The Mommy Pans: 08 Dodge Grand Caravan Minivan

First, thanks to Matchstick for the opportunity to drive Dodge's 08 Grand Caravan for a week. It was a unique and fun experience.

As mentioned in previous posts, I have a true love for cars in general. Anyone who knows me can attest to that. And I've had more than my fair share of them. Just for fun, here's the list: '90 Honda CRX, '92 Ford Probe, '96 VW Jetta, '98 VW Cabrio, '99 Dodge Durango, '98 Volvo X70,'00 VW New Beetle, '99 BMW 528i, '00 BMW X5, '00 Lincoln Navigator, '01 BMW 525i wagon, '04 Nissan Quest (currently driving), '03 Mercedes E500 (Jim currently driving).

Unfortunately, the all new Dodge Grand Caravan was disappointing at best. In fact, it made me appreciate my '04 Nissan Quest all the more. While the Caravan has every technological bell and whistle, the vehicle itself really misses the mark. Both Jim and I found the interior cramped compared to what we're used to. The seats are substantially smaller than those found in the Quest. When Jim was driving, McKenna's feet touched the back of the driver's seat--and she's only two years old in a car seat! Interior styling hearkens back to the oh-so-regrettable "K-Car" days of the 1970's. Plastic-y with lots of hard lines and angles. For lack of a better term, it just seemed "cheapy".

While the minivan touts a 4.0 V-6 engine, it felt lacking in power. When accelerating , one could noticeably detect the gears shifting. The word "clunky" comes to mind. To use car lover lingo, it just had no "guts". Honestly, I felt like I was driving an economy, sub-compact. Think Geo, Colt, Escort and the like.

As mentioned, the minivan has all the current technology but the accessibility associated with it is very, very confusing. Some important commands are so deeply embedded within the navigation screen's menuing system that it is nearly impossible to find them. How is it that Dodge doesn't understand that moms do not have time for this stuff? When the kids are screaming and you're running late to one of the 12 places you need to go to that day, you shouldn't have to pull out a manual in order to determine how to make satellite TV appear on one screen and a DVD appear on the other. I have a more-than-decent comfort level with technology and I WAS UTTERLY BAFFLED by the Grand Cravan's audio/video/navigation controls. A bit of advice to the '08 Grand Caravan engineers...start over. Think user friendly this time.




OK...it's not all bad...Props for the rear view camera, auto stow-and-go 3rd row seat, and the best feature of all--sliding door windows that actually open. I could really use these features on my Quest!

Bottom line: The fully loaded model approaches $40K. For that price point, one expects a far more comfortable, better designed vehicle. Folks I know will spend another $10K and get into the entry level Lexus, BMW world. And when you place the '08 Grand Caravan alongside that class of vehicle, the comparison becomes absurd. The Grand Caravan cannot even begin to compete.

This mommy never wants to be mean. Just honest.

The Sociopath Becomes Mainstream

This Mommy is really dismayed by the popularity of a cable-TV drama called Dexter.

I'm not surprised by the success of the show. Dexter has all of the elements that one would expect from a cable-TV drama. It's non-formulaic, the characters are well developed, the dialog is highly crafted and subtext oozes from every nook and cranny. Throw in some irony and a wee bit of biting humor. Top it off with some superb acting from the likes of Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) and you've got the makings of a winner.

Here's the snag. The subject matter is patently offensive. The glib portrayal of a serial killer is just not entertaining. Or at least it shouldn't be. Have we become so numb to violence and mayhem that we find the life and times of a serial killer to be the fodder for entertainment?

I don't blame the creators of the show. This is their artistic endeavor and they have every right to peddle it to the highest bidder. So be it. My concern is with what appears to be our never ending thirst for subject matter which glorifies horror, despair, and abject misery. In the case of Dexter, we are treated to an almost whimsical, snickering look-see into the life of a mass murderer. He's a bad, bad boy who's been hurting people. Bad Dexter. Bad serial killer. He's crafty--that one! Tune in next week for more of his mass murdering hi-jinx!

And yeah, I know. He only kills bad guys. So we shouldn't feel shock when he impales or dismembers his latest victim. They deserved it. They had it coming. Some might say that we need more like him.

My God...I hope not. Many years ago, I was indelibly struck by Hannah Arendt's seminal work Eichmann in Jerusalem. Her core assertion is that evil is cloaked in the routine, lurking in the familiar, emanating from that which is accustomed. Building in small, insidious ways until it culminates into a menacing destroyer...after countless, seemingly benign influences erode our natural sensitivity. Hitler's wrath began as a viable political strategy and good common sense to millions of beleaguered Germans. Not bad people by and large. And yet they share in the culpability.

We Americans are war torn in other, less visible ways. We encounter a never ending barrage of violence, indiscriminate sexuality, immorality in every form--all streaming from a host of media outlets. Yet we're somehow used to it. We're desensitized to suffering in a million small ways.

Our empathy is unwittingly chipped away as we grab our popcorn bowl and settle down for a quiet evening of Dexter. The banality of evil indeed.