The Daily Valet. - 10/17/23, Tuesday

✔️ Love on Lock

October 17, 2023

Tuesday, October 17th Edition

By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor

We humans have an inherent need to leave our mark somehow, don't we?

Today’s Big Story

Love on Lock?

Love locks can now be found from Paris to China to the Grand Canyon. But that’s not necessarily a good thing.

I'm sure you've heard of love locks. Maybe you've even clamped a padlock inscribed with your initials (and the initials of your partner) on a bridge, a fence or a statue somewhere. It's an old tradition and one that until today, I thought only happened in Paris.According to Brides, the love lock tradition reportedly dates back to a Serbian World War I romance tale, but its modern popularity can be traced to the 2006 best-selling Italian novel-turned-film Ho Voglia di Te (“I Want You”) by Federico Moccia. In the book, a couple affixes a love lock to Rome's Ponte Milvio bridge to declare their love unbreakable. Since then, enamored sweethearts have been doing the same around the world.Today, locks are being latched all over the world. From Serbia to South Korea, Amsterdam to Napa Valley, even China and a slew of Caribbean islands. But the question now becomes, should you? For as popular as the practice has become, many are now questioning whether this trend does more harm than good. This seemingly harmless act is the exact opposite of “invisible tourism”. And others have actually argued that the locks are a form of vandalism.And look, there's a lot of love out there. In Paris alone, there were so many locks attached to Pont des Arts bridge, that in 2015 the equivalent of 20 elephants' worth of locks were removed. According to French officials, each section of the guardrail was weighed down by more than 750 pounds of extra metal—which is why sections would frequently collapse under the weight. (That can't be a good omen for your relationship, right?)The city continues to fight back. An advocacy group, No Love Locks, petitions for the practice to be outlawed and calls out famous brands, such as Chanel, when they use bridges adorned with love locks in advertising campaigns. And just this week, the National Park Service asked visitors to stop leaving locks at viewpoints. On top of being illegal in national parks, they've also been known to endanger one of the canyon's most iconic animal species, the condor. Look, it may've started as something cute and clever, but we humans have a way of taking things too far. So let's move on from the locks, yeah?

FYI:

The earliest padlocks date back to the Roman Era, 500 BC – 300 AD.

Biden to Visit Israel

The unprecedented trip is a gamble for the U.S. president

President Biden will visit Tel Aviv on Wednesday in a show of support as Israel prepares for a ground offensive in Gaza, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said on Monday. The unprecedented visit—the first by a U.S. president while Israel is actively at war—is a gamble for the president, who will try to prevent a worsening humanitarian crisis while also preventing the war between Israel and Hamas from spreading.Biden has warned that a new Israeli occupation of Gaza would be a “big mistake.” Blinken said that Israel and the U.S. have agreed to develop a plan to “enable international aid to reach civilians in Gaza and them alone, including creating areas in Gaza that will enable civilians not to be harmed.” Currently, about 600,000 people have been displaced from the north of the enclave, aid agencies say. Food and water supplies in Gaza are dangerously low.According to the Washington Post, U.S. officials waited to announce President Biden's travel to Israel until they received commitments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a humanitarian package Monday night. The announcement could prompt Israel to delay its anticipated ground offensive in Gaza until after Wednesday, although an Israel Defense Forces spokesman declined to say at a news conference early Tuesday how Mr. Biden's visit might affect Israeli operations there.

Meanwhile:

A 6-year-old Palestinian-American in the Chicago-area was stabbed 26 times in an alleged hate crime for being Muslim.

Violent Crime Fell in the U.S. in 2022

However ... the FBI says that property crime is up

Homicides—and violent crime overall—decreased in the United States in 2022, according to FBI data released Monday. It's a welcome decline, especially after the previous two years saw a surge in killings across the country driven by increased gun violence.The pandemic-era surge in violent crime in some cities contributed to a halt on police reform efforts and pressure on Democratic mayors, but new data suggests the tide may be turning. After killings climbed in both 2020 and 2021, murder and manslaughter both fell by 6.1% last year, and the violent crime rate nationwide declined by nearly 2%, according to the FBI.That's very good news, but ... the rate of property crimes climbed 7.1%, fueled by an increase in stolen motor vehicles and other thefts. The bureau said motor vehicle thefts climbed 10.9% and what it called “larceny-theft,” which generally means stealing property (like the rash of smash-and-grab shoplifting), rose about 8%. But burglaries and home break-ins remained flat from the year before. I guess we can take that as somewhat of a win.

FYI:

The FBI reported a 6.9% increase in hate crimes from 2021 to 2022, with anti-Black for race/ethnicity bias, anti-Jewish for religious bias, and anti-gay (male) for sexual orientation bias leading the charges.

Affordable Sports Cars

Return of the Toyota Celica and a new generation of Mazda MX-5? Thanks Japan!

Rumors of the Toyota Celica coming back to market have been whispered about for a while. While Toyota has never officially said anything regarding whether or not the sports coupe would indeed be coming back, it looks like it's at least being considered. Motor Trend reports Toyota chairman Hokkaido Toyoda has put in a request for the sports coupe to return to production.Toyota has been playing with the name for years. According to Jalopnik, a 2021 trademark filing of the name got people excited. But with the performance push Toyota has been on the last few years, if there were ever a time to bring back the Celica it would be now. Some might be lamenting the demise of the accessible sports car, but it seems like we might actually see its return.And it's not just Toyota. Mazda's preview information for the upcoming Japan Mobility Show is very MX-5-heavy, reports CarsGuide. Announced along with a shadowy image of what would probably be its rear, the new MX-5 concept is likely to give us some more concrete information about what to expect from the model's next generation.

Meanwhile:

Chevy just raised the price of the Corvette, meaning the most affordable model of America's sports car now starts at $69,995.

In Other News

Judge Imposes Gag Order on Trump

It’s the most serious restriction a court has placed on the former president.

Hawaii Has Figured Out How to Stop Catalytic Converter Theft, Why Hasn’t Your State?

Caroline Ellison Was Supposed to Shock the SBF Trial. Instead, the Defense Team Has.

Is Ed Ruscha the Most Stylish American Artist?

Have you heard about ...

Some towns are banning influencers

Why movie theater candy is sold in boxes

America’s most haunted hotels

The Secret to Being a Good Guy

Want to improve yourself? Start by Doing Good for others.

There are countless ways to improve yourself—to become the best version of the man staring back at you in the mirror. In fact, our whole Handbook (and, well, Valet. as a whole) is centered on that very pursuit. But there's another way to be better: by doing something kind. Kindness is an underrated virtue in a society that's always hustling and trying to maximize time. Who's got time to slow down and do something selfless?But giving your time, empathy, support and thought can have huge impacts on the people around you—be it friends and family, colleagues or simply strangers that you don't even know. What's more, doing something nice for others helps strengthen social ties and the sense that you're part of a community. And that is something that can be sorely lacking these days. But as Aristotle once famously said: “It is easy to perform good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.” Consistency is important if you want to to really be a good guy—and reap the physical and emotional health benefits of kindness. Think of it less as a one-and-done event, but rather part of an ongoing effort. Make it more of a habit.

Get Started:

H ere's how doing good for others does good for you, plus 10 easy ways to start giving today.