Curtain opens for 2019 football - Tigers win 28-20

Prep football action is underway for 2019. We notice some lopsided scores as we check around. We wonder about some of those games, whether the loser got anything out of the experience. Isn't that a rational reaction, like one might feel about the 50-0 score of BOLD over KMS? Is this really a healthy activity, even for the winner?
Doesn't it get a little disturbing to watch? Why hang around until the end?
Are we seeing too much of a disparity of haves vs. have-nots? Will the weaker teams be able to keep their roster size up, or even continue to maintain a program?
All the Willmar paper does is lay out the info for us. Such as, info about what must have been a ridiculous game between ACGC and BBE. The ACGC Falcons won 67-34. Speaking of no defense, there was the 44-43 score that had Detroit Lakes over Willmar. Have there been rule changes for the offense?
Paynesville beat Montevideo 40-0. Wabasso beat MACCRAY 45-8. Renville County West beat Cedar Mountain 52-20. Our Hancock Owls of Stevens County pounded United North Central (from where?) 44-8, so I guess that's good news, but the one-sided games could have a bad effect on football overall. Will the losers stay interested?
It's bad enough, of course, that football is simply not healthy for its participants. While I disapprove of football, I will continue writing about the MACA Tigers on the basis that our school board continues offering the sport. Who am I to suggest otherwise? Well, I am someone armed with facts. That's not good enough to press a winning argument, I guess, so here goes with my summary of the Tigers' 2019 football opener, a 28-20 win over Benson. In the past I might write "rival Benson" but sports rivalries are stupid, especially in football. It's a throwback.
 
Tigers 28, Benson 20
The opener was all about resisting a late surge by the host Benson Braves. The Tigers led 21-6 going into the fourth quarter. The Braves put on a furious rush but it wasn't enough. So, game 1 goes into the win column for the orange and black, 28-20. We scored seven points in each of the four quarters.
Josh Rohloff scored the season's first touchdown for MACA on a 13-yard pass reception. Brandon Jergenson threw the pass. Eli Grove kicked the point-after. Our second quarter touchdown was scored by Kenny Soderberg. This was another 13-yard touchdown pass, Jergenson throwing the ball again. Grove's toe delivered on the PAT.
Benson got on the scoreboard in the first half as Ben Peterson caught a big play pass of 50 yards from Will Enderson. The conversion run try was no good.
We went up 21-6 in the third quarter when Jack Riley reached the end zone on a run from the three. Grove kicked again. Benson attempted a comeback as Abe Peterson caught a 21-yard TD pass from Enderson. Again Benson failed on the conversion. The Tigers struck again as Jackson Loge caught a 30-yard scoring pass from Jergenson. Grove's toe was true.
Benson scored the night's final touchdown as Matthew Tolifson hauled in the pigskin from six yards out. Enderson did the throwing. This time Benson succeeded on the conversion: Tolifson passed to Peterson.
The stats show Riley carrying the football 16 times for 88 yards. Jergenson completed 14 of 23 passes for 164 yards. Rohloff and Colton Scheldorf each caught three passes. Brady Rohloff and Brady Backman were each credited with 1.5 quarterback sacks.
Benson's Enderson completed ten of 28 passes for 217 yards but he had three picked off. Ben Peterson had monster receiving stats of three catches, 128 yards.
I invite you to compare my coverage of this game with what you'll find on the Morris newspaper website. New ownership of the paper is now taking over. Has the Morris paper had any coverage of the Brent Fuhrman matter, former Morris school board member? The radio station website has been providing good coverage, two articles to date. It's a legal matter. If the paper isn't doing anything, is it because of wanting to protect someone? Well, if I get a seat belt ticket, my name would get in the paper. We appreciate KMRS/KKOK.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

UMM welcome picnic reinforces our love of the U!

(image from "cappex")

Had the pleasure of attending the UMM welcome picnic Monday night. The location got shifted from East Side Park to the RFC. Thus it had the feel of a wholly UMM event rather than community-centered. But that's OK. I sat alone and then a group of typically bright-appearing students sat next to me. Nothing could make me happier! And to think I once looked like them.
The food was excellent with emphasis on hamburgers and hot dogs. Lettuce and tomatoes available to complement.
The University of Minnesota is under the leadership of a new president, Joan Gabel. A headline in the Willmar paper referred to Gabel as the "first woman president" of the U. Aren't we past the time when a woman is seen as a novelty in any position? My old friend Lee Temte might say: "What is the difference between a woman doctor and a regular doctor?" Temte with his gimlet eye was responding to wording in the Morris paper.
This is unpleasant to recall, but I'm old enough to remember when there was joking derision of "women drivers."
The males have one bastion left on college campuses: the sport of football. Perhaps we can look forward to the day when UMM phases out the harmful, testosterone-infused sport and we can let soccer take over. Andrew Luck is bringing more attention to the growing awareness of football's serious hazards. Societal change takes time. I'm betting we'll see typical interest in Morris high school football this fall. The usual festive air may reign. That's unfortunate.
As always I'll be selfish and say I'm thankful my body and brain didn't get beat up in football.
 
On the "U" side of the fence
Morris has always celebrated its association with the University of Minnesota. We fought to make sure a four-year institution would stay here rather than have a community college. Willmar has the community college model, part of the "Minnesota State" system. The separate U of M and State University systems promotes some unnecessary conflict. Higher education ought to be a cohesive and efficiently-run venture. The U is renowned for its research of course. It goes well beyond undergraduate education.
We hear about UMM having a "retention" problem. Hopefully there is progress toward remedying this. We of course appreciate all the students.
The U with its solid and diversified missions appears to have a more assured future than Minnesota State. We don't want to deride our higher education cousins with Minnesota State. However, it appears our cousins are facing some stress fractures, not entirely of their own causing. There are just fewer kids out there! It's quite the contrast with my boomer generation that gave college an embarrassment of riches. And, "embarrassment" is what we caused much of the time, with irreverent behavior through the early 1970s. I was there so I know. I'm not inclined to be amused by such reflections.
 
A tough transition, yes
Today there's a pretty firm belief that the sprawling Minnesota State system is overbuilt. It was built with the needs of my generation in mind. The campuses were political plums for their regions of the state. This is a big problem with any proposed retrenchment: stepping on political toes. I concluded long ago that something akin to a "military base closing commission" would be needed. This spares the elected people the duress of having to accept an institution closing on their turf - heavens! Delegate it to a neutral body. Our overall state leaders would still have to apply their imprimatur.
The politics cannot be escaped, but the force of fiduciary responsibility will have to overcome that. The Minnesota State system is bloated, yes. The people running the system are working overtime with their brains, simply in survival mode. They'll connive in all sorts of ways to sell the status quo, to keep the sprawling system.
How might this be accomplished? Well, glad you asked, because there is a prime example. Minnesota State has decided it can address, get involved in, our Minnesota high schools to prop them up, fill gaps in performance. Which prompts the obvious question: aren't Minnesotans paying generously for our high school system as it is? As financial commentator Peter Schiff would say: isn't a high school diploma supposed to mean something? Can't we have a stand-alone high school system that gets the vast majority of kids prepared for a nice future, even if they aren't destined to be rocket scientists?
 
Put aside delusions
An underlying problem is how we talk about education in such idyllic terms. We talk about the "potential" of kids as if any one of them might become a rocket scientist. Rose-colored glasses are pleasant. How can one argue with trying to see maximum potential in all our youth? Proponents of higher education, i.e. for spending a ton of money on it, encourage the idyllic framework.
The reality? Let's trot out the old non-idealistic saying about "the majority of people live lives of quiet desperation."
Let's not misinterpret that quote to suggest we truly live our lives in glum circumstances. That is not the case, but we need frankness to confront the rosy talk of the education establishment. Oh, the gossamer wings.
A spokesman for a public school in the Twin Cities said "all graduates should be college-ready." Oh, that's patently ridiculous. A small minority of our youth are truly destined for greatness in their lives. These kids will most likely find the resources they need to reach their potential. The rest of us will end up in occupations that we'd describe as "common." There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. "Common" suggests something discouraging. It should not.
The idealistic language becomes a lever by which education bureaucrats and their brethren in the teacher unions seek more money. I remember a Morris school board member, as he weighed a particular proposal, saying to a friend in a private moment: "If you give us the money, we'll just spend it."
Minnesota State floats with gossamer wings as it seeks to insert itself in the high school scheme of things. It wants to help in "remediation." To which I'd ask: why (in hell) is such remediation needed, to such a great extent? We pay generously for our high schools and their teacher unions.
Despite the shortcomings that Minnesota State is alluding to, you won't hear high school teachers admit to any shortcomings in their work. They'll want more money. Education systems have it in their DNA to demand more money.
The Minnesota State chancellor is Devinder Malhotra. I have to slow down to type that name. Regarding the remediation need, the chancellor said we "shouldn't point fingers." Well now, that's because his system is at the ready to roll up its sleeves and get involved. How convenient. It will cost money of course.
The Star Tribune in a July 3 editorial said Malhotra and his administration - oh, that "administration" - are "smartly working with K-12 schools to meet students where they are and help them become ready for college." The jargon rolls on. It's rationale to get funds.
In the final analysis, we must tell all education systems to just make do with what they have.
Minnesota State talks about "concurrent enrollment," a buzzword that folds right in. There is an alphabet soup thing, "PSEO," that serves the same function. I could elaborate but you ought to get the drift: it's a lot of pretentious mumbo-jumbo designed to sell the status quo systems, so colleges do not have to literally be shut down.
 
High schools needing their hands held?
Our public high schools ought to be able to cut the mustard on their own, period. If not, there should be hell to pay for them. One after another we hear about outstate public schools pleading for money to address what sounds like disastrous infrastructure issues. It's very tiring. Money, money, money. A new gym here, a new gym there.
Don the gossamer wings and float into our lives, intrusively.
We are fortunate in Morris not having to deal with Minnesota State's issues. We need to totally celebrate the University of Minnesota and its new leader Gabel, no gender reference needed.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

(image from "best colleges online")

Baton about to be passed with Morris newspaper

(Image from Stevens County Fair)

We're nearing the date of the transaction of the Morris paper. This development has been like a shot of caffeine for Motown residents during the sleepy summer. Perhaps the younger folks like "generation iGen" won't be particularly excited. This is the generation that has co-dependency with their phones or something like that.
Did you know there's substantially more risk for baseball fans getting hurt by foul balls at games now? And it's because people are looking down at their phones when a foul line drive might be coming at them.
OK, so we're looking at new owners of the Morris fishwrap, from Benson where popular belief is that the economy is going to h--l. We're supposedly better off here? Please pay no attention to the Shopko store closing. Or the old Sunwood Inn being a zombie. Or, to Thrifty White having vacated downtown. Note the barren look that the Shopko parking lot presents. Back when Pamida was there, the parking lot issue was potholes, very bad.
A source told me Saturday that Sue Dieter remains "out" at the newspaper, confirming the original reports I had gotten. So, I'm concluding that Sue could not have built up much good will during her years at the paper. She was a 100 percent toady for what Fargo's Forum Communications wanted to do. You might say that's a typical and understood attitude, to just do what your employer wants.
Problem is, a local newspaper is supposed to transcend business aims just a little. It is an institution embedded in community interests. Instead the Morris paper just tried sucking revenue from wherever they could get it. And the community noticed. We're more close-knit than Fargo, even with so many of us retreating to "the lake" in summer.
We're on the home stretch of summer now. I guess September 1 is the magical date for new newspaper ownership. We're probably looking at a short-term honeymoon. Keep in mind that the new owners are not really "local." They got established in Benson and Elbow Lake.
 
Return to Quinco: hurrah!
It is very refreshing to see the paper will be printed at its old "home" of Quinco Press in Lowry. It never made sense to me, to see the departure from there to Willmar. I remember that when the change was made, there were all sorts of oversights and glitches with details, making me wonder if anyone was minding the store at all. Perhaps that type of carelessness led to what we're seeing now with the ownership change.
Dieter has reportedly told people she's "unemployed" as of September 1. I was wondering if she might go out and secure a new position of some type, somewhere, to achieve a graceful exit. No dice, apparently. Am I sad to hear this? Well to a degree yes, I am. It's never good news to see someone cast adrift. Is this a case of Sue "making her own bed and sleeping in it?" I don't know.
I have also heard that the company's van driver, a Mr. Howe, has been let go. I don't know the man but I assume he's capable. It appears he drives a "truck" nowadays, bigger than a van, and that puzzles me because it would seem their loads are smaller. I mean, no more Ad-Viser at all! You'll remember that was the free shopper. I used to go to Quinco every Friday and spend essentially all day loading that thing. An employee there teased me one day: "Brian, is there going to be room in the van for you?" That problem is solved now: no Ad-Viser. This used to be a nice little extra service to advertisers.
Oh, and the Morris paper itself has been just once a week for some time, whereas it was twice through my whole tenure. The pages were bigger. Everything was bigger and better. I know that as Forum ownership wore on, Jim Morrison did not seem to have his heart in the things they were trying to do. It struck me as slash and burn, and the public eventually noticed.
 
Can it be done?
Reviving a newspaper in the year 2019 will be daunting. Good luck trying to get the attention of "iGen!" We're relying on Reed and Shelly Anfinson. Good luck for sure.

Get familiar with Mr. Reed Anfinson

The odds are heavy against yours truly ever getting a chance to contribute with the paper again. It would be hard not to be gun-shy. As a blogger I can take my time writing with no deadline bearing down on me. I can be selective without fear of offending people. After all it's my blog(s) and I can do what I want with them. If something upsets you, just depart from looking at it.
I think today, sports parents are so sensitive and caffeinated, it would be a daunting task to even try living with them, sadly. When I first began with the paper back in the Dark Ages of 1980, it seemed like the parents were happy if I just showed up for games regularly.
Sports info ought to just migrate to online totally anyway. The paper does a fair amount of this but it wouldn't have to be the paper. It could be anyone. I have been pushing for this transition for years. Be like small college sports and make the Internet your one-stop destination. We may be seeing that with sports schedule information, as for the first time, this info is not in the printed school calendar.
The print newspaper only comes out once a week. That is a highly limiting factor.
I would have to listen to any opportunities re. the van-driving work again. The new owners might already have some biases formed about me. Or, they might have already received ax-grinding communications about me. Quite expected. From the usual barking dogs of the Morris public school teachers union?
I am getting along fine with my current lifestyle, and keep in mind I'm getting up in years. My next birthday will be my Medicare birthday. As a "boomer" I never acknowledge getting old.
My last day walking out of the newspaper building on Pacific Avenue - June 2, 2006 - I felt sad not just for myself but bewildered about why the paper had become such a limp, lifeless and joyless place. At least that stands to be changed now. Let's give a nice middle-finger salute to Fargo!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Extracurricular gets going with 7-0 tennis victory

We're on for a new school year of extracurricular. Tennis always gets going early. It's refreshing to see media coverage of the student-athletes. Tennis is a wholly uplifting and healthy sport. It's a lifetime sport.
The girls play in the fall. And the boys? Well, we have not had a boys tennis program for some time, here at Morris Area. You should know that we once did. I covered both the boys and girls over a long time with the local print media. This was with the Morris Sun Tribune.
Some coaches were easier to work with than others. I did not care for Steve Harter. We could live with him as tennis coach but he seemed incapable with girls basketball. Don't know how or why he got that job.
One year I was sharing frustration about this with the mother of the team's best player. Her response: "Brian, the reason you're having those problems is because he doesn't know anything about what he's doing."
Who made the decision to appoint him? I know that prior to his third year as GBB coach - it's generally understood that coaches get three years - a meeting with parents was held where Mary Holmberg spoke, apparently in order to calm people down and get them to accept the status quo a little longer.
I told a parent that the parents should have just taken over the meeting. I often had advice in those days! The parents were often mollified but not always. Oh no, because a movement erupted in about 1988 that got things rather unsettled for a time. It was not entirely a success, we should note. But I guess the primary aim was achieved: forcing an adjustment in basic attitude or philosophy. And, sending a message that parents cannot be counted on to always be sheep.
Fast-forward to today: I think public school districts everywhere have had to adjust to a system that demands accountability. "Those damn parents." I remember a time when school staffers would mutter "those damn parents" and get away with their attitude, in effect shooing away parents much of the time. The teachers were blessed by power of bureaucracy. But times have changed. Just pay attention to all the promos for the "K12" online learning system, which appears to be a viable alternative to the traditional prison-like school environment. Way to go, state of Minnesota!
I don't know who the Morris tennis coach is now.
I worked with a tennis coach for several years who I sensed had the job because of networking with staff including Holmberg. A pleasant fellow, yes. But I remember that for a long time, in the tenures of both him and Harter, it seemed like we lost 0-7 a lot. Well, the story for the opening of the 2019 season is most to the contrary: a 7-0 win! Fantastic. We shut out Parkers Prairie on Friday, Aug. 16.
The upbeat story begins at first singles where Abbigail Athey defeated Analise Marquardt 6-4 and 6-4. Katelyn Wehking prevailed at second singles over Adrianna Marotto 6-2 and 6-2. Then at third singles, it was Ryanne Long taking care of business vs. Megan Reigstad 6-0 and 6-2. The No. 4 singles slot saw Katie Messner defeat Aili Toyli 6-2 and 6-1.
The doubles division had Greta Hentges and Kassidy Girard vying at No. 1. The two prevailed over Reghan DeBoer and Hannah Samuelson 6-1 and 6-2. The No. 2 Tiger pair of Hannah Watzke and Lakia Manska downed Ashley Vogt and Lizzie Vogt 6-0 and 6-0. Then at No. 3, the tandem of Ireland Winter and Hailey Jackson defeated Emerson Marquardt and Audrey Ruckheim 6-2 and 6-4.
 
Something about a rafter
I should finish the little story I told about the meeting prior to Steve Harter's third year with Morris GBB. After sharing with my parent friend about how parents should have taken over the meeting, he acknowledged that the sentiment in the room was exactly like that. He said most everyone "wanted to hang (the coach) from the highest rafter."
That's a colorful quote that I could not share in my days with the Morris newspaper. I can share it now. It gives perspective. It shows that parents can develop strong feelings on these issues, even if they are sheepish or easily intimidated much of the time. Intimidated by the bureaucracy.
It appears the bureaucracy cannot push people around like it used to. It used to have the power of monopoly behind it. Harter got his third year with hoops and did not do well. I got into another conversation with the parent I just cited. He said Harter was hoping to get some extra punch with Chokio-Alberta athletes coming over.
I remember a predecessor of Harter's who was hoping that C-A star Christy Staples might come over. I had a school board friend then who was very downbeat about Tiger GBB, and her response to this report or rumor was: "Would it really matter?" Her point was that mediocre coaching would pretty much guarantee mediocre results. I agreed with her fully.
I first covered Tiger girls hoops when Holmberg was the coach. Back then, the bleachers were pulled out on only one side of the gym (the 1968 gym) for girls games. I was surprised how long that practice continued. The school belatedly started opening all the bleachers for boys and girls. Today of course we have a whole new gym, most spacious.
I saw my first Tiger games at the old elementary gym/auditorium, part of the complex that was torn down. It wasn't called "elementary" then, it was totally the high school.
I watched MHS basketball when Andy Papke was the coach. And Roger Schnaser. I was the same age as prolific scorer Gary Lembcke. Lots of special memories.
Good luck to the MACA athletes for the new school year? I'll withhold that comment for football where I feel the boys should just quit and find other things to do with their time. Football is too dangerous. Life is too short, so take care of your brain. Fortunately I never played football.
I have suggested in the past that our school try bringing back boys tennis. Many comparable size schools offer it. I'm always told there wasn't enough interest. Some advocates need to go to work remedying that.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Mark Sommer's book brings to life 1960s

(image from Amazon)

I have finished reading the new biography of Rocky Colavito. It's called "Rocky Colavito: Cleveland's Iconic Slugger." This is a player who was the subject of the most recent song I have had recorded. I actually wrote it about three years before I had it recorded. It is a coincidence that I took this step so close to the release of the new bio.
The bio has brought renewed attention to "Cleveland's Iconic Slugger." If it can bring a few extra listeners to my song, that's nice. The author is Mark Sommer, writer for the Buffalo News. We exchanged a couple emails and I appreciated his responses.
We might see Rocky as the equivalent to our Tony Oliva. Both were riveting in their prime. The problem was that their prime wasn't quite long enough to get into the hallowed Hall of Fame. In addition to being hallowed, the Hall is most lucrative for those who get in. Since money is what matters in baseball, I guess the latter consideration is paramount, eh?
Is there something outside of money that ought to matter? Well, first and foremost, I think the World Series should never have abandoned its tradition of games played in the daytime. My argument is that daytime is the setting in which baseball was meant to be played. No artificial light source. No making people stay up until an unreasonably late hour to see the ending of a game on TV. Humor writer Dave Barry has touched on this, saying "major league playoff games are games played after everyone has gone to bed."
Barry uses hyperbole of course. The nighttime schedule was a pragmatic move to try to get the most eyeballs. The afternoon might thus be seen as less commercially appealing. Well, it is. I remember having to wait to hear about the outcome of a World Series game upon getting home from school. This was even in 1965 when the Twins took us on the mesmerizing path to the World Series.
Baseball fans were focused on the games even if not being able to follow them in real time. You might say the games took on a sort of mystical quality, the quality exuded by something that is elusive to a degree. I'm reminded of the truism in marketing about how scarcity, or the perception of scarcity, increases the value of a product.
 
Just shy of the Hall, like Oliva
Rocky Colavito never played in a World Series. The post-season in baseball can give you "creds" toward the Hall of Fame. Colavito's last year was 1968. His stats had lost much of their earlier sheen. Keep in mind that 1968 was "the year of the pitcher" and many offensive stats were in a tailspin. The pitching mound got lowered for 1969. This had the desired effect for the offense.

Author Mark Sommer

So if Colavito had stuck around, as he felt he could have, possibly with an expansion team, he might have coaxed enough from his bat to meet the longevity standards of the Hall. In our Tony Oliva's case, I and many others feel his longevity was sufficient. We must consider how truly outstanding he was in his prime.
Maybe the Hall needs to back off some from the pure longevity criterion.
Oliva did not excel in his post-season play. It didn't help that our Twins lost all our post-season appearances during his career. There was the pennant-winning season of 1965 where we fell in Game 7 to Sandy Koufax. In '69 we played in the first-ever divisional series under Billy Martin. I was distressed about how Minnesotans had seemed to lose some of their enthusiasm for the Twins at this point. We were skeptical how we'd do against the Baltimore Orioles. The skepticism was justified totally, as Oliva and his mates got swept. Then it was ditto in 1970: getting swept by the Orioles. I felt personally devastated.
Eventually Minnesota needed a new playing venue to jump-start interest in the team: we got the Metrodome. I hardly need to remind you of the great glory achieved there.
 
An injustice in '65?
Let's consider one more thing that hurt "Tony O." re. the Hall of Fame. Tony arguably should have been the American League MVP in 1965. To this day many people argue that. This little gem on his resume would have helped. In a decision that seems increasingly to be questionable, Zoilo Versalles got the MVP honor.
Versalles was our shortstop. He definitely did some great things in 1965. We remember him today as a disappointment. We are conflicted as we feel adoration based on him being an original Twin and being quite captivating over the early course of his career. Being a big league player can take a lot out of you. We ought to feel for these people, especially those who played in the days when they weren't rewarded properly and lacked rights.
Versalles declined after 1965. We learn today that he had trouble managing painkillers. His personality seemed generally unstable. Had we put him aside in '67 in favor of any reasonably serviceable shortstop, we could well have won the pennant, with the team that might have been better even than '65. The Twins eventually gave up on Versalles. We belatedly obtained Leo Cardenas, who I have extolled as the most underrated Twin ever, for the '69 season.
I expressed in one of my emails to Mr. Sommer that baseball could seem so entrancing in the '60s even though pitching had gotten too dominant. Boys my age could be transfixed as we thumbed through a new batch of baseball cards. We actually got interested in the top pitchers like Denny McLain. McLain of the Tigers won 31 games in '68, the equivalent, I feel, of Roger Maris hitting 61 home runs for the Yankees in '61.
I feel bad for the players who were handicapped by all sorts of things in that time period. They lacked rights, they lacked freedom, they were locked in a world where they had to produce or just "mosey on." "Pitch or go home," I heard McLain say in a recent podcast from Detroit where he now appears to be leading a happy life. (He has had some major problems with the law.)
However, once players began successfully asserting themselves, I guess due mainly to the Andy Messersmith case - it wasn't Curt Flood as is commonly believed - I got profoundly irritated as well. I could not countenance the players strikes. In general I don't like unions as a way for workers to assert themselves. I guess my hatred of public school teacher unions has built up this feeling. I feel laws can be passed to ensure proper and fair treatment of working people of all stripes. I hate the pure enmity that labor unions promote. I have been around this unpleasantness in my life and I find it odious.
The last straw for me was the 1994 baseball players strike. That crossed a line by a country mile. My feelings about baseball never recovered. If I'm channel-surfing and discover a Twins game, I am only staying there about five seconds and then I move on. And yet my recollection of baseball of the 1960s remains golden as ever. I write often about this.
 
Pining with a melody!
Recently I wrote song lyrics (or a poem) about the 1968 Detroit Tigers. That was McLain's team when he won 31 games. I was 13 years old. A boy's baseball memories made at that age can never be replaced.
I had to make a little adjustment in the lyrics after first posting. I have to apologize because I should have confirmed the definition of a word before posting. I meant to confirm it, then forgot. The word is "sublime." I was searching for a rhyme for this line of lyrics. I used "sublime" with a less than firm grasp of the word. I was writing about the tenor of our society in 1968. So I wrote "War and riots were sublime."
OK, so the meaning of sublime? Tentatively I thought it meant something grand in scope but to an excessive or troubling degree. No, Kemosabe, my impression was off. It is simply something grand or magnificent. Fortunately I found substitute wording rather quickly and the new words are quite apt: "War and riots on our mind."

I then wondered if I could have stuck with "sublime" with sort of a paradoxical or ironic meaning. Maybe I could have fooled people into thinking this is what I meant all along! Not only that, it dawned on me there was precedent. Precedent for using a paradoxical or ironic word. I remembered a movie from around 1970: "Oh! What a Lovely War." War is of course anything but "lovely." So, that is how the point can be made about war being horrible. Use the opposite of what you intend.
I decided not to be smarter than the average bear. I changed the line of lyrics. Many of my lyrics will never be recorded - that's why I use the alternative word "poetry."
Note: My lyrics or poem about the 1968 Tigers are included with my "I Love Morris" post about pitcher Earl Wilson.
I think Rocky Colavito should be in the Hall of Fame. I'm happy for author Mark Sommer and the success of his book. He is Jewish. I admire Jewish people for their drive, their value of education and their standards for success, and feel it sad that some people interpret compliments like this as somehow being prejudiced. What gives? I aspire to be like those people. Should I convert?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwillhy73@yahoo.com

Newspaper headlines are imperfect science

Oh, to be the headline-writer for New York Post

I remember coming into the Sun Tribune building on Saturday mornings and seeing all the pages of the upcoming issue so nicely laid out, but no headlines written yet. There would be holes for all the headlines. And I would proceed to fill those holes. This was back when the Morris paper still had two issues every week.
We went through changes in our production schedule. For a long time we'd send the Tuesday issue to the printing plant at 3 p.m. Monday. Then we negotiated a change with Quinco Press where we'd get it there by late afternoon Sunday. Quinco had its own interest in how things were set up.
At first Jim Morrison wanted to have the whole Tuesday paper done by the end of the work day Friday. But wait, what about the Friday and Saturday football games? What about the time needed to get i's dotted and t's crossed, as best we could, on a whole range of stuff? I raised some of these obvious issues and we capitulated, to an extent anyway.
If it was hard keeping sports parents satisfied before, it had to become more difficult henceforth. However, we still had the luxury of putting out two papers a week, each of pretty fair size. At present there's no comparison.
The Morris paper at present is looking at new ownership. Frankly I have been surprised as I hear comments out and about, like last night at "senior night" at Detoy's, just how negative the feelings had gotten toward Forum Communications. I have heard people drop some pretty blunt comments. A couple of these people hold business positions that would normally make them reserved in comments they'd make about anything.
There is nothing to celebrate here. We might well have had reservations when the Morris paper was taken over by a chain. Given my standing as sometimes being "glass half empty," you might think I was brimming with skepticism. I actually was not. I tried to give the new arrangement a chance. I went with the "company line" thinking as articulated by Ed Morrison: a large operation like the Forum would have the necessary and up-to-date tools to optimize success in our new age.
 
How exactly did tech help?
I kept up with the tech advancements for a long time. I was proud of myself up to a point, then I began sensing I was just being overwhelmed. I pleaded with the manager that the rate of change with all our systems, weekly and almost daily, was getting to me. They were turning my brain to mush.
She responded by saying that when she began there, she knew relatively little - I think her exact words were more blunt - and that she was forced into a rapid learning process herself.
We now wonder what exactly was accomplished with all those changes. There's a consensus now that the period of Forum Communications ownership of the Morris paper was an abject failure. So much so, the concept of chain ownership has been shelved and we're going back to mom and pop. Absolutely amazing!
The big news has forced me into considerable reflection. I think back to our pre-digital world and how so much of our newspaper work seemed like bat out of hell. I remember feeling pressure to do so much work so fast. It was like the proverbial sausage-making. On Saturday morning I'd write all the headlines for the next issue. We never expected our work to be perfect. Anyone who has written a lot of headlines can remember a few that ended up seen as edgy.
Covering the local school (or area schools) was such a sensitive matter through most of my tenure with the Morris paper. It was unreasonably sensitive. School district matters or issues could not be handled in the kind of calm, orderly and quiet manner that we would like. The phasing out of the Cyrus high school became way too much of a hot potato.
I'm remembering a headline I once wrote pertaining to Chokio-Alberta. I think this was after a Morris school board meeting. My headline: "C-A coming to Morris? Hints reportedly heard."
Well. . . This kind of language certainly stoked feelings. Sorry, but sometimes we just have to acknowledge reality. I don't wish to seem callous about it. Certain people in C-A felt for a long time that stronger ties needed to be established with Morris. Their voices seemed futile. There was actually a letter to the editor after my headline, from someone saying that the paper should "not toy with people's feelings." That's the wording I recall.
Jim Morrison's take? He ended up flabbergasted at the flap, because he said the headline reflected what was in the article completely. That's the standard by which you judge a headline: does it reflect the article?
 
School days, school days
School-based issues were too contentious over the span of time I was with the Morris paper. C-A has accepted having its athletes play as "Tigers." Frankly things seem relatively peaceful now. Morris got voters to approve improvements and repairs on the older part of our campus. I might feel "flabbergasted" at how easily these school matters get OK'd by voters now. I was in Morris in the late 1960s when it was like pulling teeth to get any kind of school facilities issue passed. What happened? My sense is that more state money became available, relieving the local burden some.
And now, I have to wonder if more education spending and decision-making should come from the federal level, really. I know red state people are instinctively revulsed by that. By moving decisions further away, we'd be relieving many communities of the arduous process of making these funding decisions. The issues can divide communities horribly. In Morris we are spared that some. But if you regularly look at the Willmar paper, you'll read about "sob stories" of various school districts that plead about how hopeless and outdated their school facilities are, and how they'll have to spend considerable money to update.
We hear about needs for "new gymnasiums." Ask school people or government people about "needs" and they'll thrust a list in your face every time. Kamala Harris has suggested the federal government get more involved in education. Relieve these small communities of the contentious issues that often pit neighbor against neighbor. Look at Brandon-Evansville, BOLD, Montevideo and MACCRAY, among others. We are seeing this "needs" thing play out in those communities now.
I don't think schools need gymnasiums at all, how about that? I think government-funded education is solely for the purpose of making sure our young people master the three R's, not much beyond that. So I'm hardly sympathetic when reading these laundry lists of school "needs." Sometimes in their passion, these advocates describe the current facilities situation as being rather a dump, to the point it can almost make you ill. Why couldn't many of these facilities have been built better in the first place?
If you set the bar real high for elaborate school facilities, you're just encouraging the expansion of area-wide schools where the kids are subjected to a transportation burden every day. It contradicts contemporary common sense completely, because the availability of limitless info via one's electronic devices at home would seem to make de-centralized education ever more practical. But I don't want to "toy with people's feelings."
 
A problem: dealing with sports
De-centralized education would make it harder to continue with the longstanding model of sports teams and sports rivalries between communities. How Neanderthal! This is a model that should be retired to history's dustbin, the old world as presented by the movie "Hoosiers" with its parochial, small-minded characters.
A friend of mine says the traditional education model would have to be maintained because communities would not want to lose the sports element. "A lot of people think that's the only reason we have schools," he says. Overstatement perhaps, but overstatement often makes a point in a lucid way.

A headline about nonsense
I remember a headline I wrote after a game where a couple Morris players had been taunted for their allegedly long hair. The game was at the UMM P.E. Center. The taunting was done with a big cardboard "prop" of scissors. I don't think that would be allowed today. The opposing team as I recall was Hancock, a community with lots of Apostolics who keep their hair pretty short. This is the red state Trump crowd. By that I mean to suggest they aren't renaissance people.
My headline used the word "aesthetics." How often do you see that word in a sports headline? I asked if it was athleticism or aesthetics that mattered. I wouldn't be permitted to write such a headline today, just as I'm sure the offending student-fan behavior would not be allowed. We live in a more "tight" world. You get pulled over by cops for no seat belt today, for example.
Can the new ownership of the Morris paper accomplish anything special? Very good question. In the final analysis it's a business. All the rest is window dressing.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Bombshell news at local and macro levels now

Reed Anfinson, new Morris paper owner (Minnpost image)

So, we have mega stories at both the micro and macro levels now. Here in Morris we're noting the sale of the Morris paper. That's quite a conversation generator.
The news coincides with the county fair. The fair got soaked on Saturday. The temperature is unseasonably cool, but that might not be a hindrance for the event. Lake people are less likely to want to hang around the lake. Traipsing around the fairgrounds is more pleasant when the temperature isn't real hot. It's amazing how our fair has grown so much in the last 50 years.
The big macro-level news event is the death of Jeffrey Epstein in jail. What a perfect scripted launching pad for conspiracy theories. Looks like Trump is countenancing theories that the Clintons are implicated. In the old days, when decorum mattered, we wouldn't expect our national leaders to wallow in the conspiracy theories.
It is totally plausible to think that Clinton and Trump himself could be implicated in the revelations coming out about Epstein. I mean, based on what we know about these fellows and how they can succumb to their hormones. If the facts draw in any of the big name politicians, then to heck with them and they can be discarded by all of society, thrown into prison, and why should we care or be shocked?
Why can't we move on with a new and younger generation of political leaders, regardless of ideology? Does Trump even have a discernible "ideology?" Or, does he just know how to push rhetorical buttons to get a certain large reactionary slice of Americans behind him? Yes, a rhetorical question.
Evidence is mounting that the great American middle class that was built and celebrated after World War II, might be about to implode. One might suggest the process is already underway. Trump's behavior shows that all he cares about now is the stock market. He feels that if those numbers stay stable he can continue selling his presidency. He feels it's essential to have the likes of Jim Cramer staying along for the ride.
 
Who's running the show?
Trump wants to hire TV stars all the time - by "stars" I mean people who have been able to sell themselves on cable news shows. It's a talent as shown by Stephen Moore. And Trump knows the public is ignorant enough to think these luminaries on TV are astute. They aren't necessarily stupid but they are part entertainer, a craft with at best a tenuous relationship with political wisdom. Maybe I'm being generous in saying that.
K.T. McFarland? Heather Nauert? Trump tried to get Stephen Moore on the Federal Reserve board. It's an immensely important position, far beyond what the typical American thinks. In order for Americans to wake up about that, it might take an earthshaking crisis.
Moore was in the news yesterday for suggesting the Federal Reserve board call an emergency meeting to lower interest rates by 50 basis points. The Fed just made a 25-point move. Trump was unable to "sell" Moore for the Fed board because of outrageously misogynistic comments Moore has made. Leave it to Trump's nominees. Up until now, way too many of us shrug or are amused at Trump's odd decision-making. What will it take?
It is accurate to say Trump and his people are trying to wipe out savers, people who believe in saving their money. What will be the consequence of that? What will be the consequence, in the end, of a drastic zero interest rate policy, or even negative interest rates? Can we keep saying the economy is doing "great?" Of course not. How will this all end up? Will America as we know it survive?
If Trump could have been implicated with Epstein, and if Putin is a protector of Trump, is it not reasonable to suggest as Joe Scarborough has, that the deed of Epstein's death was overseen accordingly? Will Joe even be on TV next week? Will a "deed" be done on him too? Will the Russians start doing their tricks on U.S. media personalities? I have wondered if this will come to our shores, i.e. the likes of assassinations via poisoning. It's not outlandish to consider, is it?
 
Morris newspaper in new hands
Let's get back on the micro story of the sale of our Morris MN newspaper. The paper has an item on the sale in its current issue. I suspect Reed Anfinson was forced into a premature announcement, due to word getting out faster than expected. Yours truly might have had a hand in that. As I immediately sent tips to statewide media.
Reed's phone probably started ringing. I imagine he is taking on a sea of details now, more than maybe he expected. Normally a sale is announced publicly by the selling party, right? But the current article seems contrary to that. A Forum official is quoted but it's someone lower than Bill Marcil Sr.
I found Mr. Marcil to be a nice and agreeable person. I had a chance to visit with him in my office in the old Sun Tribune building. Jim Morrison chided or teased me after Bill left, saying I had "chatted him up." Well, silly rabbit, I'm good at that! I often wonder if I should have been a salesman. Some of my closest personal friends have been salesmen. But I couldn't sell annuities LOL.
The Morris paper? It's fundamentally an "analog" industry regardless of how they tap into the world wide web. Analog means they still have to deal with lots of overhead and input, employees with their personalities etc. The digital world has allowed an end run around all of that. We've seen our school district decide to skip putting sports events on the printed calendar. "It's online." Well heck, anything can be put online. I expect that next year, the whole calendar will be online, and why not? Some people have to just be shaken out of their old habits.
Reed Anfinson comes here with an impeccable resume. Will this really help him sell his newspaper product? In a town like Morris, a sterling resume causes little more than jealousy, I'd suggest. Will we continue seeing all the Alexandria ad circulars with the Morris paper? The Alex paper is owned by the Forum which is departing as the Morris paper owner. The ad production work was shifted to Detroit Lakes several years ago, where the Forum is owner. That arrangement will now end. Everything will have to be in Morris, and that means the Morris paper can no longer "piggy back" on the Willmar paper's sports coverage. Willmar too is owned by the Forum.
The Morris paper has been printed for the last several years at Willmar, now it's going back to Quinco in Lowry. Will the new relationship with Quinco be smoother than before? I remember once bringing a certain issue to Jim Morrison's attention, and he responded "we have so many issues with Quinco, I wouldn't know where to begin."
I always enjoyed "scavenging" fried chicken from the refrigerator at Quinco after their Christmas party. I have vast experience in doing all that work. But I'm sure my service would never be wanted again. All my habits were groomed in a time when newspaper people could be like "cowboys," edgy in our approach sometimes. We learned our trade in the analog world with all its rather horrible limitations. I'm sure that at the "new" Morris paper, everyone will behave like they have their cheeks sucked in - it will be tight!
It's not that I can't continue writing about MACA sports - I most certainly will, and I'll try to do it better than ever. Keep checking my sites, and God bless.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Football not likely to retreat much

The image shows Al Noga - remember him? Of the Vikings? - in the news recently because his workers' compensation claim has been rejected. Noga experienced repeated head trauma that he says has caused a dementia diagnosis. He's 53 years old. The MN Supreme Court reversed a Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals ruling that Noga was entitled to permanent and total disability benefits. There was a statute of limitations problem.
 
The week of the county fair was when I'd pass by the playgrounds along East 7th Street and see pre-season football workouts. Eventually I'd stop there and take 3-4 photos for my Tiger pre-season article. Football workouts got one's adrenalin pumping a little. We were going to be lifted from the sleepy summer months.
There was irony in my interest: I had never come close to even sampling the sport of football as participant. You might suggest I wouldn't have been good at it anyway. Fine, I'll accept that. I'm happy to accept that because it means that at present, at age 64, my odds are better of maintaining good cognitive health. Secondarily, I might be spared a problem like arthritis. An "old football injury" might have seemed like a badge of masculinity in an earlier time. We seem to have progressed rapidly from such attitudes. But football lingers in our culture, stubborn against the headwinds it ought to be facing.
The quality of color television in the mid-1960s was such that football was going to spring to ridiculous heights of popularity. I'm as guilty as anyone for having enjoyed it. The news of today projects a cloud over the sport, a cloud which for the time being it can overcome by people's old habits. Addictions?
High school participation has declined, yes. It's not to the degree that logic and good sense would suggest. I'm reminded of reports on newspaper readership decline starting in about 2007. In theory the decline should have been drastic, given our transition to the Internet for all kinds of info. Author Michael Wolff, an idol of mine, made drastic projections based on logic and was off the mark. Instead we'd see news stories reporting ever so small rates of decline, baby steps as it were.
We have seen a huge decline in the quality and quantity of the newspaper product in Stevens County.
 
Go online for the schedule
It's August so we can think about the football opener, whenever it is. I always have the school calendar at a designated spot in the household. So in the past I'd routinely consult it for such information. This year our school district decided not to put sports schedule info in the calendar. What a departure from the norm! Logic would suggest this could have been done several years ago. The well-developed internet has been around for a while. But people's habits do not change overnight.
I could have started paying for stuff with plastic long ago but only recently made the adjustment. Now I'll have to adjust and learn how to conveniently find MACA sports schedule information online. I have only had an internet device at home for a year and a half. Prior to that I used public computers in two places, a nice system partly because my online time would be limited in a healthy way. Now I have to resolve to exercise the proper restraint.
My paper school calendar seems worthless to me now. The school could save money by just not having it printed in the future.
We could consume all our MACA sports information online and forget about any local "newspaper." The Morris paper is barely a shadow of its old self. The Hancock paper is gone. The Ad-Viser free shopper is gone. It's not unusual to see a mere 12-page "Canary" ad publication which still has its two pages for Jim Gesswein Motors of Milbank.
I'm sure Paul Martin would disregard me, but I'll encourage him once again to discontinue sending out the weekly paper circular. Those circulars come from a huge pile of boxes each week - I dealt with them a lot in my days of driving the newspaper van. It's really just pollution, isn't it? Willie's has info online and besides that, why can't we just trust the store to have reasonable everyday prices for everything?
 
A difficulty in facing facts
The information is overwhelming now about how boys should avoid the sport of football. And yet we'll see the legacy popularity of the sport hanging on, at the end of this month. Whenever the home opener date is, I'll probably stop by on my bike, not buying a ticket of course, to sample what surely will be the usual buoyant atmosphere. Once again our adrenalin will pump.
I think the pep band has become a question mark for all weeks. The presence of the band would just lift the atmosphere of pomp and pageantry more. It contributes to the players feeling special in this activity, an activity that does little more than subject them to pain and risk. But the stands are filled with people cheering! The parents are enthused.
If you try telling parents the stories about NFL players whose lives end in ruin because of football, they'll be so quick to retort and give the benefit of the doubt to their sons' activity. They'll say "oh, that's the pros." You can easily research about how the damage is real for adolescents whose bodies and brains are more tender.
I find most parents to be glib and annoying. I guess they're enamored by the "Friday night lights." They like the short-term sugar rush of their sons seeking to win this week's game and to get community adulation.
 
Gain sense of reality
I'd like to tell the boys: not long after graduation you'll realize that very few people will care about what you did on a football field.
I am prepared to lose my arguments, to be painted as negative and as rather a stick in the mud.
Will I write online about high school football this fall? That is a very good question, a vexing one. It's an annual challenge I grapple with. While I don't want my journalism to serve as promotion of the sport, I still want to feel part of the community. So I may well proceed with game updates "under protest," as someone would say in the military.
Families today ought to be aware of football's peril. They must in sober fashion weigh all this. It's their responsibility, not mine. Good luck to the Tigers? I don't even want to say that. A good number of people would sneer at me. That's unfortunate. I'm at least lucky that I never played the sport. That's the selfish view I guess.
 
Addendum: A standard Morris resident's answer to my assertions would be "yeah? Well, you lived with your parents." Yeah, that's a good fact-based refuting of what I said, right? By the standards of Morris, I guess it is.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

On violent video games & murder-infused fiction

Here's violence in our fiction books

We are waking up to the news of mass shootings again. I yawn as I peruse the news and find the totally predictable and off-the-mark reaction of Trump's Republican Party. They talk about "violent video games."
Oh, that's the culprit, eh? What about fiction books that can be full of depictions of violence? Browse the fiction shelves at our library and you'll see endless themes related to murder. It's to the point where it really surprises me.
Sometimes I feel disappointed at not doing enough fiction reading. I expressed this in communications a while back to our former library director, a fountain of library devotion. An article profiling her said she often has more than one book going at a time. Man, that's way in a league opposite me.
I ponder the void of fiction-reading in my life. It was not always that way. I seem to recall in my early teens being quite interested as I digested the likes of Jim Kjelgaard. I wrote a post reminiscing on Kjelgaard a couple years ago. He was a master of outdoor-themed stories. He just had the knack. He also had the knack of fitting right in with the literary genre called "juvenile." I wonder if a lot of adults would take to the guilty pleasure of just reading "juvenile" fiction! The type size is probably larger. The plot lines are more obvious. Fewer detours into raw violence and sex, eh?
The sheer volume of books coming out surprises me. How can each one find an audience? They most certainly do, or they wouldn't roll off the presses. Andy Rooney seemed perplexed by this once. His commentary began with how farmers can get paid for not growing crops. I guess we see that phenomenon in spades now with Trump's "trade war" and the subsidy checks to farmers. Of course, this is a system that can be gamed, as are all government programs!
Rooney wondered why authors aren't paid to not write books. He showed the scene of a bookstore and asked, "how many of these books have you read?" I think the same as I walk along the new fiction and non-fiction displays at our Morris MN library. But surely there must be sufficient demand.
 
Do books demand too much?
I do a lot of writing so you'd think I take to books like a bear to honey. I consume a fair amount of media but almost none of it from books. Who has the time and attention span to read a whole "book" anyway? I read a commentary once about how book publishing is something of a racket. This is because books must be "padded" in order to market them as stand-alone products.
Does anyone not see a big thick book as a turn-off? An early discussion on IP (intellectual property) protection was concerned about issues raised by this. A strong argument was raised that Wikipedia and other such sources had to be protected from overreaching claims of IP infringement.
Wikipedia material itself is not copyrighted. Apparently many entries are taken largely verbatim from old encyclopedias. Old encyclopedias! Total dinosaurs. Quaint to reflect upon.
Yes I think Wikipedia is a spectacular boon for society. You get information that is "to the point" and encapsulated, thank the Lord. We have always preferred information in this form. It's just that in the pre-digital days, the commercial platforms where somebody had to make "x" amount of money to justify publication, was a hindrance.
At some point in your life you have probably acquired a thick book, which in theory you'd enjoy, but just never got into it. Lack of time and patience. Maybe it's just that your instinct was telling you "there's a better way" and that way would be Wikipedia or like sources. The sources seem infinite. It's so embedded now we forget to realize what a blessing it is.
 

Here's more violence

Look at all the Western stuff
I'm also surprised at our Morris library to see how huge the genre of Western fiction is. You know, the cowboys and mountain men etc. Shall I assume this is men's fare? But I wouldn't expect men to be particularly avid readers. What is this market? Surely it's viable like for Louis L'Amour.
A related issue is the mythology of the Old West which we are realizing more and more. Self-reliant gunslingers were not the foundation of the movement West. Was it cowboys who got civilization established in the inhospitable desert Southwest? Movies would suggest yes. The real "cowboys" were not so glamorous. They were laborers who spent a lot of time pushing manure around. Lest you think it was Manifest Destiny pushed by the white Europeans, the fact is that a large percentage of cowboys were Mexican and African-American.
You know what got the desert Southwest developed and populated? Would you believe: the big bad U.S. government? The government got the Hoover Dam built.
You can argue that women including prostitutes were just as vital with development as the men with their 6-shooters. The reality doesn't lend itself to reading fare as much, does it.
 
Such prolific authors
Something else that bugs me about fiction books: Certain authors have their name on so many books, I can't believe it. It's a bit of a turn-off. Like that Patterson guy, one of many. I wonder how any of these authors can have his heart in writing any one book. I have to believe these authors become too formulaic in their writing.
But anyway, I need to stretch my mind to become more receptive to adult fiction. I need to look past the endless murder-themed books, books telling cowboy stories and books by authors who churn out one after another. I should find a way to do some meaningful consumption. I doubt I could ever read more than one at a time like our former librarian Melissa Yauk. She's now in Idaho.
If all else fails, maybe I could retrieve some old juvenile standards by the late Mr. Kjelgaard.
I told Melissa that when I sample fiction, I often feel that the prose gets too wordy and embroidered with superfluous descriptions. Add that to my list of issues, but I ought to put on a more receptive cap and give it all a chance.
Could I write fiction? A lot of you would no doubt consider that a scary thought. "Murder in the. . ."
So Trump's people thought video games are the problem. I can just see them putting their heads together on the morning after a mass shooting, and settling on a B.S. "talking point" like that. Why do we as a society even listen anymore?
 
An older platform
Violence? Man, when I was a kid I was a voracious consumer of comic books that had lots of conflict and gore. Let's also remember the "Civil War trading cards" that were gory by design. There is something in an adolescent boy's nature that finds this stuff appealing, but it's vicarious. Freedom of speech protects it. Where would you draw the line to determine where something is unacceptably violent? How would you make this judgment with books? Of course, what we need is a crackdown with gun control.
Why do you think police tend to be jittery? It's because guns flow everywhere. They never know if someone pulled over in a traffic stop might have a gun. Jittery police make me very jittery.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com