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| We weren't prepared for loss of Jim "Doc" Carlson (Del Sarlette photo) |
New Year's Day and all is not well. Questions remain about the pandemic: how much longer, and in what forms will it persist? We feel sadness about the countless disrupted lives, lost lives and the loss of our cherished routine. There is so much we used to take for granted.
Could our government have done more to combat the virus when it emerged? Seems natural here to question Republican Party leadership in government, does to me anyway. A great many of us have unyielding faith in the Republican Party, so, must we respect their points of view? On the basis of cheer numbers, we must respect it, to deal with this influential element in our society. We must reckon with it. We must at this time reckon with the "let's go Brandon" folks.
A lit-up sign in Dell Rapids SD has put the expression in front of us again. Time after time the phrase emerges in the news. There's the dad who said this over the phone to Joe and Jill Biden on Christmas Eve. Our society overall seems to countenance this now. A substantial number of people support it. They support "fuck Joe Biden" even directly to him and his wife at the most sacred of times, on Christmas Eve. Is it so hard to just focus on Santa Claus? Or at least on Christ's birth? But "fuck Joe Biden?"
A sign outside of Brandon MN got altered this way. The stock car driver who unintentionally inspired all this, at first tried distancing himself from politics. He publicly declared he had "zero interest" in being involved in politics. We learned in the last few days he has done a complete 180. Such is the power of the red state Trump element. It scares me constantly.
I have had to distance myself from one close friend because of these matters. I try to be the kind of person who communicates well and is understanding, thus can find common ground with friends. Politics lately has overcome my ability to do this.
So it's New Year's Day, 2022. We used to joke about how easy it was to forget the new year when writing out a check. Seems a dated joke now: we hardly ever write paper checks any more. Our debit or credit cards always know what year it is!
A soul departs
On the micro or local level here in Morris, we have the sad news of Jim Carlson's passing. It happened on Christmas Eve. The rollout of the news was a totally incompetent thing, disastrously so. People can have excuses though, especially when these people have professional positions that they try to protect. The Chamber of Commerce has excuses about dropping the ball with Prairie Pioneer Days. They're trying to tell us "it's not our job" and "why don't you call the city?"
I'm certain no one at UMM will admit to negligence in the rollout of the sad news re. Jim Carlson.
Jim left us due to a brain hemorrhage.
I have heard the excuse that the campus gets shut down over the holidays. Or at least, things get a lot slower. A truism throughout our economy and society, and maybe it's time we question this. We should maybe question the need to have so much around us come to a grinding halt because of a holiday. Christmas and New Year's is the worst. And, even when we get past New Year's, we must anticipate Martin Luther King Day coming along soon. Is this an excuse to keep things "slow?"
Maybe the indictment here should be of our legacy bricks and mortar institutions. People are expected to "show up at the office" for work. We have not pushed aside this assumption even after a pandemic year when many people adjusted. Many of us have stayed at home and of course harnessed the miracle of the Internet. But legacy institutions remain with their bulkiness and long-established norms.
So Jim Carlson dies. I struggled at first to get adequate confirmation of the news. Once obtained, I went ahead and wrote an online-based piece. You might call it a "blog." Donald Trump tried blogging briefly and then abandoned it: it's not enough to write a headline, you have to write some body copy, multiple paragraphs, and that requires discipline and some refined background knowledge, which he lacks. He just happens to be a former president of the United States.
He liked Twitter because he could lash out impulsively with brief, often crude comments. Until Twitter couldn't take it any more and he was banned. Yes, the man who was U.S. president for four years, who paid off a porn star and Playboy model for their silence after dalliances. I imagine Trump was just interested in sex. And be honest, isn't this what all men want? You want to be honest about this? But Trump is held up by the "evangelical Christians" of America as being on the same level as God and Jesus, maybe even superseding these. They'll deny that. That's their right.
And if we cannot respect Christianity any more, where does that leave us for Christmas? I tried marking Christmas in the standard traditional way, the way my parents demonstrated for me when I was young. This was when the U.S. had leaders who projected morality, class, temperance and stability. Today it's "MAGA," at least out here in the rural USA.
Dark clouds ahead?
So the new year is upon us. Problem is, it's scary to look ahead. We hear it's a guarantee for Republicans to re-take the House of Representatives. We could actually prevent that. We could prevent it, if more of us would simply consider voting for Democrats. Outlook is grim based on what we see in communities like Dell Rapids SD. A lit-up "let's go Brandon" sign with the initials "FJB" underneath, in case you need a reminder of what the phrase means. It's "fuck Joe Biden."
I admired Ronald Reagan, the man and his spouse who projected total class. That Republican Party is totally gone now.
Addendum: The story of my getting confirmation of Jim Carlson's passing is on my companion blog, "Morris of Course." I use the word "odyssey" for the process. It was very unfortunate. I invite you to read this post, where you will find three more excellent photos from Carlson's tenure at the head of UMM jazz. Here is the permalink:
Happy New Year, y'all!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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| The Dell Rapids SD sign, image from "Daily Beast." What has become of all of us? And at Christmas? |
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