Questions in Search of Answers

1. How is it that no U.S. intelligence agency can ever figure out what’s going on in North Korea at any given moment, yet we can see a World Cup qualifier match live from Pyongyang on Fox Soccer Channel?
2. Which automobile industry executive first thought that it would be a great idea to put a spoiler on a minivan?
3. Continuing from question #1, why bother putting up all the billboards for FIFA’s corporate sponsors around the field during said qualifier in Pyongyang? Is anybody who went to that game really going to utilize the financial services of ING, wear Nike, drive a Hyundai, or Fly Emirates any time soon?
4. What is up with my wife’s burgeoning obsession with the Nickelodeon television show iCarly?
5. Continuing from question #2, does that auto executive still have a job? If so, why?
6. Where does the spork go in a properly dignified table place-setting?

An Obvious Watershed for All Humanity

Dr. Frankenstein's Yugo.

There are moments in history that are obvious watersheds for all humanity. This is one of those times. The world is about to become a much sadder and emptier place, for the Yugo is no more.

Although they stopped exporting the cars to the United States in 1991, the makers of the Yugo, Zastava, slogged on. Although their factory was bombed by NATO during the 1999 Kosovo war, still the makers of the Yugo slogged on. But no more. No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus.

Perhaps the Yugo’s makers can find solace in the possibility that their international flagship product may not predecease the whole of General Motors by much time.

Maybe they’ll come back to the U.S. market some day. After all, one of the models Zestava currently makes is called the Florida. It has 95 horsepower and can go from 0 to 60 in under 11 seconds (I did not add those italics for comedic emphasis. They were used by the company on its own website, I’ll have you know).

For those of you who can’t get enough of the Yugo, you can always go to Yugofanclub.com, although it seems you to have to be able to read Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian to make any sense of it.