BACK TO THE UGLY FUTURE?

Here comes the hate:

A Ford dealer angered over the proposed bailout of U.S. automakers blames the nation's sour economy on Congress and criticized buyers of Japanese cars, calling the vehicles "rice ready ... not road ready" in a radio ad.

O.C. Welch, who owns a dealership near Savannah in Hardeeville, S.C., began airing the minute-long ad on a dozen stations in the area over the weekend....

The car dealer, though, said Tuesday he had received more positive calls than negative ones. His dealership sold 15 new cars Saturday -- half of them to people drawn to the lot by the ad, he said....

Here's an excerpt from the script:

"One thing I wanna ask you, with those Japanese cars. Even when they are brand new, how come they don't smell like a new car? They are rice ready, not road ready," Welch says in the commercial.

A TV news story with an interview and audio excerpts is here. Welch's Web site is here.

For me this brings up bad memories of 1982:

...A young draftsman named Vincent Chin was attending his bachelor party at a suburban Detroit strip club called Fancy Pants. With the party in full swing, Chin and Ronald Ebens, a white autoworker, began trading insults across the bar. "It's because of you little motherfuckers that we're out of work," witnesses later remembered Ebens yelling at Chin.

.. Ebens and [his stepson Michael] Nitz caught up with Chin in front of a fast-food restaurant. Ebens grabbed a baseball bat and delivered a blow to Chin's leg. Nitz held the wounded Chin, while Ebens struck his head with the bat, bashing his skull in.

... Chin died as a result of the injuries he sustained during the beating.

... Ebens and Nitz presumed Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American, was Japanese.

... Ebens and Nitz ... each received a sentence of three years probation and a $3,000 fine....

Thanks a lot, O.C.