Hillbilly Elegy

JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy…Have you…

  • Read the book

    Votes: 13 28.9%

  • Saw the movie

    Votes: 9 20.0%

  • Both

    Votes: 6 13.3%

  • Neither

    Votes: 17 37.8%
  • Total voters
    45
IVCguy said:
I worked at Dow Chemical during summers my first 3 years of college. We made Styrofoam insulation. Dow was a fantastic company to work for back then. Worked me hard but over-paid me. Lol. Really helped me get through my first 3 years of school.

Anyway, I worked with 4 men on my shift. I was the "recycle guy". My job was to remove scrap off the line and grind it up to go back into the system. One of the guys I worked with was a hillbilly who had an 8th grade education. Reminded me of Ernest T Bass. Lol.

The company hired engineers to oversee production and they made them the mid-mgt bosses. If I have a criticism of Dow, this was not the best idea because while these guys knew their stuff, they were massive nerds who had trouble relating to and communicating with employees - and that caused some problems.

I had a huge warehouse to stack scrap to the ceiling. We could make scrap for 2 weeks before we ran out of room. Normally 2 weeks would be plenty of time for the engineers to figure out what the problem was. Styrofoam is basically a recipe of melted plastic and a blowing agent gas that comes out of a dye and expands when it hits air. It needs to be a certain density and thickness and it can't have flaws in the surface - lines or waves.

One time we made scrap for 13 1/2 days and I informed the guys that we could make it for another 2 hours before I ran out of room. The hillbilly went over to the computer and moved the engineers out of the way and started making changes to the recipe. The engineers were freaking out. "You are ruining our efforts!" In 10 minutes we had a perfect board going down the line.

Now, the hillbilly couldn't show you on paper why what he did worked, but he had been making Styrofoam for 20 years and he had a practical understanding of what needed done.

I never forgot that. Life is complex and no one has it all figured out. A difference between the educated and the non-educated is sometimes arrogance vs a humble confidence. Some of the smartest people I know have been people with no more than an 8th grade education and some of the dumbest people I have known were those who taught me or studied with me in my 8 years of college. I'm very pro-education, but when that leads to the kind of arrogant superiority the Left has for those they see as beneath them, it makes me want to puke. Some of those people they look down on have something they will never have - wisdom.
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I worked in a factory for four summers going through school; it was hard work in a hot factory. There was a small, spunky, older woman who worked there for years - wore a headband, had at least one cigarette (if not two) dangling from her mouth at all times while still talking a mile a minute and getting her job done. One of the owners came by and asked her how Tommy was doing, the son of a family friend who was attending Princeton and working the summer with us college kids; she replied "It's a good damm thing he is going to college because he is too damm dumb to work in a factory".

Will never forget it.
 
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cabezadecaballo said:
derp on

I know that full well, as well as where and how he grew up. I like what he says, I like where he has been in his work life. Dolan is a child of privilege, chasing power, as far as I am concerned. ANOTHER "caretaker". He seeks no change.


Wow, more stupid than your first sentence in this post. Perfect
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I am guessing you voted for Trump....a child of privilege. Dolan has spent 8 years as a legislator trying to get things done, not trying to get airtime by sounding like a Trump clone. How often have you heard Gibbons discuss Ohio jobs (other than to blame China) or tax policy in the state? He has spent all of his time trying to outTrump Vance, Mandel and Gibbons.
 
CatAlum said:
As of last reporting deadline (March 31), the Republican candidates have spent...

- Gibbons...$14 million
- Dolan...$6.5 million
- Timken...$6 million
- Mandel...$4 million
- Vance...$900k
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Vance has a SuperPac funded by Peter Thiel (One of those Silicon Valley elitists) funding his campaign. Thiel donated $10 million to Protect Ohio Values last year and then another $3.5 million after the Trump endorsement.
 
CatAlum said:
Sure looks like (and the candidates are behaving like) this is going to finish pretty close. If you're Vance, and you're confident you're going to win, you don't appear at events with Marjorie Taylor Greene on the last weekend (great ammunition for Ryan in the fall). So, he's desperate for every vote.

Mandel has "kept the faith" with the extreme right. The polling suggests the redder they are, the less educated they are, they're going with Mandel. Mandel looks to be focusing primarily on turning out his demographic, very Trump-like. Doesn't look to be pursuing new avenues...

Timken seems to have run a confused campaign, claiming to be something she's not. Lots of righty TV ads, but on the last weekend, who's she with? Portman.

Vance...this will so clearly be a litmus test for Trump's influence. Vance was heading toward a 4th (or 5th) place finish before Trump's endorsement. Still, if he does win, it will be narrow, maybe not even more than 30%. Trump can claim power and influence if Vance wins, but that kind of win reveals more of Trump's current weakness than his strength.

Dolan...You people on the right properly chastise big American cities for their breakdown in law and ORDER. But disorder is everywhere in our culture these days...the disorder of the Republican party is striking. You see disorder in the manner in which drivers are currently disobeying speed limits. ORDER is important...in all aspects of our culture. Dolan reflects a re-imposition of the status quo...something that we need. I wouldn't bet on him, but I won't be shocked if he eeks out the win.

Gibbons...the oldest dude in this race. Will be 70 soon. As the votes all start getting sorted out, Gibbons is bleeding votes in the direction of Dolan as well as Vance...and even maybe to Mandel. Rand Paul made a commercial for him, but that was a long time ago. Would I want Paul on the ground in Ohio if I was Gibbons? I guess (all the help I can get), but has Paul done anything since that commercial?

Last thought...

Flyover American conservatives hate a lot of the current state of affairs in the USA. But, they're going to vote (some) for Vance, who is basically a creation of the NYT, the New York Review of Books, Harper's and the The Atlantic. They're the ones who made JD a "thing". Interesting...

You'll catapult an NEO Irish-Catholic multi-millionaire into the lead who attempted to buy this seat...no background in governing...spent double what other people spent.

And the rightiest of the righties is a Jew (who also looks a helluva lot like a political opportunist...a guy who put his dampened finger up to the wind about 10-15 years ago and moved right).

Is this all good...Heck No! BUT, it's really interesting...
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Shark Tank Good Job GIF by ABC Network

Excellent assessment of the campaign.
 
GCLFan99 said:
I am guessing you voted for Trump....a child of privilege. Dolan has spent 8 years as a legislator trying to get things done, not trying to get airtime by sounding like a Trump clone. How often have you heard Gibbons discuss Ohio jobs (other than to blame China) or tax policy in the state? He has spent all of his time trying to outTrump Vance, Mandel and Gibbons.
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I saw Gibbons last week here in Cincinnati. I was not impressed. I was hoping to get a spark from him but he didn't win me over. I have to admit I don't know enough about Dolan. Partly my fault partly his. This, like too many other campaigns, is a pick one while you hold your nose.
 
cabezadecaballo said:
Really ? He addressed that to my satisfaction pretty early on. My own experience is pretty similar.
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I agree Vance cleared up all his negative comments about Trump. He said "I want to win a Senate seat as a Republican and to do so I need to kiss the ring of Donald Trump. I am willing to set aside my principles and beliefs and pledge loyalty to the Donald in order to win an election" We are all good now.
 
At the end of the day, we have to keep the seat. Luckily, any one of the five who wins today, will go on to pummel Tim Ryan, a long-standing, Pelosi lapdog, political hack who never worked a day in his life.
 
GCLFan99 said:
I am guessing you voted for Trump....a child of privilege. Dolan has spent 8 years as a legislator trying to get things done, not trying to get airtime by sounding like a Trump clone. How often have you heard Gibbons discuss Ohio jobs (other than to blame China) or tax policy in the state? He has spent all of his time trying to outTrump Vance, Mandel and Gibbons.
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Isn't Dolan the guy who keeps telling me he secured the border? Well, it's not secured, so what exactly does he think he did?
 
chs1971 said:
Isn't Dolan the guy who keeps telling me he secured the border? Well, it's not secured, so what exactly does he think he did?
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I have not seen anything (and I follow closely) where Dolan has said he secured the border. This is a commercial of his where he talks about prosecuting drug dealers as an assistant prosecutor.
 
GCLFan99 said:
I agree Vance cleared up all his negative comments about Trump. He said "I want to win a Senate seat as a Republican and to do so I need to kiss the ring of Donald Trump. I am willing to set aside my principles and beliefs and pledge loyalty to the Donald in order to win an election" We are all good now.
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Is that worse than Democrats who have to kneel to LGBTQIA2SWTF and apologize for their white privilege?
 
I only see signs for Timken and Gibbons around town. Maybe bodes well for Gibbons as he's on TV and she's not (aside from the women's sports thing).
 
IVCguy said:
I worked at Dow Chemical during summers my first 3 years of college. We made Styrofoam insulation. Dow was a fantastic company to work for back then. Worked me hard but over-paid me. Lol. Really helped me get through my first 3 years of school.

Anyway, I worked with 4 men on my shift. I was the "recycle guy". My job was to remove scrap off the line and grind it up to go back into the system. One of the guys I worked with was a hillbilly who had an 8th grade education. Reminded me of Ernest T Bass. Lol.

The company hired engineers to oversee production and they made them the mid-mgt bosses. If I have a criticism of Dow, this was not the best idea because while these guys knew their stuff, they were massive nerds who had trouble relating to and communicating with employees - and that caused some problems.

I had a huge warehouse to stack scrap to the ceiling. We could make scrap for 2 weeks before we ran out of room. Normally 2 weeks would be plenty of time for the engineers to figure out what the problem was. Styrofoam is basically a recipe of melted plastic and a blowing agent gas that comes out of a dye and expands when it hits air. It needs to be a certain density and thickness and it can't have flaws in the surface - lines or waves.

One time we made scrap for 13 1/2 days and I informed the guys that we could make it for another 2 hours before I ran out of room. The hillbilly went over to the computer and moved the engineers out of the way and started making changes to the recipe. The engineers were freaking out. "You are ruining our efforts!" In 10 minutes we had a perfect board going down the line.

Now, the hillbilly couldn't show you on paper why what he did worked, but he had been making Styrofoam for 20 years and he had a practical understanding of what needed done.

I never forgot that. Life is complex and no one has it all figured out. A difference between the educated and the non-educated is sometimes arrogance vs a humble confidence. Some of the smartest people I know have been people with no more than an 8th grade education and some of the dumbest people I have known were those who taught me or studied with me in my 8 years of college. I'm very pro-education, but when that leads to the kind of arrogant superiority the Left has for those they see as beneath them, it makes me want to puke. Some of those people they look down on have something they will never have - wisdom.
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great points ... but i got to know did the dude like throwing rocks through windows, and did he have a thing for a girl named darlene?
 
bigkat said:
great points ... but i got to know did the dude like throwing rocks through windows, and did he have a thing for a girl named darlene?
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No, but he was about 5'7", wore a ball cap not quite square on his head, had a hairy neck, and talked with a nasally southern accent. And get this... his name was Comer - pronounced "comb-er" and rhymes with Gomer. He was ornery as Ernest T too. But he didn't throw rocks. He was married, but I can't remember her name. Perhaps it was Mrs. Wylie's daughter, Romena.

And for the record, it's Charlene Darling, not Darlene. :)
 
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I enjoy wrestling said:
Voted Blystone to send a message.
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I voted for Renacci.

Did your ballot have a Pat DeWine for Supreme Court on it? My wife is in the booth next to me and says, "Psst. Is this Pat DeWine any relation to our idiot governor?" I said, "I don't know, but I'm not voting for anyone named DeWine!"

Big decision coming in the fall - assuming Little Mike Jung Un wins the primary. I might have to swallow my pride and vote for that little @#$%^!, but for right now my intention is to not stoop that low.
 
IVCguy said:
I voted for Renacci.

Did your ballot have a Pat DeWine for Supreme Court on it? My wife is in the booth next to me and says, "Psst. Is this Pat DeWine any relation to our idiot governor?" I said, "I don't know, but I'm not voting for anyone named DeWine!"

Big decision coming in the fall - assuming Little Mike Jung Un wins the primary. I might have to swallow my pride and vote for that little @#$%^!, but for right now my intention is to not stoop that low.
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You better vote for Pat in the fall or you'll be giving a judgeship to a Democrat.
 
MoeDude said:
You better vote for Pat in the fall or you'll be giving a judgeship to a Democrat.
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Pat was unopposed on my ballot.

Do I punish the son for the sins of his father? Probably not if it means a Dem gets on the court. Not to beat a dead horse, but I really, really despise Mike DeWine and anyone who looks like Mike DeWine. Lol.

Did I mention I despise Mike?
 
IVCguy said:
Pat was unopposed on my ballot.

Do I punish the son for the sins of his father? Probably not if it means a Dem gets on the court. Not to beat a dead horse, but I really, really despise Mike DeWine and anyone who looks like Mike DeWine. Lol.

Did I mention I despise Mike?
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I made a campaign donation in your name to Mike’s campaign. Enjoy the autographed picture and coffee mug when it arrives.
 
Gulliotine said:
Unlike you, I despise him so much, I will not vote for him in the general should he survive tonight.

I'll sit it out.
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That's my intention too, but if it's tied going into the last week, I might have to get practical. Lesser of evils and all that.
 
IVCguy said:
I voted for Renacci.

Did your ballot have a Pat DeWine for Supreme Court on it? My wife is in the booth next to me and says, "Psst. Is this Pat DeWine any relation to our idiot governor?" I said, "I don't know, but I'm not voting for anyone named DeWine!"

Big decision coming in the fall - assuming Little Mike Jung Un wins the primary. I might have to swallow my pride and vote for that little @#$%^!, but for right now my intention is to not stoop that low.
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Yes, I just hit next. No DeWine I'm sober. Won't have a choice next time.
 
Dolan putting the fear of god into Vance.

However, as I've said on multiple occasions, Don is the Kingmaker, and digging it.
 
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