'Day of Honey': Memoir of comfort, food in Mideast

By her own admission, Annia Ciezadlo is "always, always hungry." A journalist who spent years covering the Middle East, she once scuttled along the floor to stir a pot of pasta as bullets whizzed by her window in Beirut. She braved the streets of Baghdad for a taste of masquf, roasted fish she describes as "a giant, edible fishy halo."

In her memoir, "Day of Honey," Ciezadlo finds that food -- both the cooking and the eating -- is one of "the millions of small ways people cope" during times of war. The book is not a traditional war memoir, although there are scenes of breathless tension. Rather, Ciezadlo's focus is the view from the tables where people carry on with their lives.

"Food can provide a purpose and structure to your life when you don't feel like you have one," she said in an interview from her home in New York City, where she lives with her husband, journalist Mohamad Bazzi.
The couple, who met in New York City, were married in 2003 and moved immediately to Iraq, where Bazzi was assigned as the new Middle East bureau chief for Newsday. They spent their honeymoon in Baghdad and the early years of their married life in Beirut, the city where Bazzi was born. Over six years, Ciezadlo, 40, found freelance work writing for publications including the Christian Science Monitor and The New Republic, covering the wars, the assassinations and the violence that have helped shape the main narrative of the Middle East. She interviewed soldiers, militiamen and warlords. She met families and refugees. But she also found food. Loads of it, everywhere she looked.

"Other people saw more, did more, risked more," Ciezadlo writes. "But I ate more."

Her writing about food is both evocative and loving; this is a woman who clearly enjoys a meal. Upon tasting makdous, which are pickled and stuffed baby eggplants, she writes: "What god leant down and whispered in what mortal ear to put walnuts inside an eggplant? And then to eat it with wine? I wanted to cry."

A glass of Iraqi tea, under Ciezadlo's gaze, is a thing of beauty. A warm brew made with sun-dried limes is "oily, dense and yellow, like a glass of melted topaz."

Besides the simple pleasure of eating, the region's culinary offerings helped her understand the places and the customs she was covering -- a sensitivity that has drawn early praise for the book, her first, which was released last month with a modest print run of 14,500.
A glowing review in The New York Times called Ciezadlo's book "among the least political, and most intimate and valuable, to have come out of the Iraq war."

A gateway into different lives

Ciezadlo was enchanted with Iraq from the start, watching as the "women wearing abayas billowed along the sidewalks like black jellyfish." But in her quest to find the stories outside Baghdad's protected Green Zone, food always seemed to take center stage, or to provide a gateway into lives so different from her own.
She even finds the language of war ultimately boils down to food. "During peacetime, when we need metaphors, we raid the language of war," she writes. "But the idiom of wartime is food: cannon fodder, carnage, slaughterhouse. Buildings and people are pancaked, sandwiched, sardined. Perhaps it is because the destruction reminds us of the knowledge we spend our lives avoiding -- that we are all meat in the end."
But focusing on food also gave her the welcome opportunity to show that there is more to the Middle East than conflict. She wanted to offer another side of Lebanon than the images in guidebooks, which show either a battleground scarred by war or a frivolous playground where impossibly perfect women go club-hopping until dawn.

Inspiration struck one day as she stood at the sink of the Berkeley Hotel in Beirut, washing dishes in the tiny kitchenette and trying to think up something to make for dinner. "You can say the inspiration for the book literally came from the kitchen sink," Ciezadlo said, thinking back on the mounds of food she kept in her humble hotel room. There was zaatar, a blend of herbs, sesame seeds and salt that is a staple in Lebanon. There was wild fennel and garlic and Swiss chard and piles of "gorgeous little tiny cherry tomatoes."
"I wanted to show the complexity of Lebanon in a way that would be much more concrete that just saying, 'Oh yeah there's good stuff to eat and there are pretty girls'," she said. "I wanted to show that there is this lingering hangover from the war, but there is also this amazing generosity and culture and vibrance."
The Middle East is a world away from Ciezadlo's own upbringing. Born a "Polish-Greek-Scotch-Irish mutt from working-class Chicago," Ciezadlo is the daughter of a bitter divorce who spent a transient childhood in Indiana, Arizona and California. For a time, she and her mother lived in a homeless shelter in San Francisco where they found "livid, gelatinous little squares of something called 'tofu'."

Bazzi, her husband, was born in Lebanon but left when he was 10, fleeing Lebanon's disastrous civil war, and moved to New York. Unlike his wife, he had no interest in expanding his palate. A partial listing of the foods he refuses to eat includes fish of any kind and "beef that hasn't been cooked to resemble linoleum."
Ciezadlo took solace in cooking, but Bazzi, 35, refused to eat her "fancy food." "That provided a huge impetus for writing this book," she said. "I thought, if Mohamad wasn't interested in exploring this stuff, then maybe other people will be and I should go and try to find them."

The lesson, she says, was clear: "You may love somebody but nowhere does it say that they have to love everything that you love and eat everything that you eat."

The two lived through a tumultuous time in the Middle East, including Israel's 2006 war with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon and Beirut street battles in 2008 that raged outside the door of their apartment building.

Eager to be done with his assignment and move home to the United States, Bazzi watched helplessly as his wife insisted on staying in Beirut. "It was important for me to understand what he had grown up with and what the civil war was and had been about," Ciezadlo said. The couple soon moved back to New York, though, and now spend their time in the city and in Lebanon.

This Week in Small Business: We're Watching Japan, Libya and Hugo Chavez

What's affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

THE QUAKE IN JAPAN, A GOOFBALL IN VENEZUELA Japanese earthquake damage is estimated at $310 billion and could be the costliest natural disaster ever. Japanese exports suffer. Kate Rogers of Fox revisits how to protect your business from catastrophe. "Small-business owners can determine if they should be seeking disaster coverage by weighing their investment in the business itself, among other factors. If the business is the sole form of income, the risk is much greater than if it is a hobby or part-time project." Elsewhere around the world, the war industry gets a boost in Libya. And Hugo Chavez of Venezuela says capitalism may have destroyed life on Mars.

REAL ESTATE FALLS, JOBS RISE Mark Thoma says commodity prices are increasing because of world demand. A small-business owner in Georgia is trying not to pass on the cost of high gas prices. Detroit's population declines 25 percent. Existing-home sales fall to the lowest on record. Meredith Whitney, an investment adviser, says, "Unless the government comes out with a 50-year mortgage, this market is in trouble longer term." Gallup's job-creation index is the highest since September 2008. Durable goods orders fall.

ANNE HATHAWAY AND WARREN BUFFETT The Fed earns $79 billion and predicts that the recovery is taking hold. Nonetheless, one of its officials warns that the United States is approaching insolvency. Meanwhile, Warren E. Buffett predicts growth but some think his company's stock is buoyed by Anne Hathaway. Household balances sheets continue to improve. Scott Grannis says "the Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook Survey came in very strong. It hasn't been this strong since the economic boom times of the early 1980s. It's very difficult to ignore the mounting evidence of a strong economic recovery." Architect billings increased slightly in February.

DEFICIT THRILLS The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is thrilled to see 64 senators calling for comprehensive deficit reduction. But Stan Collender, a budget expert, isn't thrilled at all: "Does a letter that is so vanilla that it could have been written at any time over the past 40 years really indicate any movement on the current budget debate?" James Pethokoukis of Reuters says he thinks President Obama's budget is wildly dangerous.

A NEW DEFINITION OF SMALL BUSINESS Timothy F. Geithner says that American small businesses need greater access to capital to spur innovation. The Small Business Administration, facing even more cuts, is for the first time in more than 25  years proposing to change the way it defines small businesses. JPMorgan Chase says it will cease its debit card rewards program because of new legislation that would restrict fees. Missouri gets $27 million in incentives for small-business growth. The Small Business Savings Account Act makes its way through Congress.

Come alive with this super five


Car shows are all about dreams. They corral that new sports sedan you've been hankering for or perhaps the beauty you might never own because it's too big for the garage, too small for the brood or just too darn expensive.

But what if you could have any vehicle in the show and do what ever you wanted with it?

That's what my editor, Keith Morgan, laid on when he sent a list of the 100 vehicles on display at the 2011 Vancouver International Auto Show and asked me to pick five and dream the dream of what I'd do with them.

There were plenty of rigs to choose from and hey, since I've spent the last 32 years thinking up things to do with vehicles, this was one dream assignment.

#1: CHEVROLET VOLT

Give this clever electric vehicle a good run in the real world. With its ingenious extended range feature, this is one EV that keeps going when the battery runs down thanks to a gasoline-powered on-board generator that vaporizes dreaded 'range anxiety.' So drive a Volt from Vancouver to as far north as possible in Canada. That would be Inuvik, or in the winter another 200 kilometres on the Mackenzie River ice road to Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. Owners of this electric car, the most innovative new car on the market, can hit the Alaska Highway and beyond without renting or owning a second vehicle.

#2: VW GOLF WAGON TDI CLEAN DIESEL

Drive from the most westerly point of Ireland to Vladivostok, in Russia's eastern Siberia. I've driven around the world a couple of times, from the bottom to the top of both hemispheres and much more, but Trans-Europe/Siberia is the big drive that has eluded me. The Golf TDI wagon is the car for this mission. It's tough, fun to drive and fuel friendly with a range up to 1,200 kilometres between fill-ups. And if those Ruskie hotels turn out to be too few and far between, just fold down the seats and stretch out for a good night's sleep.

#3: LAMBORGHINI GALLARDO LP 570-4 SPYDER PERFORMANTE

I've never driven an exotic so why not take this dazzling super car from New York to Los Angeles without touching a four-lane highway? No chain hotels or restaurants, keep the top down the whole way and take my time. Checking out the back roads in this beast and meeting plenty of slack-jawed folks will be a no-brainer. It's a bratmobile, no question, but isn't that what cars like this are all about? Along the way, roads like Nevada's U.S. Route 50, proclaimed the Loneliest Road in America, will offer opportunity to stretch the legs on the 570-horsepower all-wheeldrive rocket.

#4: SUBARU OUTBACK

With superior all-road all-weather capability, this electric car jack-of-all-trades will live up to its namesake in the Australian Outback. Retrace the route that Ken Langley and I drove on our 1980 around-the-world drive and see if the Nullarbor Plain still seems endless, the Kalgoorlie brothel remains intact and the bull dust still gets into absolutely everything. But I'll take the side road to Ayers Rock this time and manage to keep the 'roos out of the grill.

#5: FIAT 500

Drive this reborn cute, beloved Italian on a road trip to a series of iconic Italian attractions. Besides the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Rome's Colosseum, the gondolas of Venice and La Scala Opera House, I should track down the David, too. But the best part would be to visit all the relatives I gained but have never met since marrying an Italian, Lisa Calvi. With a car the size of the Fiat 500, it would only fit a couple of in-laws at a time, so they wouldn't all be talking at once.

So there they are. But the best dream for me is to get all this done before the 2012 Vancouver Auto show, then tell the tale. Better get at 'er though. Daylight is burning.

America has oil; we should tap into it

Why can't we start drilling for the oil in Alaska we know is there? Why are we restricted as to where we can drill for oil in certain areas because the environmentalists want to save certain endangered species of wildlife? People are vastly more important than wildlife, I would think. Additionally, why can't we start using our oil reserves?

The price of gasoline keeps going up. It gets to a point where the companies that deliver goods of all kinds have to raise rates to pay for the rising cost of gasoline. So the companies that they deliver on behalf of have to follow suit and raise their rates, whether they are factories, stores or whoever receives these products. The buying public, in turn, has to face the rising costs. How? With a dwindling paycheck or no paycheck at all.

We know there are thousands of people unemployed all over the country; some people are losing their houses, living with friends if they are lucky; families are breaking up; and people are living in shelters. True, there are charities helping out. But having a job, holding your head high, keeping your house and feeding your family do mean everything.

Just think about it. Why do we have this terrible spiral crippling us when we have our own oil? We are one of the biggest users of foreign oil in the world. If we cut down on our dependency on foreign oil, those countries would have to eventually lower their price for a barrel of crude and we wouldn't have to be solely dependent on them. Think about that spiral.

Jenner expanding its footprint

Jenner Chevrolet has started a massive makeover that will allow the West Shore's largest

automobile dealership to handle a new generation of vehicles and better serve the customers

who buy them.

Building permit data show the construction value of the project at 1730 Island Highway is

$1.2 million, but manager Fred Jenner said the final costs will be "much higher" when work is

completed this summer.

"We've lived in the Western communities for 30 years and the intent is to rebuild for the

next 30 years," Jenner said Thursday as construction crews moved in temporary trailers to

house sales and some administration staff. "In this business it's the product that drives you

and we are going to be ready for the new products."

Jenner will start selling the Volt, Chevrolet's entry into the electric car market, this

summer and there are several other new brands already arrived and others on the way.

The dealership is equipped to service hybrids, but those models are changing and, like the

Volt, will require showroom space and specialized tools and areas for servicing, said Jenner.

The dealership sells more than 30 models across the Chevrolet, Buick and GMC brands.

The construction project will add 15,000 square feet to the existing building, erected in

1977 as Millstream Chevrolet.

When completed the footprint will cover more than 35,000 square feet and include a bigger

showroom to fit more vehicles and pull the parts and service departments together from the

opposite sides of the building.

Extensive plumbing and electrical upgrades are in the plans, as well as landscaping

improvements.

A new covered drive will allow customers to pull into the service area and speak with

technicians from their vehicle.

The parts and service department will have extra space and there will be male and female

locker and shower facilities for the dealership's 52 staff. Sales and administration will be

grouped together on one floor.

Jenner said the dealership is also investing in new diagnostic equipment and tools, and

extensive staff training, to service the revamped line of vehicles from General Motors.

The big auto company emerged from bankruptcy last year with a new product list, including the

Cruze, a hot-seller for Jenner. The Orlando, a compact wagon built on the Cruze platform, the

Sonic, a replacement for the Aveo and GM's smallest vehicle and the Spark will arrive later

this year. The Volt arrives this summer with limited production of about 25,000 vehicles,

according to some reports. That capacity is expected to increase to about 60,000 or higher in

2012, but will trail Nissan's electric entry, the Leaf, by a wide margin.

Wheaton GM will also sell the Volt in Victoria.

Jack Jenner took over the dealership in 1981 after managing dealerships in Western Canada for

GM.

"General Motors has had its ups and downs over the past few years," Jenner said. "But GM is

really putting out some top quality products and this rebuilding project reflects that. It

was time we upgraded to give back to our workers and staff -and to our customers."

On the financial end

South Florida and worldwide Twitter users have a reason to celebrate: The social networking site Twitter, platform for the exchange of short messages, celebrates its fifth anniversary this week, with the ambition to continue growing and revolutionizing Internet use. The Microblogging site now claims more than two-hundred million users. Jack Dorsey, Chairman of the Board for the California company, said Sunday on Twitter company genesis: "Five years ago today, we started planning Twitter. Eight days later, the first tweet was sent: I am trying to install my twitter," Jack Dorsey announced on March 21, 2006.

Mr. Dorsey had the idea of launching the one-hundred-forty-characters message service, originally designed for mobile phones, when working at partnership podcasts, Odeo, with two other Company cofounders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. After that, Microblogger has grown steadily, claiming over two-hundred-million users; less than Facebook's five-hundred million users, but twice MySpace, the social network pioneer. The site allows a user monitoring and posting short messages in a text format, which show automatically every time he opens his Twitter page.

"One thing I told our team at the beginning was that if our venture became a success, it would not be just a technologically feat, but a victory for humanity," says Biz Stone, a Microblogging site cofounder. On the financial end, the site has long-favored growth and reputation rather than cash receipts, betting on advertising revenues through sponsored posts. Its popularity is high among investors who can buy shares in markets as informal as Second Markets. Recent press reports show revenues for the year stand at between four-and-half and ten-billion dollars with gross profits estimated at between one-hundred and one-hundred-fifty-million dollars.

"Here is a new way of communicating," says Biz Stone. In 2007, Company was out of confidentiality to the annual technophiles festival in Austin, TX. "It seemed we had created a way to communicate, regardless the device used, which could potentially transform modern communications," said Biz Stone. Today, Microblogger is used as information exchange  essential, in both, natural disaster context and mass movements shaking the Tehran regime and overthrowing Egypt and Tunis presidents, Hosni Mubarak and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

Five months ago, Twitter brought before head manager, Dick Costoolo, the three founders, now with more distant relationships, keeping more strategic, inspirational and advisers' roles. Acquisition rumors by Google or Facebook surface often, quickly denied. For Biz Stone, Twitter is a way to stay in touch with life in all respects: "I went shopping at the supermarket the other day. I looked at my phone, found mixed messages from Evan, my mother, and people on the other side of the planet who descend: this triggered an empathy I would not watch on TV, and realized we are world citizens." Happy birthday, good luck, Twitter!

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Social Network Anniversary: Twitter celebrates five years - Miami Technology | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-miami/social-network-anniversary-twitter-celebrates-five-years#ixzz1GefS9eJI

Don't buy car just because of gas prices, analysts say

Buyers shifting their shopping to small, fuel-efficient vehicles because of high gas prices run the danger of making a long-term decision on a short-term price spike.

They could find themselves driving a car they don't want, some analysts warn.

"It is like people who look out the window, see that it is raining and then think it is going to rain for the next four years," said Jack Nerad, an analyst with auto information company Kelley Blue Book Co. Inc. in Irvine, Calif.

Though most oil watchers believe the cost of petroleum is on an ever-upward curve, the steepness of the climb is likely to be uneven, and it's not clear whether prices will remain high if political turmoil in Arab oil producing nations recedes.

"The prices of gasoline could collapse overnight if things settled down in the Middle East," said Phil Flynn, an oil analyst with PFGBest Research in Chicago.
Unpredictable

The problem is that no one can predict whether the revolution in Libya and unrest in neighboring nations will be limited or spread, disrupting oil supplies from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations.

That means gas and oil prices will remain high until commodities traders and petroleum buyers have a better sense of where the political situation is headed, Flynn said.

For now, there is significant spare petroleum capacity in Saudi Arabia and reserves in other major markets, "which could be very helpful in defraying a price-spike episode," said Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, an economist at Dearborn carmaker Ford Motor Co.

But with gas prices well into the $3-a-gallon range nationwide and hovering at $4 in some areas, consumers are starting to migrate to smaller cars. Ford's subcompact Fiesta sells best in California, where gas prices are among the highest in the nation.

The trend is reflected in Web traffic at auto information and pricing Internet sites.
Interest way up

At kbb.com, the Web portal for Kelley Blue Book, searches for hybrids and electrics jumped 73 percent from the weekend of Feb. 19-20 to Feb. 27-28. Traffic to compact cars as a segment blossomed 46 percent in the same period.

"For charity" festival commissions report

About this time every year, I attempt to find out the St. Patty's Day commissions from Five

Points Association Executive Director Merritt Mchaffie.  But as this has become an exercise

in absolute public records futility, I also spend some well-wasted FOIA time trying to find

out what the U.S. military really had to do with the assassination of Vietnamese President

Ngo Dinh Diem and whether the European Union will ever fess up to ruining the career of new

age musician Yanni.

Every year, the Five Points Association goon squad dodges basic public records requests for

information any non-profit organization staffed by semi-literate gerbils should be able to

provide to a newspaper within minutes.

This year, I was told that FPA would present me with the information I desired if I would

kindly bring them $118 to pay for "reproduction costs."  How stupid do they think I am?  In

five minutes, I could be trolling Two Notch Road and forking out no more than $15 for all the

reproduction costs a man could ever need!

I am asking for information that can be limited to one solitary piece of paper.  I want to

know the commission amounts for the St. Patrick's Day festival.  That's it.  I don't want a

ream of paper.  I don't want to know any of the other corrupt acts enacted by this group the

other 364 days of the year.  Merritt, I just want several numbers with names.  And I won't

even waste my all-time worst pickup line on you:  "Baby, I'm not Fred Flintstone, but I can

make your Bedrock!"

Anyway, surprise, surprise!  The cost of that one sheet of paper from FPA is still $118.  I

hope to God some FBI agent in the Strom Thurmond Federal Building is reading this article!! 

Help!!  I am being extorted!!  This is worse than Wisconsin!!

In previous years, City Paper has resorted to getting attorneys involved to threaten suit

against FPA for the St. Pat's commission information.  Last year, however, I decided to crash

the beer server training event at Sharky's Bar prior to the St. Patty's event.  First, I

didn't have to pay attorneys.  Second, I figured I'd be able to sneak a couple of pints of

Guinness for my trouble.

I tracked down each individual making hefty commission checks from the festival.  Again, what

a surprise:  the same people were benefiting AT TAXPAYER'S EXPENSE, and the same ol' "Five

Points Mafia" behavior still existed.  At least one small business, Disorderly Conduct, had

been told it could not sell beer at the event.

When I approached Kelly Glenn, owner of Village Idiot, she was by far the most friendly and

forthcoming corrupt merchant.  She admitted to making an eight percent commission on beer

sales for organizing a mostly volunteer staff.  Depending on beer sales, that figure may have

been well over $10,000.

Skip Anderson was not quite as forthcoming and denied making very much—although records show

he received at least $8,000 for his action on wristband sales from 2009.  I don't know about

you, but $8,000 is "very much" to me.  Hell, that could buy me—I mean, my delivery guy—

about 300 blowjobs on Two Notch!

"[My pay out] is not percentage based," Anderson told City Paper.  "I'm just here to help out

and see what happens, man."  My impromptu interview with Mr. Anderson came to an abrupt halt

when Duncan MacRae, the co-owner of Yesterday's and a co-founder of St. Pat's in Five Points,

interrupted us.  "Get off my ass," MacRae demanded.

Mr. MacRae, I have two statements for you.  One:  As a taxpayer, how about you stop ripping

off my ass with $15 at the gate, and I'll get off yours?  And, two:  everyone knows your

meatloaf is made from fox squirrel road kill.

Especially benefiting financially every year from the Five Points Leprechaun Carnival is Jack

Van Loan, FPA's economic development director (AKA expert extraordinaire at butt-fucking

taxpayers).  Van Loan receives what can be described as a "fat Al Roker fee":  if God doesn't

make it rain in Columbia during the festival, he gets a guaranteed $5,000.  Talk about luck

of the Irish!

Year after fucking year, Van Loan gets monthly fees and expenses from FPA that total near

$30,000—and the guy doesn't even have to spend one minute walking the asphalt and playing

with his nipples in a miniskirt.  In addition, FPA has flipped the bill for meals for Jack

and prominent politicians, but there's no telling to the extent of the misallocation of funds

due to the secrecy of FPA and the lack of city oversight.  PEOPLE, THE GUY'S NAME IS "VAN

FUCKING LOAN"!!

In 2010, FPA received $280,000 in taxpayer funding from the city's hospitality tax fund. 

This fiscal year, FPA requested $455,000 of the $2.5 million fund, but were only allocated

the same $280K figure as last year.  Thank God; otherwise, Five Points traffic would probably

be clogged with oversized limousines driving back and forth between Speakeasy and Sharky's.

Hey, by the way, did I mention that FPA board member Richard Burts chairs the city's

Hospitality Tax Advisory Committee?  Yo, G-Man in the Strom Thurmond Building, are you

reading this?!?!

This is all old news, though, so what about the figures for 2011?  I guess I'll have to break

into the FPA office (again) to save myself the $118.

Oh, what the fuck.  Every year, our fair city ignores the Hospitality Tax funding problems

and writes blank checks without any required certified audits from corrupt mafiosa

organizations like FPA.  City Council turns a blind eye, and taxpayers don't seem to care

that they're being anally raped by a splintery old mop handle.

All I have left is a famous quote by Emma Goldman:  "If voting changed anything, they'd make

it illegal."  (And based on Will Moredock's column on page 7, who's to say your vote will

even be counted?)

In the spirit of our fake democracy, this year I have decided to invent the commission

figures and FPA takes.  After all, in previous years, they've always accused me of

exaggerating.  Why not cut to the chase?

Yes, that means put away your red pen, Debbie McDaniel!  (Five Points business owner Debbie

McDaniel was voted back on the FPA board last year despite the fact that she failed to show

up to the actual meeting when the vote occurred.  In fact, none of the candidates running for

the FPA board showed up at that meeting.  Can anyone say ‘hubris'?  The transparency of

McDaniel, self-proclaimed queen of Five Points, can be seen from the monitors of Five Points'

security cameras in the back of Revente.)

So without further ado, here are last year's St. Patty's Festival commission amounts not

provided by FPA Executive Director Merrit Mchaffie:

Beer Sales Commissions to Kelly Glenn for 2010 = estimated $10,000 (plus the pleasure of a

goat's anus smothered in peanut butter for three hours)

Wrist Band Commissions to Skip Anderson to date = >$85,000 (Have you ever seen the gold-

plated, four-leaf clover cock ring they give to Skippy each year?)

On The Rise: Gas Prices, Interest In Small Vehicles

Back in 2008, when gasoline prices topped $3 per gallon, many industry observers

pegged the magic inflection point where consumers would turn away from big vehicles

at $3.50. Indeed, 2009 was a great year for vehicles like Honda Civic and Prius, even

as the economy dove into the sod. It looks like consumers may be heading into fuel

sippers again, and analysts say that $3.50 magic number still holds water.

Unfortunately for automakers whose profits come by way of larger vehicles, gasoline

has surpassed $3.50 in a number of markets. 

In December, just as the economy began showing signs of life, gasoline hit $3. Since

then, the trend has been up, with prices hitting $4 at the pump last week in places

like Southern California. And a new survey from Kelley Blue Book looking at consumer

sentiment and gas prices suggests that consumers have begun changing their vehicle

consideration criteria because of higher gasoline prices and fears about the economy.

Last month, per the firm's study, four out of five car shoppers said that gas prices

have influenced vehicle considerations. That reflects an increase of 11 percentage

points over the survey in January. Kelley Blue Book says the national average for gas

prices increased by 29 cents last month, and that 74% of the latest KBB.com survey

respondents said they expect gas prices to rise more in the next 30 days.

The firm says if prices were to stay at around $3 per gallon, car shoppers likely

would not make major changes in vehicle consideration criteria. But at the $3.50 per

gallon price point, more than half of consumers will feel that gas is so expensive it

will affect their vehicle consideration, and at $4 per gallon, 80% of consumers say

their vehicle consideration will be affected. At a price point of $5 per gallon,

almost all car shoppers (95%) said that gas prices would affect vehicle

consideration.

The current national gas price average is now around $3.39 per gallon, and Kelley

Blue Book says consumer activity on the KBB Web site corroborates results from its

survey. The firm says activity on its site in the compact segment of new cars has

increased by 9% versus January, which is the largest increase of any segment. But

hybrids have seen only a minimal gain of increased share 1% month-over-month.

Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue

Book's KBB.com, said the increased interest in fuel-efficient vehicles and lower

interest in "gas guzzlers" typically foreshadows corresponding changes in buying

behavior.

And Nerad tells Marketing Daily that the change has not been gradual. "It's been

precipitous," he says. "We saw a long lull [in consumer interest in compacts] through

most of the recession when fuel prices were down, and there was, in fact, lots of

interest in larger vehicles," he says. "But we have seen these new changes over the

course of three or four weeks, when the price of gasoline has increased by 33 cents.

There's a remarkable correlation when gas prices go up fast. It's like the frog in

lukewarm water: it never jumps out if the heat gradually increases. But if you

suddenly turn up the heat really fast, it jumps."

Nerad says that automakers are in a much better position now to address the latest

gasoline spike, and are much more aware of it. General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said

early in the year that he hopes to triple sales the Chevy Volt electric car, and that

the company is in a much better position -- product-wise -- to deal with higher

gasoline prices. "Ford has small cars, Chevy has Cruze, Hyundai has the renewed

Elantra, and there are more hybrids than ever before," he says.

Did Obama Meet the Wrong Big Wave Surfers?

It was reported that during his recent trip to the West Coast, President Obama had

dinner with a dozen Silicon Valley executives. The appearance of the technological and

financial captains of industry such as John Doer (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers),

Carol Bartz (Yahoo), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and John Chambers (Cisco) set the press

wires buzzing. While these people would all be considered at the top of the tech

industry heap, perhaps the President was meeting with people whose technology and the

waves they created have already passed instead of meeting with people who are creating

and forming the new waves that will rock the tech world.

Ken Thurber, author of Big Wave Surfing: Extreme Technology Development, Management,

Marketing and Investing, sees these companies as mature - "some like Apple (Steve Jobs

was reportedly seen at that dinner meeting) will surely impact the American economy as

it moves forward, but the real action is forming out at sea with new surfers and

technologies such as nanotechnology, wind-powered cars, extremely fast Exascale

Computers and powerful new lasers being developed by the military. The future lies

with serial big wave entrepreneur surfers like Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, SpaceX

and runs Tesla motors, which looks to revolutionize the electric car industry, if they

don't run out of cash first."

Thurber sees companies such as Oracle and Yahoo as the old world order and the new

surfers like Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal), Tim Westergren (Pandora) or Jack

Dorsey  (Square & Twitter) as the coming Big Wave Surfers.

Thurber goes on to say," As these new Surfers and others like them go, so goes the

future of the American economy. Like any surfers there will be wipeouts and winners

and losers, but without embracing them and what they represent in the innovation

economy, America will be in for trying economic times and profound structural changes

will occur in American society. Understanding of the current innovation economy will

not be found by meeting with the current captains of industry. The understanding to

forge the nation's innovation strategy will only be formed by meeting with the current

entrepreneurs who are trying to spot and ride the next big wave!"

About the Author: Kenneth J. Thurber, Ph.D., is a renowned computer architect and has

developed technology and systems worth billions of dollars. He developed the concept

of "technology big wave surfing" to empower readers to understand and harness the

opportunity of an ever-changing technological world.