We gathered last week for the Okoboji Writer’s Retreat to talk about writing, but the conversation kept turning to politics — specifically, what the hell happened to Iowa? The retreat on the shores of Miller’s Bay at the Iowa Lakeside Lab was organized by Julie Gammack and husband Richard Gilbert, and grew to 250 participants in its third year. Gammack is a former columnist for The Des Moines Register and talker on WHO Radio. Gilbert was a newspaper publisher and press secretary to Gov. Bob Ray.
hahahaha. Good one Art. Your reference to sex reminded me of a fellow that used to sit across the aisle from me and my dad at Sunday Mass at St. Joe's in downtown Waterloo. We had a pretty conservative padre and one Sunday we were coming out, and our friend across the aisle said to us, summarizing the content of the reverend's homily, "Now, DON'T THINK ABOUT SEX! DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! JUST PUT IT OUT OF YOUR MIND!" Maybe there's some parallels there to our current state of affairs.
Another personally endearing favorite subject of the good padre was "the horrible beating Our Holy Father has been taking in the press." He was referring to Pope John Paul II, Really? I was in the middle of that quarter million people at Living History Farms in 1979. JPII was a rock star!
I have to add a bit of clarification on Deere: Deere's current contract with the United Auto Workers, and predecessor ones, contains language about bringing "oursourced' work back into the plants. Yes, they did send some assembly lines out of town here to Europe but that was to make room for new lines, including this self driving "autonomous" tractor they're trying to get off the ground and is out in test markets. Of course they ARE sending some work out of the country; and they do have a plant in Torreon, Mexico. Nothing new. I did hear a story I actually got confirmed and reported on in 1998 when they received seven semi loads of foundry castings here from Texas and/or Mexico -- infested with black widow spiders. They had to call in a local pest control company to get rid of them.
A bigger issue has been hiring. Deere had four or five hiring fairs here in a year in 2021 -- the first ones I can rembember in the 35 years I'd been covering Deere for the Courier -- and I don't know if they filled all those spots. The filled enough. And then came the strike and things buttoned up a bit.
What's the absolute worst is when the "insourcing" affects smaller local job shops around here that do work for Deere. In 1996, Deere pulled a contract from Casting Services Inc. a local UAW-represented shop that did chipping and grinding of castings; one of the company co-owners happened to be a well respected Black businessman in town who previously worked at Deere. First-shift workers were told on their morning break they no longer had jobs; they all went down the union hall, still grimy from work, looking for help from the UAW, sending the community services reprsentative scrambling, Seventy to 80 people were out of work. The company went bankrupt with very little assets, workers were stiffed for back wages, a local economci development group was stiffed on a loan -- and the Black co-owner passed away six months later; I was later told by his partner the stress killed him.
Needless to say, smaller shops around here who receive subcontract work try not to pull all their eggs out of the same basket.;
hahahaha. Good one Art. Your reference to sex reminded me of a fellow that used to sit across the aisle from me and my dad at Sunday Mass at St. Joe's in downtown Waterloo. We had a pretty conservative padre and one Sunday we were coming out, and our friend across the aisle said to us, summarizing the content of the reverend's homily, "Now, DON'T THINK ABOUT SEX! DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! JUST PUT IT OUT OF YOUR MIND!" Maybe there's some parallels there to our current state of affairs.
Another personally endearing favorite subject of the good padre was "the horrible beating Our Holy Father has been taking in the press." He was referring to Pope John Paul II, Really? I was in the middle of that quarter million people at Living History Farms in 1979. JPII was a rock star!
I have to add a bit of clarification on Deere: Deere's current contract with the United Auto Workers, and predecessor ones, contains language about bringing "oursourced' work back into the plants. Yes, they did send some assembly lines out of town here to Europe but that was to make room for new lines, including this self driving "autonomous" tractor they're trying to get off the ground and is out in test markets. Of course they ARE sending some work out of the country; and they do have a plant in Torreon, Mexico. Nothing new. I did hear a story I actually got confirmed and reported on in 1998 when they received seven semi loads of foundry castings here from Texas and/or Mexico -- infested with black widow spiders. They had to call in a local pest control company to get rid of them.
A bigger issue has been hiring. Deere had four or five hiring fairs here in a year in 2021 -- the first ones I can rembember in the 35 years I'd been covering Deere for the Courier -- and I don't know if they filled all those spots. The filled enough. And then came the strike and things buttoned up a bit.
What's the absolute worst is when the "insourcing" affects smaller local job shops around here that do work for Deere. In 1996, Deere pulled a contract from Casting Services Inc. a local UAW-represented shop that did chipping and grinding of castings; one of the company co-owners happened to be a well respected Black businessman in town who previously worked at Deere. First-shift workers were told on their morning break they no longer had jobs; they all went down the union hall, still grimy from work, looking for help from the UAW, sending the community services reprsentative scrambling, Seventy to 80 people were out of work. The company went bankrupt with very little assets, workers were stiffed for back wages, a local economci development group was stiffed on a loan -- and the Black co-owner passed away six months later; I was later told by his partner the stress killed him.
Needless to say, smaller shops around here who receive subcontract work try not to pull all their eggs out of the same basket.;