Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - September 3, 2014
Filling in for Jan Mickelson

Brian Gongol


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Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.

Honda to the rescue

About 1,000 Iowans just lost jobs at John Deere due to layoffs: The huge drop in the price of corn has farmers cutting back on purchases Is there a better way to do manufacturing that wouldn't lead to such turbulence in employment? It seems like everyone wants more manufacturing jobs, but trouble at what used to be the Big Three automakers and all across the Rust Belt doesn't make a manufacturing boom look likely...at least not according to the old rules.

But what if the answer is right beneath our noses? Do we just need to follow the Honda model? The core of Rothfeder's argument: Honda is comfortable doing what its competitors aren't. Many of these characteristics are way outside the norm for American manufacturing companies. Rothfeder argues that Honda is actually much more American than not, at least in the United States. He depicts it as a church-like belief system that adapts to local circumstances wherever it goes while maintaining a global presence.

Technology hygiene

A bunch of celebrities (prominently including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton) just found themselves in the spotlight of unwanted attention over naked and half-naked photos of themselves that someone hacked online.

Who's watching Washington?

Find me someone who isn't cynical about Washington, DC, and I'll show you someone who could find the silver lining on a tornado. We're hurting ourselves, though, by getting so sick and tired of Congress that we zone out of paying attention to what they're doing. And it's not helping anything that the press corps who watches Washington for us isn't getting bigger -- nor better.

Lisa Desjardins just got let go from a job covering Capitol Hill for CNN Radio. She departed with a farewell video that included a line I think we all ought to hear: "Members of Congress could put the entire text of '50 Shades of Gray' into a bill, and no one...would ever notice". I'm deathly afraid that she's right.

In case you missed it