I had never heard of the B.A.T., but I am now a fan. The lines of the car are elegant and beautiful. Here’s more on the B.A.T. from the NY Times:
Bertone, one of Italy’s great coachbuilders, built three visionary concept cars in the 1950s, the B.A.T. cars, Nos. 5, 7, and 9. B.A.T. stands for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica; berlinetta is an industry term for a sporty coupe.
Once again, just revisiting some of my old photos that. These images were captured in Long Beach, CA, along the port area.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about “working class whites” not supporting Sen. Obama come the general election; however, as Gallup Poll reminds us, in recent years, the default position for white Americans has tended to be to support the republican party, over the Democratic party, and this trend may not be different this election cycle.
However, it is worth noting, as Gallup does, that at this point, Sen. Obama is doing as well among white Americas as Sen. Kerry did back in 2004:
PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama’s current level of support among white voters in a head-to-head matchup against John McCain is no worse than John Kerry’s margin of support among whites against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.
[…]
But it appears that the way Obama stacks up against McCain at this point is similar to the way in which Kerry performed against Bush in 2004 within several key racial, educational, religious, and gender subgroups. That is, the basic underlying structure of the general-election campaign this year does not appear to be markedly different from that of the 2004 election. This conclusion is based on an analysis of exit-poll data from 2004 compared to the Obama-McCain matchup in 4,000 Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviews conducted during the first five days of May.
Via the Young Turks, a reminder of what we’re missing while we look over there… no, here… no there… oh, just watch the video.
I had no idea of their story, but I’m glad that she and her husband stood up for themselves:
RICHMOND, Va. — Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.
[…]
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
“There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause,” the court ruled in a unanimous decision.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero — just a bride.
[…]
Mildred told the AP she didn’t realize it was illegal.
“I think my husband knew,” Mildred said. “I think he thought (if) we were married, they couldn’t bother us.”
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded guilty to charges of “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” according to their indictments.
They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia _ the only home they’d known — for 25 years.
[…]
Richard Loving died in a car accident that also injured his wife. “They said I had to leave the state once, and I left with my wife,” he told the Star in 1965. “If necessary, I will leave Virginia again with my wife, but I am not going to divorce her.”
