It’s our privilege to send you this newsletter each month, and we don’t take that privilege lightly. You didn’t have to give us your email address, but you did. You don’t have to keep us off your “blocked senders” list but (so far) you have. If we want to stand out among the thousands of companies competing for your time and attention, then we have to give you something informative and entertaining in return. That’s why we work so hard on this newsletter: we realize you’ve trusted us with your valuable time, so it’s up to us to make it worth your while. With that in mind, the KPOJ closure sent a lot of new readers to Your Car Matters and we should probably let them know what they’re in for. With 2012 in the rear-view mirror, here’s a look back at the stories we covered last year, which is a good guide to what you can expect in 2013…
January 2012, saw our first “look back” issue. Ahhh, the memories! Here’s just some of the things we covered in our Feature articles in 2011… we had horror stories of what happens when you don’t change your oil, a home test for your halogen fluid (don’t pay dealer prices!) and a report back from the Veterans for Peace march. We introduced you to Naomi and Neil Montacre of Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply and gave you an inside look at their battle with Les Schwab. (Naomi’s, unfortunately, lost). We covered the proposed Oregon Bank, we told you how to beat the salesman when buying a new car, and we had the tables turned on us when an investigative report on our Tom Dwyer Automotive came out in June. We told you how to increase your gas mileage and how to decrease your student loan debt. In September we worked with 350.org in their annual Day of Action and our whole September issue was devoted to Climate Change. We sat down with Brad Witt to talk about his run for Congress after David Wu left. (Brad, like Naomi’s, unfortunately lost). When Occupy hit the streets in November so did we, scooping some of the major news agencies by actually putting a live reporter on the ground to talk with the Occupiers. We finished out the year with Tom Dwyer Movie Night, tips on winter driving, and a warning about the 2012 Defense Authorization Act (which President Obama signed into law after promising to veto it). It was a full year, but we were just getting ready for 2012…
February gave us the chance to meet one of our own neighbors, Oregon Tilth. This small company located in our Sellwood neighborhood is one of the largest organic education and certification organizations in the country. We looked at some history with the Powell Memo, the 8-page letter that is frequently referred to as the blueprint for the modern conservative echo chamber. We wrapped up the month with news about the new season of the Illahee Lectures, an innovative lecture series on the environment, technology, politics, policy, and more.
When asked about vehicle reliability, we typically give this advice- Toyota and Honda are best, everything else is a distant second, and stay away from European manufacturers. There’s more to be said, though, and our article on vehicle reliability allowed us to say it in March. We were also able to bring you an interview with Jefferson Smith, a new face in the Portland Mayoral race. Jeff is a sharp and innovative thinker whose ideas for Portland broke some of the city’s political molds. Although he survived the primary battle with Eileen Brady, the general election with Charlie Hales proved too much. Jefferson, like Naomi and Brad above, unfortunately lost. Also in March came the first tremors of what would later be a full earthquake at KPOJ… they began pre-empting their political shows to cover Beavers Baseball. Frustrated listeners got no satisfaction from KPOJ, so we wrote an article explaining the whole thing as best we could.
In April we premiered our new layout for the PDF version of our newsletter. Since most people only see the email version of Your Car Matters we can’t afford to spend a lot of time laying out a print version as well, but we still tried to spiff it up a little bit. We continued our political coverage by interviewing Steve Novick, “the fighter with a strong left hook”. Steve was running for the Portland City Council, but unlike Naomi, Brad, and Jeff, Steve actually won his battle and will take office in January 2013. We also brought you news about a Blues Festival to support Single Payer Health Care, and we finished up with an article on the hidden dangers of DHMO, a chemical which has now been found in every river, lake, and stream in the US. It’s everywhere and you can’t avoid exposing yourself to this proven killer, but you can also relax a little. While DHMO is real and can indeed be dangerous, this April Fool’s article explains why it’s not as bad as you might think.
In May we checked in with longtime nuclear activists John Bartels and Helen Calidcott when we published their open letter to Congress calling for the repeal of Price-Anderson. Price-Anderson is a holdover from the 1957 “Atoms for Peace” program, and puts the liability for nuclear disasters on taxpayers while letting the nuke companies keep the profit. (We also created a “Repeal Price-Anderson” poster that you can download here for free). We told you about the 10 cheapest cars to own and insure, and we brought you the good news that just two short years after the massive BP oil spill, the entire disaster had been cleaned up and the Gulf Coast had been made whole. Well, maybe not so much.
June brought a change at the shop as Jeff Andersen, our longtime and very popular courtesy shuttle driver, left to get his teaching degree. Our exit interview with Jeff was a rare look behind-the-scenes with us, and an opportunity for him to say goodbye. With the summer driving season on us, we gave you some advice on planning for summer road trips that would help keep your vacation on track. Finally, as the country celebrated Memorial Day, our “Thank You For Your Service?” article asked tough questions about the way we treat the people who put their lives on the line for all of us.
As our July issue hit the e-streets, we were already making plans for the holidays as we asked for nominations for our annual Charitable Giving calendar. This is our third year creating this calendar, and it’s something we’re very proud of. We ask our clients to nominate non-profit groups they care about or work with, and we choose 12 of them to feature in the calendar. Hopefully, it will give these groups a little more of the exposure they need and deserve. We also re-ran one of our most popular articles from 2011 with our photo-rich look at what happens to your engine without oil changes. Our third article was a response to client questions… many people had asked what happened Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply after their battle with Les. We checked in with Naomi, and it turns out they’re doing fine in their new southeast Portland location.
As the summer waned, things stacked up a little in the Your Car Matters editorial offices and we found ourselves consolidating a couple newsletter issues, but we hope the content didn’t suffer. Our August/September issue took you inside one of the scariest, darkest, most evil government programs ever created to steal your freedoms… Obama’s infamous Health Care Exchanges. Just as Virgil guided Dante through Hell, we took you safely on a step-by-step journey past the Death Panels and screams of the insurance companies to discover the reality of these much-maligned exchanges. Portland’s parks were cleared late in 2011, but the Occupy movement didn’t die just because the tents were gone. We checked in with one of our clients to find out what Guy Fawkes was doing on his summer vacation. Then we wrapped up our monthly Feature articles with a glimpse into the future… self-driving cars have been a sci-fi staple for years, but they’re inching closer to reality. There are a lot of worries associated with this new technology, but we know what your biggest worry is and you can relax… Tom Dwyer Automotive Services will be ready to fix your self-driver when it finally appears.
In our October/November issue we sat down for a chat with the mailman. Most people have heard that the Postal Service is in trouble, but few know the largest part of their problem is a Congressional mandate that requires them to pre-fund their retirement programs 75 years into the future, and to do it in a 10-year period. That’s bad enough, but in talking with the two representatives from the Postal Union we learned something even worse… they’ve already pre-funded the retirement in a separate account, but Congress won’t transfer the money! One much-overlooked event in November 2012 was the presidential election. We put on a little party at the Historic Bob White Theatre to mark the occasion, and this second October article was your invitation. We closed this issue with a little catch up on our summer contests. We do some small cash contests around the shop every year to spice up the summer doldrums. Two of the contests went winnerless (so keep that in mind when next summer rolls around) but you may enjoy this look at some kid’s visions of what the Cars Of The Future will bring.
December brought an earth-shaking change to our company. Many (most?) of the people who are now our clients met us through our ads on KPOJ, which until recently was Portland’s Progressive Talk radio station. Friday, November 9, three days after Obama’s election, the station closed unexpectedly and became an automated FOX Sports feed. For the entire next week we fielded calls from bereaved listeners wondering what happened, why it happened, and what they could expect going forward. While we answered these questions as best we could, we saved our detailed response for “The KPOJ Debacle- Death comes to Progressive Talk in Portland”. This became the most-read article we’ve ever published in Your Car Matters… so far. In December we also told you about people taking responsibility for their own government when we told you about Iceland’s response to their financial meltdown including their crowd-sourced constitution, and we finished out the year with a report back on November’s 2nd Quadrennial Election Night Bash.
So that about wraps up 2012 at Your Car Matters. We already have plans for some of our 2013 articles, including an exclusive, in-depth blockbuster expose on… well, you’ll just have to stay tuned. Actually, there’s something even better than staying tuned, you can get involved. Is there an issue on your mind that you think our readers need to know about? Email us at tomdwyer@tomdwyer.com and tell us about it, and we’ll tell the world. Until then, sit back, relax, and enjoy the hard-hitting reporting you have (or will) come to expect from Your Car Matters!
