Fear, Hatred, and Bigotry

My wife got an email yesterday:

 

“A  pilot’s perspective on Obama  
        
 
         ,,,,,,,,,,DO I HAVE THIS STRAIGHT?
 
        HIS  FATHER WAS A BLACK AFRICAN MUSLIM FROM KENYA 
        WE  HAVE SEEN PICTURES OF HIS AFRICAN  FAMILY.
       HIS  MOTHER WAS A WHITE AMERICAN ATHEIST FROM KANSAS 
        WHERE  ARE THE PICTURES OF HIS AMERICAN  FAMILY?

        HIS  FATHER DESERTED HIS MOTHER WHEN HE WAS ONLY TWO YEARS  OLD AND WENT BACK TO AFRICA BY WAY OF HARVARD  UNIVERSITY      HOW?  WAS HIS  FATHER WEALTHY?
 
        HIS  MOTHER MARRIED AN INDONESIAN MUSLIM AND THEN MOVED TO  JAKARTA WHERE HE WAS ENROLLED IN A MUSLIM SCHOOL . 

     .
     .
     .

        HE  IS PROUD OF HIS ‘AFRICAN HERITAGE’  (A FATHER WHO  GOT A WHITE GIRL PREGNANT AND DESERTED  HER).

        WHERE  IS THE PRIDE IN HIS ‘WHITE HERITAGE’? (A MOTHER WHO  FLAUNTED CONVENTION AND DID NOT BELIEVE IN  GOD).
 
        SOME  MIGHT THINK THERE WAS NOT  MUCH TO BE PROUD OF  EITHER WAY.

     .
     .
     .

“

It got worse…I don’t want to propagate any more of it than I already have.  To my way of thinking, this represents the worst of America.  The saddest part is that John McCain/Sarah Palin have tacitly, and sometimes not so tacitly, promoted and approved the fear mongering, hate mongering, and bigotry represented in the email.  It is almost as if they have chosen these attributes to differentiate their campaign from Obama’s campaign of hope.

 
Whoever you vote for, I hope it is out of respect for the highest ideals of our country, not out of fear or hatred.  Somewhere along the line many people seem to have lost sight of those higher ideals.

Rust Belt Ramblings

Many years ago…many, many years ago when my dad and uncle were just getting their tire business started, they would work at the shop all day long and then one or the other of them would drive 55 miles up to the Firestone Tire warehouse in Akron to get a pickup truck load of tires to sell.

One cold, rainy night I got to ride along with my dad to get a load of tires.  I don’t know how old I was but I don’t think I was more than four or five.  We got to the gate to go in and the guard said he couldn’t allow any children to enter the plant.  I had to stay in the guard shack while my dad went in to load the truck.  It was cold, dark, rainy, noisy, and in the big city…I was scared.  At least until the guard gave me a donut.

In spite of my initial fear, I have fond memories of that evening.  Of “working” with my dad.  But also of the factory that night.  The lights, the trucks, the noise, the around the clock activity.  As I got older and the business grew, I would ride along with the truck drivers to help load and unload the trucks.  I made a couple of runs myself.  Once I took a retreading mold to a shop on the other side of the state for repair.  The guys there took me back in the shop and showed me how those molds were put together and how they fixed them.

When I got out of graduate school, I went to work in a numerical controlled machine shop.  There were big lathes and four-axis machining centers, all controlled by computers.  There were lots of days that I hated that job but I learned to love the noise, the smell of hot oil and machines, the quick, precise movements of the machine tools, and the look and feel of freshly machined metal. 

After that company was sold, I took a job in product engineering.  Again, I loved to go out into the factory and see the bins of new parts, fresh out of the injection molding machines, and to watch the armatures and fields for the motors being wound with copper wire, so quickly and so precisely.

There was a time when the common wisdom was to get off the farm and get a job in manufacturing.  Now the common wisdom is to get out of manufacturing and just buy and sell.

I’m not an economist but it seems to me that for an economy to prosper or maybe even to just survive, someone in the economy has to actually produce something.  Farmers do.  Manufacturers do.  Oil producers and refiners do.  Salesmen don’t.  Marketers don’t.  Lawyers don’t. Wall Street Investment Bankers don’t.

So many people think factories are ugly…I think they have a beauty all their own.

A Conversation with a Stranger

My wife had to be at the airport this morning at 5 o’clock so we drove to the city last night and stayed at a hotel at the airport.  As we left the hotel this morning, the night clerk greeted us as we came down the stairs.  She wanted to call the shuttle for us.  No, my wife had a personal shuttle.  But I would be back for breakfast before I left for home…

We found our way in the dark through the maze (due to construction) that is the exit/entrance to the airport, I dropped my wife off at the terminal, and drove back to the hotel.  I had an hour to kill before the breakfast nook opened but they had coffee so I thought I would write up some notes for a couple of post ideas that I had.

The desk clerk had the television on; she had been watching when we left for the terminal.  Now she was off tending to something and the TV was going on in an extended commercial for Cindy Crawford’s French Melon youth cream or something.   Finally the clerk returned and changed the channel to, of all things, the World Series of Poker.  She shook her head and puzzled at the futility of all of those creams and potions.  About how much money people spend on them trying to stay young.

She got a cup of coffee and sat down at the next table.  We started talking.  My other ideas for a post went into the background.  She talked about the election, about being one of those “people who are hurting”, who work everyday and don’t get ahead.  She buys insurance for her car but then can’t afford health insurance for herself.  If you are going to drive a car in Ohio the law says that you must have some minimal liability insurance.  She talked about the “race card”.  I asked her to tell me more about that, thinking she would talk about the election.  Instead she talked about her own experience, the pain she feels at always being judged by the color of her skin…

Soon there was more activity in the room.  Two security guards stopped for coffee and a smoke with Dora, the desk clerk.  There were other people to take care of at the desk.  I ate my breakfast and went up to the room to gather my things for the trip home.  When I came down the stairs she came over to me, shook my hand, and thanked me for the conversation, as I did to her.

Food for thought the whole way home…  As I left the hotel, the eastern skyline was just starting to brighten with the prospect of the new day.