Someone Has To Do It

by BILL WADDELL

We have long known of and admired John Ratzenberger's efforts to promote manufacturing.  For a number of years he has stood as the sole voice of Hollywood speaking out for us, usually drowned out by a film and TV industry that still portrays the factory via a long obsolete stereotype as a dangerous, monotonous sweatshop sort of place. John says, "Part of the problem is the media and Hollywood often portray manufacturing in a poor light, denegrating anyone who works with their hands."  As the head spokesman for The Manufacturing Crisis in America he has been a tireless force for common sense.

He is no longer alone.  Mike Rowe went to Washington to tell Congress, "I don't think the country is going to fall back in love with manufacturing and I don't think these policies are going to change, until or unless we reignite a fundamental relationship with dirt, work, and the business of making things as opposed to the business of buying them." Hear, hear!

Rowe, of course, is the 'Dirty Jobs' guy and he is representing the equipment manufacturers in their I Make America campaign.  He describes himself as a 'B list celebrity', which is probably where Ratzenberger falls in the Hollywood pecking order too.  No matter.  I will take a rerun of of Cliff explaining the nuances of life to Norm over a beer at the end of the Cheers bar, or Rowe mucking out some gawdawful place over anything Meryl Streep or Brad Pitt crank out any day.

Thanks to both of them for taking up the cause!