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..... When buying a new car meant buying a dream On a wet. drizzly afternoon last January, much like last week's miserable weather, I went out to buy a new car. | tend to keep cars a long time (15 years for a Toyota Camry, 33 years for a Buick Skylark convertible. which I stull have), so a visit to a car dealer's showroom is a rare event for me. In my adult life I've bought - let's see - six new cars and six used cars. Used cars make a lot of sense. If you buy a two-year-old used car, you don't get walloped with depreciation, you still have a year left on the manufacturer's warranty and you don't have to spend hours sitting around a dealership waiting for the factory's glitches to be fixed. The mittal owner, poor fellow, endures that nuisance for you. On the other hand, there's no denying you've got someone else's hand-me-down. At my time of life, I suddenly wanted to relive the thnill of buying a brand new car, with zero or next to zero miles on the odometer. Next to buying a house. a car is about the costhest thing most of us will purchase during our lifetime. so the process is heavily invested with emotion. 1 last bought a new car, the aforementioned Camry, in 1988. and what I discovered on the January day I went to the Thomas dealership on Route 112, to buy a 2005 Subaru Outback, is that the car business has changed. In my previous experience, buying a new car meant putting down my money and then waiting. over a pen- od of weeks, for the car to be manufactured and shipped. The nature of the process gave the buyer something to dream about, look forward to. This is no longer the case. When I told the sales- man what I wanted he said, in effect. to go pick one out. In asphalt lots beyond the showroom were acres of cars, rain beating down on them. I found one, test drove it, arranged to buy it. came back the next day with the bank check and it was mine, just like that. in a matter of hours. The American desire for instant gratification has extended to automobile purchases Driving home in my brand new Subaru, I began to be nagged by the feching that something was missing. The next morning. looking at my new car in the garage,. I knew what it was. I had been deprived of the feeling of anticipation, the childish sense of excited waiting. that used to be part of everybody's experience of buying a new car. Thirty or 40 years ago. the September arrival of Detroit's new models in small town showrooms was a major event The cars had release dates and show room windows would be papered over until the magical day when the doors would be flung open to an eager public The local paper's finances benetited lusuly from full-page ads for the new Chevrolets Fords. Buicks, Ponmtracs. (Udsmotnles and Ply mouths The new cars would he a topic of lox al conversation m a way they never are nowadays Chowe was simpler then You' d buy one of the three or tour models oftered by each car maker Today. car makers turn out dozens of models for each nameplate With such a bewildering artay of choices. a modern buyer is Ithely to feel he made the wrong selection Signals i | I had been deprived of the feeling of anticipation, the childish sense of excited waiting, that used to be part of everybody's experience of buying a new car. BY JOHN MCKINNEY | was thinking ot these matters back in September and conciuded that new cars arrive todas without charting much excatement Phere are amply too many models,. too muc h « onfusion Dev.yles ago. a car Was assocrated wath the allut ing promise of getting out on the open road Ay we know too well. there are no more open foads on bong Island So cats have simply become a means of getting from here to there The romance of dnving that once stifted our blood is mostly gone Technological progress defuses political hot buttons What if we could eliminate or at least turn down the volume on some of the most contentious issues that divide our nation? Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that in 1973 rec- ognized a woman's right to an abortion, has been one of the most divisive decisions to affect the United States over the past 30 years. Today, with the second Bush nom- ination for the Supreme Court hanging in the balance, most people believe that this one issue is central in the choice of nominee. But is the issue already irrelevant? Indeed, it may already be possible that Roe v. Wade is moot. It is largely irrelevant in Brazil, where abortion is banned except in rare cases. Yet, according to an arti- cle in the October 2 issue of The New York Times \Week in Review,\ the inexpensive ulcer drug, misoprostol, \is the method of choice for up to 90 percent of all abor- tions\ in Brazil. The Times goes on to quote Alessandra Chacham, a professor of sociology at the University of the State of Minas Gerais, who studies reproductive health in Brazil. \In the late 1980s and carly 1990s, pregnant women start- ed to spread the word, because the drug's label warned hat i 1d with illecal abortions using other methods, the rate of infection with misoprostol was 12 times lower. .. When the government in response restricted access to misoprostol, drug smug- glers created an illegal black market.\ Misoprostol, in a dose sufficient to cause abortion, costs less than $2 in U.S. currency and is apparently 80 to 90 percent effective, although U.S. physicians are quick to point out that no extensive studies have been conduct- ed. The big problem may be in the remaining 10 to 20 Between you and me Technology is altering the political landscape even as we fight. BY LEAH S. DUNAIEF percent of the cases. The Times continued, \researchers al the University of Rio de Janeiro reported that . . among babies bom with certain birth defects. a high percentage of the mothers used misoprostol.\ \Data suggests it causes birth defects. paralysis and limb defects,\ said Dr. John K. Jain. an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Southem Califomia, according to The Times. \Misoprostol is usually used in the first trimester, but under clinical conditions, Dr. Jain and other researchers say it has been used safely and effectively in the second trimester,\ stated The Times. \Women taking it on their own risk greater rates of failure and higher side effects, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fever and chills.\ Low-income immigrant women, in 2000, according to researchers at three obstetrics and gynecology clinics in New York. were using nusoprostol because it was easier and cheaper than an abortion cline Indeed. ime its approval by the FDA in 1988, it i% estimated that millions have self-adminmstered the drug to cause abor trons worldwide \If the Supreme Cour overtums Roe v Wade.\ according to The Times, \freeing states to ban abortion. this common prescription drug. often known by the brand name. Cytotec. could emerge as a cheap, relatively safe alternative to the practices that profiferated before Roe ~ Another contentious medical issue is stem cell research. \\Stem cells. a type of universal cell in early embryos.\ explained The New York Tires in the October 11 issue of Scrence Times, can in theory grow into any of the body's tissues and organs [Hence, the reasoning goes. they could potentially replace diseased organs by growing healthy ones.] But embryonic stem cells are drawn trom human embryos after they have grown for about five days in the tab and obtaining those cells requires that the embryos be destroying human life.\ In order to avord the moral issue and obtain federal funding, several researchers are trying to obtain stem cells by creating clusters of cells instead. The idea is to harvest embryonic cells without the embryo, a possibility that seems possible and that has captured the support of some in Congress. This development. if successful because of bromedical technology, would make another \hot\ issue moot. It would be more productive if, as a consequence, we were a less divided naton. Technology 1s altering the political landscape even as we fight. TIMES BEACON RECORD S@SAI®®\ EDNORAL Ant Anio 2 Nobuction Jans Greene *a ° Leah S. Dunagief Katherine Consorte “CTR? Lots noses?“ NEWS APE Jonnese Kuisel Carite DilListo ASSISTANT ART ORECTOR Diane Lisberwitz We welcome letters, comments and story Execurve enrron ant ano propuc Smicriamg 11733 or email to timesnpt@tbmewspepers.com. Or drop by _ EDITOR Charles Morgan g ”lama 1‘ Uporaik CLASSIFIEDS Directon our news office at 67 Maia Street, Northport, The opinions Patricia Proven Kathy O'Sulivan ”mum.“ * EMen Segal of our columnists are not necessarily those of the paper. LEISURE EDITOR Patricia Proven Karen Glick BUSINESS MANAGER Times Beacon Record Newspapers are published Ellen Barcel epron | Beth Halior-Mason Mary Fiorentino every Thursday. PRODUCTION Laura Anne Marie Hewit CINICUALATION MANAGER Address: PO Box 707, Setauket, NY 11733. Myanmm John Westermann mm . Telephone: (631) 751-7744 | Web = timesofnorthport.com ts Eprron PHOTOGRAPHY pinecton orrice j m r . Mary Chirichailna Tem Caruso
