podcast of his Advanced Dungeons & Dragons quest with Wil Wheaton and the guys from Penny Arcade, you have seriously missed some of the best improvisational comedy to hit the web in recent times.

Further, I have been a huge fan of PVP for a long time—before the turn of the century. I have all books, including a signed Awesomology. I have the comic books. I have the DVD. I have been, in short, the type of PVP fan that creative content producers drool over: the guy who will buy virtually anything Kurtz produces.

All of which is why it kills me to say that PVP has jumped the shark, a phrase that Gen Xers know all too well from that horrific Happy Days episode where the Fonz, literally, took a waterskiing jump over a shark. As it heralded the creative end of an iconic ’70s TV series, so too have relatively recent changes to PVP left it a shadow of what it was, and left me—a long-time and vocal proponent—uninterested in its future.

Classic PVP
From the beginning, one of the resounding successes of PVP has been the artwork. Go back to May of 1998 (I’ll wait). They’re simple lines in scenes devoid of background, but the personalities are there and for all its early simplicity it’s a great basic comic already. Flash forward two years to May of 2000 and Kurtz has evolved the characters—particularly Cole and Troll, but everyone’s improved as, presumably, Kurtz’ drawing skill advanced. The backgrounds are still blank, but as Kurtz himself noted in How to Make Webcomics, the lack of background is actually something of a Shakespearean framing device allowing readers to mentally project and fill the background themselves. In other words, it’s a plus, and less than two years Kurtz has found an artistic form that, however spare, perfectly suits his humor. It is, for lack of a better word, cartoony. Here’s an example:

Note how Papa Smurf blends perfectly into the style of PVP at this point. Not only is it a funny as anything punchline, it’s virtually seamless stylistically. Kurtz would refine his style somewhat, but even early PVP is Classic PVP—an era which arguably ran roughly until mid-2007. As the comic evolved, Kurtz began to use lighter lines and to offer much more contrast in the artwork, a move that while not strictly necessary in terms of selling a joke, surely improved the visual appeal of the strip. The following comic is from December 2006:

Notice the lighter lines for the hair, faces, and props. As I say, it’s an evolution of style and not an essential one, but I find it a perfectly reasonable one as an artist matures. The art, though different, continues to enhance and in no way compromises the jokes. If you like this style and humor, let me highly recommend the PVP Awesomology to you. It’s a $100 book, but it encapsulates almost all of the Classic PVP era and it’s brilliant.

By mid-2007, Kurtz was drawing many secondary or tertiary characters with lighter more detailed lines, the backgrounds were frequently present and sometimes quite detailed, and he had begun to more frequently incorporate an over the shoulder perspective into some panels of the strip. Individually or used in moderation these changes wouldn’t have been a big deal. As it turned out, they were to spell the end of the Classic PVP era as he took them to their logical conclusions.

This strip from March 2008 illustrates, no pun intended, some of the issues:

Nothing shows better the transitional mess PVP suffered than Max Powers in the fourth panel. What in God’s name is that cartoon character doing in this otherwise illustrated strip? His head fits in with PVP circa 2000 and it could even work with PVP of 2006, but by March 2008 Kurtz has abandoned the very style that brought him Internet fame and fortune. Perhaps as a secondary character Max didn’t get enough “screen time” to be reworked like the other regulars, but the contrast here is so jarringly distracting that it kills an otherwise decent joke.

This more illustrated style is the crux of my objection to the newer PVP. It enhances nothing and frequently distracts because what we’re talking about here is a comic and comics like this one should be, well, comedic. Could an illustrated style work in PVP? Absolutely, the same way that it frequently did in Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes: Normal comics are drawn in a standard comic style, flights of fancy (Spaceman Spiff, etc.) a drawn in a more illustrative, detailed style. Consistent tone is crucial, and by changing the reality of the PVP world, Kurtz set long-time readers adrift.

New PVP
One can reasonably argue that PVP was never the same after Brent and Jade tied the knot. Marriage is, after all, one of the common ways in which various series “jump the shark.” But for me it was January 2009 when Brent got a chin. I don’t know what happened in that Dr. Who Tardis to give Brent a facial makeover, but it was to my mind an unmitigated disaster, wiping away the last of the comic-ness that Brent retained. Here’s a recent—January 2010—comic:

Look at the artistic detail here: Color, extensive background, shading, detailed props, light lines, and different perspectives. The strip and the characters look nothing like they did 5 years ago. Perhaps the “glass half full” crowd will see these changes as improvements, but in comedic terms what does all this art give you that you didn’t get from PVP in 2006? Easy. Nothing. In fact, it’s a huge problem. The joke’s great—Kurtz was and continues to be an excellent joke writer—but is there anything added by the various over the shoulder shots, Brent’s eyes (ugh!) over his glasses in the first panel, the detail of the background? No. In fact, only the last panel which uses a more traditional comic frame has the right comic “feel.” Everything else looks like a storyboard to a sitcom, and that’s a not meant as praise.

What kills me is that for someone who’s been as successful as Kurtz, I can’t believe he doesn’t see how he’s distorting the PVP reality through his artwork. I have to conclude that he either disagrees with my assessment (fair enough) or would rather draw pretty pictures than funny ones. The irony is that since PVP is a comic frequently about alternate realities, be they AD&D, video games or what have you, Kurtz could easily accommodate his desire to include more detailed drawing in his strip the same way that Watterson did.

There are other issues, of course, like Brent’s lack of snark since marriage and the return of a completely redrawn Max Powers (reminding me somehow of Ted McGinley) with an aura of Zen that completely saps the strip of conflict. Question: Who is the antagonist in the 2010 edition of PVP? Skull’s cat, Scratch Fury is as good a guess as any, and he’s hardly a main character except at Christmastime. Understandably, it’s hard to get excited about a story without conflict.

Ultimately, it’s difficult to say exactly when PVP jumped the shark, but in thinking this through and writing it out, I’m not even sure that’s the best analogy. It’s more accurate to say that Classic PVP was The Matrix and what’ve seen in the last couple years are the sequels. It’s a shame to have experienced such a high only to be followed by such a let-down, but at least in this case I can always hold out the faint hope that, Dallas-like, Jade will wake up, Brent will come out of the shower without a chin, and “new PVP” will have been a dream.

I find that I’ve grown increasing intolerant of fundamentalist religion. I simply have no time for people (*cough* -Mike Huckabee- *cough*) who turn off their brains to the reality of the world.

This realization about myself has been disturbing on several levels. First, I don’t much like being intolerant. I’m not sure it’s good for me, and I’d much prefer to respect people’s deeply held religious beliefs, no matter how stupid. (Hopefully it goes without saying that I maintain profound regard for others’ right be believe whatever nonsense they want; I expect the same level of respect toward my right to worship, say, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.) But the Karl Rovian politics of the last several years have made it abundantly clear that complete religious idiocy cannot be ignored, and that if we do, we do so at our own peril.

Second, being intolerant of fundamentalist religion occurs for me in part because those religions are in turn intolerant (of gays, Jews, Catholics, etc.). Oh the irony of being bigoted toward someone because they’re also bigoted. What a lovely turn of events.

Finally, and perhaps most distressingly, I don’t feel like there is much alternative. Andrew Sullivan had a wonderful blog post (well-worth reading), “Why do we diss Baptists?”, wherein he said:

…for me, the evolution issue is very hard to get past. Those who believe that the earth was created 6,000 years ago and that human life has not evolved from more primitive forms are people I cannot engage with in civil discourse. To posit faith in things unprovable and unknowable is one thing. To posit faith in something demonstrably falsifiable is another. I simply have no tolerance for creationism or for those who enable it. Creationists are as much an insult to reasonable Christians as they are to rational thought. And they perpetuate the notion that religious faith is indistinguishable from idiocy.

That is exactly how I feel, and why I disagreed so strongly with Mitt Romney’s speech earlier in the campaign about religion in politics.

Immutable individual characteristics (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) should surely be ignored in judging a person’s suitability for office, but the bizarre idea that the beliefs a candidate holds most dear are somehow out-of-bounds is nuts. In fact, it seems to me that they form an excellent basis for judging a person’s suitability, which is one reason—even the primarily reason—I find Huckabee’s belief in creationism so damning.

On the other hand, Huckabee had this to say in his book Character is the Issue,

Politics are totally directed by worldview. That’s why when people say, ‘We ought to separate politics from religion,’ I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible.

So it’s not like we have nothing in common, even if we won’t be starting a mutual-admiration society anytime soon.

In the meantime, I’m still trying to work through the day-to-day implications of all of the above.

Several things should be made clear in the case of Terri Schiavo, the poor woman who’s been in a vegetative state for 15 years and is now having her feeding tube removed at the behest of her husband and against the wishes of her parents.

First, this whole sorry mess would’ve been avoided if she’d simply had a Medical Directive (aka Living Will, Advance Directive, Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, etc.) instructing doctors and loved ones as to her wishes. A lot of people hear cases like these and think, “I sure wouldn’t want to be kept alive if I were in a vegetative state.” Nobody’s saying you have to, but you do need to fill out a form, or you’ll just be leaving the rest of us guessing. These documents weren’t all that well-known 15 years ago, but they are today, so if you don’t have one, get one.

Second, if you don’t have the above document, be careful who you marry. In most if not all cases, your spouse will have final say over your medical treatment if you’re incapacitated. In the Schiavo case, it may well be that husband Michael Schiavo has it right and that his wife Terri Schiavo, a Roman Catholic, would not wish to have her life prolonged. His motivation might be under less suspicion, however, if he wasn’t living with his girlfriend with whom he’s had a couple kids and if he didn’t stand to receive what’s left of the $1.2 million malpractice settlement from his wife’s poor medical care. (Michael Schiavo’s attorneys have received almost $490,000 of that settlement for their work in trying to have Terri’s feeding tube removed.)

Third, it’s worth noting that what constitutes a “vegetative state” is not nearly what most people imagine. The popular conception is that an individual in such a state appears to be sleeping 24/7 with no signs of consciousness. That is not the case. With Terri Schiavo, for example, she breathes on her own, opens her eyes at times, and laughs on occasion. There is little question that she’s brain-damaged and that she is bereft of most if not all of her higher brain functions. But it’s not like she’s sleeping all the time. (HealthLink has a good page on the difference between a coma and a persistent vegetative state.)

Finally, and here I come to the thing which I believe causes so many people anxiety in this case, the outcome for those in a persistent vegetative state is unknown. Medical literature is replete with “miracles” of those who’ve awoken from comas, who’ve returned to consciousness after years in vegetative states, and who’ve even been declared legally dead and somehow come back to life. In the absence of wishes to the contrary, why not give life and hope a chance? Since no Medical Directive exists and her own parents are willing to provide her care, it’s hard to understand what positive end is served by starving Terri Schiavo to death.

Honestly, I wasn’t that far off in 2000. I only missed Bush by 10 and Gore by 13. Not my fault it was the closest election in the history of ever. (Is it?) Commander Botox vs. Idiot-in-Chief.

I’m already on record as saying that I believe John Kerry will be the next President of the United States. I’m also on record as saying that he sure wasn’t my first choice. But seeing as how George W. Bush isn’t even in my top 1000, Kerry will do just fine.

The post debate polling is now starting to roll through and on the heels of it, I think we’ll start to see Kerry pull ahead in most of the relatively evenly divided states. Unless something shakes up the contest in the final couple weeks, I believe Kerry will win handily.

So it’s Hammer time. Let’s break it down.

Tune in again on Election Night as I’ll be updating the site with returns and tracking my success. Do bear in mind that I don’t think I have a snow ball’s chance in hell of picking correctly on a lot of the toss-up states; this is all just for giggles.

“The last chance to preserve marriage in Oregon,” reads the brochure. What, are they outlawing it or just forcing everybody to get divorced? “Seven facts you must know,” or Seven bogus arguments you must read. Here we go….

Oregon ballot measure 36, for those who don’t know, would define marriage as between a man and a woman, effectively barring gay marriages from taking place in the state. Specifically, this constitutional amendment reads:

It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage.

This likely seems perfectly reasonable unless you happen to be gay. Then it’s a pretty big downer. If we presume to be on the side of individual freedom—a questionable presumption to be sure during this age of the Patriot Act and John Ashcroft—one would expect the Yes on 36 coalition to present seven very persuasive arguments as to why the rights of gay and lesbian citizens should be thus curtailed. One would be disappointed.

1. Measure 36 affirms what most people thought was already in our state constitution. It is embarrassing to even call this an argument. What “most people” did or did not think has, of course, no relevance whatsoever to whether the initiative being advanced is worthy of passage.

2. Oregon law is very clear: Marriage is between one man and one woman. Obviously Oregon law is not clear or there would be no need for a constitutional amendment such as this one. Further, the clarity of Oregon law leaves untouched the question of whether the law itself is good or not.

3. Four Multnomah County commissioners used secret backroom tactics to skirt Oregon’s marriage laws. I’m sorry to say this is utterly true in my estimation, and the four commissioners, far from helping the gay rights movement, have probably set it back decades. Nonetheless, this has nothing to do with the merits of ballot measure 36.

4. Children do best with a mom & dad. Using unnamed and uncited “research,” a questionable case is made for differently sexed couples being best for raising kids. Interestingly, no mention is made of studies which show kids raised by gay and lesbian couples tend to do fine as well. (Two supportive parents are what is important; gender difference is helpful but not significant.) Nonetheless, this again is a separate issue from whether or not gay marriage should be barred.

5. 40 states already have laws similar to measure 36. The ad populum fallacy rears its head. Obviously, the popularity of a law says nothing about its merits.

6. Preserving marriage is not discrimination. This seems a like an appeal to tradition (another type of fallacy), which it is, but it’s also flat out wrong. Barring consenting, adult homosexual couples from uniting in marriage is discrimination. The question is whether or not it’s proper discrimination. So far the evidence that it is is lacking.

7. Over 244,000 Oregonians respond to preserve marriage The text here rightly states: “…more than 244,000 voters signed petitions to place Measure 36 on the ballot. It was the most signatures ever collected. And it was also done in record time.” This, alas, portends the passage of Measure 36, but again advancing the ad populum fallacy says nothing to justify its passage.

In the end, then, we are left with no reasons whatsoever why Measure 36 should become law, and, if we believe in individual freedom, no reasons why gay marriage should not be allowed. The sad news is that Measure 36 will pass overwhelmingly. The good news is that younger generations have no idea what prompts this incredible level of intolerance towards gays and lesbians and someday will politically refute the bankrupt idea that marriage need be limited to heterosexuals.

If not me, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where? If not ham, then no cheese. I throw eggs at a UP professor’s scrambled take on morality, Christianity, and the military. Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.
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Breast-feeding? Statistically awesome. Gay sex? Equally protected. Affirmative action? Halle Berry. Opinions R Us reopens for business. Not that it’s been missed.
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