Some cause for hope

...If The UAW's hand would be strengthened considerably if the the UAW doesn't succeed, unions are girding for a backlash Clinton administration, as promised, quickly signs legislation that could turn the dark days of the Reagan administration into banning the hiring of permanent replacements in labor disputes...

...tion slowdown has caused the company to miss its output goals pany back to the bargaining table even before the effects of an by up to 40 percent...

...She writes of the modest means...

...That could eventually undermine quality, and in turn, hurt sales Meanwhile, other unions know if the mighty, 850,000- strong and profits...

...Yes, says gangs, poverty and unemployment, just like Consequently Seattle has a large proporone of our national icons, comedian Bob other cities...

...things-fine book stores, foreign film theOF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy aters, and a plethora of coffee bars where people linger reading, talking, and drinking latte...

...The city's land from where I came...

...They, too, must medians "bomb" sometimes and told the members are not to let people know how be content with less...

...kinds of antiques on display, and about twenty-five flea markets...

...If the UAW the company can make up the difference by importing tractors is forced to accept an imposed contract at Caterpillar, it'll hardfrom factories in Europe and Japan...

...It may seem a strange life to sophisti- BISHOPS & GENERALS cates but no one can deny that it has been INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITIES a life lived to the full with enjoyment-a life lived in touch with family and community, a very Midwestern life...

...billions and has 74,000 layoffs scheduled...

...KEVIN KELLY That could change the equation overnight, and force the com- Kevin Kelly, a writerfor Business Week, is based in Chicago...

...They like to take things and be, to savor life and beauty...

...They have three dance bands, a large building with all OF SEVERAL MINDS David R. Carlin, Jr...

...These are people less ed for the exit intent on leaving town...

...stand, come from Arkansas...

...He wants some answers.' or three Chinese are in the area all year to check on the crop...

...In these small and un- whom he worked...

...to life in rural America-volunteer work South's distrust of all things Northern, es- "Arkansans generally make shrewd for the Christian Mothers' Society, acting pecially Washington and its bossy big-gov- politicians, since making a way out of no as vice-president of the County Extension ernment presumptions...

...Are they different out there...

...which would involve, among other things, namely, that if Jesus had wanted women "Arkansans are, no question, folks of admitting women to the priesthood-oth- to be priests he would have anticipated our Commonweal 15 January 1993: 9...

...we have the Old islation through Congress...

...Hard times also help explain why thrifty and generous like the people of "Our family has an antique steam en- many Arkansans distrust the wealthy and Arkansas, and, like them, exerting the tenacgine....Thousands come to see them thresh why the state historically has been more ity necessary to effect needed change...

...At a busiis fresh and beginning slowly...

...And Olympics rise in the west, the Cascades in 1930s-era graduates of my high school for no one laughed...

...Even well-to-do residents populist/progressive than its Southern sisAmish in a settlement not far away...

...The people of Seattle are friendSOME CAUSE FOR HOPE ly to each other and to strangers...

...But so many people from other tion of the over-educated and the underHope...

...early on in his own career...

...I have been rehad been successful in New York-bing, lakes sparkle...

...They sell the ginseng to China where they use it for medicine...

...Customers who have vis- how will it fare against ailing General Motors, which is losing ited its factories report workers appear listless and uninvolved...

...Its launching into business...

...Slow down, he was place to live and work...

...Her year is Little Rock, is one-third the size of the Dis- bulldog tactics by watching Fulbright, for studded with the local festivals common trict [of Columbia...

...They are different out there, too...

...they take time to sit and look at Mount the enclaves of New England academia...

...It who told him that there was nothing of access...

...You help your neighbor Texans, savoring life like the people of Separade...

...At first you miss make all things new but, told, these people don't lead hurried the intensity and the constant stimulation...

...Arkansas is still a collection of small, very steered Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal legShe is busy with the activities common Southern communities...

...Laura Sessions newspaper...

...UAW can be defeated in Peoria, their prospects are bleak...

...The being tackled by people whose minds and they found things funny...

...He had come On a sunny day it would be hard to con- People are different, too, in the hearton stage and launched into the patter that vince a visitor that it was not great...

...Two "This man isn't here just for free drinks, Senator...

...Even in its more usual drizzly is not that they are unaware of them but wrong with his material-he had just de- weather, Seattle life holds many good events and celebrations close to home en8: 15 January 1993 Commonweal gage more of their attention...

...He learned then, said Hope, that ness workshop she was told of "the Rainier anew is possible...

...It is the story of his doing so in Fort Worth, Texas, great living in the Seattle area is...

...She tells of the ginseng growers nearby, the largest growers in the country...

...Home-makers' Club, sharing in a birth- or New Orleans, and our biggest city, Clinton may have picked up some of his day club in her neighborhood...

...This new administration this was a big country and people var- factor" that purveyors of goods and serbrings with it, too, a sense of problems ied from region to region-even in how vices there must take into account...

...phrase, "the Rainier factor," is shorthand sensibilities were shaped "out there" in the Having just come back from Seattle, I for saying that people in Seattle are confar-flung America beyond the interlock- listened to his anecdote with new appre- tent with fewer material goods because ing centers of Washington, New York, and ciation...

...0 and saw lumber with the engines-there are eleven in the show...

...Perhaps the most different of those "out ecently a letter to the ed- erwise it will soon find few women in its there," and those we most need to under- itor appeared in a local ranks...

...Seattle is not a paradise...

...They do not live at the frenetic pace You have to learn to be quiet, to just sit make us feel as if the world of New Yorkers...

...If the UAW can't win public support and falls looms later...

...Food and beer stands are busy all day...

...One night, when flipping from parts of the country want to live there that employed-a fact that affects market channel to channel, I happened on one of one of the local columnists has, tongue- and pricing for professionals and those his specials...

...It has crime and Rainier-a metaphor for the good life...

...There are affluent places, individual generosity Maybe, just maybe, with new leaders we "cheese days" in her post office town of supplements government beneficence, be- will start anew, slowed down like Bob Hope's Colby "with all sorts of activities" and a cause it has to...

...Seattlites live in the outdoors- dependent on national and international He was stopped by one of the managers boating, fishing, mountain climbing are easy events and trends than Easterners are...

...ly have the power to face down the Big Three auto companies Still, if the UAW is already scoring some successes-the cam- when they come asking for concessions in their contract dispaign really only took off last fall-the possibility of larger short- cussions next year...

...What's certainly true now is that Caterpillar an acceptable contract from a healthy company like Caterpillar, has a deeply disaffected work force...

...She is happily in touch with her five children, grown and scattered now, but busy with her own life, and appreciative of its variety...

...In my mind's eye I see her, a serene, calm, and smiling white-haired woman who has lived all of her life on a farm, first in Minnesota where she was bom, then in Wisconsin with her husband of fiftythree years...

...He was explaining that all co- in-cheek, started a Lesser Seattle Club...

...for a while, at least, they lives...

...price of living where they want to be...

...The glistening snow-capped minded of that in reading letters from the bing, bing, one one-liner after another...

...THERE'S A THERE THERE Living in Seattle, however, requires an adjustment for newcomers, especially those from the East, says a young friend of mine who has chosen to make it her New administrations do not livered it too fast...

...It was written I sympathize with those who favor the Stepp, a Washington writer who spent her by an irate Catholic wo- ordination of women, and I confess that early life in that state, thinks Washing- man who warned that the my deficient education in theology makes tonians need to learn what Arkansans are Catholic church had better straighten out it hard for me to grasp the cogency of the "and definitely are not" (Washington Post, its act regarding women-a rectification most popular argument to the contrary, November 29, 1992...

...to the small-town Midwest...

...And every year there is a huge an- because someday you may need your attle, enjoying its simple pleasures like my tique show near Wausau, the urban cen- neighbor's help...

...We have no Atlanta way is a thing that tends to be learned early...

...But the evidence is scant, and even if it's in-plant strategy are fully felt...

...They have only to go back, one, maybe two, gen- ters, sending people to Congress like live like our great grandparents....They are erations to recall a life that was not com- [Senator William] Fulbright and Senator good people, always the first ones to help fortable by Washington standards....Today, Joe T. Robinson, the majority leader who in the case of fire or tornadoes...

...the clouds...

...Most are...

...This is a very interesting area where I live," writes one of the alumnae reporting on her life...

...a prelude...

...true-and Caterpillar officials deny any production shortfalls- Ultimately though, the union has the most to lose...

...the east, and across Elliot Bay, Mount whom, in a rash moment, I volunteered to Hope was so dismayed that he head- Rainier, only a hundred miles away, pierces write a newsletter...

...Midwestern sister alumna, being at once ter of her world...