Wolf Car Cover

Another Ignoramus Weighs In on the 'Power of Porn'

CYBERSPACE —Noted feminist author Naomi Wolf has weighed in on the "problem of porn" on CNN's "Global Public Square" blog, and since she has no background in sociology, psychology or any scientific discipline whatsoever, of course she gets it way wrong.

None too surprisingly, she takes off from that all-important news story of a couple of weeks ago—Rep. Anthony Weiner emailing photos of his cock to some of his Twitter followers—claiming that, "It is hard to ignore how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways. Some powerful men have long been sexually voracious; unlike today, though, they were far more discreet and generally used much better judgment in order to cover their tracks."

While it's hard to suss out how many years are encompassed by "recent," we seem to recall that it was all over the news in 1974 when a drunk Rep. Wilbur Mills got stopped by cops in West Potomac Park with nearly nude stripper Fanne Fox in the passenger's seat. It created quite a press sensation when she bolted from the car and waded into the park's tidal basin—but Mills, then chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee didn't care. Hell, he later held a press conference from Foxe's dressing room at Boston's Pilgrim Theater, where she had a job as a stripper.

Or maybe she means how discreet Rep. Mark Foley was beginning in 2003 when he sent numerous sexually suggestive messages to teenage House pages, fooling around in bed (or wherever) with a couple of them after they left their page jobs. But we guess 2007 probably counts as "recent." That was the year Sen. David Vitter was exposed as a client of both Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "D.C. Madam" and Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam," with whose hookers he liked to wear a diaper. Of course, Vitter's escapades remind us that when he was in the House in 1999, he replaced Rep. Bob Livingston, a major proponent of Clinton's impeachment, as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee after Larry Flynt exposed Livingston's extra-marital affair.

But, Wolf asks, "What is driving this weirdly disinhibited decision-making? Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men’s judgment about sex and causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses?"

The simple answer, of course, is no. Porn doesn't "rewire brains" any more than listening to too much Pat Robertson or reading the Bible makes ordinary people into religious fundamentalists; if their use of porn (or religion) causes complications in their lives, it's likely because they've fallen prey to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which according to Wikipedia is "characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, [and] by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety," and is the fourth most-common mental disorder.

The Death Of Wolf Car Covers

I am sorry to say that I learned recently that the Wolf line of products will no longer be produced. No more Wolf Car Covers. No more Wolf Powersport products. Gone are ATV Covers and Accessories.

As you may or may not know, the Wolf Automotive product lines ceased production around the end of March or beginning of April when its parent company, Global Accessories went into receivership. Global continued to accept orders from our http://AccessorizeYourVehicle.com website for covers that were in stock, but then canceled many of these orders and stop accepting orders completely.

We were eventually told that Coverking had reached a tentative agreement to purchase Global. What we were not told was that the actual sale was conducted via auction. When the auction day came, Covercraft swooped in and outbid Coverking. When I first spoke to the people at Global they were excited about the purchase because they thought the two companies cultures and product lines were complementary and they hoped that Covercraft would continue to market their products, thereby keeping their jobs intact.

It retrospect it appears that Covercraft not only saw a way to branch out into two new product areas, dash covers and floor mats, but maybe more importantly, a way to eliminate a major competitor to their car cover line, who sold the same or nearly the same product for less. Sometimes a lot less.

To be fair to Covercraft, it does appear that they put more effort into creating the patterns used to create their car covers than Wolf. Where Wolf would have one pattern to fit a specific year, make and model of vehicle, Covercraft could have two or three patterns to accommodate various model configurations.

Wolf’s line of car covers were made exclusively using the fabrics manufactured by Kimberly Clarke. Covercraft also offers covers made using the same Kimberly Clarke fabrics, plus a selection of higher end fabrics that complete nicely with Coverking’s upper end fabrics. When it came to head to head product comparisons, the Wolf line of car covers appeared to be more popular than the Covercraft equivalent.

Although Covercraft markets their products based on product quality and not price, in our experience, the message is not having an impact on the end consumer. First of all, both Wolf and Covercraft boasted that their factories meet ISO quality standards. And they were both using the same fabric. And to one up Covercraft, Wolf extended the Noah fabric warranty provided by Kimberly Clarke from 4 years to 5 years.

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