Mini Searches for the Perfect Shade of Beige That Nobody Doesn't Dislike

I really don't understand it. But then, there are so many things I don't understand.

When BMW assumed control and revived the Mini nameplate in the early years of this century (2001 to be exact), it was an accomplished update of a much-loved original that immediately commandeered the hearts of car-lovers everywhere.

At the center of its appeal lay a surprising degree of utility and a playful sense of whimsy, that when combined with traditional automotive attributes like nimble handling and robust acceleration, made the Mini that rare sports car which appealed to men and women alike.

And when a 6' 3'' individual could sit inside with posture to make a teacher proud, well, the Mini became something truly unique. The critics loved it, the public loved it.

What could go wrong?

In a word, businessmen.

Before long, BMW was succumbing to the most-tired cliche in commerce: bigger is better. The Mini's singular appeal was then diluted by model variants, including the ridiculous Countryman, whose very existence contradicted the ethos the Mini was created to serve.

The latest Mini's bloated appearance evokes memories of cladding-encrusted SUVs of a not-so-long ago vintage, the clean lines of the original replaced by a lumpy, bulging exterior that is a fun-house mirror distortion of the original.

Of course, since SUVs and crossovers seem to be the Mini's developmental target, perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise.

Worse, quality control has taken a back seat to marketing. In this case, it means broadening the model range until it has reached the lowest common denominator critical mass prized by brand managers everywhere: a model for everyone.

Mini's handlers have decided it's better to be a car a large number of people could conceivably have a use for rather than be an automobile cherished by a smaller, but more-fervent target audience. Call it safety in numbers. Decentralization. Diversification.

Call it anything but successful.

Several car magazine's long-term tests have revealed shoddy workmanship apparent not only upon delivery of the vehicle, but which continues to assert itself as the car accumulates thirty and forty thousand miles. And despite the base car's MSRP, fixes aren't cheap.

Popular perception has yet to catch up with reality, as Mini sales continue to steam along (at least when they're taken as a group and not compared year-to-year on a per-model basis). But if consumer's unpredictable and ever-changing tastes don't doom the Mini, poor word of mouth and a blurry sense of purpose will.

Whether you blame German management or English construction, the Mini's fall from icon to also-ran has been difficult to watch. It only heightens one's appreciation for Mazda and their tightly-focused Miata MX-5, which has admittedly grown a bit larger and more-powerful over the years, also.

But Mazda has resisted the temptation to stray from its original mission statement and has only refined and sharpened the Miata's approach, which is why we continue to see the still-vibrant roadster show up on Ten-Best lists long after the Mini has lapsed into premature middle-age.

There's a lesson in here somewhere, if only someone would listen.

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Early Exits

In keeping with the sort of lighthearted subject matter normally found on The Square Peg, we turn today to yet another—suicide.

A disturbing report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not only reports that suicide is up 24% since 2001, but that it is up across all demographics. Age. Race. Gender. The biggest increases were seen among middle-aged white men aged 45 to 64 and young girls between the ages of 10 and 14.

Of course, the overarching question is why? Why, in a country we are told from birth is the greatest in the world, are people voluntarily ending their lives in record numbers? Unrealistic expectations? The economic realities of post-recession America? Hopelessness?

Teens have traditionally suffered from a high incidence of suicide. At a stage of life that can be confusing and even terrifying, high hormonal levels can abet intense emotional swings which escalate uncomfortable events into tragedies.

Historically, the elderly have also suffered, the most obvious reason being declining health. Coupled with limited financial resources, an inability to live independently and a lost sense of purpose it can be a time of deep distress and despair.

The appearance of pre-teen girls and middle-aged men is new.

I will speculate that this group of girls may be extremely apprehensive about the onset of puberty, and whether they will be physically attractive and otherwise able to fulfill the increasingly high expectations our society holds for women.

Be a Nobel Prize-winning physicist-slash-model and raise Nobel Prize-winning children or risk being considered a failure. 

No worries. 
 

The last group I am quite familiar with. A group that constitutes 18% of the population now accounts for 33% of all suicides. In certain quarters, this might elicit muted satisfaction. Or even not-so-muted satisfaction. 

White men have enjoyed the best of everything and are to blame for everything, so it's only fair that now they kill themselves in record numbers, right? This is cultural payback. A societal market correction.

Before we sign off on this conclusion and move on to the next thing, I'd like to point out that the white men terminating themselves aren't the white guys you hate. The white guys you hate are still in positions of power, immensely wealthy policy-makers largely untouched by the ravages of the Great Recession.

The middle-aged white men killing themselves are being cast into the insidiousness of poverty despite spending 35, 40, or even 45 years doing all the stuff they were told would prevent it.

It's one helluva mind-fuck.

So. Our kids and our dads and just about everyone else are killing themselves in numbers never seen before, leaving behind a scarred and grieving trail of friends and parents and siblings and children.

Are we going to take a long, hard look into the mirror and ask why? Are we going to ask ourselves how do we stop this?

Or does this conflict with the 'It's all good' ethos? 

Just asking. 

In Memoriam

My favorite FDR moment arrived during a speech he gave in New York City just before the 1936 presidential election.

Addressing those who felt his New Deal policies served him better than they did the country, as well as those who simply disliked him on principle, Roosevelt thundered “They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

It was one of the strongest, most-galvanizing statements I ever heard a Democrat make. It reeked of defiance and purpose. Hearing it again in the midst of the Obama presidency, it seemed strangely powerful and provoked this question:

Given congressional Republican's abject refusal to even consider anything emanating from his administration, why haven't we heard similar words from the Obama White House?

Yes, Obama has faced protracted and entrenched resistance for most of his presidency. Obama could have invented sex and Republicans would just say they got screwed.

On the other hand, he too often played the role of Republican appeaser rather than the world's most powerful Democrat, and this was true before the GOP's takeover of Congress. Obama never grasped the dynamic at work, and squandered a fortune in political capital in the process.

It's no wonder frustrated Democrats (myself included) flocked to Bernie Sanders.

True, Sanders was soft on guns. And we're only too aware of his oft-ridiculed notion of free college tuition.

Yet Bernie Sanders was the sole candidate addressing the outrages perpetuated by our corporate banks and Wall Street and big business in general. Of the relentless march of corporate greed and its devastating consequences.

Sanders shone a very bright light on the corrosive effects of big money on politics and came thisclose to upending the conventional campaign model. Sanders moved Hillary Clinton's campaign decidedly to the left, which never would have happened otherwise.

He made Clinton a stronger Democratic candidate.

I am deeply saddened his campaign is all but over. He was that rare presidential candidate who inspired something as opposed to merely being the lesser of two evils. He was bold. He was different. He had ideas.

He wasn't the latest media-approved brand name our simple-minded culture could digest. If you believe Donald Trump is a rebel, and that by voting for him you are too, think again. He's a billionaire reality TV star. A celebrity. 

It doesn't get any hoarier. (Pun intended.)

Bernie was our best chance to slow the nation's unquestioning lurch to the right. Our best chance to combat what increasingly appears to be an emerging corporate-run police state, a dystopia fueled by slave labor yielding grotesque wealth for an even more-grotesque sliver of the population.

A nation which cuts the Three Musketeers' ethos of “All for one and one for all” in half.

Let's hope that Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign was a door opening, and not one closing.

Learning to Respect The Man

As a product of the late-sixties and early-seventies and witness to posters, t-shirts and bumper stickers offering variations of the era's don't trust anyone over thirty mantra, I was reluctant to admit The Man mattered.

I was more inclined to believe The Man was an out of touch, over-fed Republican intent on exploiting the masses for personal gain when he wasn't entertaining thoughts of shearing off my hair and packing my ass off to Vietnam.

Okay, so The Man was (and still is) looking to exploit the masses for personal gain. But as I would learn, he could also serve a useful function. 

One was reviving moribund sports franchises.

By the mid-seventies, the Chicago Bears were a pathetic sight. Offering some of the most anemic, unimaginative and uninspired football ever seen on NFL turf, the once-formidable franchise couldn't even lose well.

Their four, five and six-win seasons meant they weren't able to enjoy the restorative effects high draft picks could supply.

The watershed moment arrived when their once visionary owner looked in the mirror and realized what was wrong with the Chicago Bears. It was only then that George Halas stepped aside and hired a GM conversant in post-WW II-style football.

Jim Finks had masterminded the Minnesota Vikings' late-sixties rise to NFL prominence, after resurrecting the Calgary Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. He possessed an uncanny eye for evaluating talent and potential.

Just three years after Finks' arrival the Bears participated in the NFL playoffs, a once-unimaginable occurrence. Finks moved the franchise away from drafting players the frugal Halas believed he could sign on the cheap to drafting players Finks thought could excel at professional football.

During Finks' tenure Walter Payton, Mike Hartenstine, Doug Plank, Roland Harper, Dan Hampton, Al Harris, Otis Wilson, Mike Suhey, Keith Van Horne, Mike Singletary, Todd Bell, Leslie Frazier, Jay Hilgenberg, Jim McMahon, Jim Covert, Willie Gault, Mike Richardson, Dave Duerson, Tom Thayer, Richard Dent, Mark Bortz and Dennis McKinnon were either drafted or signed as undrafted free agents.

Castoffs like Emery Moorehead, Steve McMichael and Gary Fencik were signed as free agents. It's worth noting that twenty of the twenty-four starters on the 1985 Super Bowl team were acquired during Finks' tenure.

But The Man is relative. While Jim Finks appeared to be The Man for all intent and purposes, George Halas still owned the Bears and was still breathing. He had influence to exert and an ego to satisfy.

The first dent in the Halas-Finks relationship was Halas' hiring of Mike Ditka, during which the old man apparently forgot he had hired Finks. Further eroding the relationship was Finks' drafting of Jim McMahon, whom Halas didn't think highly of.

While history proved both decisions to be sound ones, the relationship was damaged beyond repair. Finks resigned shortly before the 1983 season began, and Halas died just two months later. The 1985 Bears famously won Super Bowl XX.

The raft of talented players Finks brought to Chicago did what players do. They got injured. They got old. A few held out and never regained their career momentum. Without Finks' unerring assessments to replenish the team, this talent was never adequately replaced, putting the franchise in a nosedive that, for the most part, it has never been able to pull out of.

Ironic that even The Man has to please The Man. It's always something.

Down the Hatch, Orrin!

I think it was in a movie that I first heard the expression 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'. The wisdom was clear, and I filed it away in the grey matter beneath my hair.

This explains why I even bothered with Senator Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) op-ed piece, which attempts to justify congressional intransigence over presidential Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. 

It's always good to know what the enemy is thinking.

Since it was written in Republican, I had a difficult time making sense of it. I held it up to a mirror in hopes its backwards, inside-out logic would suddenly appear well-ordered and sensible.

It didn't.

Hatch repeatedly makes the point that the next Supreme Court nominee must be made by a representative of the people, and after exhaustive study of both the 2008 and 2012 election returns, I can confirm that Barack Obama was indeed elected by people. Specifically, Americans.

This must be news to the addled senator from Utah, who evidently believes Obama was elected by a mix of crustaceans, canned fruit and small appliances.

Regrettably, Hatch goes on.

He maintains that by naming a successor to Antonin Scalia, President Obama is attempting to politicize the Supreme Court, thereby engaging in the most wanton, divisive and destructive politicking ever seen on Capitol Hill.

But by delaying a confirmation until the next (and presumably, Republican) president is elected, congressional Republicans are acting in the best interests of a fair and balanced court, with no thought whatsoever given to the well-being of their party.

(I couldn't stop laughing, either. Am I alone in thinking that cable TV is missing a real comedic talent here?)

In the depths of the Great Recession, Congress debated the extension of unemployment benefits for the tens of millions of people upended by that financial cataclysm. Typically, Orrin Hatch opposed it, stating the unemployed would just use the money to buy drugs.

Six years later, the truth is obvious. 

Given the complete lack of coherence in Hatch's piece (and by extension, his thinking), it is clear the reason Hatch opposed funding for the unemployed was that he feared competition for the drugs with which he is so obviously smitten.

With this in mind, I want to reach out to poor, addicted Orrin. 

I propose the formation of a law which makes it illegal to legislate under the influence. Call it LUI. Going one step further, I'll suggest mandatory blood testing before Republican congressmen are allowed to speak, write or legislate.

To honor the legacy of recently departed Republican princess Nancy Reagan, we'll call it Just Say No. (That ought to be easy for Republicans to remember, eh?)

Not only will this heighten the level of our national discourse—it should work wonders for our politics.

It's a Good Thing They Didn't Hire Me

Neither the telecommunications behemoth incapable of delivering a reliable cable TV signal to my home, the computer software giant unable to supply my computer with a functional operating system nor the business services firm staggered by the prospect of processing a rebate in less than six months would dream of hiring me.

I mean, as a long-term unemployed old guy, I'd just screw everything up.

The latest example of an enterprise able to remain at peak operating efficiency through its careful and judicious hiring is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois.

A little backstory: after extracting myself from the morass of HFS and their redeterminations and being elevated to an income strata which precluded Medicaid, I signed up with a Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO late last year.

All was fine until the health care insurer announced the plan wouldn't be offered in 2016. Okay, that's not quite right. Technically it would, but in a highly-altered form which would cost 354% more.

Grateful that my health care wasn't veering into simplicity and ease-of-use, and fairly sure that my income wouldn't see a similar increase, I began a search for a replacement after enjoying the PPO for exactly one month.

Affordable options were scarce. I scoured the offerings repeatedly just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Visions of Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets nonwithstanding, I swallowed hard and enrolled in a Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO.

(That it cost three times more than the original PPO, offered fewer providers and covered less was just a bonus.)

After clicking the 'submit' button, I exhaled. I thought the fun was over. 

But what did I know?

Predictably, the bill arrived first. Besiged by e-mails warning of the plagues and locusts that would ensue if I didn't enroll and then remit promptly, I hustled my payment off to the mail box and waited for my membership ID card.

I received notices advising me that my PPO would not be offered in 2016. I received notices stating that I needed to select another plan immediately or face government-imposed fines. I received notices detailing the coverage of the revamped PPO.

I received notices about everything except my new HMO and the whereabouts of my membership ID card.

Sigh.

Wanting to continue medical treatment begun under the PPO, I desired urgently to set-up a PCP and locate a specialist who could pick-up where my previous specialist had left off.

Silly me.

Not that I was the only person cast into this healthcare hell by Blue Crosses decision to pull the plug on their PPO. A quarter-million of my fellow Illinoisans were forced to change their plans simultaneously, stretching many Blue Cross Blue Shield resources to their breaking point.

Phone lines were jammed night and day. Provider information was nearly impossible to get. When it was available, it was listed on outdated web sites and it invariably took until the day before an appointment to discover the listings were obsolete.

E-mails to Blue Cross Blue Shield yielded responses which hid behind procedure and protocol. None acknowledged their colossal screw-up.

I was, however, able to print a temporary copy of my plan's ID card. Because of the repeated delays in discovering exactly who was and who wasn't included in my plan, I consider myself fortunate that I never had to use it.

The lowlight arrived in late-January, when I again attempted to learn who my providers were. My joy at having a call answered was, regrettably, short-lived. A carefully-modulated voice on the other end of the line informed me that I wasn't in their database. 

I snapped. I unleashed a torrent of four-letter words. Compound words. Bad words. I took the Lord's name in vain. I was screaming.

"That must explain the bills I'm getting, huh?"

I inhaled. The fresh oxygen provoked a second explosion, the details of which are better left unspoken.

While my health care remained on hold, Blue Cross Blue Shield bills arrived like clockwork. While I was amused to realize they resembled one of my favorite drummers and like him, never missed a beat, I also found this highly irksome.

I pondered it at length. What did it mean? What did it signify? I eventually arrived at two possible conclusions.

Either this was incontrovertible proof that despite the warm, fuzzy marketing that depicts a caring and nurturing collective of medical professionals, Blue Cross Blue Shield is a hard-core, show-me-the-money business as mercenary as any found on Wall Street.

That getting the money is job number-one.

Or, that the folks staffing Blue Cross Blue Shield's billing department were geniuses. They were the only employees able to cope with this giant shift, and by virtue of their unwavering performance, ought to be running the whole show.

That said, it remains a good thing they never hired a long-term unemployed old fart like me. I would've just screwed everything up. 

Not that you could tell.