02.13.09

“Where’s our Hoosier spirit?”

Posted in Culture war heroes, Multiculturalism and diversity at 1:43 pm by Administrator

Cal Thomas on the other Indiana, the one with a budget surplus and a state government that put individual initiative first.

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16 Comments »

  1. MR. Dings said,

    February 13, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    Indolence, eh?

  2. MR. Dings said,

    February 13, 2009 at 4:08 pm

    The horror, the indolence!

    On top of 1400 dumped at Cummins, many of whom live here in our little 30 mi. radius, now this. Job ads in the same paper? 6, count ‘em. Myers Funeral Service looking for a pre-paid funeral salesperson though.

    http://hneolive.therepublic.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TheRepublic&BaseHref=TRP/2009/02/13&PageLabel=&ForceGif=true&EntityId=Ar01700&ViewMode=HTML

    I felt degraded’
    BY KIRK JOHANNESEN johannesen@therepublic.com 2/13/09

    declining orders.
    Wood and the other hourly workers had already seen their work weeks trimmed by 12 hours, and with his pay rate of $10.90 per hour that caused problems with paying bills. He and other workers regularly inquired if layoffs were coming.
    The announcement still caught Wood by surprise. He’s uncertain what the future holds.
    “I don’t know. I’m scared. It’s a scary time right now,” the Columbus resident said. William Wood arrived at NTN Driveshaft Thursday, at 6 a.m. as normal, ready to begin first-shift production at the CVJ West plant. He had no idea he’d soon be sent home without a job or insurance benefits. Wood, 35, was one of 200 hourly production employees laid off by NTN. The company, which makes continuous velocity joints for the automotive industry, has been struggling to keep costs in line with
    Wood worked at NTN since October 2007, and has a career of working factory jobs, mostly related to the automotive industry.
    He worked at Golden Foundry until it closed. He previously worked at and was laid off from Impact Forge and Lear Corp. in Edinburgh.
    “This is the first time it seemed like I was fired,” Wood said.
    Wood and other employees in his production group who were being laid off were taken to a room. There they were told about the layoffs, why they were happening and that they would be paid for Thursday. Then Wood had to collect his personal belongings and leave.
    “I felt degraded,” Wood said.
    He felt particularly bad for workers with spouses and children to support. Wood said he’s glad he’s single and has no children.
    “I’ve been scared to bring a family in. How could I support them?” he said.
    Wood also is concerned that some workers who retained their jobs could be illegal immigrants.
    NTN Administration Manager Dennis Fogle said all workers who are hired are checked and approved through the employment eligibility verification process, which requires documentation to prove the legality of their work status.

  3. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    February 13, 2009 at 5:14 pm

    And this falsifies the stats Cal Thomas cites exactly how?

  4. MR. Dings said,

    February 13, 2009 at 5:40 pm

    It falsifies his arrogant, incorrect and inappropriate rhetorical question:

    “Have we become so indolent, so used to others doing for us, that we have lost the initiative so many of our forebears had, initiative that built and sustained this country through much harder times than this?”

    I need to do some more checking into the veracity of his statement that there are 2,398 jobs in, or within a 30-mile radius of Indianapolis. There are even help wanted postings in the Elkhart newspaper.

    More later. Just passing on reportage in our little rag here today. I don’t see the indolence in this newly unemployed gentleman’s having worked at Golden Foundry until it closed, previously working at and being laid off from Impact Forge and Lear Corp. in Edinburgh.

    He needs to get up off his ass, though, right?

    Oh well, one door closes, another opens. Maybe. Forget unemployment bennies, all ye indolent workers, get a job.

    Out of Work and Challenged on Benefits, Too
    In Record Numbers, Employers Move to Block Unemployment Payouts

    By Peter Whoriskey
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Thursday, February 12, 2009; Page A01

    http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/02/11/20090211post-jobs11-ON.html

    It’s hard enough to lose a job. But for a growing proportion of U.S. workers, the troubles really set in when they apply for unemployment benefits.

  5. MR. Dings said,

    February 13, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    Is Cal Thomas a Hoosier asking “Where’s Our Hoosier Spirit?” All I get from wiki is that he was born in Washington, DC and has a holiday home in Northern Ireland. He is listed in Wiki under Category:Writers from Washington, D.C.

  6. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    February 13, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    It doesn’t matter where Cal Thomas was born. He’s using Hoosierism as a metaphor for industriousness and creativity generally.

    Key line in your Washington Post article: “It’s often difficult to determine the facts in a case.” Can’t fault the companies for trying to keep costs down, though. that’s why they had to let the people in question go in the first place.

    Re: the factory worker: What else is he good at and passionate about? Has he really addressed the matter of work on the level of calling? Sounds to me like he has a golden opportunity to exercise his freedom.

  7. MR. Dings said,

    February 13, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    One of these days I guess I’ll figure out that there is really nothing wrong here these days, eh? The way things have been have gotten us to this marvelous juncture. Don’t say we’re indolent, lazy or clueless though. Rush argued with a guy yesterday who was saying that we’re all in this together. HE said, “no we’re not, no we’re not, no we’re not.” Guess we’re not. I’m going within again to come back without. You sound like Westmoreland saying the little naked gook girl in the famous photograph had just burned herself on a hibachi.

  8. MR. Dings said,

    February 13, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    You left me boundaries of pain
    Capacious as the sea,
    Between eternity and time,
    Your consciousness and me.
    Emily Dickinson : American poet (1830 – 1886)

  9. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    February 13, 2009 at 11:35 pm

    You can buy into the victim mentality if you want. Personally doesn’t interest me. Softens a person up to be enslaved by the Freedom-Haters.

  10. MR. Dings said,

    February 14, 2009 at 1:28 am

    No way am I buying into either the victim mentality or class envy. I want to see all this straightened out. You want to see war with one side winning.

  11. MR. Dings said,

    February 14, 2009 at 1:40 am

    and it’s still not indolence…

  12. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    February 14, 2009 at 2:21 am

    I’m not sure how your view of what I want got so distorted. I, too, want to see “this all straightened out.” As far as war and sides, I see the war as being one pitting those who understand freedom and human nature versus collectivists who feel that the only way to make things fair according to their perverted notion of that term is to give them complete power over the economic life of this country and its citizens.

    I’ve been thinking about this. What exactly, since you’re on record in the BN threads as being against this current “stimulus” bill, do you advocate as an immediate starting point for turning things around?

  13. MR. Dings said,

    February 14, 2009 at 4:28 am

    I think we all need to take the week-end off to contemplate this thing. It is too hastily construed, too non-partisan to ever work. That’s what i think. And, if nothing else, the likes of Ried, Pelosi and Frank are doing this country no good. I think, since they are three with exponential experience that exceeds his, Obama is being led around by the _________
    (insert appendage there). There must be a Keynesian correction here, as TS Gierthner said, based upon what has been observed in other international models from recent history (in Russia and Japan primarily). Any Keynesian actions merit the utmost in scrutiny and constant evaluation, like a sailor adjusts the sails in stormy seas.

  14. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    February 14, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    I’m still a cut-every-kind-of-tax guy. Any other kind of “government stimulus” is phony baloney.

  15. MR. Dings said,

    February 14, 2009 at 3:29 pm

    I wish I could learn to spell Geithner who, unfortunately (since we so need good leadership) has not had a very good start either. Our complex international macro economy needs some sort of guidance, certainly stricter oversight because of the rampant abuses and the greed of the people who comprise them, but, admittedly, the quality and effectiveness of such guidance, short of divine inspiration (which is now even more elusive) will always be called into question, like it is right now. Our country has become a land of finger pointers, not necessarily the land of the indolent as your Cal Thomas has suggested in another link in a thread here, but, hang out in the sauna in the closing hours at the club where you can talk to the Indian engineers and the Mexican business owner and the hardworking Mexicans in there about cooperation, comfort and indolence (conversation allows for an extended time to tolerate the heat). We simply cannot get it together. No brainer to cut taxes and a quite simplistic mantra to continually chant. But what about our collective needs? What about the domestic tranquility? The protection and safety of that right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Bloggie, we blew it, and we’re now being spanked by that invisible hand. Oh Captain, our Captain. We doth confuse the causes with the solutions and thus we continue compete when we should simply cooperate. The phony baloney that brought us to this juncture is rotten to the core. Yet some say the people loaf. It’s all so diffuse, that to truly be free, we might need anarchy!

  16. Bentnotesmanhisself said,

    February 14, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    “Economy needing some sort of guidance” . . . “collective needs” . . .

    No way, bucko. Bad and wrong.

    Now, you are on solid ground with the “protection and safety of that right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thing. That’s why I’m all in favor of my tax dollars going to the Defense Department.

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