I Think Kinko's Is Behind This
My hometown is in a bit of an uproar lately. Well, as much an uproar as Hoosiers are likely to get into that doesn't involve a basketball court.
People with grievances are apparently paying professional sign-painters to churn out public notices of how they were done wrong. Family members who have felt defrauded are letting everyone know about it.
When I first read the news I thought "oh great. Now I'll never convince people that Indiana is a friendly place." And then I thought some more and realised that this is a testament to the very heart of Midwesternness. The Midwest is a place where we cut through the crap and say what needs to be said. We work hard because we know that the wind cuts across that open land without mercy and if we don't store up our nuts winter will be hell. Trust me. We have a lot of nuts.
And now it appears that a few of our cashews and filberts have had enough of paying lawyers and waiting for mediators to decide right and wrong. They call things exactly as they see them. Kind of cool. Now if only my siblings would do something dramatically horrifying so I could paint my own sign.
posted by Kat Coble @ 1:19 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
What is a Hoosier? And don't just say "somebody from so and so".
Hoosier is a false karass.
Exador--I'll answer your question, but it's a long answer so it'll be a post instead of a comment.
Sar--It depends. When referring to people from Indiana it's a false karass. But when referring to people who play on the I.U. Basketball team it isn't, because they have the Team affilliation as well.
I'd also argue that it isn't a false karass when applied to people who attend I.U., because they do have the university affilliation.
But I'd argue just about anything. ;-p
My stepfather was a midwesterner. I know that y'all aren't all as jackassy as he was but y'all sure don't pull no punches. He didn't care how what he said affected anybody. I hated that about him.
It's a Midwestern thing that some people take to an extreme.
I should have been more specific. A Hoosier is a granfalloon. Which is a false karass.
That is, it is a group of people who outwardly choose or claim to have a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless in terms of fulfilling God's design. The most common granfalloons are associations and societies based on a shared but ultimately fabricated premise. As examples, Vonnegut cites: "the Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows -- and any nation, anytime, anywhere." A more general and often-cited quote defines a granfalloon as "a proud and meaningless association of human beings." Another granfalloon example illustrated in the book was Hoosiers, of which the narrator (and Vonnegut himself) was a member (however grudgingly).
(copied and pasted faithfully from Wikipedia)
Must be an old Vonnegut quote - he didin't include "bloggers" in his list.
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