I’d like to comment about one of our forum members getting mildly upset when someone said that his Crossfire was the ugliest car that he had ever seen. I’m putting this in the general topic section as it affects all of us not just the coupe.

The statement that the Crossfire was ugly wasn’t right or wrong, the statement was rude. The Crossfire is a blend of curves, straight lines and color. The beauty or ugliness comes in the mind of the observer. It’s a Rorschach Test. One observer (me) sees a work of art. Another sees a “dog taking a poo.”

The sad part is that somebody feels the need to say a negative remark and it says volumes on what must be going on in that persons head. They must have a miserable existence.

I personally try to follow the old saying “ If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all”. I feel no need to pull someone else down to lift myself up.

You can’t change people’s behavior but you can learn to observe it and understand it for what it is.

I would prefer that someone would say that my car was beautiful but don’t need them to.

What we have to guard against is our tendency to overreact to the comment to where we change our vehicle, clothing, haircut, etc., to get another persons approval. This is where a Charlie Manson type gets his followers, people who need approval and validation.

Today I see disturbing signs of this all around me. You can’t be just for something without also being against something. How many times have you seen a decal on the back of a Chevy pickup with a Bad Boy urinating on a Ford emblem and vise versa? I won’t even comment on the bad behavior on the sport scene or religion to make my point.

We see this today in our opinions on candidates for president. You can’t just be for any one of them without being even more against another one of them. You can’t be a conservative without hating the liberals or a liberal without hating the conservatives.

It’s far easier to bind a group together by being against something than for something.

To quote one of our fine members: “Just my dos centavos, for what it’s worth.”