The prep sports cavalcade retreats for no one

(image from kbjr)

Only occasionally does a Morris paper become available at DeToy's Restaurant. It's a nice little bonus when it happens. Outside there is a Star Tribune vending machine that has been unattended or some time. The same old paper is on top. Are newspaper vending machines everywhere just phasing out of existence? The price for any paper now is such, you'd have to have far more quarters on your person than you normally would. You could get change, or easier yet just go to Willie's or a convenience store and get a copy. 

Subscribe? It's harder all the time to justify that. Obviously the online world gets progressively better to get news of all kinds. The Star Trib is available to look at, at our Morris Public Library. I do not think the overall activity level at our library is back to pre-pandemic levels. Might our daily habits have changed now for the long term? Looks like a mask is no longer required there. 

So, I look at the new Morris paper and it's quite obvious what is going to be there. That thing is going to hit us over the head with basketball stuff. It's the boys basketball team, having gone to state and won one game there, lost the next two. Hard to see how that isn't anticlimactic. 

We revere basketball not because of the real rewards or enrichment it provides to its players. If I were to suggest those rewards are nil, would you dispute me? A mere five athletes are in a team's starting lineup. I remember from when I was in high school, I thought it was actually sad when the "reserves" got into the game. A game of this type would be decided well before the end. Therefore the coach had slack to send in the "shock troops." I learned that term from the notorious Hancock girls basketball coach of years ago. The fellow was Dennis Courneya who of course crashed and burned at the end. 

Seems like a lot of highly successful coaches can have a volatile nature. They can exit the role ignominiously. Institutions have to take risks with these guys sometimes. Look at all the attention that Bill Musselman brought to the U of M Gophers program. A plain vanilla coach would have kept the profile quite low. 

Ah, the private thoughts that school administrators must have about sports! 

So the new Morris paper heaps attention on basketball in the most predictable fashion. I had thought the paper would issue (and sell) a "special section" on this. However, it appears it's just the usual 'B' section. Maybe the public is getting a little weary of all the hero worship in connection with a prep team? I hope that is the case. 

We had been dragged through hype in connection with the contemporary iteration of Hancock girls hoops. The Owls won the state championship. The coach who I alluded to earlier brought the Owls to great heights in the daunting two-class system. So it's hard to compare the current Owl iteration with the past one. 

The past one has a significant historical niche. It was when so many post-season games were played at our UMM P.E. Center. Fans seated all the way up toward the top, many decibels of sound. Hancock and its rival at the time would draw hordes of preoccupied people. Preoccupied with success, as if that success was a highly meaningful thing, affirming their place in the world. 

Did everyone have a good time? I really think not. The pressures of competition had to create anxiety for many of the young athletes. They were in this fishbowl that I'm sure disturbed them at times. Game-time approached and the "starting five" would be announced to a thunderous acclamation. 

Is this "war" or what? These are just young people with delicate psyches. Look at the world we dragged them into. 

 

Fast-forward

Today because of all the school activities, the public interest is more dispersed. The Morris fans have to depart from our town almost immediately when the post-season begins. We head south. Marshall is a common destination. No way are "hordes" of Morris fans going to show up for an 8 p.m. game at Marshall, at least I don't think so. So maybe it's a more healthy arrangement. I worry about fans having to drive over such a long distance on the way home, so late at night. Just think, a game like this would at one time have been at UMM. Believe me, I remember. 

 

(image from kstp-tv)

Revealing the obvious

On this Wednesday we look at the Morris paper and perhaps we smile because we know exactly what we'll see there. As if it's news: "Tigers place fourth in state." Wow! Well, in a 4-class system, I think our enthusiasm can be tempered. 

The High School League sets up all the post-season stuff in a calculating way, trying to make even modest accomplishments seem special. 

For example, a team might win its first playoff game and lose its second, but it gets honored as "sub-section runner-up." The sub-section finals might just as well be called the section semis. Creating two layers gives more opportunity to bestow recognition. That way, the local news media can "lay it on thick" with coverage that echoes Lake Wobegon where "all the kids are above average." 

Young adults are choosing more and more to not have children. This is caused by economic pressures. Supposedly we have serious inflation now. A common view is that all the current policies are turning the screws on the "middle class." We have depended on the middle class to have kids. Without kids, how can all these school activities thrive in order to give us reason for living? I mean, "fourth in state." What else is there? 

It appears school activities are the raison d'etre for community media now. There's the "business/professional group." This didn't exist when I was in the Morris school. We didn't have FFA. Or interscholastic hockey. Girls sports was just getting started. Isn't that unbelievable? If you went back in time to 1970 and told the people that in the year 2022, girls sports would be taken just as seriously as boys, their jaws would drop. 

Ironic, because the period around 1970 was when there were so many of us kids - we were the "baby boom," children of the World War II generation. Boys took "shop class." What happened to that? Girls were in "home ec" and when it came to sports, they were represented on one page of the school yearbook for "G.A.A." (Girls Athletic Association). A friend in Morris told me about his hometown where "G.A.A. did a tumbling demonstration at halftime of a basketball game." 

What does the future hold? We had better keep policies to preserve the middle class, or we won't have student athletes any more. Don't count on the Republican Party to help. They just take care of the "one percent," even though they posture about cultural issues. It's all a clever smokescreen.

  

The thoughts I share here began with an email I sent to a friend shortly after breakfast at DeToy's. I share here a portion. Certain sentences would have to be redacted!

 

Hello (name withheld) - Did you order this weather?

Was at DeToy's for biscuits/gravy, Morris paper was there so I looked at it for couple minutes. Total "happy news" front to back, nothing but joy, Lake Wobegon with all our kids above average. Was there any mention of the offensive message from the C-A kid? Star Tribune covered it with Reusse's column.

So the paper goes crazy with sports stuff on Page 1 and in 'B' section. Is it over the top? Maybe after the Hancock girls and what they did, public is starting to get a little weary of it all? Sports is king? Music has to adjust to sports, it's never the other way around. Five kids who are good at playing basketball. What does that prove? "Making state" in the 4-class system is not what it used to be, not even close. But media covers it like it is.

Just checked newspaper's website, and NOTHING about Tigers in state. So the paper is evidently just withdrawing from online news and banking everything on its once-weekly print edition. Sue Dieter was going to really prioritize the website for current reporting. The "photo gallery" would have to be filled all the time. The paper made a big deal about making photos available "for purchase." I hear nothing about that now. Is that because people can easily grab any photo they see online, no sweat, save it on computer? So, tech has evolved? When I left the paper, I was being battered daily by all these expectations for all the super-dynamic things we could do online. I was in a stupor. And every time I walked into the building, I could be reprimanded for some little thing I didn't do. Now the paper's website is dormant and the "paper" only comes out once a week, plus no more Ad-Viser, no more Hancock paper.

I had thought paper would "sell" a special section on the Tigers. Not happening? Did they sell a congrats thing with Hancock? It is all starting to seem like overkill, and I wonder if businesses and the public are starting to wake up to it, even though they won't want to say much.

We all want a good school system, but should the school be so preeminent in the media's coverage? It's just one part of community life.

Is Kleinwolterink still on the UMM music faculty? Does he go to the concerts? I think he would have to feel pretty major concern about the quality of the choir concerts this year. No way would Miller want to answer for these. He saw all this coming? If St. John's program is doing better than UMM's, why?

Re. the bill in legislature for scholarship $ for kids attending outstate U campuses, let me know if you see any updates on that. I am 100 percent sure that Backer and Westrom as a matter of principle would oppose this. In the old days, Republicans would still support it here because it's good for their district, but Republicans today are not as inclined to be expedient like that. They stick to their hardcore ideas.

Will the paper make a big deal about the MAHS music trip when they all get back? They might.

I'd still enjoy getting a photo of the Alamo, but my journalism probably doesn't count for anything. I'm just "Mongo." I hope Wanda enjoyed herself and can get some rest now! - BW 

We love the Tigers! (image from Jackson Loge's twitter page)

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Attention will turn to softball and the new "complex"

Study this please, then go over and look

Basketball ends most abruptly today (Saturday) for Morris Area Chokio Alberta. Is it possible to start thinking about spring sports yet? Well why not? 

Take a walk past the softball complex on east edge of town, take a look. Compare what you see with the original drawing that was presented to "sell" us on the project. 

What nightmares await for the coming spring? The nightmare of rows of vehicles parked along the shoulders of Prairie Lane, like last year? Vehicles squeezed into the grassy area? They tried a barricade for that for a while last year. Just for a while. Now there's a bunch of tree stumps there. 

Mark Ekren alerted us all about the substantial safety issues created by the parking mess out there. He did this in a public meeting. So if nothing changes or improves, and someone gets hurt there, well it could be hell to pay for someone, or should be.  

Below you'll see a portion of an email I sent to a Morris city councilman this past week. The councilman is someone who I think has a modicum of intelligence. I've known his family a long time. Intelligence seems to be in short supply here sometimes.

 

It is spring so we will have to start watching the "softball complex" again. I am guessing that behind closed doors, certain people have already starting calling this a total fiasco, perhaps with some colorful language. The place is nowhere near to being done, if you look at the original drawing. The high school activities director has stated at a public meeting that the safety issues there are enormous, with the parking. This spring, will we see cars parked along the sides of Prairie Lane going all the way out toward the bypass? Will the new fields be lighted? The funeral home has already gotten headlines for purchasing lights for the place. Where are they? Why does the funeral home do this? They charge a fortune for funerals. Well, Sydney Dietz is a softball player, maybe there's a clue.

The new Holmberg Field is absolutely terrible for accommodating fans. It could not be worse for this. Where was the oversight? Is there oversight now? Is it just a big money pit? What about the ballfields on the public school property - I counted four diamonds up there when I took a walk last summer. A couple of those could have been upgraded, and you have the benefit of the huge paved school parking lot. As for UMM softball, they had a 100 percent great place to play already, no improvement needed at all. I saw where Blaine made a public comment about how the city would not make a second $ contribution. And then the school board disgorged about $220,000 and did this with the pledge that it would be valid even if other entities decided to bow out (like the City). So I congratulate the city on not making a second contribution, but maybe we should be upset that the city made the first contribution. 

I watched part of a Tiger softball game at Wells Park last spring and I couldn't think of a single thing that was missing from the experience there. There was even some off-street parking on the south end. Maybe the bathrooms weren't open yet - I know Blaine had to go to the radio station to explain why bathrooms couldn't be open so soon. Are porta-potties really so terrible? How often do you have to relieve yourself anyway? Wells Park accommodated both the varsity and 'B' team. 

Maybe the story of the softball complex is this: some young professional dudes who just wanted to put this on their resume. I am insulted when I look back at the original groundbreaking photo, and how they gave the impression that this complex was going to be so super. What about the diamond on the east end? It's just a sandlot. What about the diamond on the south side - it is clearly far from finished. And now the old UMM diamond has been torn up? They'll have to remove the old brick dugouts - more trouble than it's worth. They want the diamonds in a tight radius around the pressbox. UMM had a perfectly nice place to play. And, their fans are now going to be shafted at the new diamond. They were very happy at the old diamond, I actually observed it.

The councilperson responded in short order, informed me that the city only had "monetary" involvement with the softball complex, was thus not involved in its planning. I take that to mean the city wishes to wash its hands of it. He also said he thought my issues would be addressed in "phase 3" of the project. 

Fine, but I doubt anything can be cone to remedy the horrible fan viewing experience at the new main varsity field. Why isn't the local commercial media highlighting this? Too many suck-ups, to be sure. All it takes is one person to start asking questions, then people can feel more free.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Jump-start needed for U of M's outstate campuses?

(B.W. photo)

Why did the guy rob banks? "Because that's where the money is," he said. So where does everyone go when some economic support is needed? Well, the government. We're suffering because of inflation, right? That's the word out there, anyway. In the state of Maine, our elected people in government want to help. Inflation a problem? The state can respond with "inflation relief payments" to all residents. It's $850 per person. The debate now appears to be whether the payments will be electronic or paper. 

Inflation relief? Well, why not? The people appear stressed and so "government is here to help." Didn't Ronald Reagan get laughs by parodying the government when it says "I'm from the government and I'm here to help?" 

It's such a popular thing to decry socialism. As much as we feel government can be ungainly, well, that is where we all naturally turn. Even the supposed "naked capitalists" turned to government in 2008, right? We got the TARP legislation. Where else would one seek help? It's like the bank in the gimlet eye of the robber: "where the money is." 

 

The trouble with colleges

We have known since the Clinton presidency that when government enacts measures to "help families of college students," colleges just react by raising tuition. The colleges end up showing further signs of stress - wouldn't you know? - and then they expect more support. It's the easiest relief one can find: support from the government. 

Where else would you turn to? It's "where the money is." 

We pay lip service to the old dictum of "hating socialism." We want to thump our chests about being so self-reliant. Mostly it's an act, fills a psychological need. David Stockman called the 2008 "financial crisis" the "Blackberry crisis." The crisis was not an act of God. Obviously we should have just let capitalism work the way it's supposed to. That would make too much sense. People and special interests just plead "stress" because, doggone it, life is just full of that commodity, n'est-ce pas? And there's the government with the money. 

Help out college students? Colleges raise tuition and continue these "arms races" with each other, for more amenities. I laugh about the "climbing walls." I'd like to see the days return of college campuses and even K-12 schools being mostly utilitarian places. Forget the awe-inspiring impression. We began seeing new public schools built with such elaborate "commons areas," gyms bigger than the needs suggested. Government was trying to sell the public on its schemes. 

 

The essential task

Schools are places for young people to do essential learning. Colleges are really just way stations for this, relatively brief. Let's borrow a word the Federal Reserve made famous recently: "transitory." Oh, it wasn't long before the Fed had to do a turnaround and say the word was really totally wrong. The Fed had said inflation was "transitory." Was the Fed just wrong on that, or was the Fed just plain lying? 

Maybe the Fed was just trying to keep the situation calm - no point in arousing the masses. The government, of which the Fed is a mysterious sort of extension, is always looking over its shoulder, making sure that if all else fails, it can prevent a violent mass uprising. As Greg Mannarino has so clearly explained, the purpose of government is not to help the people, it's to survive. 

History has shown how "the masses" can rise up and regimes can fall. Can't happen here? Well it certainly could. Sinclair Lewis wrote a book "It Can't Happen Here," his focus being on German-style autocracy. Look how far Donald Trump and his crowd pushed toward autocracy. We may not have escaped the threat yet. Democracies are fragile. 

If Maine finds it necessary to distribute "inflation relief," what kind of road might we be headed down? As for my Clinton-inspired thought about how subsidies for colleges just lead to more bloat and more demands, look at what's happening in Minnesota now. The Star Tribune headline: "University of Minnesota proposes up to $11,000 in new scholarships for residents who enroll at regional campuses." The subhead: "Resident students who enroll as freshmen could get thousands in new scholarship aid." Well, aren't the "scholarships" nice? Such a lofty ideal, right? But the pleading never ends for more government support of "education" at all levels. This in the age of the Internet, where all the information in the world is online. You can teach yourself trigonometry by going to YouTube. Well, maybe I couldn't, but this is what I hear. 

We learn that "state lawmakers" may choose to fund the new program that would be a shot in the arm for our UMM (or UMN, "in the middle of somewhere"). 

The U has asked the legislature for $30 million to create a new Greater Minnesota Scholarship Program for resident students who enroll as freshmen at its Duluth, Rochester, Crookston and MORRIS campuses. I guess our campus has a top administrator with her office in Crookston, if you can figure all this out. 

"University leaders say the program would lower the average student debt for graduates by a significant amount and help boost enrollment." Ah, "boosting enrollment." Progress. But is it a genuine response to demand? Isn't higher education better able to sell its rewards in a way that doesn't make subsidy so essential? Like maybe with fewer "climbing walls?" 

 

The unforgettable Jim Carlson, at right

Recalling a UMM heyday

Why might UMM need special help? Yesterday I watched the tribute video to the late Jim Carlson which is on YouTube. The video has been around for a while, but it is now sharpened from its previous "archival" quality. 

The video is an absolute must-see for everyone. It almost makes me cry. The UMM jazz program as it existed under Carlson is completely gone now. Stored only in historical accounts and people's memories. That's not to say other aspects of UMM music were not strong also. We see John Stanley Ross speaking in the tribute video. He was a real asset here. He and my late father Ralph E. Williams had a close friendship.

I think we all came to take for granted the vitality of UMM music, like it would be around forever. Go to the HFA on any concert night and the hallway would be filled with highly enthused, highly talented musicians who came here from a vast array of places. We assumed this would always be with us. 

Carlson's old jazz program is gone. You might say it put Morris on the map at one time. Why did we let go of something like this? These are conscious decisions made by people in positions of authority. These are the people who, at present, I'm sure are smiling and glad-handing as they seek greater funding from the legislature for "Greater Minnesota." 

Music for UMM graduation (B.W. photo)

The term "Greater Minnesota" is cooked up in a promo sort of way - there is nothing greater about the hinterlands, there's just fewer people. But let's say "Greater" when we ask the legislature for money! It's "where the money is." 

I personally do not think the UMM choir has had a good year. Although I spoke to people in a positive way after the most recent choir concert, I was disappointed. Please do not take my word for this. A friend of mine with high standing in the community was at the concert and she emailed me the following:

  

I was disappointed with the choir concert last night. Just mediocre except for the guitarist. I think back to Ken’s or Brad Miller’s choirs (your dad was before my time) and a 25-member choir just seems sad.

 

More intriguing background

I quote below from an email from a different acquaintance. If this makes me cry, it's for a different reason. Could the Crookston chancellor reverse some of the things we read about here? Shall we become "Crookston South?" Jack Imholte the "Silver Fox" would faint. Please read:

I’ve heard no negative comments relative to the UMM choir this year, other than that the numbers went down a lot from last semester to this. But, the same thing happened to the Symphonic Winds and Jazz Band – both of those suffered serious drops in enrollment since last semester. I don’t know why that is – students dropping out? Transferring? Having conflicting class schedules? Who knows. You do remember that the UMM Jazz Dept. was severely handcuffed by the actions of that German dude, Martin what’s-his-name, who somehow assumed control of the music department after having been here only a couple of years. He wanted UMM to become a music conservatory, and felt that the “heathen music” embodied by jazz would curtail that. 

If that former UMM Jazz disciple of Jim’s (Joel V) had been hired to replace Jim, and had Martin moved on at that point, the jazz program wouldn't have missed a beat (so to speak) and kept right on rolling along. But, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a happy Easter.

 

Once an entity like UMM music begins faltering, righting the ship can be arduous. The solution? More money from the state? Or should UMM back off from so much marketing and PR and put its eggs in the basket of "programs and people." Rhetorical question. 

Carlson was all about people, excitement and talent.

Here is the link to the tribute video to the late Jim Carlson, who we lost at Christmas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtv3XQefIfE

A treasured color photo of the UMM men's chorus, 1960s, Ralph E. Williams, director

 - Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Carrie Fisher could have played her (life) cards better

As "Princess Leia"

I saw the original "Star Wars" movie in Brainerd MN. Having grown up reading lots of sci-fi comic books, story did not seem novel. Struck me as rather a generic sci-fi story. 

Sci-fi did not always have the highest reputation in Hollywood. Many of the 1950s offerings came across as campy. Let's say not high-budget. A movie of the genre did break through to be taken seriously sometimes. If the cards were played right, it did not even have to be high-budget. "The Blob" was a vehicle to launch Steve McQueen to stardom. 

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" gave us a serious message about the specter of nuclear weapons. Its re-make years later changed the theme to climate change. 

But at this moment I'm thinking of "Star Wars." Hollywood had decided to put big money into the basic outer space adventure sci-fi thing. So the production was elaborate and the promotion huge. The story still does not captivate me. As a comic book I would have considered it typical. 

I loved the comic book "Space Family Robinson" when I was a kid. This story "sort of" morphed into "Lost in Space." A connection, yes, but not totally direct. "Lost in Space" resulted in the campy TV series with the "Dr. Smith" character who was not in the comic book. 

"Star Wars" had the trio of primary heroes - something about the number three, eh? The dashing, charismatic Harrison Ford played one. Mark Hamill played the Force-sensitive Luke. Then let's consider the darling "princess." There was more to her image than we realized. She was unreservedly presented as the cute ingenue. 

You must consider that in front of a camera, a female presented this way must look thin. Let's emphasize: she must look more thin than would be needed to make the same impression away from the camera. Neil Cavuto of Fox News is known to say "the camera adds 20 pounds." So movie producers are most aware of how such things work, how an "attractive" woman must tend to her body, if the idea is to entrance audiences. Part of that is to make men salivate, in effect. 

 

The "O" word

It is sad because it is such an obvious case of "objectifying" women. Shall we admit this to ourselves? We demand the epitome of cuteness, for our entertainment benefit. It is true that our societal values have been slowly changing, so as to accept a heavier weight as being just fine. At the time of the birth of "Star Wars," no enlightenment on that front yet. 

Judy Garland as a young girl was known to be "tortured" this way. But there must have been countless such actresses. A writer for the Minneapolis newspaper recalled a few years ago meeting the actress Frances McDormand. I'll never forget reading that: the paper columnist was struck, actually shocked, by how small or minimal McDormand was. This is away from the movie screen. 

The screen adds weight, a cruel reality of the entertainment business, along with the reality that entertainment consumers have historically wanted to see ultra-cute girls and women, at least in certain roles. And the Star Wars female hero had to fit the desired look. 

Are these actresses tempted to take certain drugs in order to get to the desired look? Drugs in lieu of food, to maybe make them forget about food? Fisher ended up on a roller coaster of drugs, readily acknowledged by those close to her. She also went through unreasonable shifts in weight, to accommodate the movie business. 

 

What consequences

I will assert here that her drastic weight loss for her final movie appearance literally killed her. You might say it was the final nail in the coffin. So sad. 

Maybe it would have been a blessing for Carrie to choose a normal life away from entertainment. Real estate or something like that. Be yourself, consume food in a sensible and prudent way, maybe just some light social drinking. Maybe not even the latter. Sad how we used to call such people "teetotalers." Why a term for this? Why have any stigma for someone who simply chooses not to do booze or drugs? 

Heavy social drinking was quite accepted in the 1970s, strange decade. Youth turned to drugs partly as a gesture of rebellion. I can look back now and say it was terrible. I personally never liked marijuana. To this day I can feel rather an outcast among my age peers for saying that. 

I did a little research on Carrie Fisher at the time of her death. We had discovered how absolutely different she looked toward the end of her life, as if she had become a totally different person. I could be quite impolitic here and say she looked like an "old lady." I would deserve any slings or arrows I get for that, but I'm trying to be candid about how men tend to see things. 

I'm not going to review Fisher's sordid drug history here because it was out in the open. Info is readily available. 

Maybe it's the induced weight loss that concerned me more. Even for her first movie, at a time in her life when she was surely naturally slender, Carrie was required to lose ten pounds. Have you ever tried to lose ten pounds? Not so routine. If you look at "stills" of her from the first movie, she looks just anemic. But men saw this and saw "attractive." Hollywood producers know all about this. I'm sure Cavuto does too. 

When Carrie returned to her "Leia" role in the twilight of her life, Hollywood was unyielding in its demands of her: lose 35 pounds. Think of that! It's not good for your heart. Certainly it compounded the drug-related aspects of her body's decline. An aging person has a hard time withstanding this. 

I read reports that even though she lost the weight, Hollywood did some CGI things with her body. My opinion is that Carrie should have just turned down the role. My other opinion is that she should have retreated from drugs, long ago in her life. And in a galaxy far, far away. 

Carrie Fisher RIP.

 

Reminder in song

I have written a song based on my thoughts shared here. I have a neat melody for this. Perhaps the song isn't "upbeat" enough for commercial music standards. Well that's OK, I seek to make a serious point about how this talented woman's life went wayward. I invite you to read my lyrics. Her dad was a singer, remember? May the force be with you.

 

"Ode to Carrie Fisher"

by Brian Williams

I read comic books when I was just a little child

I preferred them to the books I got in school

As I turned the pages I was surely mesmerized

The science fiction was the height of cool

There's a story that was long ago and far away

On the movie screen it took us into space

Where we love to watch the heroes come and save the day

And see the princess with her pretty face

CHORUS:

You are still in our minds, Carrie

Were you close to our hearts? Very

With a dress of shimm-ring white

You were quite the splendid sight

Before the whole galaxy

You were born into a family with celebrity

How so few of us are able to relate

So your mother was an actress with such gravity

Your father was a singer who was great

And you dealt with how they chose to go their sep-rate ways

With the public pointing fingers at your dad

So you blossomed with a talent that would captivate

And rule the movie screen with such command

(repeat chorus)

Is it true that being famous is a cross to bear

Not the paradise we sometimes might assume

So the people who are living in its constant glare

Might just as soon be living on the moon

We have learned about the Golden Age of Hollywood

Back when Judy Garland had to keep her weight

And the angst it must have caused was barely understood

Enough to make a child almost break

(repeat chorus)

Did you really have to go and use such awful drugs

Was it something you discovered in your youth

Were they needed to maintain your body thin enough

If so your fans should know the awful truth

In the end I had to wonder what became of you

You were not the person I had come to know

You were looking like a senior with the years accrued

And not the face that launched a thousand boats

(repeat chorus)

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

No more "funny stuff" coming out of UMM campus?

Entrance to our UMM campus, wintertime (B.W. photo)

First, a little background from being out and around:

 

Inflation may consume us before long. People with pretty good credentials on this are ringing alarm bells. Janet Yellen has spoken up recently, adding to an already aroused chorus. Larry Summers has said it's already too late for the Federal Reserve to begin mounting the fight. Then again, some people would suggest that if you took all economic forecasters and lined them up end-to-end. . . 

That can be funny, but there's more than a decent chance that the doomsayers are right. Personally, I don't see the current inflation specter as being a whole lot like the 1970s. It seemed we really felt it in the '70s. There were jokes about how often restaurants had to print up new menus. 

Our Detoy's has not gone out of its way to raise prices. Maybe just once since the pandemic set in? BTW I think DeToy's is to be commended for how it has handled things since the pandemic started. It was forced into the takeout-only phase. Finally it could accommodate in-person customers again. The Sunday afternoon business appears nearly as robust as ever. 

We have all become a little more restrained. No more salad bar at DeToy's and other places. Will that ever come back? Restaurants went through a period where they had to install "sneeze-guards" on the buffets. You know, the glass panels that you had to reach under to get your food. When I was a kid, no one thought anything of bringing a "used" plate back up for an additional serving, and no one thought of sneeze guards. No such thing as a gluten-fee alternative either. 

Just think if Archie Bunker had been told about "gluten-free." It's part of the "woke" consciousness, I guess, with this word having crossed the line to become an annoying buzzword. Just listen to Tucker Carlson. I think we have reached the point where Carlson and some others like him simply need to be put in their own category. They do not warrant being critiqued as if they are serious commenters in the political/social realm. They are reactionaries trying to push certain buttons to get attention. 

It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the "mobs" of right wing provocateurs sprouting across America now. These people were marginalized when I was young. They were like a sideshow attraction, almost cute sometimes. Today these people can show up at public meetings and be truly disruptive. They can cause change. They use the legal system with its lawsuit powers. There are lawyers and advocacy groups assisting them. Maybe they are a minority in terms of their true numbers. But their assertiveness appears to be compensating for that. 

  

Scrutiny for UMM

All this brings me to a subject close to our hearts here in Morris MN. It is our University of Minnesota-Morris. This is wholly speculation, but perhaps we're looking toward some changes in focus for the institution. My recent exploration on the subject of local U administration prompts such thoughts. 

I discovered how the "executive chancellor" of UMM is now the Crookston chancellor, fully located in Crookston. I had to feel this is strange. My writing on the subject - three rather extensive blog posts - was not well-received in some quarters. Why the defensiveness? It has been my cross to bear, to alienate powerful interests in Morris from time to time. There is no joy to be found in this. 

I am fully a Watergate-era journalist who seeks at all times to look past pretensions. The administrative arrangement in connection to Crookston is irregular - should be as plain as the nose on your face. So what's up? 

Can't we all weigh a pretty credible theory here? UMM has a checkered history of oddball stuff like an overly zealous embrace of gay rights, beyond what was reasonable at the time. The legitimate legal rights of gay people have always been a serious and worthy effort. The crusading in this regard is what rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. 

Look, if a school wants to get rid of the king/queen thing for Homecoming, fine and dandy. To say this is the "empty calories" of education is an understatement. So fine, let's move on from it, but if it is to continue, the idea should be enforced that the queen is a student who was born a biological female, and the king a male. Oh but wait a minute, what about transgender? Oh my, we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to find order in all this. 

I strive to be progressive, yet I have difficulty feeling comfortable with the transgender thing. And I try. Young people who were born as biological males should not be on high school girls teams. If I lose on this, then I guess I'm really an outlier. I consider myself a Bernie Sanders liberal these days - please don't beat up on me. 

I recall a blog post I once wrote about a new UMM student organization called "gay devil worshipers." This is a perfect example of the kind of embarrassing news stories that float out of our halls of ivy sometimes. It is but one example. 

Let's cite the horrific UMM goalpost incident of 2005: it was an example of how UMM has gone out of its way at all times to let the kids "do their own thing." Do not impede them. My late mother said anytime a conflict arose on campus between a student and staff member, the institution bent over backward to facilitate the student. Was this just "the customer is always right?" Whatever, a little moderation was needed. 

The goalpost incident invited media coverage from all over. 

The "Northstar" publication was an embarrassment. There's no problem with a libertarian-oriented student publication on campus - none at all, and I'd relish picking up a copy and reading it. But "Northstar" was not even that. It was basically a big piece of excrement on the UMM campus. It did not reflect facts or reason. It certainly seemed deliberately offensive. A student like Joe Basel should be managed through his college career and then patted on the back, given his diploma and then told to move on in life. The administration must run a tighter ship. 

Mary Holz-Clause, UMM executive chancellor

And maybe that's where the Crookston chancellor comes in now. She's Mary Holz-Clause. Maybe she has been assigned something far-reaching. In the short term it would step on toes. 

I'm probably stepping on toes writing all this, although my critics would say my ideas and writing don't amount to anything. I got in a battle royal with the local public school teachers union in the late 1980s, and bear the scars of that to this day. That was old-fashioned unionism I was up against. They went scorched-earth. They tried putting certain people in town out of business. I considered some of those teachers to be fundamentally bad people, some of them very bad. They were vengeful and hate-filled. They had all the answers: "Just pay us more. Give us unfettered job security." 

In the end they lost, mostly, because "the customer is always right." The customers are the parents. 

The Crookston chancellor reportedly has a two-year pact to be the executive chancellor here in Morris. 

Managed from Crookston! Isn't that amazing? Has Ms. Clause even made a publicly-announced appearance in Morris? I couldn't help but think of her as "Mrs. Santa Claus." Crookston is way north. I'd have to consult a map.

From an email I sent to a friend the other day:

 

A theory on the Crookston person: I don't think this is an insignificant arrangement. One guess: UMM is going to start erasing all the "woke" stuff that it has been famous for. A new letter to LGBTQ students might read: "Your legal rights will be respected 100 percent if you attend UMM, but the institution will no longer go out of its way elevating awareness of LGBTQ. You are here to be serious college students, period."

Also, no more "silly stuff" on campus, like what UMM has been noteworthy for. Remember that devil worshipers club? This stuff has gotten in the Mpls. newspaper. Enough already. Let's just be a serious campus, all the time. No more making the news for the "wrong" reasons. The U can't afford it.

Do Indians still get their tuition paid at UMM? Mike Miller told me once, that was actually an issue on campus, whether it should continue. He explained it had become a revenue issue.

 

Flashback to 2005

I could have done an interesting interview with the late Mike Miller about the goalpost incident. He shared a lot with me in informal conversations like at McDonald's. He was pretty insightful. Please click on the permalink below to read my September 9, 2010, post about the goalpost incident.

http://ilovemorris73.blogspot.com/2010/09/goalpost-incident-was-day-of-infamy.html

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Will current loud voices threaten public education?

George Gammon said the other day that "decades go by where there is no change, then (suddenly) weeks will go by where there are decades of change."

The status quo can be calming in and of itself. For example, the knowledge that even if you do not know how to handle the McDonald's "kiosk," someone will be available to take your order anyway. Or, that a bank will keep its local branch open and you can actually walk in the door and transact business with someone. Big banks have been closing branches at a rapid pace. Sometimes a bank location is understaffed to where there's a single employee seated at the drive-through.

What if the day comes where there is nothing but self-checkout stations at the grocery store? Will I starve? What if the U.S. Mail goes "private?"

The changes or concerns just cited are sort of "micro." The macro challenges are political. For most of my life we just assumed that Joe McCarthy was a bad person, an odious individual who had to be removed from power. So much paranoia and fear-mongering. But a growing element of the Republican Party is having no problem speaking like "Tailgunner Joe" again. No apologies, no defensiveness. They'll "get in the face" of anyone who tries reminding them of the old established wisdom. 

So hard to understand this change. 

It has been common all my life to hear scattered sentiment about "why should I have to pay for other people's kids?" In other words, why should people with no kids in school pay taxes to support public schools? Scattered sentiment, yes. On a gut level I can relate to the frustration sometimes. Yes, sometimes I'm inclined to think like many of us do, about how the local public school can seem like a "money pit." 

I remember many years ago, when the Morris school was in one of those public advocacy campaigns for more money, I voiced a little skepticism in a "back shop" conversation at the Morris newspaper. "The school says it needs more money." To which a work colleague responded: "The school always needs more money." 

My point is, such reservations have always been voiced out and about, and maybe it could be considered healthy vetting for what the school does. Commendable enough, it is. But what many of us were not expecting, was the day arriving - now - where the people who plead about "not wanting to pay for other people's kids" would get dangerously close to the mainstream. It might even be the mainstream now. 

 

Senator Ron Johnson of WI

He has morphed

The most prominent spokesman for the new attitude might be U.S. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Once a sensible but rather obscure Republican, who did all the proper things by Republican standards, he has shed all reservations. Such an attitude was generally considered impolitic at one time. 

We all knew that publicly-supported education with its warts was part of the cherished American model. Now I hear people saying: "If you want to have kids, homeschool them." 

Well, wouldn't that be nice? Taxpayers would have their bills reduced, maybe no more "money pit" locally, and hey, parents could be sure of instilling the "values" they insist on. Your child might never have to discover what gay people are. Your child might never have to be told about slavery or Jim Crow, because those things are embarrassing for white people. 

Even with a pea brain, you ought to be able to figure that young people have a natural curiosity that cannot be held down. Oh, they will discover all sorts of history and ideas that you might want to cuss at. In fact, attempts at suppression will just make kids more curious. 

 

Beyond schools. . .

We'll still have a library, won't we? Not so fast, we may not, and I'm not even kidding you. You only need look at Idaho. Legislation is proceeding there that might make it impossible for anyone to consider being a library employee. Jail time even involved? I guess the main target there is the LGBTQ consciousness. It goes broader into the realm of "obscene material." Which reminds me instantly of the old famous quote from a judge: "I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it." 

Rick Santorum once talked about getting "all pornography off the Internet." Such naivete. You can't control the Internet. 

In this current climate I have suggested that the day might be coming where public school classes will have all lectures through pre-prepared videos. Thus the schools can be sure that no "divisive" ideas are even suggested. 

A revealing book

Defining "divisive" is like defining pornography, of course. 

Would this be divisive: to suggest that the Mexicans were really the "good guys" in the battle of the Alamo? It's totally true: the Mexicans were fighting against slavery. They won the battle of the Alamo but lost at San Jacinto. Erasing slavery would require so much blood to be shed. But it got eradicated. Now it's risky for a public school teacher to even talk about slavery. Maybe the teacher would have to get "both sides." But of course that's ridiculous. 

However, many things I once thought ridiculous are now on the verge of having to be dealt with. Republicans/conservatives have laws mapped out that would silence certain ideas through lawsuit threats. Civil litigation of course has the effect of real law. Look at what happened in Texas with abortion. 

You might suggest we need our public schools because we need their sports teams! I'm one who thinks there is excess with sports. But will we choose to cling to public education as it has more or less always existed? Or are the Ron Johnsons and other loud Republicans going to push it all aside? Maybe to force everyone to just "homeschool?" Is that where we're really headed? 

 

The origin

The New York Times had an article with the headline that Ron Johnson "was not always like this." Then a subhead: "Four years of Trump changed him." Same with Devin Nunes, the most annoying Republican from California. He was once fairly restrained and thoughtful. Trump has come along like a big cult leader, a la Jim Jones. It's not that bad? It's headed there. 

Final thought: What if young people just stop having kids? There are signs the trend has already started. Too difficult to pay for them. Inflation mounts. Anxiety grows with climate change. Maybe God will inflict punishment on all of us like at Sodom and Gomorrah. I hope the "evangelical Christians" suffer the worst. I hope Pat Robertson gets his comeuppance.

 

Our former library director in Morris, Melissa Yauk, shared some wisdom with me this morning (Wednesday). It is germane to what I write here. Melissa lives in Idaho now. She is aware of some of the strange things going on in her state. I might note there's a rather unconventional lieutenant governor. 

Melissa dispensed her wisdom with a quote from Marcus Aurelius: "One thing here is worth a great deal: to pass your life in truth and justice with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men."

She didn't name names. That's the sort of thing I do. Let's all strive for love in the face of it all. Distress overseas? Heck I grew up during Vietnam. 

Melissa added that life in Idaho has its pluses. She writes: "Despite the intolerant viewpoints of some people, it is an 'easy' state to live in. . .weather-wise, traffic-wise."

Congratulations, Melissa. Nothing so generous can be said about Minnesota weather now.

I miss Melissa here in Morris.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com