Meet in the Middle

    The latest Jeep ad for the SuperbOwl is all about meeting in the middle.

    About that.

    I find it fascinating and heartwarming that they chose a 1980 CJ5.  Theseia is a 1976 CJ7, but I would have gotten a CJ5 myself for the shorter wheelbase if my legs weren't too long to fit behind the wheel.  As my kids are all on the smallish end of the height scale, though, I may still be able to buy some for them.

    So let's talk about the classic Jeep and why it's an excellent pick for a vehicle to represent America.

    The Jeep transcends parties and political ideologies.  While obviously not an AMC CJ, FDR was often photographed in Jeeps throughout WWII:

    But of course, his near polar opposite, Reagan, was also a Jeep fan.

    And beyond politics to the larger culture, the classic jeep was just as at home getting muddy on a trail with a coal-mining redneck behind the wheel as it was carrying some hippie and his surfboard to the beach.  This guy

and this guy

probably don't have a whole heck of a lot in common, but I'd bet a considerable sum that if they passed each other on the road, they'd both wave.  Unless in the past near-decade that Theseia has been down, Jeep culture has become another tragedy of the politicization of everything good and holy.

    The Jeep has always been a canvas its owners project their own interests onto.  Some more advisable than others.

    Theseia has always been intended to be a middle-of-the-road all-purpose Jeep.  I'm not going to make her a crawler, but she does have a good set of 33"s on her, and until the anti-reverse went out on her old Warn, she sported a decent off-road recovery kit.  She's a jack-of-all-trades jeep, reflecting my generalist attitude toward life.

    I think generalism is the soul of the Jeep, though.  My dad always told me that his Baja Bug could go places his CJ5 couldn't.  And then, of course, there's the Toyota FJ which famously "Out-Jeeped the Jeep."  There's always the Blazer, Bronco, and Scout snobs lurking around the trail to tell you all about how those are better, too.  And, well, they're right to some extent.

    But the classic CJ taps into the mythology of America like no other vehicle can.  It's the modern descendant of the horses of Wayne, Stewart, Eastwood et al, after all.  You've got one extra seat to rescue the schoolmarm, but there's no meaningful provision for other passengers.  Yeah, sure the CJ5 put a "bench" in the back, but anyone tho's ever gotten in it knows that's a complete afterthought.  It's one step removed from a motorcycle in its projection of the individualism of the owner.  We can certainly argue the pros and cons of that individualist attitude, but it's undeniably part of the American zeitgeist.  

    What I find most interesting, though, is that the CJ5 Jeep chose to represent America transcending politics is a vehicle that can no longer be made or sold in America, because of politics.  The nanny-state impulses on both sides have resulted in vehicle standards that make it impossible to get such a vehicle to market.  The simplistic engines that endears it to shade-tree mechanics such as myself would never pass emission standards.  And even sacrificing that still leaves you with a vehicle that would never pass safety standards.  As a former EMT, I get it, of course.  Going 75 mph in a tin can with a hard-mount engine and a high center of gravity is just not a good idea.  Theseia is for in-town and off-road use only.  But that should be a personal choice.

    Recently, of course, Mahindra found a way to bring the classic Jeep back by marketing its Roxor as an OHV you could just happen to buy a street light kit for.  It was a brilliant play, tapping into an underserved market.  For half the cost of a modern Wrangler, one could buy the CJ one really wanted, anyway.  There were even aftermarket grill kits that--while careful to avoid the trademark seven-slot grill--closely mimicked the classic CJ look. 

    So of course, Fiat Chrysler promptly sued.  And both parties were silent.  Democrats, because they're in hock to Detroit's organized labor, and Republicans, because "OMG, furrners!"  Eventually, the case was settled, shockingly in the big "American" (Fiat Chrysler is owned by Stellantis, a Dutch company) company's favor.

    So Mahindra responded in a very humorous way...making all new Roxors look like the classics Toyota FJ.

    Well played, sirs.

Food coloring

Recently, the city of Baltimore has announced that it has extended its COVID policing policies indefinitely.  In the effort to control the spread of the virus, Baltimore decriminalized a large swath of previously punished behavior including:

    [Drug] possession

    Attempted distribution [of drugs]

    Paraphernalia possession

    Prostitution

    Trespassing  

    Minor traffic offenses

    Open container

    Rogue and vagabond

    Urinating/defecating in public

They also:

    Dismissed 1423 pending cases considered eligible by COVID policies

    Quashed 1415 warrants for the aforementioned offenses

    Reduce[d] the prison population...[with] the early release of 2000 people

    Of course a Broken Windows Policing Law and Order type looks at such things and immediately assumes the end of civilization as we know it.  But the BWPL&O type are not overly familiar with statistics since various places in Europe have decriminalized such things without resulting in the second coming of the the Visigoths.

    For those who are familiar with recent history, the results out of Baltimore are completely unsurprising.  Violent crime is down 20% over the year and property crime is down 36%.  If it weren't for grocery store brawls and home break-ins over toilet paper stashes, I daresay those decreases would be even greater.

    "But wait," you say, "Everybody was stuck at home, so of course crime went down over that time period!"

    Except crime went up in other major metropolitan centers.  And not just the ones where the citizenry were burning them down in protests.  Baltimore was an outlier among cities of its class.

    This has played out in our family's life as well.  When I was my children's age, I was dealing with parents who were...unwell.  We had lots of rules, but for various medical and mental reasons, the enforcement of those rules was quite arbitrary.  Much like most American adults today who commit by one estimate three felonies a day, we constantly lived at the mercy of "prosecutorial discretion."

    And so, many years ago, my wife and I decided to "decriminalize" all actions except direct defiance (to include lying).  Ever since, we have found that our children have stopped testing boundaries and have turned into generally respectful, compliant kids.  Certainly more obedient that I remember being at their age.

    There is, however, one barrier from describing our parenting style as fully libertarian:  Prohibition.  And not of alcohol or marijuana.  Oh no, something far, far worse:

    Red 40.

    Back before 60% of our family developed dairy intolerance to some degree or another, I decided one day to introduce our children to Strawberry Nesquik.  I remember liking it as a kid more than regular chocolate milk, although I eventually grew out of that.

    So I bought a can of the powder and gave our three kids their first dose.  What followed closely approximated Reefer Madness.  Now I'm not saying that mind-altering substances cause crime.  But I will say that the number of assaults and property damage that night definitely increased over our normal baseline.

    There were tears.

    And of course, the 15g of sugar per serving probably didn't help.  But our kids had no issue handling regular chocolate milk.

    Of course, being a scientist, I insist on the repeatability of an experiment before accepting a theory.

    There were more tears.

    Apparently, there were sufficient tears from enough parents that in 2015 Nesquik removed Red 40 from its strawberry offering, replacing it with beet juice powder.  But, of course, now our kids can't have milk for other reasons.

    And so there remains a ban in our house on Red 40.  Or at least a strict limit.  Because apparently, our kids can' handle their [redacted].