"Super Fuzz" (1980) comes alive from archives

The miracle of the digital age enables us to unearth seemingly all entertainment gems we recall from years ago. The Monkees? You can have a field day. Paul Revere and the Raiders? Mark Lindsay lives! Such iconic names in the boomers' memory, yet today's youth would be clueless.
The boomers can have memories revived all over the place.
Certain movies got popular in the 1980s due to the rapidly expanding TV universe. The movies of which I speak had somehow missed the mark on the big screen. They were "rescued" by the burgeoning new world of cable TV entertainment. Often these channels would "reach," airing stuff that was not particularly good, or re-running stuff to excess, sometimes to ridiculous excess. It was a raw frontier, yes.
The movie "It's a Wonderful Life" may not have been obscure at the time it was current, but it owes its ultimate status as a holiday icon to 1980s cable TV. You see, that movie was in the "public domain."
The post I'm writing here is inspired by truly obscure movies. For some reason they could not initially find a wide audience. Entertainment industry experts know well the mystifying vicissitudes of the public. The music industry is the same. If yours truly, as a nobody songwriter today, were to write "Hey Jude," and if the song had not previously existed, would it gain any notice?
There is an upcoming movie called "Yesterday" about the hypothetical of the Beatles never having existed. But a guy in a serious accident awakens to realize he has all the Beatles' songs in his memory. Should he exploit all this for personal gain? What a premise. I suspect from seeing the trailer that "Yesterday" is fundamentally a love story. The guy's girlfriend has total faith in him. She buys him a guitar as a gift. So I would suggest that because the guitar is a gift of love, it bestows some sort of power.
How does the story end? I don't know but let's guess. At the end the guy may be deprived of his mystery song resource, so he is put under pressure and finds the talent within, just as his significant other knew he could! Love conquers all, at least in the movies.
I'm reminded of the baseball classic "It Happens Every Spring" - and hey, why not a re-make? - in which Ray Milland as "King Kelly" is practically out of his magical hair tonic. Presumably he has to tap his own skills. He has a love interest. And, you know how it turns out! The power of love is equated with the power of believing in yourself.
 
Retrieving a movie from the '80s
Now let's consider "Super Fuzz," one of a group of special movies in my mind, movies in the niche of popular cable TV fare in a meteoric way in the 1980s. I never thought I'd feel nostalgic about the '80s. Our family got HBO for free for a time. So I watched "Super Fuzz" several times. It's a uniquely joyful movie to celebrate.
Oh, of course it's absurd! It's a movie. Movies can be absurd in an annoying way or in the endearing way. Creative people in Hollywood surely sweat over this type of thing. Will a particular concept work or flop? Even the most astute minds can be stymied on this, IMHO. Think of the character "Johnny" from "Airplane." On paper I feel this character looked lame, simply silly with no redeeming value. In practice this character "worked" totally - it just did. "Well, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl." (I learned to spell "brooch" the correct way and not as "broach" as in "to broach a topic.")
"Super Fuzz" like similar obscure flicks eventually disappeared over many years. Is there anything retro that we cannot now discover online? No. So it was a totally guilty pleasure for me to call up Super Fuzz and watch it again. It was unbridled euphoria. Just like re-discovering "T.A.G. The Assassination Game" for which I have written a tribute on my "Morris of Course" blog. Linda Hamilton as an authentic college "babe!"
Anyone writing about Super Fuzz today seems to feel obligated to say it's not great art. For crying out loud, who cares? If it's entertaining, raise a toast. Yes it's a cheesy movie. But the movie never takes itself seriously. It is an oddball satire on super hero films. We see a younger cop paired with an older cop. The younger guy is none other than Terence Hill of "They Call Me Trinity" fame. The older cop is none other than Ernest Borgnine, who should need no introduction. And BTW the reason that "McHale's Navy" re-runs are so hard to find, is the raw and pejorative language used toward the Japanese. You'll recall it was a WWII Navy comedy (with Tim Conway too).
The comedy in Super Fuzz is often unadulterated slapstick. The Terence Hill character, "Speed," picks up superpowers, which prompt the musical sound byte "Soopa-soopaaah" every time he uses them. It becomes an ear worm but a delightful one.
 
Just enjoy, don't analyze
Perhaps the movie has a magical quality of transporting us back to the 1980s. The plot absurdities needn't call for any explanation. I don't give a rip that the movie is 'B' movie cheese. And why get carried away trying to describe it?
Too many people get defensive when trying to reflect positively on this cinema fare. What is the purpose of a movie? It's to entertain.
How conflicted might our feelings be? Well, to counter the defensiveness I discover this: "It is mandatory viewing for any serious student of film."
Super Fuzz was a 1980 movie. Disco reigned in America and is the style of theme song music. What did disco say about our culture? A topic for a psychiatrist, surely. Remember you could get a certificate of deposit at a bank with something like 13 percent interest. "Soopa-soopaaah!"
The movie's director was Sergio Corbucci. Watching this along with "T.A.G." and "Eddie and the Cruisers" might be like a fountain of youth for someone like me, at least creating a temporary illusion. Yes, a guilty pleasure, one that I will return to from the 1980 time Capsule: "Super Fuzz."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Ah, the building name issue within our U of M

I have long suggested that college administrators probably lose sleep over "naming" issues on campus. What happens when we run out of things to name on a campus? One of the fundamental problems is this: do we name something based on contributions a particular deceased person made to the life of the campus? Or, do we name something just based on a particular individual being able to sign a big check?
I think we have seen examples of both on our UMM campus. The naming questions are benign here, not stoking division. Administrators over at the Twin Cities campus would love to be relieved of such division. They probably lie awake at night wondering why so much stuff has to be named after people in the first place. There are four buildings on the Twin Cities campus in focus for this.
The U is having to re-examine a "racist history," according to an October article in the Minnesota Daily. The buildings bear names of "controversial figures." Why were those names assigned in the first place? Well, we must have been a racist nation at the time.
Consistency on these issues is impossible. We have buildings or monuments in our nation's capital named for dudes who owned slaves. To offer a cliche, "enough said." Jim Morrison at our Morris paper once commented on a UMM administrator using the expression "enough said" at the end of a thought piece. What it means, Morrison said in his gimlet way, is that "no further discussion is needed." If only the roiling issue at the august main campus of the U could be dismissed, just so everyone could get back to standard business.
Annoying little political issues seem almost to be the stock in trade within the U sometimes. Oh, I sympathize not at all with the deceased dudes who have their names adorning buildings, but you can argue that naming is a superficial issue, one easily ignored. But no, we have our U of M examining its navel. (And it's "navel" not "naval.")
Someone argued that the U has seen fit to scrub Garrison Keillor's name. Yet, as I pointed out, we have our hallowed nation's founders memorialized despite the fact some owned slaves. The tradition of naming buildings at all has to continue, I guess, because this is often incentive for families to bequeath tons of money. The Morrison family of Morris has done this.
Do I say this skeptically? Well no, because I too have gotten on board with contributing funds, following the Morrisons' example totally. Haven't gotten anything named yet. Might that be in the cards? You just never know. It isn't important that I personally get any recognition. I even turned down an opportunity to be interviewed by the U's "Legacy" magazine. Some of the usual pompous asses of Morris will be relieved to know I don't want any attention for myself. But my last name has value. I bear that name whether you all like it or not.
The U of M has been through a long process, typical of a bureaucracy - heh, heh - and the matter appears stalled in murky waters. At issue at the U: Coffman Memorial Union, Coffey Hall, Nicholson Hall and Middlebrook Hall. A deadline for decision-making has been pushed back. The Daily tells us this is "the third missed deadline in four months." Let's update by looking at a March 1 article from the Daily: U President Eric Kaler has recommended re-naming four buildings. Kaler is suggesting temporary new names.
The bureaucratic wheels keep turning in the tortoise-like way, as Kaler and Provost Karen Hanson will appoint a permanent advisory committee on University history. So much ado about a really superficial thing.
On our own UMM campus, we have the theater in the HFA named for Ray Lammers. I'm not sure if the naming was done to simply honor the late theater man - this would be the best reason - or if money incentive was involved. A source told me once that some alums had to become assertive to get this naming accomplished, as if administration was somewhat halting about it. Why would administration be halting?
No one wants to suggest that Ray Lammers wasn't a huge asset and worthy of remembering. But then we have precedent and consistency, two things that administrators cannot avoid in future discussions. Jim Carlson created the Jazz Fest which for many years appeared to be the biggest annual event on campus. You'd see these buses from out of town around Morris. Edson would get packed on multiple nights. Is the Jazz Fest down to just one night now? Maybe something should get named after Carlson. That's a wholly nice thought. But as the years go by, UMM could recite lots of people who made huge contributions to campus life.
I understand there is a portion of the Big Cat Stadium complex named for Brian Curtis. I am dubious about that. I don't think his contributions were that extensive, long-lasting or important. Maybe it was done just because he formed the proper bond with a lot of the movers and shakers in local sports - something that I never did. I did have a bond with the late Perry Ford.
Edson Hall has a veil of confusion now because it's part of an entity named for the Morrisons. I'm still not sure how that entity is to be differentiated from the auditorium itself. No one has edified me. When I first heard about the Edson Hall improvement project - and I'm not really sure how that place has been improved so much - I was told by a good source that an "anonymous donation" was responsible. There must have been some re-thinking later on this.
Again I think administrators hate to ruminate on such matters, even though they wouldn't want to admit it, and would profess publicly that they're delighted to honor the names of people capable of writing such big checks. I think in an ideal world, they'd love to be relieved of the naming issue entirely. I'd make a wager on it.
Kaler said "I would like to continue hearing from the University community and engaging (with various people)." Oh no he wouldn't. I think he would rather swallow shards of glass than to continue dealing with it. Maybe the best response to the issues is to say "it's nice to see a campus building named for Amir Coffey of the Gophers." I remember watching Amir's father Richard playing for the Timberwolves back in Target Center's very first year.
My own $ contribution to the U is in the names, of course, of my deceased parents. This is something I felt I absolutely had to do. And if any of you wish to add to the Ralph and Martha Williams Fund at UMM, I'd be delighted. For years it was the Morrisons who paid me generously at the Morris newspaper, and I shouldn't just hold on to all that. I have no spouse or significant other, no children, only a small number of relatives with whom I am not intimate, and no real friends. I have to stand for something. So I simply must ensure that my parents are memorialized at UMM. So we have the Fund in their name which is perpetually endowed.
My own status means absolutely nothing, my critics should be assured.
Someday when I pass on, I'm not sure I even want my ashes placed at our family plot. It might not be appropriate. I once got yelled at by a Summit Cemetery attendant when I was simply trying to get my mother a little closer to our monument, because her mobility had become so limited. The incident showed why handicapped accessibility has become so essential in our society - our cemetery is not handicapped accessible. You might say "well, how can a cemetery be handicapped accessible, you dumb s--t." Many people in this town talk like that.
Well, I would argue that we are in a world now where everything has to be handicapped accessible. If something cannot be made handicapped accessible, then we must retire these things to the dustbin of history. No more cemeteries? Yes, that's right. No more "traditional funerals" because they cost way too much. When my parents went on to the next life, that's all that mattered, not some rock in a cemetery.
Just wait, my idea will take flight. There was a time when we never could have expected that smoking was going to be banned everywhere like in restaurants. Changes do happen.
 
Addendum: I remember when the rumor floated around town that the then-new 1991 gym at Morris Area High School might be named for Robert Mulder. That's a curious gym because it was a big deal for a very short time, after which it seemed to get forgotten. Is it equipped for major varsity events? It's way over on a corner of the school campus, so it's easy to miss or overlook. It's really an expansive facility. I thought it was a big deal but I guess I was wrong, because before long we got a whole new varsity gym built, as part of a project that was initially billed as "a new elementary school." I remember the late Tony O'Keefe shaking his head and saying "they're building a new high school." Did we need a new band room and choir room? Anyway, the Mulder name never got attached to the 1991 gym, so it's unfortunate the rumor took flight. He actually left here in an air of ignominy. To the extent our school system might have had problems then, I don't blame him, I blame the superintendent.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota -  bwilly73@yahoo.com

We're finally there: Trump's connections to God

It has come to this, not surprisingly in my eyes. Donald Trump is not only a favorite in the eyes of a significant swath of Christianity, there are now pronouncements that he may be an extension of God.
This has perplexed me: the marriage of evangelical Christians with the president. Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress set the tone for this.
But the idol worship, which seems to be more and more literal worship, seems to be expanding.
First, let's allow that the media create a stereotype with the "evangelical" Christians. It's hard to ascertain how much of the faith is made up of the people I'm trying to identify here. My own church is in a synod that has the "evangelical" name but heavens, we're certainly not under the conservative political umbrella.
You might argue that your faith ought not be closely aligned with politics. Well congratulations. We must attend to the needs of our secular world.
A compliment: The ELCA of the Lutheran faith has now stepped aside from much of Christianity. This is in contrast to when I was growing up: ELCA Lutherans were the most conservative sort in basic deportment and attitude. You might say they were on the other end of the generation gap. Today we receive materials from the ELCA that discuss climate change like it's a real threat, based on sound science, and must be taken seriously. How contrary to the Trump strain across the U.S., a strain that emotionally denounces climate change theory as a "hoax."
We have always seen images from Third World countries where supporters hold up poster photos of their desired political leader. It smacks of cult-like devotion.  But, this was the sort of thing that happened "somewhere else." We in the U.S. had a relatively calm political system in which people were motivated by reason and civility. Today? Many church organizations across the U.S. are becoming like those mobs holding up the poster images. It's Trump all the way and damn the socialist Democrats!
The cultural upheaval caused by gay rights has been part of this. Trump has worked to try to get transgender people kicked out of the military. Is this why so many of you conservative Christians cheer for Trump? Can't you at least tamp down some of the attention you pay to this issue?
I'm relieved for the ELCA because we have gotten past it. And now it seems embarrassing to realize we once might have had this issue tugging at us. Now it's the Methodists' turn to have all hell break loose. There's talk of that denomination splintering. Well, who cares I guess.
Membership in a church is not compulsory. I personally have not attended church for about six months. I have told friends I'd probably return sometime this spring, not that this needs to matter much to anyone. I have had a grievance about loud and disruptive kids in the sanctuary Sunday morning. I can easily skirt past this issue, but what is looming now is something new in connection to Trump.
For a long time I thought it was only a remote possibility that the evangelicals' devotion to Trump might lead to something akin to literal worship of the man. Could he have divine qualities, could he be an extension of God? Well, I certainly believe he has certain qualities, but they are rather unrelated to being deity. All you Apostolics who probably voted 100 percent for Trump: I'll ask you to try to envision how Stormy Daniels brought Trump to orgasm. There was that Playboy model too: McDougal? I'm not going to look it up. How did that babe bring Trump to ejaculation? These are important questions, all you Apostolics or evangelicals or whoever you all are.
If a significant portion of Christianity in the U.S. is really going to start considering Trump to have divine qualities, I'll have a problem with going to church again. I have a significant number of detractors in this community who'd say "who cares?" That's fine if that's your attitude. You wouldn't be reading this anyway.
The Lutheran denomination is named for one of the most notorious anti-Semites in world history: Martin Luther. That's another issue to weigh, plus the issue of how if it weren't for Christianity, we wouldn't have the Catholic Church with all the tragedy caused for kids molested by priests.
Again, church membership is not compulsory. As a kid I never felt I'd be imploring people to join an ELCA church, but today, relative to the zealous alternatives, it looks like a safe haven. Catholics, just walk away from where you are and walk into an ELCA church Sunday morning. Surprise everyone. You'll feel heartened and fulfilled.
You'll be welcome among people who believe climate change is most likely real, and that gay people should not be subjected to discriminatory policies. Gay rights ought to be a passe issue now. University of North Dakota tossed its "Fighting Sioux" nickname partly because it realized the issue was never going to go away. Now there's a sense of calm and relief there about this. Same with the ELCA and its enlightened position on simple gay rights. We're past that, while the Methodists are torn apart.
In Stevens County we have a whole new church inspired by the gay-bashing thing. I wonder if that church is now entertaining the thought of Trump as an extension of God. How plausible is this speculation? Oh it's quite plausible and I'll give evidence here: Franklin Graham has appeared to boost the idea, along with televangelist Paula White. (A televangelist can't be wrong, eh?) A Fox News poll revealed that about one in four Americans believe God wanted Trump to be president.
Trump's press secretary appeared to be implying divinity in a January interview. I don't blame Jim Carrey for painting Sarah Sanders Huckabee in an unflattering way. Isn't she from an Arkansas family? Maybe I stereotype those people.
At the start of the notorious CPAC conference, that big gathering of looney toons, wealthy businessman Michael Lindell went onstage and declared Trump "chosen by God." Hell, I think we are worshiping false idols. It feels like a losing battle to try to push back. Here's a headline from a web search: "Pompeo agrees it's possible God raised Trump to protect Israel from Iranian aggression."
Can't these people try to use simple reason and logic to present their views? Why the invoking of God and his suggested wishes? Does it give you empowerment? Will a new Bible be written with Trump's name in it? Maybe we'll see a "Book of Laura Loomer."
Barack Obama, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
 
Addendum: The real truth is, the ultra-conservative movement really only cares about tax cuts for the very wealthy, and deregulation. Everything else is just posturing to try to get the pliant masses on their side. It sure seems to be working. If Trump can fool so many people into thinking he's divine, I have to wonder if Jesus Christ himself could have done this.
 
Addendum #2: Pompeo should know that the word "aggression" triggers something in the minds of the boomers, people like me. We were told we had to fight North Vietnamese "aggression" and fight the "communist aggressors," remember? And the whole war turned out to be a lie.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Community's last barber calling it quits

(image from sr. perspective)

One can hardly help remembering the Beatles' "Penny Lane," as we consider the upcoming retirement of Dave Evenson. Dave is our town barber. We refer to him all by himself: "the town barber," yes the cheese standing alone, or the last local survivor of his craft.
I suggested recently we have a proclamation signed locally for the affable Dave, who with wife Yvonne is soon to be a resident of sunny California. The suggestion wasn't made in this blog. It was made directly to the parties who would perform it. I get the impression the proclamation will happen. I was asked for my own input.
Such a thing, a congratulatory proclamation, might seem totally innocent and easy to do. Surely it ought to be. The problem is with gender sensitivity. I suggest we honor Dave as sort of the "last man standing" in his craft locally. I invoked the memory of "Floyd the Barber" from the Andy Griffith TV show. The problem or challenge is that we are defining Dave's role in gender terms: he's someone of the male gender who cuts males' hair.
"Big deal," you might think, "we've always had barbers around." Consider though that we live in an age where political correctness is a barrier to a lot of thoughts we once deemed innocent. "Hey, he's a barber." Yes, but what exactly is that? We still have numerous people in the community who professionally cut hair. We routinely use the word "cosmetologist" for females in the trade. Use that term and you seem automatically to be suggesting a female.
But why should this be so rock-ribbed? It actually should not be, given our contemporary sensibilities. There are people who cut hair professionally, period. Right? So maybe it's just not right to make a big deal of Dave Evenson retiring, based on political correctness.
Political correctness is something that few of us profess to actually like. Yet we realize it pushes forward like a bulldozer, and in the end we have to admit that it has benefits for all of us. Back around 1970 it would have been considered radical and a little outlandish to suggest that girls should play on high school basketball teams. If that were to be allowed, it would be a novelty, surely nothing that could exist side by side with the boys. It is not pleasant to dredge up such a memory but it is absolutely true.
Say the word "barber" and we all know what's being talked about. A guy like Floyd in "Andy of Mayberry," a genial guy who knew how to give a guy a "trim."
So often we present "common sense" to rebut political correctness, but that is getting more and more difficult to do. My, how times change. Let me count the ways. There were several barbers around town when I was a kid. This is a nice trivia challenge for long-time Morris residents. As I get older - I'm in my mid-60s now, Lordy - I find my memories of Morris are getting more and more valuable. And BTW is anyone making preparations for the Sesquicentennial? Are community celebrations important anymore? We're witnessing the death of Prairie Pioneer Days as a summer event. And my, we're witnessing the death of the ShopKo store.
There was a time when we all were guardians of community "amenities" partly for the sake of the UMM community. However, I have pondered over the last few days, as news of ShopKo closing has bubbled and festered, how off-campus shopping probably is not important to today's college students. So it don't matter.
Should a man cut a man's hair? Why should it matter?
 
From the memory vault
Let's recall with a knowing smirk what can happen when a man sits in the chair of a female "cosmetologist" with apron over hands. Hey guys, when seeing a woman just say "I'll keep my hands where you can see them." I joked with barber Dave about that, when I saw him recently for the last time in his barber role. I told him to cut my hair as short as possible. I won't have to deal with hair issues for a while. And when I do, I might just hack away with scissors for a time.
No more "barber" in Morris with the "barber pole" outside. We remember guys like Bob Reese, Max Smedsted and Merlin Beyer, all in the mold of "Floyd the Barber." It's cherished Americana.
My suggested proclamation for Dave acknowledges that female cosmetologists can do the job just fine. We have to acknowledge that, lest we suggest we're losing an absolutely necessary resource. And we're not: women can do the job fine. But we are losing the last "barber" with all the cultural importance that carries, whether it's in line with P.C. or not. The barber comes right off the cover of the old Saturday Evening Post. Or the "Mayberry" TV show.
Dave tells me he's selling his barber chair. Ah, life will go on, I guess.
 
"Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, of every head he's had the pleasure to know."
 
Interesting: I have always heard this line differently, as "had the pleasure to have known." What about you? Looking online for verification, the consensus is "to know" although I found one place where it's reported as I heard it. Precise song lyrics are sometimes hard to ferret out. Remember, it's not "might as well admit it you're a dickhead in love."
 
Addendum: Is there hope finding a barber in Alexandria? I asked Dave that today and he said yes, and to look for "Kyle's" close to the Ole statue.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

UMM College Republicans and victimhood

I have written in the past that UMM students should not be so zealous about politics, so confrontational. The conflict itself is not good for the image of UMM. I have written that students are here for far more important reasons than to vent political opinion from the so-called "left" or "right."
I say so-called because I wonder how many students have a really good grasp of the implications of raw political ideology. At the risk of sounding disrespectful, I think many students engage in this like it's a game that projects self-identity. You decide to join a particular camp and then you bond with other souls you find there.
I have some understanding of this because I was a student long ago. My generation attached itself to the "real" cause of getting the U.S. extricated from the Vietnam conflict. This was the conflict that President Trump avoided with bone spurs and Dick Cheney avoided with multiple deferments. I fault no one for keeping out by practically any means. It was a war that the U.S. lost at great cost.
I'm too old, perhaps, to really understand what makes college students tick today. I do not understand the fervent right wing element that has asserted itself over recent years. This is not the kind of "conservatism" that I came to learn about and respect once. I learned about temperate conservatism, patient conservatism, respectful conservatism.
As a young person I learned about the "burn baby burn" attitude from the political left. Today I sense a like attitude from the right, an in-your-face, flamethrowing type of approach. This is not the kind of conservatism I learned about when reading William F. Buckley Jr.
Is that name receding too much into the past now? Are today's college students aware of the piccolo trumpet sound in the theme music for the great conservative's TV show? I had to read Buckley's book "Up From Liberalism" post-college because I had never really learned about conservatism in college. We hear today's campus right wingers rail about "liberal bias." I can tell you that back in my college days, there was a very real liberal bias, choking off the most basic understanding of the other side, the other ideology.
Conservatives had only the most token, almost negligible, presence on campuses in the 1970s. Conservatism was treated almost as pathology. I doubt that academia engages in a whole lot of conservative-bashing today, for the simple reason that these institutions need support from both sides of the political aisle. And yet we see a conservative element of students going absolutely nuts with grievance.
This erupted in spades with the UMM campus publication "Counterweight" and then with the very notorious, very ridiculous "Northstar." "Northstar" was an embarrassment for the campus aside from any "ideological" considerations. I argued that UMM should never have been obligated to provide newsstand space for it. It was an assault on basic decorum and civility, two things that Buckley-esque conservatives value as underpinnings. Not "burn baby burn."
UMM campus conservatives are now playing the victim card again. A friend forwarded to me a link to "The College Fix." Our College Republicans are fed up with their fliers and announcements being trashed. I think you catch the gist of what's going on. So, I would like to ask these "conservatives": why do you insist on hitching your wagon to Donald Trump? Why has the Republican Party been so compliant with a man and his minions who seem despicable in so many ways? What does any of this have to do with "conservatism?" Deficit-exploding policies?
Why is abortion so important to you? I am personally disturbed by abortion, am certainly no cheerleader for it, but feel as a practical matter it can't be banned or seriously limited. It's a matter to weigh with individual personal responsibility, what conservatives have always hailed as important. Not "big government." The same big government that wants to seize on "national security" and "feed the pig" of military spending to do stuff unrelated to true national defense. Like of course "building the wall." What else might this creep into?
Our Interstate Highway System was built under the banner of national defense and surely it is a wonderful thing, which is why Dwight Eisenhower promoted it. But it was not "national defense." Might the burgeoning military be a creeping trend toward what we saw with 1930s Germany?
College Republicans would probably scream at me like they scream at so many people. Cool your jets, stop and think.
"The College Fix" reports that our UMM Campus Republicans trained a camera to investigate this pilfering of fliers. This was in the catacombs between Oyate and the science complex - the long tunnel. The article said the camera became broken, but did not make it clear there was an allegation that it was broken deliberately.
The Republicans considered this a "sting" operation although it's my understanding that only police can conduct a "sting." The Republicans did this with intent of taking their findings to police. Oh my God. What monetary value do the fliers have? Law enforcement is really only concerned with theft of items deemed to have monetary value. If no monetary value, it should just be an ethical matter.
The notorious "Northstar" dealt with this by putting a statement on the cover saying you have to pay $5 per copy beyond the one complementary copy. This was misleading IMHO because there was no intent to collect $ from "newsstand sales." The statement was simply a way to try to ensnare "thieves" and get the attention of law enforcement.
It seemed to work. Weren't there about four students who actually got in legal trouble?
I would not advocate removing any publication in a vigilante way, though I can understand the feelings of those who might. Are the campus police now aroused to do something based on the current alleged actions of removing fliers?
From my standpoint as a community member, I find the ideological sensitivity on campus making it a less welcoming place, a place I'm less likely to want to visit. I'd like to just encourage the students to prioritize what you came here for. And that's not politics. You will all find someday that real politics is more thoughtful and less emotional. You won't care if Brett Kavanaugh "likes beer."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Please listen to my song about Joe Mauer

Fit for a ballad, J.M.

Having a song recorded gives a rush that offsets the weather. I'm pleased to announce that my song "Ballad of Joe Mauer" is on YouTube. I actually wrote it a couple years ago and referred to Joe's career in the past tense. He hadn't retired yet, but I was writing about the Joe Mauer who played catcher and could win batting titles. So, the past tense seemed appropriate.
Still, it would not seem acceptable to have the song recorded and put online until he actually did retire. That has now happened. So, I put Mr. Frank Michels to work again at his wonderful studio in Nashville TN. Nashville is a wondrous place, full of musical joy. I visited there in the '80s and '90s with the Wohlers gang of Morris. I invite you to listen to "Ballad of Joe Mauer" with this YouTube link. Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htJrPtbA0MI

 
The singer is David Ward. The song was put online by Gulsvig Productions of Starbuck MN. If you have media transfer work needing to be done, contact the Gulsvigs. They are in the "geek" universe. I just sit at the piano keyboard "plinking" keys to experiment with chords etc. My dad did this professionally. He never encouraged me to follow suit, he just wanted to take me hunting and fishing. I have no idea how he'd assess my work. But certainly our styles are different. The core skills are the same, regardless of what style you write.
I'm sure my father could have written something with pedal steel!
I have had people get back to me after listening to one of my baseball songs, eager to share some of the memories of growing up and attending Twins games. I have already gotten one very warm email in this category. I won't share the name because it was a private email. But I'm pleased to share the content. Just goes to show, baseball can be a real wellspring for memories.

Hi Brian,

You did Joe Mauer proud!! This is a great tribute to him! As a little girl, even though a girl, I liked baseball. The memory was that my Mom liked to watch the Twins!! She wouldn’t miss watching a game and seemed to know all the players' names and the positions that they played. She brought the boys down to a Twins game to see Tony Oliva, and Earl Battey. My brothers learned to like baseball too! We all played baseball many, many times at East Side Park, Wells Park and behind the elementary school. You remember trading baseball cards with my brothers I am sure. They would get so many baseball cards that they would share the gum that came with them with us girls. 
My Dad gave me a catcher’s glove just recently when he was moving things to their new home. He said he remembered me always wanting to play in the catcher spot, and this was the glove that I had used back then when playing catch with him. That was kind of neat to have this after all those years. Baseball is still one of my favorite sports. I don’t know all the players’ names and positions like my Mom did, however, it isn’t like the old days that one player played all season long in the same position. Now there are new players all the time it seems. 
There are definitely some favorites that we will never forget. I truly liked Kirby Puckett, as it seemed he could always hit the ball no matter what pitch he was given. Wish he hadn’t gotten hurt.

Thanks for sharing your new song with us!! You do a great job!

Addendum: The writer of this letter had a brother who did some work for the Morris Theater when in high school. Sometimes he'd put some school hallway gossip up on the marquee and then go back and take a picture of it!

Songwriting fills a void caused by departure of my family members to the next life. So I'm still in my mortal place and having to deal with the awful, gray typical March weather! Check the UMM music concert schedule and make a point to come out and enjoy.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Was MACA really "prohibitive" favorite Mon.?

Cardinals 86, Tigers 74
The Willmar paper enlightened me on an aspect of Monday night's game at Willmar. It was a game re-scheduled from Saturday due to all the downer weather we've had. I was not assuming the Tigers were going to win. I was not even inclined to think we'd win. But what do I know?
The Willmar paper asserted in its lead sentence (3/12) that MACA was the "prohibitive favorite." I did a double-take. What this sentence means, is that we were practically guaranteed to win. Like maybe 95 percent guaranteed. Not that I need a dictionary re. this, but Merriam-Webster informs us "prohibitive" means an "almost certain" outcome. A losing outcome would be "prohibited."
If it was, Redwood Valley defied it.
Jeez, the game outcome didn't surprise me at all. Consider: our Tigers actually trailed the No. 6 seed ACGC at halftime of the playoff opener. We were seeded third. Redwood Valley was No. 4. A game of 3 vs. 4 can be expected to be pretty competitive, can't it? I should hope so.
The writer of the Willmar article, Tom Larson, said we were the "prohibitive favorite based on numbers like win-loss record and seeding." We've already dismissed seeding as being much of a factor in laying odds here. As long as we're into words, let's say the seeding difference was "negligible." I suspect my grasp of the language is better than Larson's.
If you accept Larson's assertion of MACA being the "prohibitive" favorite, then how do we assess things, coming out of our 86-74 defeat? Should there be fingers pointed somewhere? We don't want to point fingers at the student athletes, of course. So does the fault lie with the coach, fault for the loss by his "prohibitive favorite" squad? We lost by double digits.
Frankly I think we can dismiss Larson's word choice. I think this would be a "prohibitive" conclusion. Unless you want to truly blame the coach?
As far as I'm concerned, coach Torgerson has had a pedestrian past with his coaching. Maybe an indictment of his work at this time is apropos. It hasn't been unusual through the years to hear a great many rank and file citizens of Morris express skepticism about the coaching. Curiously, though, there has been a separate tier in the community, the true leadership one, that stomps this down to the point where it's intimidating.
Is it true the coach doesn't teach anymore? He's on the second generation of players, right? Has he been at it long enough? He wasn't even the first choice of our top administration back when he first got the job. Chris Baxter was. I know because I was told directly by top administration. The appointment came at a time of very disruptive conflict in the school district. I suspect things are basically placid now. You should know there is a background of contentiousness.
Writer Larson says that his "numbers" angle includes won-lost record, where Redwood Valley might be judged not that good. Well Katy bar the door, I've heard throughout my sports background that W/L is often not to be taken at face value. A fan told me this morning that Redwood Valley was without some key players at the start of the season. Hence, they didn't roll through their whole schedule at 100 percent.
"A fan told me" isn't the best attribution, yes. But we have a president of the U.S. now who, when caught in a misstatement or lie, will say "that's what I was told." Oh, passive voice too. You might offer the retort "well, that doesn't mean anything because we all know the president is just a nut or lunatic (or whatever)." Well, that's an indictment of our U.S., I guess. Would we even want a mayor with the comportment of Donald Trump? It's like I have said before: the Beltway (around Washington D.C.) is an alien place not setting an example for anything else. Look at Rudy Giuliani.
The Tigers played Redwood Valley for the sub-section championship Monday at Willmar. I'm not surprised at Redwood Valley's success considering their style of play with considerable pressure and speed. Don't ever bet against a team like this. The Cardinals charged out to a commanding position early. There never seemed any suspense as the game developed. It was a dreary night for the MACA crowd, having to travel so soon after another of those winter blasts.
The Cardinals now go on to play St. James, the No. 1 seed, Friday in the 3AA title contest.
Redwood Valley had scouted us well and worked to limit Jackson Loge's effectiveness. The Tigers put up bricks from three-point range. Clang! We were three of 17. Our turnovers were frequent too: a stat of 20. Yes, Redwood Valley's pressure was a factor.
We finish the season with an 18-9 record.
All three of our 3-pointers were made by Jaret Johnson. But it was Cam Arndt leading our scoring with 25 points. Loge did come through with 23 points and Johnson put in 19. Zach Hughes scored five points and Durgin Decker two. Yes, there were just five Tigers in the scoring column. Loge's 12 rebounds put him on top there. Arndt grabbed ten rebounds. Arndt had four assists followed by Hughes, Johnson and Thomas Tiernan with three each. Arndt and Johnson each had two steals.
Redwood Valley had many more of their players score. Cole Woodford led their charge with 32 points. Their other double figures scorers were Bryant Haas (17) and Colin Wells (12). Let's cover the rest of the list: Connor Josephson 2, Bronson Smith 7, Kyle Huhnerkoch 4, Carter Guetter 3, Carson Woodford 5, Alex Lang 2 and Brennan Sander 2. Cole Woodford connected four times from 3-point range. Wells and Carson Woodford each made two 3's, and Huhnerkoch made one.
Josephson and Haas each grabbed eight rebounds. Josephson led in assists and steals with three in each category. Redwood Valley led 45-32 at halftime. I wonder if the Willmar paper's sports editor still smokes cigarettes. Well, I don't.
 

A well-liked guy, P.F.

Dissing a deceased coach
On page 4 of the current Morris newspaper, you'll see a very minimal obituary for Perry Ford, the well-remembered and well-liked UMM men's basketball coach. He was Mr. Personality.
The "obit" of four sentences noted we could read the full obituary at the Cremation Society of Minnesota website. Well, yes we can. All obits are available to read online today. But why not publish the full obit in the paper? I notice that other deceased people get a full obit in the Morris paper. Why the shrug and mere reference to the online version? It seems like a diss. In mere seconds that online obit could be pasted and placed in the Morris paper. I must shake my head. It's an ethical lapse.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

As snow flies, we anticipate delayed game

I was prepared to write this post without the information that today's (Saturday) hoops game was re-scheduled. I found no announcement yesterday and had to fish around a fair amount to get word this morning. But here it is: we're all getting out of the way for the winter storm today. Hoops will be on Monday. The opponent is Redwood Valley.
Our third-seeded Tigers got past #2 Minnewaska to reach this level.
That's exciting, but now we're dealing with the "excitement" of a too-long winter with its storms. Many years ago people talked about how we always seemed to get a blizzard at the time of the state tournament. These days very few people even pay attention to the state tournament. This is not to criticize the current arrangement, as surely it is fairer. But state hoops does not galvanize the public at all, not like in the old days.
Forget nostalgia though. There was no point in seeing Edina play Hayfield. Remember how Edina was dominant for so long? The Hornets. Bob Zender, a guy destined to be at the end of lists all his life. Morris made state in the one-class system back in 1955. Really that was kind of a "Hoosiers" story (the movie) but we got killed in state by a metro school. That was the problem back then.
Just a question: Did Gene Hackman end up with the girl (Barbara Hershey) in the movie?
 
Tigers 90, ACGC 65
Bring on March. On the second day of the month, the orange and black crew took care of business pretty convincingly as they reached 90 points. Surely it was convincing in the second half. Not at all in the first half. But we won 90-65 over the Falcons of Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City.
The Falcons were No. 6. The location was here, a situation we'd like to see more often, eh? It's debatable whether the UMM P.E. Center is really a "home court" for us. It's called "the big floor."
My, the Loge name stays most prominent in our hoops scene. The recent death of Ed Schultz reminded me of Jackson's father Kevin. Ed was on the scene as media person when our Tigers played Staples-Motley at Concordia-Moorhead in 1995. It was an epic loss for our heralded Tigers of that era. You can watch the whole game on YouTube today. You might even see me in there. I was close to the court with camera. I'll never forget the fine bratwurst at the concession stand.
Kevin's son Jackson was super in the win over ACGC. Coach Torgerson is in his second generation now. I'm not sure his coaching tenure will ever end. Reminds me of the old song with the lyrics "rock and roll is here to stay, it will never die." Just substitute Mark. I have never been impressed with his pure coaching ability.
Jackson Loge pumped in 43 points in our win over the Falcons. Kudos to Jackson. The Tigers worked effectively getting the ball inside. We sure needed time to get our engines revved up. Would you believe we trailed at halftime, 37-36? I'm sure fans were supremely nervous. Would this turn out like the playoff opener of a few years ago when our Tigers, seeded No. 1 and playing at home, lost to No. 8 seed Paynesville? Well, no.
We revved up the engines coming out of halftime and buried the stunned Falcons. We buried them to the tune of 54-28. Makes you wonder what was missing in the first half. Jackson stood out with scoring but Jaret Johnson also had his notable point total of 22. Johnson starred from 3-point range with his four makes. Zach Hughes made a '3' too.
Here are the other Tiger point-scorers: Jaden Maanum 4, Hughes 3, Cam Arndt 8, Cameron Koebernick 2, Kevin Asfeld 2, Durgin Decker 4 and Thomas Tiernan 2. Loge and Johnson were a 1-2 punch in rebounds too with 15 and six respectively.
Our overall record got pumped up to 18-8. We resolved the doubt over whether the game scheduled for today will be played. Bad weather or good, these days I would find such trips for post-season sports to be a little exhausting. Really good bratwurst could keep me fired-up. Popeye had his spinach.

Perry Ford

Perry Ford, RIP
We were stunned to learn of the passing of Perry Ford, former UMM men's basketball coach. It subdues our normally intense sports-related thoughts this time of year. The games don't seem so important. Perry coached for a fair amount of success at UMM.
A lot of us could sense even then that the writing was on the wall re. the challenges lying ahead for Cougar sports, about how a change in conference affiliation was probably coming. The message was no longer subtle when Jim Severson was here.
Coach Ford was a masterful recruiter and PR guy. Morris legend has it that Perry once applied for the athletic director job at the high school. I accept that as fact, even though in a conversation I had with a Morris civic leader at that time, I was told "don't say anything about this." I know just what the guy meant. What he meant was that Perry being AD would be too good to be true.
Perry was a fireball and an idealist.
It's not like he was any sort of outlier, don't get me wrong. How can I explain this? To start, there was a firm and unyielding orthodoxy with our public school. It's not that anyone would have objected to Perry himself - how could anyone? - but here's the deal: part of any hiring package would almost certainly have involved Perry getting a head basketball job along with AD. Therein was the problem, because the orthodoxy held that Mark Torgerson would be boys basketball coach and Darcy Winkelman would be girls. And you'd better go along with that if you know what's good for you.
I sat at a winter sports banquet/program once when the name of the Dairy Queen was invoked. Strange times. I suspect it's all buried in foggy reflections now.
Perry Ford and his tenure at UMM are remembered in a blog post that yours truly wrote in 2013, November. It's on my "Morris of Course" blog site. The post largely covers my experience of leaving the Morris paper. My memory of Perry must have been pretty high in my thoughts. The headline for the post is "Joys and difficulties within community newspaper." Here's the link and thanks y'all for reading.
http://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2013/11/joys-and-difficulties-within-community.html

 

Perry with "Elvis"
The image I keep of Perry, is of him standing next to a young man named Curt Rees with Curt dressed in Elvis Presley suit, bellbottoms and all. The occasion was "Midnight Madness," the start of hoops practice. "Elvis" in his white outfit splendor shared a few words over the P.A. system. Coach Ford supervised, acting like he didn't want Mr. Rees to get too carried away!
Because Midnight Madness was close to Halloween, many young fans showed up in costume. There was a little gremlin fellow who I photographed with his arm around the shoulder of Chuck Grussing, the campus security guy. Chuck says he doesn't remember that photo but I do. Obviously I miss those times when I'd make the rounds as press person. But I'm just too old.
I remember Perry's sense of humor. I remember calling him once for a routine post-game interview. After getting set at the start by noting the final score, I proceeded to say "OK give me the salient facts." Perry sort of sniffed, saying "salient. . .(expletive)."
Such are the nuggets tucked away in my memory, just like in 1995 when Staples was the giant-killer and turned back the vaunted Tigers at Concordia, Ed Schultz at courtside. No one can take those memories away from me. Incidentally we should not have lost that game. Why is it that when I share an opinion like that, people around town dislike me, harass me, try to insist I'm stupid, mock me? Could it be politics?
Our Tigers of today will resume on Monday unless weather unleashes its March fury again. Well, good luck. I can listen with "live stream" on radio. That didn't even exist in 1995.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Talking about "trope" makes you a dope?

Ilhan Omar on "Time"

Sometimes I think controversies like Ilhan Omar do more to harm Jewish people than to help them. It has emerged again: Ilhan Omar is an anti-Semite or so the assertion is stated. Journalistically there is an issue here. We see objective news stories stating that Omar's background is one of presenting "anti-Semitic views." Is it so cut and dried?
We are all getting a vocabulary lesson on the use of "trope." Congresswoman Omar is said to use anti-Semitic "tropes," I guess stereotypes, to assert anti-Semitism.
I approach this issue not as someone who is pro or anti-Israel - for the record let's just say I'm skeptical of Israel - but as rather an atheist. I must insert the qualifier "rather an" for the sake of my deceased mother. Mom would never want me to state flat-out that I'm a non-believer. I guess the word "agnostic" suggests you're open to revision.
I respect the Native Americans who simply talk about "the creator." Surely there is a spark within us that we cannot understand. I don't feel conventional religion is taking us anywhere. Mention "the Reformation" and I'm clueless. That is such ancient history. Reformation from what? The Catholics.
The poor Catholics have a whole stew of trouble these days. Would any local Catholics dispute me on that? Is there any rational basis for suggesting that clergy people should be celibate? Can the gospel be shared better by someone who does not have a spouse? Of course not. Arguing to the contrary just gets us into the voodoo/weirdo realm of religion, which may have had its place before science gained its primacy.
This isn't to say we cannot accept the idea of a "creator." It does not mean we can rule out a creator who "sent his only begotten son to die for us" so violently. It's an advertisement for atheism: the violence. I don't recall the Jesus story having such a gruesome portrayal of his crucifixion, when I was a child.
The Jews reject the New Testament. Isn't it ironic that the most fervent self-styled evangelical Christians of today hitch their wagon to the Jews and Israel so much? I'm not a theologian but I suspect this is because the Jews and Israel fulfill Biblical prophecy. Every time the evangelicals make this point, I'd like to ask them: "Do you believe Jewish people will enter the Kingdom of Heaven?" I suspect they have an answer that is not an outright "no." But don't evangelicals believe that Christ holds the absolute key to salvation?
It's fine if you want to accept that. What troubles me is the level of conflict that is instilled by religion itself. Why do so many people find comfort in this sanctuary? Why is it necessary? Why do we retreat to the primitive world of the Bible? Why are all those quotes from ancient times, before modern medicine even, still considered so important?
The pragmatic world of today has us placing more faith in secular institutions, whether we realize it or not. We cling to religion out of hope we might gain eternal life, as opposed to burning in hell. If I'm not bound for heaven, I hope I can at least tap on a pane of glass and wave to my family members who I assume are on the other side. Our family dogs too. "Hi Sandy."
I feel profoundly sorry for Ilhan Omar who I'm convinced is a good and caring person. I'm sure she cares about the Palestinians. I do too. Her anti-Semitism appears not the prima facie anti-Semitism.
Here is where I think journalism is failing us, though I will not call it "fake news." The assertion is that Omar is using anti-Semitic "tropes." Fascinating implied qualifier, isn't it?
If you wish to share any sort of popular generalization about Jewish people, probably not a cool thing to do anyway, you're prone to being called a bigot, which is much too harsh a judgment.
Jews are good "negotiators?" Trump has said that in a light-hearted way in front of Jewish people. Isn't that a "trope?"
Omar merely refers to money as "the Benjamins." How on the face of it, is that a bigoted, prejudiced comment? Her statements are at best murky in demonstrating resentment of Jewish people. I cannot see Omar having an intrinsic resentment toward any human beings - she seems very caring. She is concerned about money and its political clout. The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC is in focus.
Omar stated a month ago that she had no idea her statements were anti-Semitic. Back in 2012 she was coaxed to apologize for saying Israel "hypnotized the world." Sounds like a non-bigoted opinion to me. Remember that Republicans are going to want to discredit someone like Omar regardless of any sensible interpretation of her comments. I need to say that, in case you were born yesterday.
The idea of AIPAC "buying off" members of Congress is the kind of blunt statement not uncommon from politicians. Don't we have Mr. Blunt in the White House now?
AIPAC is a lobbying organization. Ir promotes the interests of Israel, never mind that within Israel itself the people are not homogeneous with political views. When Omar says some Jews have "allegiance" to Israel, are we to infer that this allegiance is exclusive? Isn't allegiance simply defined as devotion?
Israel is a problem because the nation is defined in such religious terms. It often seems counter-intuitive to be sympathetic to it. It's Neanderthal to most of us, to have a political state organized on religious grounds - we ought to reflexively fear it. The late great Helen Thomas, the journalist, said Jews should simply "go home - to back to Europe." Why should they not? No Jewish person has ever wronged me, to my knowledge. If that happens I may revise my thinking, but it has not happened. I'm happy to treat Jewish people - all people really - with religious considerations put aside, as long as they do hot harm people with prejudice.
Many churches today harm gay people with prejudice. This exists right here in Stevens County.
I'm concerned about journalism when a norm develops where criticism of AIPAC is construed as "anti-Semitism" with the use of "trope" as an end run about normal logic.
Wasn't it a "trope" for Mark Meadows, the Freedom Caucus guy, to say in campaigning that Barack Obama should "go home to Kenya." Didn't the North Carolina Republican seize on the ugly "trope" of how black people should "go back to Africa." Has Meadows been formally censured or pressured to resign from Congress? What's the difference?
I  know a good way of pointing out anti-Semitism without using the "tropes." How about good old-fashioned, in your face bigotry and hatred? This can be cited from Martin Luther, whose name today graces churches found all over. The Lutheran church gets its inspiration from a guy who said Jews were a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision and law must be accounted as filth." Luther wrote that Jews are "full of the devil's feces, which they wallow in like swine."
Who needs "tropes" when you have material like this to work with, n'est-ce pas?
I think Meadows' comment re. Obama makes him rather a scumbag of a human being. And yet it seems Ilhan Omar's feet are being held to the fire more. That's probably because a segment of America - older white men in non-metropolitan areas - are in a hissy fit of resentment and looking for symbols for their ire all the time. A Muslim congressperson from Minnesota is a perfect target. She was elected last November and is one of the first two Muslim-American women to serve in the U.S. Congress.
I am saddened by what has happened to the Lutheran denomination in Stevens County. This level of conflict is not worth the trouble. I hesitate to even choose sides with the non-combative ELCA folks, the folks who reject homophobia. Again my inclination is to be "rather an atheist." But what would Mom say?
 
Addendum: On the allegiance to Israel thing, perhaps the congresswoman could say she meant exclusive allegiance to Israel. This would parallel a backtrack that President Trump has done lately: through the campaign he said a hundred times "Mexico will pay for the wall" and now he says: "I never said Mexico would directly pay for the wall." Seriously, can we get this clown presidency to just end now? Why not?
 
Addendum #2: I'm watching cable news at 1:30 p.m. and seeing these people with the dirty foreheads - oh, excuse me it's the charcoal mark or whatever it is for "Ash Wednesday." What blatant superstition, so primitive looking. It makes Christians look like a big cult.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

MACA girls experience 1-1 post-season, tepid

(Note: I veer off from the main sports news in this post because of the dearth of game information in the Friday West Central Tribune. Thinking about Tom Carrington puts me in a mood to discuss politics. - B.W.)
The MACA girls hoops season ended amidst the quite prolonged winter of 2019. We're all toughing it out as best we can with game faces. We seek to project a cheerful air and carry ourselves as if nothing is amiss. Most certainly something is amiss: the weather. Hope I'm not coming across as just a crotchety older person.
I'm old enough to remember having fun at Morris hoops events with Tom Carrington when he was a father and not a grandfather. Tom's interest remains intense as ever, maybe even more intense. He has not one but two granddaughters on the MACA girls team. We cheer for Maddie and Meredith.
The proud dad is Matthew Carrington whose work as accountant keeps me out of trouble with the taxing agencies.
Many of us are finding out that our fee for tax preparation services, like from the very capable Matthew, are having to go up. They are having to go up, ironically, due to the GOP-fueled "tax cut bill." I guess more complexity is being incorporated, going in the face of public sentiment that would prefer less complexity. Alas, it seems rather an "Alice Through the Looking Glass" world. The news tells us that tax refunds are not as generous as we expect. We learn that this is actually going to affect the economy.
The GOP's "tax cut" measure, as you might have suspected, has benefits mainly for the super rich folk. "He who has the gold makes the rules." The Republican Party plays us all for rubes but that's nothing new. It seems we might be waking up to smell the coffee but it's slow.
We have a president of the U.S. seeking to expand power around his executive branch. Our system should allow for the proper checks and balances but it seems teetering, possibly, on the brink of collapse. The emergency declaration provision was enacted with the idea that we would surely have a president with the wisdom to exercise it properly. The current state of affairs has gotten so out of whack, people we once viewed as wise conservatives like John McCain and George W. Bush are being rejected, mocked etc. by the "conservative" mob of today, e.g. Michelle Malkin.
I rub shoulders with people around Morris who simply cannot be aroused to feel concern. They certainly would not be aroused to the point where they might consider Democratic Party positions. This scares me more and more. It's as if Democrats have cooties in the eyes of those people. Check afternoon radio from anywhere in the U.S. and you're still likely to hear the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ben Shapiro and worse yet Sean Hannity, the latter having become a cartoon character caricature of himself. For him it has nothing to do with ideology anymore - that train has left the station, and now it's all about identity politics.
More significantly, the sycophants for Trump know where power resides and they want to be close to it. It surely is intoxicating. And I would assert here that it is profoundly dangerous. Up until now, our justice system has been barely holding on. I suggest that it is on a precipice and if it falls though the ice, as it were, we could be on a course toward 1930s Germany.
MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski has been suspecting the worst could happen for a long time now. Mika's morning TV partner, her husband Joe Scarborough, has tried to be optimistic. Joe in effect says "this too shall pass." I'm scared because women tend to have better intuition than men.
Are you catching highlights of the CPAC conference? Where is all this taking us?
What if Trump's people succeed in setting up a law enforcement apparatus to "keep an eye on the deep state?" Maybe secret police will come to get me in the middle of the night. For now that's an exaggeration, for now. It's "Alice Through the Looking Glass" but without the Cheshire Cat grin.
I wonder what Tom Carrington's late wife Laura would say. She and I had extensive conversations on politics. Perhaps the most notable feature photo I took while at the Sun Tribune was of Laura at a victory party for a Republican state lawmaker. She had previously been an active Democrat.
 
End of season for GBB Tigers
Tom and Laura's grandchildren are on the MACA girls basketball team, coached by Dale Henrich. The team certainly seemed, to me at least, to have a true spark of talent and potential. They won their first game of post-season but then lost the second. Frankly that's tepid. That's pedestrian. The season will get lost in the annals of MACA hoops - nothing real notable. I felt the talent was there to at least get to the third round.
Some people in this town have always questioned my analysis. As much as some people disliked the work I did for the Sun Tribune, I always showed tremendous enthusiasm.
Granted, MACA was up against the top seed Thursday. The Eagles of Eden Valley-Watkins had that distinction. But I'm not sure those seeding positions carried a lot of weight. I told Tom that if all else fails just set up Maddie to shoot 3's, not that the team didn't have other fine talent. EV-W defeated our Tigers by ten, 63-53, at Willmar High School. So now the Eagles will face Litchfield, the No. 3 seed, for all the sub-section marbles at Southwest State University, Marshall, 8 p.m. Tuesday. No trip south for the MACA GBB fans this year, sorry.
I feel the Tigers should have gone further than they did. Someone told me we led at halftime against EV-W. Details in the Friday Willmar paper were very spotty and limited.
The Tigers finished the season with a 15-9 record that shows there were lots of high points. It just seems we have trouble parlaying that success into the post-season, and I find that to be rather discouraging. Please don't criticize me, as I'm just trying to profess faith in the talent of our student athletes. The one thing you cannot do in this town is criticize the coaches.
The Friday Willmar paper told us that "statistics were not provided at press time." Way to go, Forum Communications.
 
Weather wears on us
Early March is a time when I once got set for the St. Patrick's Day five-mile footrace in St. Paul. What a spectacle that was. It was considered the kickoff of the running season for practitioners in the Twin Cities area. A few outstate practitioners like yours truly would join the fold also. We'd feel giddy gathering on the campus of University of St. Thomas, ready to feel the camaraderie after a long cold winter.
But the winters were not as long and cold as this one. We could feel at least traces of spring in early and mid-March. The St. Patrick's Day race was point-to-point in the 1980s, in other words starting in one place and ending in another. So we'd start at University of St. Thomas, go down historic Summit Avenue to the State Capitol, and then arrive at the finish point where tables of fruit and refreshments awaited us. We loved the last stretch being downhill. We boarded orange school buses to get back to the campus.
I stopped attending many years ago and it's my understanding that today, it's an out-and-back course of five kilometers rather than five miles.
I remember some runners dressing in costume, reflecting the tradition of the "Bay to Breakers" running event in San Francisco. Leave it to those crazy San Francisco folks, but don't underestimate us Minnesotans as we get squirrelly after a long winter. I saw several runners wearing costumes making them a six-pack of Schmidt Beer. A couple dudes carried flags as we accelerated from the start, making me feel like we were something like a charging army. An Irish army? I am neither Irish nor Catholic. Although, Dublin was founded by the Vikings and I am 100 percent Scandinavian.

I'm not Finnish but I often mark St. Urho's Day on the day before St. Patrick's. The legendary St. Urho drove the grasshoppers out of Finland, thus saving the grape crop for wine connoisseurs.
It would be hard getting ready to run a five-mile race at present. I could slip and fall on my posterior.
Many people around Morris thought I was rather crazy during those years when I ran up to 70 miles a week all year long. I was underweight. Crazy or not, my health probably benefited from my weight being low, thus saving strain on my heart, as opposed to if I carried a Kent Hrbek-like physique.
Seriously, sometimes I would run late at night on the outskirts of Morris like along the bypass. It's a whole different story today: I'd probably be accosted by the cops. I hear you can be accosted by cops even if you're just walking through town in the middle of the night, nothing awry about your behavior. Times change and I'm trying to cling to reality, to the new set of norms that emerge. Sometimes it isn't easy. I'm shocked so many of my long-time acquaintances around Morris are passing on.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Statue of St. Urho in Menahga, Minnesota