New Car Reviews: You Say Tomato, I Say…

I’ve  now owned my 2010 Yaris for exactly a week, which makes me qualified to say almost nothing of substance about it.  That scarcity of substance, I think, makes me eminently qualified for a new career as a reviewer for Car and Driver. 

However, I’ve been doing two things (besides actually driving it) to become more familiar with it.  One, I’ve started reading the Owner’s Manual.  So far, the most important thing I’ve learned from it is that if I’m involved in an accident,  it could result in death or serious injury.  Thank God they warned me about this.  I always thought if you had a really bad accident, you sprouted wings and flew effortlessly and painlessly through the roof (or the floorboard, depending on the position of the vehicle after the accident).

Second, I’ve been belatedly doing some comparative car shopping, by reading reviews.  This isn’t to say that I gave no thought to buying the Yaris.  I’ve been thinking about it for four months.  I wanted it because of the price, the gas mileage, and because it’s a Toyota. 

But yesterday, Comcast posted a story on its Homepage about the 10 cheapest cars available in the U.S., and I couldn’t resist reading it.  It turned out to be a review by Car and Driver of the 2008 models.  I then tried to find more current comparisons, but there isn’t a lot out there yet about the 2010’s.  Besides Car and Driver, I also looked at reviews by Motortrend, Edmunds, and a few other fly-by-night sites.  Some reviews, like the Car and Driver review, compare the cars by price range; others, by size and style.  In the latter category, the Yaris is compared to the Honda Fit, the Nissan Versa, and the Kia Rio.

Pretty universally, the Yaris is deemed “middle of the pack” and is damned by faint praise:  despite the fact that it has the best gas mileage and the most safety features.  And…it’s a Toyota.  Six of those ten cheapest cars were either Kias or Hyundais. 

Here are a few of the things the reviewers don’t like about it: 

It’s small.  Duh.  I really got that part when test-driving it on the Toyota dealer’s lot.  My salesman, D.J., was in the passenger seat, and while shifting gears–especially when shifting into reverse–I became intimately acquainted with D.J.’s knee. 

Cruise control isn’t standard.  How will I ever be able to bear it?  The Camaro had cruise control, which isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  I can count on less than 10 fingers the times I used it.  Be honest.  If you have it, how often do you use it?  Not in a city, and not even on an expressway in a city.  It assumes long stretches of open road.  How rare is that these days? 

The dashboard displays (tachometer, speedometer, odometer, clock, etc.) are all together in the middle of the dashboard.  As one reviewer said, “It just doesn’t feel right”.  Please.  It’s new, it’s different?  Go review a 1979 Buick Park Avenue already. 

Power windows and doors are not standard.  Fakename could not be happier about that, as she has a previously mentioned aversion to those features. 

Design.  The appearance of the Yaris I’ve seen described as “eccentric”, “quirky”, and my favorite, “Euro-cute”.  I think it is the sleekest of its comparable cars–that is, the hatchback is, which is what I bought.  As coincidence would have it, I saw a Honda Fit in the parking lot of PetsMart yesterday and thought it was hideous.  I wanted to give it a little paper hat and whistle and teach it to sing “Auld Lang Syne”. 

Am I totally happy?  Well….no.  My biggest complaint is that I’m having trouble adjusting to the clutch.   It’s fine when switching gears after first, it’s just starting off in first.  I am a very (VERY) long-term manual transmission driver, and many people who have been my passengers have said I’m the best driver they’ve ever seen with a manual transmission.  If you didn’t see me shifting gears, you would never know it was happening.  I can switch gears seamlessly so the passenger never knows it’s happening.  Hills are no obstacle.  Until now.  I have killed this car countless times in only a week.  So I don’t think it’s me…I think I will take it up with Toyota. 

Or…I could keep reading the Owner’s Manual, which has a section called “Driving the Car”.  This begins with “Start the engine”.  (Instructions are on page 129).  And here are the instructions for starting on a steep hill:

Step 1.  With the parking brake firmly set, and the clutch pedal fully depressed, shift the shift lever to 1.  <They must be kidding me.  The parking brake?>

Step 2.  Lightly depress the accelerator pedal at the same time as gradually releasing the clutch pedal.  <Dang!  Why did I waste all that time taking Driver’s Ed?  I could have just read this manual.>

Step 3.  Release the parking brake. 

By using this method, I can guarantee you that your Yaris will shoot forward like it’s been propelled from a slingshot, because it’s very zippy.  Per the reviews, it will go from zero to 60 mph in 8.5 seconds, and I believe it, though I haven’t officially tested it myself.  Now I know I shouldn’t, since the Owner’s Manual tells me that for the first 1000 miles I should avoid sudden acceleration and driving at extremely high speeds. 

Apparently there is some saying that it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.  I learned this from the reviews.  And I could not disagree more strongly.  I want a fast car, which I will then drive (relatively) slowly.  With a slow car, you can’t get out of the way fast enough.  If you see my point. 

Zip is good.   To illustrate, I leave this post with a comment by the Car and Driver reviewer who noted this about the Chevy Aveo (one of the cheap cars presumably comparable to the Yaris):  Make sure you get the manual transmission instead of the automatic, if you want to make it up an onramp to the expressway before both polar ice caps melt.

Now That I Mentioned It…

And now that I’m on the topic of music, I have to post the Joan Baez version of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.  Joan’s version is the absolute best, and the accompanying photos here might be misleading, but it’s a subtle song.  It is by no means a hymn to the Confederacy.  If that’s your impression, listen again. 

And it’s a Yahoo video, so I’m not smart enough to post it to WordPress.  Check it out:  http://video.yahoo.com/watch/161151/1222643

Best Country Song Ever

I started to entitle this “Facebook Follies”.  Facebook does various quizzes and I occasionally get sucked into them.  One of the questions in the quiz I took today was, What is the best country song?  I hesitated for a bit.  Garth Brooks was a strong contender for his song “Papa Loved Mama”, with lines worthy of Shakespeare:  “Papa loved Mama, Mama loved men, Mama’s in the graveyard, Papa’s in the pen.”  And then there was the song “Leona”, which my father used to sing to me when he was in the mood for torment.  “Leona, Leona, tell him you’re through.  Tell him you’re married with a baby or two…”  That song does not end well.  A third possibility was Kenny Rogers’ “Ruby” (“Don’t take your love to town!”). 

I grew up with country music, rock and roll, ’40’s pop,  gospel, and classical music, and I still love it all (although granted, I went through a period when I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to country music).

In the end, the answer to the best country song ever is David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Call Me By My Name”.  Part of its appeal is that as opposed to the three songs named above, no cheatin’ woman gets killed.  Of course, someone does die, since otherwise it would not qualify as country music.  If you hate country music, try to make an exception and stick it out until the end of this song, where the perfect country song is expalined. 

 

TV Snobbery

I can’t for the life of me figure out how TV has gotten such a bad rep.  These days  it is so fashionable to say “I don’t watch TV” or “I don’t let my kids watch TV”.  And I want to say, “You are an idiot”.

But just check out a few of the quotes on Turn Off Your TV.  Or you could always just Google “why TV is bad”, like I did, and it will give you plenty of reasons to throw your TV in the trash, as depicted on the home page of Turn Off Your TV.  The mental image we get from the TV Is Bad sector is one of passive, obese, zombified kids, with a bag of potato chips in one hand and a 16-ounce Coke in the other.  Then, of course, as soon as they can pull their glazed eyes away from the screen, they will immediately go out and strangle somebody to death, since on TV, violence isn’t real and everybody comes back to life. 

Then, assuming you aren’t in prison for strangling someone, you will grow up to be an adult sitting mindlessly in front of the TV watching “As The World Turns” (or Glenn Beck, but that’s another story).  Pass the potato chips, please. 

But this is pseudo-intellectualism at its finest.  You think if you deny your kids TV, they will read more?  Not necessarily.  And do you really want your kids to grow up on Walden Pond?  Contemplating the wonders of the growth of a single blade of grass?  (Not sure if Thoreau actually did that, but it would fit.)

Here is reality according to Fakename:  TV opens up whole worlds of experience to kids and adults alike, worlds you might never otherwise experience in person.  I have always been an avid reader.  When I was a kid, we lived next door to the library, and every Saturday I would check out 7 books, one for each day of the week.  It was a small town, and a small library, and eventually I started to run out of fiction that interested me, so I moved into non-fiction, specifically, biographies.  I will never forget this one biography I read about a woman (I do forget who she was) who went on safari in Africa and it was so thrilling and exotic that I immediately abandoned all my plans to grow up and marry Paul McCartney. 

But cheetahs?  Hippos?  Sure, I could see pictures of them, but there is no substitute for seeing them either in person or on TV.  The zoo doesn’t exactly count.  On TV, you see the way they move, the way they live, and it becomes real to you in a way that neither a book or the zoo can do.  TV doesn’t destroy imagination, it augments it. 

As a kid, I watched cartoons, which was sometimes traumatic because I used to cry when characters fell off a cliff, even if they survived.  Roadrunner was my hero, and my first crush was on Mighty Mouse.  At a later date there was “Wide World of Disney”, and “The Ed Sullivan Show”.

TV exposes you to things you would not otherwise be able to see or imagine.  How else would I have been able to see the Beatles’ debut in the U.S., or better yet, humans landing on the moon?  You get to see music, sports, history, nature.  And yes, sometimes you just get to escape.  Tell me what is wrong with that. 

Unless your brain is already completely empty for some reason beyond your control, watching TV causes a reaction.  You think.  That cannot be bad.

Back To The Future, Carwise

I’ve now owned my Toyota Yaris for almost 48 hours, and every time I look at it, I think it looks like a toy car.  It doesn’t feel that way from the inside, but from the outside you think all it needs is a little toy house to park in front of, and a little toy dog and a little toy child to sit in the vestigial back seat. 

But I am no stranger to small cars.  The Camaro is, that is WAS (oh, how I hate talking about it in the past tense) the largest vehicle I have ever owned, I think.  It was at least the longest.  But it took me until today to remember that I previously owned a Toyota.  Not for long. 

It was a Corolla FX, which looked just like this, except it was red: 

I used that car to move from Memphis to New Orleans in the summer of 1992, and in the spring of 1993 it met a spectacular end.  I was trying to cross Elysian Fields from Burgundy Street when out of nowhere I was hit by a speeding Buick Park Avenue, circa 1967 (translation:  tank).  I saw him coming at the last minute and swerved just enough that he hit the left front hood of the car instead of hitting me squarely in the driver’s side door. 

It nevetheless spun the car around 180 degrees and propelled it headfirst into a tree, across three lanes of roadway.  The front of the car accordioned, and was spilling every fluid contained under the hood.  I was stunned, and I don’t mean that in the emotional sense.  I was not wearing my seatbelt, so as I recall, the first thing that happened was that my head hit the roof.  Then I was thrown forward and my head hit the steering wheel.  I remember sort of coming to my senses, after what I think was only seconds, and staring out the windshield at maybe 50 people gathered in front of my car.  Then I got out of the car, and they erupted into applause.  They rushed to tell me to take care, not to move quickly, that they had called an ambulance for me.  But really, I was fine.  I had a bump on my forehead, that was it. 

The ambulance arrived, and I declined care.  Meanwhile, the tank driver was moaning.  Oh, he said, my back hurts.  So get this:  the ambulance the bystanders called for me took away the driver of the car that hit me.  Literally within hours, my insurance company got a call from his lawyer.  I’m happy to report that went nowhere.  In Louisiana, though, you would never want to pass up the opportunity to sue your victim.  It might work.

Weighing In on Breast Cancer

Or at least on the raging debate that has occurred this week.  Warning notice:  I’m about to express some opinions.  Some of those opinions will be supported by “facts” (I place quotes around “facts”, because facts can never be separated from our perception of them–that must be the philosophy student in me rearing its ugly head), but I will not be posting any links for you to check where I got my “facts”.  If you don’t believe me, look it up yourself.  As I am fond of saying, this is a blog, not a term paper.  You won’t find any op. cits. here.  Additional warning:  You can dispute the “facts” all you want unless it concerns my personal body, which you don’t have enough information about to dispute. 

That doesn’t mean you won’t get some links.  To begin with, Thursday’s op-ed column in the NY Times by Gail Collins, always one of my favorites, who pretty much pokes fun at the hysteria the “new” recommendations concerning mammograms has engendered.  “New”, as in, returning to previous recommendations, with now even more evidence to support them.  But the hysteria involves “rationing” and “death panels”.  God, you people (and you know who you are) make me tired.  I suggested to my most rabidly conservative friend that he read her column, and he did, and sent me a message afterwards that I would describe as a diatribe, if I weren’t trying to be kinder and gentler.  In his defense, his mother and many other people he knows have had breast cancer, so it is a very emotional issue for him.  Yeah, well, me too.  In her column, Gail mentions that she had breast cancer herself.  I think she should be cut a little slack for that.  But never underestimate the power of fear, and men fear for their wives, their mothers, their daughters, their sisters, and their friends, and fear is never subject to logic.  It would be foolish to think that only women are affected by breast cancer, and I’m not talking about the fact that men get breast cancer too, which they do.  I’m talking about it affecting the men who love the women who get it.  And if you are the person who has cancer, you feel very much that the situation is out of your control.  As the friend or family member of a person with cancer, you are that much more out of control.  It’s like helpless, then helpless once removed.  That’s why you find people with cancer comforting those around them;  it’s actually worse for you. 

Now we move to the “facts”.  Most breast cancers are extremely slow growing.  It takes years for a tumor to be large enough to be visible on a mammogram.  So two years is not an unreasonable interval. 

Most women develop breast cancer after age 50. 

The value of self-exams has been questioned for forever.  I understand in theory that if you know your own body, you’re better able to detect changes.  Nothing wrong with that.  The problem is that most women don’t know what they’re looking for.  Many women have “lumpy” breasts (sorry to get so technical).  It’s called fibrocystic disease, which is benign (although I’ve recently learned that a history of it is now considered a risk factor for breast cancer), so even if you were to detect a new lump, your response might be “whatever”. 

Mammograms are far better than self-exams, except they aren’t very good.  Collins notes that having just had a clear mammogram, she then found a lump on her own.  In this case, self-exam worked.  The most sensible thing I heard all week was a quote by someone from the Susan B. Komen Foundation who said that this was at least a good debate, since it sheds light on the fact that mammograms are a poor test.  CT scans are much better, but they cost ten times what a mammogram does.  Now there is the debate we should be having:  about why we aren’t doing the best testing available.  Mammograms are crude, and reading them is subject to varying levels of competence by the radiologist.  Of course, so are CT scans. 

Now we get to the part about cutting me some slack too.  In my own case, the tumor was detected by CT scan–a scan I had for an entirely different reason.  Afterwards, I had a mammogram and an ultrasound, but it’s important to note that the mammogram I had was “diagnostic” as opposed to “screening”.  Screening mammograms, which are of the type women have every year, are very general, and I think of them as tests that something has to jump off the screen for the radiologist to recognize.  Between the screening mammogram and the breast exam by a doctor, you hope you will pick up something, operative word here being hope.  Not guaranteed.  Diagnostic mammograms are a lot more detailed (and a lot less fun).  After the CT scan I had, I had that diagnostic mammogram and that’s what I have every year now.  And the results of that first diagnostic were, yeah, there’s something there…not sure what it is….

I will never know for sure whether a screening mammogram would have picked up the tumor first, before I had the CT.  But I seriously doubt it.  My personal advice is, if you can afford it, have a CT scan.  (You have to do that anyway if you have breast implants, I recently learned!)

Finally, for a bit more factual information.  This op-ed article appeared in today’s NY Times and it’s entitled Addicted to Mammograms.  The author explains rather well the history of breast cancer treatment and recommendations, and really, it would apply to most cancers. 

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I have a friend who is dying of breast cancer that metastasized to bone.  In distress, I once asked our (mutual) radiation oncologist, if you know where breast cancer is likely to metastasize, why don’t you test for it?  To make a long answer short, the answer was, “It wouldn’t do any good.”  Our methods of detection are primitive, and methods of treatment are worse.   

But I have to tell you, it positively insults me to the core to have politicians trying to tell me that the government wants to kill me.  It’s almost too ignorant to dignify with a comment.  If you care so much, give some money to the NIH for cancer research.  Oh wait, that’s a government agency (Government bad, Tarzan good.)  Okay then, give it to the American Cancer Society.  But your grandstanding is definitely not working for me.

Alas…In Fact, R.I.P. Camaro

I recently posted a blog about the impending death of the Camaro, entitled Alas, Poor Camaro. 

What can I tell you?  It died.  Yesterday it began overheating again, and I didn’t even have the option of driving it a few blocks to Jeff the Mechanic, because he doesn’t work on  Mondays.

Not that he would have worked on it..it isn’t like he didn’t warn me at the end of July that the car was not going to make it.  If I had even been able to get it to him I suspect he would have refused.  He does have a reputation to uphold. 

I opted for the plan to take the Camaro home to its driveway. 

It  took me  1 1/2 hours to go 6 miles.  I would drive it a few yards, then pull over into some parking lot to let it cool off before driving it a few more yards and repeating the process.  The irritating part of this was that by the time I reached Stopoff #4 or so, it was dark, so I couldn’t read.  I was almost forced to go inside a Red Lobster to wait.

By the time of my final stop, at the Wal-Mart perhaps 1/2 mile from my house, the Camaro did not want to start.  I guess that would not be the worst possible outcome..I at least could have walked home from there.  But at last it did start, and made an ominously knocking noise for its last half mile.  I’m not even going to insult it by trying to start it again. 

But I needed it to be home.  I needed to empty it of its library books, unopened mail, jackets and sweaters. “green” canvas totes for groceries, various files I can’t keep at work because they are too sensitive, and back issues of Smithsonian Magazine that I haven’t read. 

The trunk of the 1995 Camaro is a surprising place.  It will hold a “rack” of wood—my understanding is that that is 1/5 of a cord.  Not sure that is an official measure.  But whatever!  I loved it that it could be sleek one day, and a workhorse the next.  (Possibly, a metaphor for Fakename herself.)

But good job, Camaro.  You have no idea how much I will miss you.

Worst Places To Live

You may think you have it bad.  You’ve got traffic issues in Atlanta, D.C., L.A., and anywhere on I-95, where tomorrow a semi will run over you in your pathetic little SUV after running over the four vehicles behind you first.  Trust me on this.  Crime?  Maybe you live in Chicago or New Orleans or Miami.  But nothing compares to The Worst Places To Live…If You’re In a Disaster Movie. 

All the credit goes to Fakesister for finding this and sending it to me. The occasion is the upcoming opening of the movie “2012″, which according to the Mayan calendar is the year the world ends.  Gail Collins of the NY Times speculates that had Mayan civilization survived in its original form, they would have come up with a new date once 2012 arrived, and anyway, she said, didn’t we just go through this in 2000?  Ho.  Hum.  Oddly enough, when 2000 arrived, I was living in West Palm Beach and to my disbelief, a computer program I was required to use actually crashed.  Presumably, back in its brain it was still functioning, it just couldn’t tell me so, because it was lost in time.  I did occasionally pass by my computer and think I heard faint cries of “Help me!” 

Returning to the issue of Worst Places To Live, I completely agree with them about Tokyo being Number One, since it is routinely trashed by giant monsters.  Fakesister liked Number Two (Los Angeles), because in spite of the many threats it faces, you can wear short sleeves there in February.  “People really will put up with a lot for decent weather.” 

 

Fakename’s Animal Planet: Bufo Marinus

It’s been a while since we visited Fakename’s Animal Planet, which is populated by some of the more bizarre creatures on Planet Earth.  Recently a visitor from the UK commented on my post about Muscovy ducks, and re-reading that post, I realized that I had promised to discuss Bufo Marinus.  Its common names include Giant Toad, Cane Toad, and Marine Toad.  “Cane Toad” comes from its success at eating sugar cane beetles.  Native to Central and South America, it’s been introduced virtually everywhere sugar cane is grown.  This falls into the category of  “Be careful what you wish for”.  (See:  nutria; kudzu.)  They also eat birds, other frogs, rodents, and small children left unattended.  “Marine Toad” came from the mistaken idea that they live in water as well as on land.  In fact, besides drinking water, the only time they venture into it is to lay eggs–8,000 to 25, 000 at a time.  Wow!  Going into labor must be quite a bitch for the female Bufo.

So technically, “Giant Toad” is the most accurate of its common names.  To illustrate that accuracy, consider this photo for perspective: 

I first encountered this creature on the pages of the Palm Beach Post, which ran an article about Bufo no doubt as a public service to Florida newbies such as myself.  Be on the lookout, it said.  Because on top of their distinct unattractiveness and intimidating size, they are poisonous.  They can kill dogs.  Oh great, I said.  Not only do I have alligators in the pond behind my house, a family of rats living in my attic, and mosquitoes the size of Cessna 150’s, now I have to worry about giant poisonous toads?  Welcome to Florida, Fakename. 

As luck would have it, no more than a week later at around dusk, my two dogs erupted into a big racket which, translated, meant, “We’ve cornered something!”  “Cornered” was not exactly the right word.  There in the back yard, squarely and unflinchingly facing the two dogs, was a noble member of  the Bufo species.  I recognized it from its picture in the newspaper.  Um, “Shoo!” I said.  It either couldn’t hear me over the din the dogs were making, or it didn’t speak English.  In hindsight, I’m glad it didn’t run.  I mean hop.  Because then the dogs would surely have chased it, with possibly lethal results. 

I wasn’t about to touch it, since it’s the skin that is toxic.  They have glands which secrete a poison called Bufotoxin, one component of which is Bufotenin, which is hallucinogenic.  I mention this only in case you would like to engage in the practice of  toad licking.  So I came up with Plan B, which was first to get the dogs inside the house.  Then to encourage Bufo to move, with the aid of say, a broom.  I did not have to ask it twice.  Once the dogs were inside, in fact, it wasted no time in trying to hop its way out of Dodge.  I did have to open the back gate for it, since it was not quite yet tall enough to unlatch it on its own. 

You may be asking yourself, why didn’t Fakename kill it?  My reply is, with what?  No seriously, Fakename does a limited amount of killing.  Her killing is confined to very small univited creatures inside the house, like tiny spiders.  If you live outside and stay there, Fakename is perfectly happy to let you.  Plus toads, even poisonous ones, are one of the best pest control systems around.  I mean, I personally could not bring myself to eat a Cessna 150, but Bufos love them. 
 

Some Thoughts on Political Words

And their relationship to ideas (or lack of them).

1. Patriotism.  This is a word I have truly grown to hate.  It’s used as a bludgeon.  In recent memory, anyone in the U.S. who criticized George W. Bush was unpatriotic; now anyone who supports Barack Obama is unpatriotic (as is he himself, it is said.)  The Republicans criticize the Democrats, conservatives criticize liberals (note, Republicans and conservatives and Democrats and liberals are not always the same animals) for being “unpatriotic”.  Find me one example of Democrats and/or liberals who accuse Republicans/conservatives of a lack of patriotism when they disagree. 

I was pleased to find a Wiki article which provides a quote from Socrates (!) defining  patriotism.  Patriotism, he says, “does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it can possibly be.” My sentiments exactly. 

But the U.S. version of patriotism, for many years now, is merely nationalism.  We are the best, and can do no wrong.  We deserve to rule the world.  If you want to make specious comparisons to Hitler’s Germany, there you have it.  And now I’ve done it…proved the truth of  Godwin’s Law.

2.  National Security.  Okay, that’s two words.  But like patriotism, its meaning is open to debate.  Everyone agrees that we should take action, including military action, to protect our national security.  But what does that mean?  Should we take action only in retaliation for physical attacks against our country (e.g. Pearl Harbor, 9/ll)?  Our invasion of Vietnam was based on a remote interpretation of our “national security” being at stake; more accurately, it was based on a faulty philosophy–remember the Domino Theory?  Our invasion of Iraq was simply based on lies.  Our invasion of Afghanistan was justified by the above definition.  The question now before us is whether we have irreparably botched it (due in large part to our invasion of Iraq), and whether or not our continued presence is relevant.  My personal opinion:  as angry as it makes me for our country to have uselessly invaded Iraq, I do not believe we can say “Oops!  My bad!  We made a mistake!  See ya!”  You do not go in and blow up someone’s country, and then abandon them summarily. 

But to say that we should intervene only in retaliation is too simplistic, in my view. 

3.  Politician.  This term is now synonymous with “liar” in  the U.S.  “Compromise” is likewise a dirty word, equated with “compromising your principles”.  Apparently we expect our politicians to be models of purity and inflexibility.  But “compromise” is how we exist socially.  We do it at work.  We do it in marriage.  We do it with our friends and families.  We do it with other (imperfect) countries.  Standing firm and never giving an inch of ground may be workable in the movies, but it’s no more realistic or believable than Cinderella being picked by the prince because her foot is the only one that fits the glass slipper.