Talk:Oskaloosa, Iowa

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High taxes, clicky social groups, and a mall downtown that may be the worst idea anyone ever had...but at least William Penn University now has a bunch of thugs playing for its sports teams. --unknown author

Huh? The above was obviously written by someonw who has never been to Iowa, let alone Oskaloosa...


 * Apparently it's a matter of opinion; I live in Osky and I agree with what "unknown author" said. But I am surprised that there's anyone here besides me that's even been to the town.

On another matter, why does the "Oskaloosa" page link to a smaller community in Kansas? --Archola

-As someone who was raised in 'Osky' and managed to escape, I believe the first statement is correct. The town is repressed and too dependent on the factories (Pella, Vermeer, Clow, Cargill). Hopefully these employers never leave because Osky would become a ghost town. The unfortunate factor in Oskaloosa is that the town itself has the potential to be a beautiful 'Mayberry' town, but only a few select members of the 'clicks' seem to be able to get ahead. At least George Daly's lawyers were smart enough to get ahold of his oil money and use it to improve the town.
 * I'm beginning to think that you're right. I'm still trapped in Osky and can't find full-time work. Arch O. La  Grigory Deepdelver  16:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I was the "unknown author", and Wikipedia added that to all of their old posts. As one who grew up there, too, I still stand by my comments. I am truly sorry to say that it is just plain not a nice place to live. -- aproudhawkeye

The above is completly right, our crappy city ran by Joe Crookham, our crappy downtown with a crummy mall full of dumb ass stores like a hearing aid clinic/art gallerey/hair salon/nail salon, no wonder super wal-mart is the only thing that really works in this town. Our crappy high school that has school shooting threats/bomb threats and doesn't tell the kids. I can't wait to leave. At least Pella has a super wal mart with an Icee machine, you can't even buy an Icee here. I went to a movie at Jordan Creek mall, it was the same price as our theatre and i think food was cheaper, but theres was so much nicer...


 * The "shooting" turned out to be nothing more than false rumours. As for our shops, I don't think it's a matter of what we already have (all those stores you mentioned would probably exist in a larger city, too); I think it's a matter of needing other things in addition. Is the swearing really necessary? Also, please sign your comments. -Tacubus 03:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

And I cussed so much? ass one time... damn your dumb.


 * There sure has been guns and shootings at William Penn University. How many other towns with a college of that size has had anywhere near the problems that Oskaloosa has had with Penn students? RBLakes 07:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Picture
I think we need to find a better picture for Oskaloosa than the Mahaska County Courthouse. That picture would be better suited for the Mahaska County page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RBLakes (talk • contribs) 04:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Mayor
Dave krudzfeldt is the mayor, I work with him so I don't have any actual citations for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.199.230.86 (talk) 06:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

???
The Wal-Mart in Osky is not 48 years old. Someone please address this to reflect assessment records/reality? 67.224.6.6 (talk) 17:04, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Harry Hamilton Laughlin was a racist and a bigot; to call him just an "executive" is outrageous.
Laughlin is called here an "executive," but he is remembered only for his racism and bigotry.

“The next nativist surge began around 1890 and lasted more than thirty years. The immigrant scapegoats this time were from southern and eastern Europe: Italians, Slovaks [read Slavs (S. V.)], and Jews from Poland and Russia. Racist theories found new support among older settlers, as yet another generation of eugenicists, purporting to base themselves on Social Darwinism, once again proclaimed immigrants and blacks as inferior. Among them was Dr. Harry Laughlin, who was appointed a consultant to the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1922. To buttress his anti-immigrant views, Laughlin reported to Congress that the foreign-born in federal and state hospitals had three times the insanity rate of American natives (Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbout, Immigrant America: A Portrait, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, pp. 159-164). “The result was the new immigration [...] [which] contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with hordes of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish ghettos. Our jails, insane asylums and almshouses are filled with this human flotsam and the whole tone of American life, social, moral, and political, has been lowered and vulgarized by them (Michael Novak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics, Politics and Culture in the Seventies, New York, Macmillan, 1972, p. 86). “Bowing to this public outcry, Congress passed the most restrictive immigration law in U.S. history, with a racially based national quota system. Not surprisingly, this was also a period of intense oppression of blacks in the South, for it seems that anti-immigration upsurges always seem to go hand in hand with high tides of antiblack prejudices. The Ku Klux Klan swelled to 6 million members. Jim Crow laws were enacted throughout the South. In 1919 alone, seventy-four blacks were lynched (Ibid, p. 86; also Harold Cruse, Plural But Equal: Blacks and Minorities in America’s Plural Society, New York, William Morrow, 1987, pp. 104-107).”

The foregoing three paragraphs are quoted from Gonzalez 2011:208-209.

Gonzalez, Juan. 2011. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Revised edition. New York. Penguin Books.

“[Harry Hamilton Laughlin] had epilepsy and never had children. Widely known for his research into racial breeding and very special friendship with Adolf Hitler. He received an honorary PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1936 and the German sterilization laws were based on his model law for compulsory sterilization which was implemented by some 20 states leading to the sterilization of more than 60,000 Americans for being blind, deaf, poor, etc. Coincidentally, epilepsy was one of his criteria for compulsory stertilization of racial inferiors” (Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38445624/harry-hamilton-laughlin; accessed on 13 July 2021; reference is to Harry Hamilton Laughlin, born in Oscaloosa, Iowa, on 11 March 1880 and died in Kirksville, Missouri, on 26 January 1943).S. Valkemirer (talk) 12:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)