One of our eagle-eyed copy editors caught it before the item was published in TIRE BUSINESS, but unfortunately too late for our sister publication, Rubber & Plastics News. In RPN's annual ``Global Tire Report,'' a story on rubber company capital projects noted that a factory expansion project by Cheng Shin Rubber Industry was nearing completion in China in the city of Xiamen. But RPN listed the location as Xiamen Sez-which is, tee hee hee, pronounced, ``Simon Says.''
Xiamen Sez take one step backward.
Nekid as a jaybird
We don't know anything about the company listed as Barefoot in the NASDAQ stock chart, but its symbol on the exchange, ``BARE,'' certainly leaves a lot to the imagination.
Cross dressers anonymous
Maybe he's on to something.
The Oct. 11 Wall Street Journal carried a letter to the editor from a gentleman who took issue with the use of a term by President Clinton's chief of staff, Leon Panetta. He was quoted as saying about the stopgap spending bill: ``We're going through a lot of kabuki right now.''
``Kabuki''-as the letter writer points out and our Webster's attests-is defined as ``a Japanese popular drama in which gestures, dances and songs are performed in a formal and stylized manner'' by men dressed in women's garb who assume the roles of both genders.
Hmmm. . . something going on in the White House we don't know about?
Bird's-eye view
All but one of the World Series games in Cleveland and Atlanta were covered by Goodyear blimps, after the tire maker negotiated the broadcast rights.
The company said that would translate to almost $2 million in terms of advertising value over a seven-game series. So while many employees rooted for the Indians, a spokesman said Goodyear was hoping for that seventh game.
By the way, did you know a Goodyear airship first covered a baseball game in the mid-1920s? Newspaper reporters and photogs were onboard. (And Bob Uecher?)
Channel surfing
This month's prize for the most unusual photo goes to our friends at Goodyear.
It accompanied a press release on the ``tunability'' of tires to meet the specific ride and handling characteristics of manufacturers' car models.
Every type of vehicle made is unique unto itself, Goodyear noted, and each ride and handling need has a direct effect on the tire chosen for the application.
(Note to tire dealers: be on the lookout for the special Eagle LS with built-in radio, as shown in the above photo.)
For speed readers only
Take a deep breath. A very deep breath.
Now read the following item, taken verbatim from the Tennessee-Kentucky Tire Dealers Association's July/August 1995 Tire Digest newsletter:
``We have discarded tires, that is a given, but instead of leaving them for the landfills to bury and for future generations to unearth, why not use the consumer, tax paying citizens, pre-disposal fee, charged to them upon initial purchase of a new tire, hard earned, taxed to death dollar, for the purpose for which they believe it is to be used, disposal of their tires once they have worn them out, instead of deceiving them with a lot of double talk, red tape, governmental, cushioned pocked (sic) officials to justify their salaries by creating another environmental disaster that their children's children will have to discover a procedure to clean up what their forefather's elected officials, who listen with deaf ears, caused in the first place, just as the same problems and issues without proper resolutions, that our forefather's passed on to our generation?''
Phew! And, yes, that was all one sentence. Sounds like it would make a great rap song: Boom-chaka-chaka-we have dis-car-ded tires. . .
Ill-fated donation
Last May, the Auto Dealers & Drivers for Free Trade Political Action Committee made two $5,000 donations to the 1998 election committee of Oregon's defrocked Sen. Bob Packwood.
That was, Automotive News reports, in addition to the 10 grand the PAC gave the Packwood Legal Defense Fund last January. The Republican lawmaker resigned Sept. 7 after the Senate Ethics Committee voted to expel him in the wake of a sexual harassment investigation.
Tom Nemet, a Jamaica, N.Y. car dealer who heads the Packwood PAC, said the group gave the money to Packwood because ``he's the single most knowledgeable person about taxes and finances in this country. To lose this man is an absolute disaster.''
Pit stop
In his Metro 25 Tire newsletter column, President Duane T. Rao was discussing the need for tire dealers to join a group in order to better compete.
He mentioned a similar sentiment expressed recently by Dave Schaub, president and COO of Michelin Americas Small Tires. Mr. Rao said the MAST tire executive ``. . . knows that if tire dealers don't ban together, they will not enjoy economies of scale to run a tire business in the future.''
What are they banning?