Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel The Help has been a sensation of a bestseller. It broke through one major literary taboo, namely a white author writing in dialect. Somewhere after 1960, dialect, except by African-Americans, became pretty much off limits, except in special circumstances. But that’s a separate literary discussion. OneMORE HERE
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Just off the headlines. The massive shutdown of dealers ordered by the Obama administration was a massive failure. Not that you couldn’t have noticed by just talking to some of the dealers themselves. I recall running into a group of repair guys from Sarasota Chrysler-Plymouth, which isMORE HERE
TIPP CITY, Ohio – Back in the day, there were hundreds of regional tomato brands across the U.S. Canneries were not giant agribusiness, but were instead closer to the field, family-owned. In Virginia, I can recall Webster’s, who was famous for his Webster’s catchup. Old man Webster lived in aMORE HERE
Take a break and enjoy America’s industrial legacy. And to all those companies that have shut down their factory tours because of some straw men like insurance or liability, shame on you. The reality? People love companies that open their doors to the public, but they HATE companies that doMORE HERE
am not sure whether copper telephone wires will survive, I am sad about Kodachrome and I wonder about the revival of vinyl records. Will newsweeklies make it? Not sure why they should, but they can if they aren’t as boring as Newsweek. And the video store? Well that’s sort ofMORE HERE
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. – I recently attended the NHRA Winter Nationals and noticed that the most popular body for those outrageous funny cars seemed to be Pontiac. So when I asked another spectator why, he simply said “they have the best aero-dynamics.” My horse sense told me this was likelyMORE HERE
Didn’t most people already call it the Y? Wasn’t the logo already a Y? On the heels of General Motors asking people to start calling Chevy by its full name, Chevrolet, we now have a marketing genius at the Young Men’s Christian Association saying that officially, the YMCA will nowMORE HERE
There is one type of job you can’t export. The repair man. Companies in recent years have ignored the repair man; before the Great Recession it was almost cheaper to buy a new lawn mower than to fix the old one. So you just threw the old one out, withMORE HERE
Summertime. Time for bugs. Poison. Almost everyone can recall the boogie man, who came down American streets. My what fun it was to go run in the mist! What brand of poison did he spray. Surely, it was not DDT back in the 1970s. That mix was largely unknown. ButMORE HERE
When a car company kills off a longstanding brand, it never ends up well. Marketing people and analysts always believe that killing off the brand will help the other brands in a company’s portfolio, but the reality is that companies that kill off longstanding brands (as opposed to models) areMORE HERE